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It started as a dispute about whether a pro-Israel tourism campaign should be allowed at Halifax Pride. Now, it’s erupted into a debate over freedom of expression and the role of pinkwashing at the festival.
A motion at the Halifax Pride society’s annual general meeting on October 5 would remove “pinkwashing” content from future festivals. Pinkwashing is a term often used to describe a corporation or government diverting attention from its own human rights record by marketing itself as gay-friendly.
The resolution asks that Pride actively identify, remove and disengage from any content that pinkwashes international humanitarian law violations. It would also have Pride re-commit itself to acknowledging the concerns of black, Indigenous and other non-white groups within the LGBTQ+ community, “in order to create a festival that is inclusive to everyone.”
The idea is being brought forward by the Queer Arabs of Halifax (QAH) in response to the presence of Tel Aviv tourism materials at the Atlantic Jewish Council’s (AJC) table during Pride’s yearly community fair. The “Size Doesn’t Matter” campaign is run by the Canadian Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) in Ottawa. The AJC provides the table at Pride, and CIJA provides the promotional materials.
This past summer, the QAH submitted a letter to Pride’s board expressing its concern with the campaign materials, given the Israeli government’s international human rights record against the Palestinian people. That letter was accompanied with a petition from the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project (NSRAP) that was signed by 500 individuals and organizations—including South House and the Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova Scotia.
On its website, the NSRAP stresses the request to remove the “Size Doesn’t Matter” materials is not a motion against the State of Israel, Judaism or the AJC, but against foreign governments funding local lobbyists to do PR at Pride.
“Given the complexity and tragedy of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we simply don’t think that advertising tourism to the region as a way to sway public sentiment is just or ethical,” writes the NSRAP.
The organization says it’s faced racist backlash and received numerous anti-Arab messages since voicing its support for the pinkwashing resolution.
“This is not about Israel,” the NSRAP website reads. “This is about our local LGBTQ community and the ways in which LGBTQ people of colour are marginalized, dismissed and ultimately seen as unimportant by past and present boards of Halifax Pride.”
The Atlantic Jewish Council feels differently. In a Facebook post headlined “FIGHT DISCRIMINATION,” the organization claims the resolution is “targeting Israel” and “would ban the Jewish community from highlighting Israel’s thriving LGBTQ+ community.”
As such, the AJC is offering to shuttle supporters to the meeting and vote against the resolution. The group’s even offering free food and childcare to whoever can make it out on Wednesday. Likewise, supporters of the QAH (such as Dalhousie’s Students for Justice in Palestine) are organizing similar initiatives.
Progressive Conservative leader Jamie Baillie has also waded into the discussion without being asked, tweeting a letter that the Opposition leader sent to Pride Society chair Willem Blois opposing the resolution.
“It is hard to imagine a more absurd injustice than the thought of the Halifax Pride Society voting to suppress the view and opinions of another vibrant part of our local community,” writes Bailie, who says the proposed motion would undermine Pride’s mission of accessibility to all and have “drastic, far-reaching effects” on the society’s future.
“…should this resolution pass, I cannot in good conscience, participate in any future Halifax Pride Society events, knowing the society has turned its back on its true mission.”
Another resolution at Wednesday’s meeting, proposed by lawyer and past NSRAP chair Kevin Kindred, aims to counter the pinkwashing resolution by asking Pride to recommit itself to freedom of expression.
“I think this is a watershed moment for the community,” writes Kindred on Facebook. “I think we’re on the brink of a possibly really bad decision, to start letting Pride dictate to community groups what they can and can’t say as participants in Pride.”
A third resolution asks Pride to prioritize outreach to minority and marginalized groups in the LGBTQ+ community, in order that those individuals can “participate in Pride free from censorship, exclusion or limitations on freedom of expression.”
The AGM takes place October 5 at the Halifax Marriott Harbourfront from 6:30-8:30pm.
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This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2016.
Tel Aviv’s LGBT community is known worldwide for its inclusion and tolerance. It could be time to involve the sponsors of Pride week who ought to have serious doubts about funding this hatefest against a local Jewish organization.
This is so *ridiculously* discriminatory. Just put it into a little bit of context:
If Boston, MA wanted to promote itself as an LGBT-friendly destination at Halifax Pride, would people line up in solidarity to ban them from doing so in protest against the US’ involvement in foreign military missions? Or for how it has, past and present, treated its African-American community and other minority communities poorly?
