Sandi Dubowski Releases Film About Gay Muslims

by Kelly Cogswell

OCTOBER 27, 2001. Al-Fatiha, the first organization for gay Muslims, grew out of Faisal Alam's 1997 plea on the Internet, Is there anybody out there like me? Is anyone out there a gay Muslim? The response was tremendous, and after a year the small Internet community grew into an international foundation managed by volunteers, with six chapters in the U.S., two in Canada, another in London, and more on the way.

Since September 11, Al-Fatiha has spent less time helping lgbt Muslims and their straight friends and families come to grips with sexual identity, than educating the gay community and gay media about Islam, and the historical and political context of the attack.

When I spoke with Alam, recently, in New York City, the young Pakistani-American AIDS activist was in the midst of a speaking tour decrying as simplistic rhetoric the views of some gay writers like Paul Varnell, who in "The New Culture War," characterized the attack as a conflict of East versus West, and medieval Islam versus modernity. Alam's refrain: Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Don't blame all Muslims for what a very, very few did.

Like other Muslims, Al-Fatiha members have had to deal with a surge in hate crimes. Alam, who lives in D.C., said, "After September 11, almost everybody I knew that was not white was getting harassed. Most of it was verbal, go back where you came from, things like that. One of our members in New York called the police when his door was graffitied. They hauled him in for questioning."

Alam's main concern is the erosion of civil liberties, both in the United States and abroad, and how it will affect gay people. In some places it can't get any worse. In Iran, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia "homosexuals" are executed. "In Egypt [where homosexuality is supposedly not illegal] gay people are already defined as a threat to the state."

The 52 Egyptian men on trial for "obscene behavior" and "contempt for religion," code language for being gay, are being tried in Egypt's Special Emergency Court, set up to deal with terrorists. Prior to the attack, Al-Fatiha, working with gay Egyptians, brought world-wide attention to the case before the attack erased it from the media's attention.

In the closing arguments of the case on October 10, the main defendant, Sherif Hassan Farahat, was accused of being a member of Jihad, the Egyptian fundamentalist terrorist network, which closely related to Bin Laden's terrorist organization. How he can be both an obvious "homosexual," and a follower of the intensely homophobic fundamentalist group remains a mystery.

Given the Bush administration's uncritical quest for allies, a number of dictatorships and sham democracies will be emboldened to use the current political upheaval to crack down on anyone they don't like. U.S. security, now, more than ever before, has become equated with our unsavory allies' stability. At the same time, fundamentalist Muslims are using the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan to recruit new anti-American, pro-Islamist members who will be sure to indulge in further anti-gay campaigns.

In the U.S., the post-attack Muslim community could go either "left" and reformist, or "right" and fundamentalist, according to Alam. Until recently, the mainstream community, which by U.S. standards is overwhelmingly conservative, has been in denial about the existence of gay Muslims. Some are also struggling with the role of women. The first time "homosexuality" was addressed openly in the U.S. Muslim world was after gay Muslims marched for the first time last June in San Francisco's Gay Pride. Members reported that at least six mosques had anti-queer sermons the following Friday.

Al-Fatiha also got some attention after picking up a "fatwa," or religious edict, from a fundamentalist Islamic group in Britain. "The very existence of Al-Fatiha is illegitimate and the members of this organization are apostates," the decree said. "Never will such an organization be tolerated in Islam and never will the disease which it calls for be affiliated with a true Islamic society or individual. The Islamic ruling for such acts is death."

Nevertheless, Alam is hopeful that U.S. Muslims will reject the fundamentalist trend. "We're trying to make this our home. We like the freedom here. And we don't want to seem like a foreign entity. Change will happen in the next few years," he said, "when the second generation takes leadership positions. That's when it will be interesting to see if we go right or left. I think that, after September 11, it'll be left."

The attacks have spurred at least a few U.S. Muslims to assess their own culture. In his essay "A Memo to American Muslims," Dr. Muqtedar Khan, of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, and a professor at Adrian College in Michigan, questions those Muslim Americans who "love to live in the U.S., but also love to hate it," who condemn Israel for anti-Muslim abuses, but not Muslim regimes like Saddam Hussein's who slaughter thousands of their own people. He calls for U.S. Muslims to examine themselves, and rededicate their efforts to "harmony, peace, and tolerance," instead of to "the culture of hate and killing."

