Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Some comments on the situation of sexual minorities in BiH
Those of you who regularly read 'Bosnia Vault' (linked on the side, do not bug me for a link, this is not my computer, and I have enough trouble trenutno! When my own machine can be used, ther will be linkies again!)
Anyway, Shaina linked to some news about the chaos generated by Wahabbitthugs toward the Gay Festival.
I knew some sort of incident was likely. I knew if I had remained in Sarajevo, that the downtown area would be off my places to go list for the days of said festival.
Balkans people in general are quite uncomfortable with gay people.
The brother of my landlady there, a man who works for the Foreign Ministry of BiH and who has traveled the world did not know mucyh about gay people. He is a very pious Muslim, but NOT REPEAT NOT a Wahabbi! His wife doesn't wear a scarf, but does wear long skirts. She is of an age where the scarf isn't mandatory anyway, unless you are praying or in the mosque. Women of an age to get hot flashes are in fact exempted from covering. Few people know this!
His daughter dresses like a normal high school aged girl in Europe, admittedly on the modest side of that, and she doesn't wear a scarf. If he were a Wahabbi, she'd be wearing a scarf even if his wife didn't!
Anyway, I remember havign a conversation with him, where he was very plainly trying to get comfortable with the idea of gay people. He was teasing me that I needed to find a husband for D. (D. lost her husband in the war, and never remarried.)He said, 'It doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman, these are modern times.' I said, 'Well, I am glad you decided on this latitude, because finding someone good enough for our D. is not going to be an easy job! Most of the men out there are NOT good enough!' Then he asked me if I knew that 10 percent of all living cratures are gay. I knew that years ago. An Austrian/Scots cousin told me ALL about it years ago! (He's gay, half the men left of his tiny clan are gay...)So I said, 'Remember when I told you I spent many years in San Francisco?' 'Yes..you did...' 'Well that town is a big place for gay people. I am totally used to gay people. Not only that, EVERYONE is a little bit gay!'
Then I explained that the Native American people actually VALUED gay people because gay people help non-gay people understand the opposite sex. Gay people are as natural as anyone else.
Left un-discyssed was wgt /everTy Scripture considered by Jews, Christians and Muslims condemns gay people so much! I would have liked to discuss that! I do think it has to do with control freaks in the early days of all three religious groups, and with the fact that gays cross the boundries.
I mean it is scientific FACT that a certain proportion of all living critters are gay.
So it's a problem of faith for some people.
Me personally, the fact that Mladic and Karadzic got to live nicely while everyone belonging to me has to struggle, THAT is a crisis of faith, not whet some people choose to do with their 'naughty bits'!
That said, the disturbances did not puzzle me. Ceric is a noted wimp, the Cardinal in Sarajevo, rather 'conservative' in all the wrong ways, ditto the guy in charge of the Orthodox Church, I am not sure where the leader of the Jewish community is about these matters.
Anyway, being a sensitive person, I did not open that discussion. I would have liked to.
There are Wahabbis in Sarajevo. My personal diary has a 'Niqabi Count' Section, a 'Female Bosnian Soldeir' section and a 'Female Police Officer' section.
Most women who wear the face veil are married to 'foreign volunteers' who have managed to stay on in BiH. The men in question seek them out from poor families, they are young, and then the guys insist on full coverage so that the other Arab or Afghani guys don't covet their wives. I mean it is a known fact that Bosnian womean are very beautiful. So that is what is up with that. The veil wasn't so common in BiH even before Tito, it was a town thing, not a general population thing. Older, religious Bosnian women of ALL religions cover their hair, the way you tell who is what religion is HOW they tie t heir scarves. This often goes with the lack of a realization that their outfits could use a long slip underneath! I mean i often sat in the shop with my friends, and after some woman who plainly was very pious, walked by and the full sun revealed her legs, would say to either B. or D.
'treba potsuknija!'(She needs a slip!)