Not a chance. Because to do so would constitute a ridiculous leap of logic. The same goes here. The goal is to make Israel a pariah and pin all of the ills of the Palestinians and maybe the greater Middle East on it. If Halifax was half as progressive as Tel Aviv and treated both its ethnic and sexual minorities with even a modicum of the same level of legal and substantive dignity, Pride Halifax– and indeed, most of the organizations signing off on this petition to discriminate against Israel– would have a much less daunting task facing it/them.
This motion displays a deeply prejudiced view against both Israelis and Jews. Why Jews? As a near unanimous polling of my Jewish friends would indicate, this boycott movement seeks to ultimately eliminate Israel as a Jewish homeland. At first, I was skeptical of this reasoning. But I was advised to look up the history of the Arab League boycott of Israel, and then look up the aims of BDS’ founder, Omar Barghouti. They both state, unequivocally, that the goal of boycotting Israel is to politically (or otherwise) eliminate it from the map of the modern Middle East. I then compared that against Israeli declarations. Certainly some leaders have been racist or anti-Palestinian. But since Israel’s founding, it has both stated and enacted policy to live in harmony with its neighbours. Read its declaration of independence. Read about the proposals of Israel for a two-state solution and the non-answers or rejections (rather than counter-offers and negotiations) from its Palestinian neighbours.
As a political progressive and provincial and federal NDP member; as a member of the LGBT community; as somebody with many Jewish friends; as somebody who has been privileged enough to have listened to Holocaust survivors speak; and as somebody who believes that all people deserve a homeland to call their own, including the Jews and the Palestinians alike, I will NOT stand by and let people try to boycott Israel and discriminate against Jewish peoplehood in the most Orwellian argument of “peace”, especially when the city in question, Tel Aviv, has long been a safe-haven for LGBT-identifying people persecuted by Jewish communities, Arab communities, Palestinian communities, and all sorts of other religio-ethnic communities that exist in its immediate environs.
It is disappointing to me that a Queer Arab group has advocated this this: there are SO many places in the Arab world where LGBT-identifying people can be killed. Yet this group has apparently prioritized ethno-political rivalries to supercede advocacy for greater Arab, Muslim, and Christian recognition of LGBT rights in the Arab world. It’s sad, both in effect and in its rote transparency.
Let us be inclusive of all nationalities, all ethnicities, and all people. I want to see a Halifax Pride where a Gay Palestinian can march arm-in-arm with a Lesbian Israeli and neither are discriminated against but welcomed and cheered every leg of the route.
The Halifax Pridea Committee is a joke. Pride is the saddest affair I have ever seen. It’s about who fits the mould; those who don’t are excluded. No tits or ass allowed – this is a family event. I don’t celebrate Pride in Halifax; I’m not proud of my community.
The clash of “rights”:
What you always find at the bottom of the slippery slope…
This motion is in solidarity with LGBTQ people in Tel Aviv who are also opposed to their region being branded as a gay mecca when they are still facing many problems with homophobia, transphobia and inclusion. The Israeli state has poured millions into this marketing campaign and not NOT invested in actual LGBTQ causes in the country. I comment the supporters of the Anti-pinkwashing motion on being smart enough to see through the ways in which governments and political lobbyists are using the LGBTQ cause to turn a buck (without actually being allies) then you shouldn’t be weighing in. Get educated. Learn about pinkwashing. Learn about what LGBTQ people are struggling with (in Tel Aviv, Halifax, Palestine, indigenous communities- in your OWN family. Other Pride organizations across Canada have put in place similar motions with great success- in BC and parts of Alberta, politicians are no longer welcome to march in Pride unless they commit to support LGBTQ issues in their political work. It is high time that these changes come- Pride has become little more than a free advertising day for local businesses and has lost any ability to be meaningful to the communities it should serve. I am also very concerned with many of the racist and anti-immigration posts coming from members of the AJC and I urge them as an organization to try and address this with their membership. Please read this for more info on what LGBTQ people in Tel Aviv are struggling with: http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2016/05/03/a…
Good to see the local LGBT community standing in solidarity with Palestinians who have been abused by Israel for far too long. Good to see the LGBT community saying NO to pinkwashing.
I’m proud to be Nova Scotian.