A few hardline Muslim voices in the U.S. can be heard justifying the attacks, some subtly, others overtly. However, most are like homegrown post-Columbine observers who distanced themselves and America from that massacre, declaring it an aberration, absolutely nothing to do with the larger culture, or even that of American high schools. Fundamentalist Christians, if forced to comment on the bombing of abortion clinics and gay bars, will only say that it is not very nice, but has nothing to do with them, before they launch into a tirade against godless baby-killers and queers. For blind-folded believers, there are no thorns in the rosebushes of Islam, or American culture, or Christianity.

Aside from self-examination, a significant factor determining the future of American Islam may be how that community responds to the increased anti-Muslim social pressures. An embattled community may become more conservative, rather than less, as Faisal Alam acknowledged. Before the attack, he said, the pressures of living as a cultural and religious minority in the U.S. were already visible on second generation immigrants.

"There's a large segment that is even more conservative than their parents. In fact many of their parents when they came were secular, and got more religious when they came here. Their children are far more hard-core religious than they would have been if they had stayed in a place like Pakistan, where Islam is not just exclusively religious, but cultural. They turn to it here, where they have no cultural influence."

Faisal Alam was in Miami Beach preparing for the U.S. Conference on AIDS, when the airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "I was stuck in this resort on Miami Beach, seeing it on CNN. It was really surreal. At the same time, there was this hurricane coming."

Related links:

For the gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha, which means "the opening," in Arabic. It is also the title of the first chapter of the Koran.

http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/011027_gay_muslims.html

Channel 4's documentary on gay Muslims, which it labelled as "ground-breaking", has been slammed before it goes on air tonight.

Britain's best known LGBT Muslim group, Imaan, said in a press release over the weekend that it objected to the broadcaster's "negative portrayal" of Muslims in the documentary.

Airing tonight at 8pm, the film explores how UK's gay Muslims struggle to integrate their religion with their sexuality.

Channel 4's publicity states: "For some it means suppressing their desires or leading a clandestine double life, while for others it means losing the respect and support of their family and community.

"Through the personal testimony of individuals, most of whom have chosen to appear anonymously, Gay Muslims offers an insight into the often tortuous, secret lives of gay practising Muslims."

Imaan states that the production company, Love Productions, sought to cast gay Muslims in a "negative and inaccurate light".

A press release stated: "Contrary to the angle of the documentary most of the LGBT Muslim community do not lead 'tortuous, secret lives' but are happy balanced individuals who are supported by a growing LGBT Muslim community and increasingly by the wider gay AND Muslim communities in this country and abroad."

It also states: "Imaan would like to dispel the unhelpful and patronising myth that LGBT Muslims are wretched and weak which we believe Love Productions documentary has deliberately reinforced."

The organisation was formed in 1998 to support lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans-gender (LGBT) Muslims, and participated in the last London Gay Pride March.

It counts a number of notable supporters including the Mayor of London, the Metropolitan Police and some senior figures within the wider Muslim community.

A spokesperson from Channel 4 told AIM tonight that it stood by its production.

http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/television/1203

y Tarek Fatah and Nargis Tapal

Last month, we attended a number of weddings in Toronto. Each had its own flavor, from Pakistani to Palestinian, from elaborate Orthodox church ceremonies to modest mosque rituals. Though the rites differed, the grooms and brides were all beaming with joy.

As these couples embraced their future together, we couldn't help but feel sad for Canada's gay and lesbian couples being pilloried for seeking the same happiness. We were also taken back to a humid August evening in Karachi in 1974 when we were permitted to marry.

Gays and lesbians wishing to marry face a gantlet of opposition and we, as a heterosexual Muslim couple, can empathize with their pain. To become husband and wife, we, too, had to confront deep-seated prejudices. Culture, religion, and family would not permit the daughter of a Shia Muslim of Gujarati ethnicity to marry the son of a Sunni Muslim of Punjabi ancestry.

Four years earlier, our paths had crossed at a noisy demonstration at the University of Karachi. Two 20-year-olds pursuing graduate studies in English literature; one, an orator with two stints as a political prisoner; the other, a Beatles fan with a Ringo Starr mop of hair, who had never been to a protest rally in her life. They fell in love. In true Islamic tradition, she proposed, he accepted.

However, it was not to be that easy. This was traditional Pakistan where nothing happened without parental assent. When news got out that Nargis Tapal and Tarek Fatah wanted to wed, all hell broke loose. Both families vetoed the match. Devastated, we contemplated eloping, and were accepted at Oklahoma State University, but just to get there would cost a fortune, and we were penniless.

With nowhere to run, we persevered and several years later, both sets of parents buckled and gave their consent. To this day, we still cannot understand why it was so difficult to achieve such simple joy. After 29 years as husband and wife, we want no one denied the happiness we enjoy.