Anyway, the Wahabbi take on all this is extreme, but there's Christians right here in America that are as bad, if not worse.
what my worst proble with it is that there are no actual 'modeate leaders' in ANY religion. Moderate gets shouted down or beaten down in ALL religions. As well moderates waste their time on stuff that doesn't matter to regular people. I am talking again about ALL religions here!
Sometimes, keeping private stuff private is the best answer...for a long time this will be the case in the Balkans.
And the regioin does need to grow up on the whole question of gay people.
I read something interestinga bout Iran in this regard...
Transgender people are actually fairly common there ... women who get an operation to become men...I was surprised as Hell to read that this operation is LEGAL in Iran, and the government will PAY for a lot of the considerable cost of the operation... I am still gobsmacked over this concept.
Anyway, Shaina linked to some news about the chaos generated by Wahabbitthugs toward the Gay Festival.
I knew some sort of incident was likely. I knew if I had remained in Sarajevo, that the downtown area would be off my places to go list for the days of said festival.
Balkans people in general are quite uncomfortable with gay people.
The brother of my landlady there, a man who works for the Foreign Ministry of BiH and who has traveled the world did not know mucyh about gay people. He is a very pious Muslim, but NOT REPEAT NOT a Wahabbi! His wife doesn't wear a scarf, but does wear long skirts. She is of an age where the scarf isn't mandatory anyway, unless you are praying or in the mosque. Women of an age to get hot flashes are in fact exempted from covering. Few people know this!
His daughter dresses like a normal high school aged girl in Europe, admittedly on the modest side of that, and she doesn't wear a scarf. If he were a Wahabbi, she'd be wearing a scarf even if his wife didn't!
Anyway, I remember havign a conversation with him, where he was very plainly trying to get comfortable with the idea of gay people. He was teasing me that I needed to find a husband for D. (D. lost her husband in the war, and never remarried.)He said, 'It doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman, these are modern times.' I said, 'Well, I am glad you decided on this latitude, because finding someone good enough for our D. is not going to be an easy job! Most of the men out there are NOT good enough!' Then he asked me if I knew that 10 percent of all living cratures are gay. I knew that years ago. An Austrian/Scots cousin told me ALL about it years ago! (He's gay, half the men left of his tiny clan are gay...)So I said, 'Remember when I told you I spent many years in San Francisco?' 'Yes..you did...' 'Well that town is a big place for gay people. I am totally used to gay people. Not only that, EVERYONE is a little bit gay!'
Then I explained that the Native American people actually VALUED gay people because gay people help non-gay people understand the opposite sex. Gay people are as natural as anyone else.
Left un-discyssed was wgt /everTy Scripture considered by Jews, Christians and Muslims condemns gay people so much! I would have liked to discuss that! I do think it has to do with control freaks in the early days of all three religious groups, and with the fact that gays cross the boundries.
I mean it is scientific FACT that a certain proportion of all living critters are gay.
So it's a problem of faith for some people.
Me personally, the fact that Mladic and Karadzic got to live nicely while everyone belonging to me has to struggle, THAT is a crisis of faith, not whet some people choose to do with their 'naughty bits'!
That said, the disturbances did not puzzle me. Ceric is a noted wimp, the Cardinal in Sarajevo, rather 'conservative' in all the wrong ways, ditto the guy in charge of the Orthodox Church, I am not sure where the leader of the Jewish community is about these matters.
Anyway, being a sensitive person, I did not open that discussion. I would have liked to.
There are Wahabbis in Sarajevo. My personal diary has a 'Niqabi Count' Section, a 'Female Bosnian Soldeir' section and a 'Female Police Officer' section.
