July 5, 2008

Serbian Lesbians Speak at S.F. Dyke March

The San Francisco Dyke March site has the transcripts of speeches given last Saturday by two lesbians from Serbia — both well worth the full read:

Tijana Popivoda

…Thank you for your persistence in protesting on the streets for so many years. Your visibility gives us, lesbians from Serbia, strength for our own visibility. All your achievements empower us in our dreams and give us the knowledge that they are possible. …

In the country where I live, Serbia, as well as in most other places in the world, visibility can mean that we risk our lives. Visibility can mean that we are exposed to be insulted or beaten up in public spaces. There are no laws that protect our rights to live lesbian existence, we are still full of psychiatrists and religious leaders who are judging us and telling us that we are sick. Homophobia is in every step we make in our lives.

I would like to talk to you about the fear of visibility, and to tell you about lesbians from one small town in Serbia — when they want to watch lesbian videos, they lock themselves up with a key in their own room inside the house, while husband, children and grandchildren are in the other parts of the house. …

Here are some facts: In all the countries in Eastern Europe, the right wing is very much present and nationalism and religious fundamentalism are increasing. There are no dyke marches in Eastern Europe, and they are rare in Europe in general. In some countries, LGBT Pride parades do not exist, because there are no safe conditions for their running. …

We activists have a dilemma: should we hold the parades, should we celebrate our love, when 1,000 homophobic police officers are on the streets with us? …

In past years, I would often sit with my lesbian friends and watch video files on the internet from dyke marches in the US, especially from San Francisco. I would watch them again and again and again…

Lepa Mladjenovic

… My homeland was a small country called Yugoslavia which fell apart through the war into seven smaller countries during the 1990’s.

And I come from one of them, Serbia, whose previous regime started and carried out that war.

In the wartime — what did we lesbians see?

Of many things, we saw that the moment the universal soldier takes a gun to kill — he makes many enemies and lesbians are among them. War reduces one’s identity to only a few symbols, to the nationality of one’s name, to religious or a tribal symbol. War reduces women’s bodies to a battlefield, and leaves zero space for lesbian desire.

What did we learn?

- that we lesbians need to be in the anti-war movement, that we must collaborate, ally ourselves and get together with feminists, peace activists, anti-fascists… and some of us did exactly that. Together with Italian, Spanish, Israeli feminists we created network of Women in Black Against War and many women around the world joined in.

- we learned that women’s solidarity and lesbian solidarity can be a fact of everyday life. … I would not have survived all those years of pain if there had not been many lesbians and activists who came to protest with us, who sent us books of poetry and lesbian cartoons, who came to bring us chocolate and coffee and listen to our stories. …

We need dyke marches to point out that lesbians are discriminated against as women first of all…

We need dyke marches to remember: in the city of Chennai in India, two women, who loved each other from the age of 18, living under hate pressure from their families, on the 17th of May 2008 embraced each other, poured kerosene on their embraced bodies, and set themselves on fire. A week later a group of brave feminists organized a press conference and announced that from January this year six other lesbians have set themselves on fire in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and that in the last 10 years in the neighboring state of Kerala, 35 lesbian couples have committed suicide. …

Again, hit the link and read both speeches in full. You will be pained, angered, moved — and, ultimately, uplifted.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

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