Sadly, the gatekeepers of bliss and the purveyors of grief are still alive and well. From prelates and imams to rabbis and pundits, the forces of religion are arrayed against the gay and lesbian community. Once again, we are witnessing an attack on joy and happiness in the name of religion and tradition.

As practising Muslims, we acknowledge that no faith, particularly Islam in its traditional interpretation, permits same-sex marriage or condones homosexuality. However, neither does faith allow hate and bigotry to be camouflaged as a quest for religious purity.

Most Canadian Muslims reject the notion of same-sex marriages and they are perfectly entitled to their beliefs, if, indeed, the issue is one of belief. But we think the position taken by religious leaders attacks the basic humanity of gays and lesbians. Dehumanizing "the other" is the first step to setting them as targets of bigotry and hate. Invoking religion to accomplish this task is shameful.

A Muslim monthly magazine asked its readers in an editorial , "Would you rather have church or state in your bedroom?"

Without answering the question, and oblivious to the implications of inviting church, mosque or state into our bedrooms, the writer goes on to predict moral disaster.

Accepting homosexual relationships as "marriage" will be the last nail in the coffin of human morality, according to the editorial. We Muslims allowed and promoted the delinquency in our daily life and kept quiet; we tolerated the illegitimate relationships of consenting adults outside marriage; we turned a blind eye to the "coming out of the closet" and hid behind the curtain of "hate the sin, but love the sinner" ... Even if we are looked upon in the West as "fundamentalists" or "homophobes," it is an obligation for all Muslims to do our part just as the Catholics are doing.

Last nail in the coffin of human morality? Not the Holocaust, not the genocide in Rwanda, not the massacres in Bosnia? Just same-sex marriage? Not murder, not hunger, not rape, not war, not honour killing, not illiteracy, not sexual assault by clergy, not its cover-up? To the editorial writer, nothing seems to be as vile as homosexuality.

Muslims should know better than to fall into this trap. They have been at the receiving end of slander and hate and it has taken collective action of some courageous people to defend the human rights and humanity of Muslims as equal citizens in our society. Even though an overwhelming majority of Canadians does not believe in the Qur'an as a word of God and Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, as a Messenger of God, we Muslims have been given a status, at least in the law, as equal citizens, no matter how offensive others may find our religion.

The same holds true for the other side. After all, Muslims do not believe that Jesus was a Son of God; or that God should be worshipped in physical depictions such as statues; or that God does not exist at all, as atheists say. However, not only have we learned to accept Canadians with whom we have profound differences of religious belief, we have developed a society in which these differences are no hindrance to our relationship with each other.

It has been the intrinsically tolerant nature of Canadian society that has defined the rights of Muslims as equal citizens, despite our minority status. How can we then campaign against the very values that accord us the dignity we deserve?

If you believe your religion doesn't permit gay marriage, then simply don't marry a person of your own sex. End of story. Why would you wish to impose this standard on people who believe that religion, in their interpretation, does not exclude same-sex marriages?

The same religious groups that today say their only objection to the proposed law is the word "marriage," were at the forefront of challenging Bob Rae's Bill 167 in 1994; a proposed law that did not mention same-sex marriage and spoke only of same-sex rights.

The law drafted by the federal government as presented to the Supreme Court makes an explicit declaration protecting the right of any church, mosque, synagogue, and temple to refuse to perform same-sex marriages.

So why the fuss over gay marriage? Could it be the same forces of religion, tradition, culture, and hate that opposed our heterosexual marriage 30 years ago are still making their presence felt? Is it joy that they fear? Happiness, it seems, is an affront; they simply cannot fathom the idea of two people wishing to live together as a family, and to be accepted the way the Almighty created them.

As a happily married Muslim couple who almost weren't, we need to speak on their behalf, even though Islam does not permit same-sex marriages. If gays and lesbians wish to pursue their own path in life, who are we to place obstacles in their way? If their choices are contrary to that of the Divine, only the Divine can be certain. Let us find God in our kindness and compassion instead of hate and self-righteousness. For isn't God the most merciful and the most compassionate?

Only God knows whether we are right in standing up for our gay friends, but we do so in all sincerity and with the hope that no one should shower grief over the happiness sought by another human being. Let us learn to live and let live.

Tarek Fatah is co-founder of the Canadian Muslim Congress and host of Muslim Chronicle on Vision TV in Canada. Nargis Tapal writes short stories and poetry.

http://www.muslimwakeup.com/main/archives/2003/09/why_all_the_fus.php