Most women who wear the face veil are married to 'foreign volunteers' who have managed to stay on in BiH. The men in question seek them out from poor families, they are young, and then the guys insist on full coverage so that the other Arab or Afghani guys don't covet their wives. I mean it is a known fact that Bosnian womean are very beautiful. So that is what is up with that. The veil wasn't so common in BiH even before Tito, it was a town thing, not a general population thing. Older, religious Bosnian women of ALL religions cover their hair, the way you tell who is what religion is HOW they tie t heir scarves. This often goes with the lack of a realization that their outfits could use a long slip underneath! I mean i often sat in the shop with my friends, and after some woman who plainly was very pious, walked by and the full sun revealed her legs, would say to either B. or D.
'treba potsuknija!'(She needs a slip!)
Anyway, the Wahabbi take on all this is extreme, but there's Christians right here in America that are as bad, if not worse.
what my worst proble with it is that there are no actual 'modeate leaders' in ANY religion. Moderate gets shouted down or beaten down in ALL religions. As well moderates waste their time on stuff that doesn't matter to regular people. I am talking again about ALL religions here!
Sometimes, keeping private stuff private is the best answer...for a long time this will be the case in the Balkans.
And the regioin does need to grow up on the whole question of gay people.
I read something interestinga bout Iran in this regard...
Transgender people are actually fairly common there ... women who get an operation to become men...I was surprised as Hell to read that this operation is LEGAL in Iran, and the government will PAY for a lot of the considerable cost of the operation... I am still gobsmacked over this concept.
# posted by Katja R. @ 10:31 AM 
Comments:
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The problem with religious moderates is that they validate the very belief systems which extremists and religious bigots and hatemongers use to justify their actions.
To be blunt--and at the risk of alienating some of you--the problem with religious extremists is that they are extremely religious, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of any kind of faith-based system of belief.
To be blunt--and at the risk of alienating some of you--the problem with religious extremists is that they are extremely religious, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of any kind of faith-based system of belief.
Yahoos and Wahoos
Thanks for pointing out that a person can be religious and/or be personally ill at ease with gay people, without necessarily being either an extremist (Wahhabi) or a violent gay-basher.
Lost in all the uproar about this sorry incident was that most of the mini-mob of violent demonstrators who came out to "protest" the Sarajevo Queer Festival were local soccer hooligans (navijači) -- young thugs whose idea of a good time is getting falling-down drunk and looking for any excuse to beat up people and smash cars. There is nothing specifically Bosnian or "Islamic" about this kind of yahoo thuggery -- it rears its ugly head all over Europe, not just in Sarajevo.
But because it makes for attention-grabbing headlines these days, most commentators covering the incident focused on the handful of ideologically-motivated Wahhabis (vehemently anti-alcohol and thus sober, but nuts in a different way) who stand out in any crowd with their long beards and shortened trouser legs. The number of Wahoos in Sarajevo is small enough to make them seem exotic (sort of like Hare Krishnas). Usually they're merely obnoxious. But they are often loud, always intolerant (also against more mainstream Muslims) and sometimes violent.
András
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Thanks for pointing out that a person can be religious and/or be personally ill at ease with gay people, without necessarily being either an extremist (Wahhabi) or a violent gay-basher.
Lost in all the uproar about this sorry incident was that most of the mini-mob of violent demonstrators who came out to "protest" the Sarajevo Queer Festival were local soccer hooligans (navijači) -- young thugs whose idea of a good time is getting falling-down drunk and looking for any excuse to beat up people and smash cars. There is nothing specifically Bosnian or "Islamic" about this kind of yahoo thuggery -- it rears its ugly head all over Europe, not just in Sarajevo.
But because it makes for attention-grabbing headlines these days, most commentators covering the incident focused on the handful of ideologically-motivated Wahhabis (vehemently anti-alcohol and thus sober, but nuts in a different way) who stand out in any crowd with their long beards and shortened trouser legs. The number of Wahoos in Sarajevo is small enough to make them seem exotic (sort of like Hare Krishnas). Usually they're merely obnoxious. But they are often loud, always intolerant (also against more mainstream Muslims) and sometimes violent.
András
# posted by 
: 1:10 PM
: 1:10 PM << Home
