Celebrate Our Stories October 2007

***Knowledge of Resistance suggests that even under conditions of extreme persecution there exists the possibility of struggle. Knowledge of past and forgotten rebellion, large or small, successful or unsuccessful, is nourishment for the hungry spirits of the dispossessed; it provides food for present survival and energy for renewed struggle (1) ..Jonathan Katz *

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Oscar Wilde

1854-1900

Oscar Wilde openly defied the sexual mores of his time and embrace the cause of labor.  In his essay on “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” he imagined the beauty of a world undivided by rich and poor.  He wrote, “The chief advantage that would result in the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from the sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely any one at all escapes.” (2) In 1885 while in the U.S. Wilde stopped to visit with silver miners in Colorado. He was also England’s only famous writer to support the Haymarket Martyrs, Chicago Anarchists and labor leaders who were framed on bombing charges and faced the gallows. In 1895 Wilde was sent to prison because of his homosexuality and anti-establishment politics. Emma Goldman, Feminist and Anarchist spoke out in support of Oscar Wilde and when asked how could she dare to support him she replied, “Nonsense no daring is needed to protest great injustice.”(3)

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Qiu Jin

1875-1907

Qiu Jin was known to be fond of wearing Western male dress, for having female lovers and for her leftist ideology. While studying in Japan she joined with groups who advocated the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. One group the Tongmenghui was lead by Sun Yat-Sen who formed a revolutionary alliance which combined nationalism, socialism and Confuciun philosophy. She returned to China in 1905. She spoke out for women’s rights such as the freedom to marry, freedom of education and against the pratice of the binding of female’s feet. (4) With the female poet Xu Zihua she founded a radical women’s journal. With her cousin she organized an anti-Qing armed force and uprising. The uprising was betrayed and Qiu Jin who was to conduct an action in Zhejiang was exposed and arrested at the school where she taught. Qiu Jin refused to escape and after a gun battle in the streets she was publicly executed in 1907 at the age of 31. The People’s Republic of China established a museum for her in Shaoxing City and a statue of her stands beside West Lake where she is buried. Through the Qings corrupt politics and conservatism, the Dynasty rapidly declined. The Qing Dynasty imposed more taxes on the people in order to pay for the expenses of war. Anti-imperlist movements against the Qing grew and after several uprisings the revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen enabled the people to overthrow the Qing. (@)

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Audre’ Lorde / Gamba Adisa

1934-1992

Warrior: She who makes her meaning known.

And that is just what she did, made her meaning known. One of my favorite Audre responses came when she was sharply criticized by Jesse Helms. She responded, “My sexuality is a part and parcel of who I am, and my poetry comes from the intersection of me and my worlds…Jesse Helms’ objection to my work is not about obscenity…or even about sex. It is about revolution and change…Helms knows that my writing is aimed at his destruction, and the destruction of every single thing he stands for.”  (5)  Lorde’ called herself a, “black, lesbian, feminist warrior poet. In 1970 Lorde met Frances Clayton who became her partner for 22 years up to Lorde’s death from breast cancer in 1992. Lorde wrote about her love for women, “Every woman that I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me–so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins.” (6) In 1980 Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith and several other lesbian women co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. “She expressed the feelings of being marginalized in an American Society that is predominantly white, male, heterosexual, and middle class. Her personal experiences made her compassionate towards all who suffer under oppression.” (5)  A poem that I love and find full of meaning for all of us in our lap of luxuary is this:                                       

“Peace on Earth: Christmas 1989″

 the rockets red glare where

all these brown children

running scrambling around the globe

flames through the rubble

bombs bursting in air

Panama Nablus Gaza

tear gas clouding the Natal sun.

