From fear in Tel Aviv to hatred in Italy: Pride as a symbol of peace to be defended from local and national exploitation and speculation.
by Antonello Sannino
Many of you know that for a few days we were stuck in Tel Aviv Following Israel's attack on the theocratic, bloody, and oppressive regime of the Iranian Ayatollahs, we were able to return to our country only Friday, June 20; Unfortunately, the state of war did not guarantee safe repatriation. Our return came after a long journey through the desert, through Egypt and Turkey. We experienced days of growing anxiety and fear, punctuated by sirens and escapes to the nearest shelter. Meanwhile, in Italy, the conflict was heating up and hatred was being spewed, shining a dangerous spotlight on our plight. Perhaps it's no coincidence that we were the last delegation to leave the hotel.
I was there, at the invitation of a Neapolitan friend and not because of direct relations with the Israeli government, to meet activists and associations LGBTQIA+ Israelis and to hear firsthand accounts from Jews, Palestinians and Arabs on the state of civil rights in Israel. The meeting was supposed to take place on Friday. Pride. I want to point out that Israel hosts the only Pride parade in a region where LGBTQIA+ people are sentenced to very harsh penalties, including death. Many Pride parades, unfortunately, take place near war zones because, without falling into the worst cliché of Pride as a celebration and carnival, the music and colors of Pride convey an authentic and peaceful response to violence and oppression. A response that is evidently frightening and perhaps not fully understood even by those who organize and participate in Pride parades. It was a courageous Pride, where many were ready to demonstrate their dissent against the political choices of the incumbent Israeli government.
However, the national secretariat of Arcigay, rather than reflecting on the increasingly scarce ability to influence the political agenda of our national ruling class, as vividly demonstrated by the grotesque episode of the meeting with Minister Roccella, has decided to try to "ride" the pro-Palestinian rally to also fuel unrest and disorder within two of Italy's largest Pride parades, "guilty" of having the ability to bring hundreds of thousands of people to the streets and possibly influence local and national political decisions. The war and divisions within Pride parades are thus used to "conquer the streets" and crush the freedom of expression and thought of those who do not align with mainstream thinking or serve the power structures.
First in Rome, and then the national secretariat of Arcigay, they intervened to try to exploit both the Pride and, even worse, the growing and necessary demand for peace and condemnation of war. War has thus become an offensive tool to attack the Rome Pride and the Naples Pride.
The "social haters", the associations, the antagonistic movements, and Arcigay itself, despite starting from different positions, historically in conflict, have all found the same goal: try to take over and control the Pride parades of the big cities and standardize critical thinking. All this without any sincere interest in promoting a real peace process. Calls for peace in Palestine and the Middle East thus become merely a means to polarize consensus or to build and defend political and party positions.
Antinoo Arcigay Naples he clearly expressed its position against all wars and condemnation of the extermination currently taking place among the civilian population in Palestine. A stand for peace free of all those symbols, flags, slogans, and terminology that only serve to widen distances and fuel conflict.
In those days in Tel Aviv, from a shelter, after yet another alarm, while the roar of planes above us reminded us of the drama of war, I wrote some reflections that I have not made public since for security reasons (not only mine) and which I now report below.
“I'm here by choice, as a free citizen, without labels or representation. I agreed to come despite the daily threats I receive in Italy; I did so to defend my freedom of thought. I'm here, invited by Neapolitan friends, to be part of a free and independent delegation, observers of what's happening in this distant yet terribly close country, closer than we imagine.
There are many of us here, queer activists from every corner of the world: Europe, America, Australia, China, India, Brazil, Colombia. There are Israeli LGBTQ+ associations and activists deeply critical of their government's war policies, and there are Palestinian and Arab queer activists who find refuge in Israel. All of us are here with the true spirit of Pride, to defend those essential values of freedom, equality, sisterhood, and peace, standing with all oppressed peoples and individuals, against the violence of power and the powerful who play with our lives and our happiness every day.
In Italy, people ask me why I wanted to come to Israel, even knowing the risks. The answer is that the most important value in my life is freedom, and that there can be no freedom without participation. I had a vital need to see and hear with my own eyes, here, not from my home. Being here, for me, is fully consistent with my history and my battles for the civil and human rights of LGBTQIA+ people and for the value of legality against all forms of crime. I come from a land of the Camorra, I am from Torre Annunziata, and I also proudly claim this belonging: an uncle of mine was an innocent victim of the Camorra. My presence here stems from the same impulse that, a few years ago, led me to visit the properties confiscated from crime families in my area, to report their abuses and to receive death threats for it. I'm here because I needed and wanted to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears, so as not to be told the truth by the sterile and often intellectually dishonest war propaganda that proliferates in our comfortable living rooms, in front of a smartphone and maybe an ice-cold Coca-Cola (yes, the very one so hypocritically "hated").
PFor this choice of mine as a free man, as a free queer person, in these hours I am receiving insults, threats and a vomit of hatred on social media from strangers and, even worse, from those I considered friends, companions in struggle and in life. I read of such a Amalia De Simone, which I didn't know before today, who is quick to judge the lives and activism of others while we, here, are truly risking our lives, blinded by propaganda and prejudice. A hatred that erases every shred of humanity, sisterhood, and compassion. I read about such a Andrea Morniroli, a person who has been claiming to be working in the social sector for years, but who immediately exploits my presence here to launch a miserable campaign of hatred and terror on social media, seeking political positioning in view of the upcoming regional elections, with an inhuman cynicism worthy of the worst "war profiteer". A violence that pushes him to the point of asking, or perhaps imposing, on“Trans Naples Association, political branch of the Dedalus cooperative, which Morniroli runs with his wife, to publicly distance itself from the Naples Pride committee, of which it was a member until the day before yesterday, also by sharing a joint statement against all wars.
All these positions – instrumental, opportunistic, cynical, inhumane and uncivilized – are united by a common thread: the idea that, all things considered, Being under the bombs is the right punishment for those who freely decided to see with their own eyes and participate in a Pride. Then allude to the fact that "“she was asking for it” – to quote a friend – is simply shameful. It's the same, identical disgusting logic with which a woman victim of violence is judged by the length of her skirt or, apparently, an activist with respect to the latitude of a Pride.
All this inhumanity and hatred does not help build bridges or foster the peace process.; on the contrary, they fuel more hatred, they fuel war. That war, a fire that burns and burns everything, which perhaps is convenient for all these gentlemen and ladies to climb the ranks, to position themselves politically or sell Pride to the highest bidder.
I've always loved Pride, its freedom. I've organized 21 in 15 years; every Pride parade is like a piece of my heart, even this one in Tel Aviv, which ultimately couldn't be held. I'd do it all exactly the same way again, because I know that the guiding light of my activism is the love of what is right.
I've faced it all in my life: homophobic attacks, death threats, insults. This exploitative hatred certainly won't stop me.
I hope to return home soon. I hope this land can soon find peace.. And I hope, one day, to finally be able to experience, together with so many dispensers of hate, a fabulous Pride in a Tel Aviv or, why not, Gaza, both free from war and terrorism.".