THIS IS A GIFT FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

quick cut

the crackling Yule log

in an iron grate. (7)

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*Our Anarchist sisters and brothers*

Magnus Hirschfeld, a Socialist and one of the founders of the homosexual rights movement in Germany  remarked in 1914 that, “In the ranks of a relatively small party, the anarchist, it seemed to me as if proportionately more homosexuals and effeminates are found than in others.” Hungarian anarchist Alexander Sommi, founded an anarchist group of homosexuals. According to Italian anarchist, Luigi Bertoni “Anarchists demand freedom in everything, thus also in sexuality. Homosexuality leads to a healthy sense of egoism, for which every anarchist should strive.” Prior to World War 1 and into the 1920s German Anarchists intervened on behalf of homosexuals, even though a termendous ammount of hostility toward homosexuals was common within the left as a whole. Emma Goldman campaigned boldly and steadfastly for individual rights and especially for those deprived of their rights. She was one of the first women to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public. (8)  She fought with some of her comrades  who feared that open support of homosexuality would harm their cause. (3) Despite supportive stances the Anarchist movement wasn’t free of homophobia. An editorial in a Spanish Anarchist journal argued that the Anarchist should not even associate with homosexuals. “If you are an Anarchist that means that you are more morally upright and physically strong than the average man, and he who likes inverts is no real man and therefore no real Anarchist.”  Daniel Guerin writings offer us a 20th century view of the tension that sexual minorities faced amongst the left, and to which many of us can speak about first hand, was a leading figure in Marxist and Leninist circles in France. He wrote “Fascism and Big Business, after visiting Nazi germany in 1933. This work detailed fascist thought and its ties to Capitalism. (in 1933 the Nazi war against homosexuals began, 3 months after Hitler came to power) By 1959 Guerin began his involvement with Anarchism joining  several Anarchist-Communist organizations. Guerin came out of the closet in 1965 and then was abandoned by the homophobic left in France at that time.  Guerin moved away from Marxism-Leninism and toward a synthesis of anarchism and communism. Guerin was involved in the uprising of May 1968 and was a part of the French Gay Liberation movement. He also rejected the consumerist gay culture and “the superficial pursuit of pleasure” that emerged in France in the 1980s considering it “a million miles away from any conception of class struggle.” (9), (10), (11) (@)

Reference’s:

1. Oscar Wilde

“The Soul Of Man Under Socialism” Lessinger Publishing, 2004 (2)

” Gay Resistance-Hidden From History ” Tamara Turner and Sam Deadrick. Red Letter Press Seattle WA. revised 1997 (3) 

2. Qiu Jin

“Chinese Women: yesterday and today.” Florence Ayscough, Boston Houghton Mifflin Company. (4)

www.chinatoday.comcn “Lady Gallants of old.” (4) 

3. Audre Lorde

“Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde” Alexis Deveaux.  WW Norton  2004 (5,7)

“Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches” Audre Lorde 1984 The Crossing Press. (6)

“The Cancer Journals” (1980 Aunt Lute Books)

4. Our Anarchist sisters and brothers. 

Jonathan Katz: “Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay men in the U.S.A.”New York, Thomas Y. Crowell 1976 (1)

Emma Goldman: “Living My Life” 2 vol. New York Anchor Books 1990. (8)

“Workers of the World Embrace: Daniel Guerin, the Labor Movement and Homosexuality” Barry David. Left History 9 (20040 pgs. 11-43.

“The Early Homosexual Rights Movement 1864-1935″  John Lauritsen and David Thorstad. CA. Times Change Press 1995 (9,10)

Also see: www.danielguerin.info   (11)

“The Eruption of Anti-Art”, (essay exaimes the Paris Riots from an anti-art point of view,  Ursula Meyer. and “No More Claudel”, from Art And Confrontation.

“Out of the Past” Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present” Neil Miller, First Vintage Books edition 1995. (See Germany’s Golden Age)

(@) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiu_Jin

(@) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_and_LGBT-rights

**For many years in Hartford we had celebrated LGBTQI (his / her) story month in October with programs brought to our community by The Connecticut Stonewall Foundation.  Since I have heard that the Foundation now is working (?) on other issues I felt the need to send out this post for all of us, in celebration of our sisters and brothers, in celebration of Our Stories.