The Phoenix Airborn, part II

As I wrote as well at the beginning of Part I, this is not going to be a crompehensive report. I just like to write down what, for whatever reasons, struck me as maybe relevant while typing this because for one it jumped back into my mind thinking of this conference!

No doubt by now, or otherwise soon enough, good factual reports of this 5^th ILGA conference will appear and give a much beter and way more detailed idea, impressions of what has been discussed then I try or intend to do here. These are just relative random observations and impressions of an observer!

The blog of the conference is definitly an interesting read. You find it at: http://ilgatheraisingphoenix.blogspot.sg

And now let's continue!

More impressions of workshops:

Strategizing for sub-regional LGBT Advocacy, the case of ASEAN ...

Attending this workshop was something like taking a tour around Asia's LGBT communities, there present state of development, in other words emancipation, state of awareness and willingness to “get out of the closets”.

It gave an impressive overview how challenges (or problems, if thats what you prefer to read or use) are approached and it made clear that all these different cultures asked for sometimes different solutions or same sol;utions just differently wrapped up.

One thing it showed me quickly enough. That movements of emancipation of the LGBT community, inspired though it may have been or become by developments in the western world, it has to come from within the (original) community if it wants to stand a chance to be taken seriously in its region and/or country.

What amazed me, surprised me and gave me a proud feeling of my fellow LGBT memebers, was not only their reslove and enthousiasm, largly also due to their so-called youth, but also their creativity, inventiveness and approaches to situations they found themselves in.

I wondered at times: is this how my/our elders looked at us when I was a young liberal, provoking, finding new different ways to get things done or moving forward again. How we provoked and challenged the establishment. Were they likewise happy and proud to see a new generation taking over the banners.

Though being Dutch as Dutch can be, I felt proud like ... okay, lets say it … like hell, by watching and listening to these men and women.

Their futur won't be an easy one, but with their vigilance (is that the correct word here?), detirmination and stuborness, they will get ahead, maybe even all the way.....

but let them never fall asleep, thinking all has been accomplished, because then gains might get easily lost again!

• okay, so far me side stepping again -

From all the reports I heard a couple spring to mind, not because the other ones were less impressive or important, nothing of the sort... just because some (obscure?) elements of what they told struck me.

Birma

The report given here by, how could it be otherwise, a young Burmese guy, was full of enthousiasm. What struck me was that the LGBT movement started to get more then just a footnote, 2 years ago when same time the democratication of Burma started and the famous Ank Su Shi (wrong I know) got largely her freedom back and with her the Burmese people.

Sidestep again:

When I talk about people on the conference one notices I very rarely refer to people with their names. Also pictures, they mostly show backs, rarely fasces. When it happens I show fasces I know 99,5 % sure, they will not get into any kind of trouble in their homecountry because of what I have been doing here.

Also at such simple frivole thing as those poolparties we organise here on Phuket, we have gotten used to being carefull who are safe to photograph, and who is not. Pictures, when put on the internet, may it be by Facebok, Twitter, blogs like this one, can create unexpexted problems for the people in it, hence at the poolparty we ask newcommers permission (surprisingly quite a few say no which then, of course creates interesting topic of conversation later on, next to a volunteer photographer). The organisation of the ILGA conference solved this problem with handing out stickers everybody could put on his or her shirt showing yes or no, by color.

To be on the safe side I took the pictures the way I did.... specially when one realizes that this system did work on the first day, but after people strated to change clothes, the stickers started to dissapear …. this might be a new challenge for the organisers of the 2015 6^th ILGA Conference in Taipei, Taiwan.

Our Burmese initiator told us about the rapid growth their movement was making with this new gained freedom and how they same time tried to get rid of a famous British colonial left-over: Rule 377, if not mistaken, making it illegal for a man to have sex with a man, etc. …..

And there we go again, another sidestep by yours truly:

By the way, do you know that this Rule 377 (as rule 377 or otherwise), making homosexual contacts illigal can still be found all over the former British Empire, or nowadays Commonwealth? That the UK already retracted this rule/law a while ago BUT more striking, that this rule explicitly only mentions men, not women and that it is said that Queen Victoria, when asked to sign a bill with this rule, refused to sign it if it also spoke of women because she could not believe women would get involved in such acts.... to humor her, or not getting into an argument with her the then governement of the land indulged her and since that time men doing it with men where outside the law while women doing it with women were not and were likewise hardly judged or looked at suspisciously, contrary to their male counterparts ;-)

But now the former colonies, parts of former Britisch Empire are still stuck with those old laws, and instead of being forgotten they are used and lived by up till this very day, hence in Burma, they now desperatly try to get rid of this as soon as they can.

Though India got rid of this rule already a couple of years ago, Burma, amongst many others in Asia (and elsewhere!), still have it on their books!

The expectations though for its abolishments looked positive and by the sound of his words the famous Ank Su Shi and her party would more then likely support it. He also disclosed that a couple of members of her parliamentary group were members/supporters of their movement, which is, I might make clear again here, not the same as being member of the LGBT community ;-)

Our Burmese initiator excused himself for not being as informative as he would have liked to be, but then he was only active in the LGBT movement since last year, so very new. It showed same time how diverse the countries were in their progress and organisation of their LGBT movements, how divers levels exsisted of people daring to come out of the closet, not only to their families, already hard enough, but also to their fellow countrymen at different levels.

One more thing that struck me: he told us that they attended last years Cambodian Pride, after having heard of it (!) and participated in it because they could not yet, were not ready yet, to have and/or organize their own Pride, and as such giving the Cambodians the creative idear of turning their Gay Pride in an ASEAN Gay Pride... but aboute Cambodia more later ;-)

Burma presentation in full swing.

For myself: I made a mental note to talk with the Burmese delegation, or their interpretor, and make them aware that closer by home their was a long(?) Pride tradition, no doubt happy to help them express themselves. Of course I am talking about Phuket Gay Pride.

Another side step:

I like to applaud al participants, everybody adressed the meetings and workshop in English. It was wonderfull, and same time at times hard, to understand what was being said without interpretors. Same time one realizes the increasingly growing number of variations of English, dialects or however you want to call it.

Around me during meetings at first I felt disturbed when people kept wispering and as such distracting me from concentrating on what was being said... till I realised it were interpretors translating what was being said to the people around them... Burmese, Thai , Chinese..... when I discovered what was going on my annoyance dissapeared on the spot. Strange how these things work in once mind!

Later when I talked to the Vicky's friend from Chiang Mai about this.... I had seen her sitting with our delegation a lot and doing a lot of such talking to them that I then knew was translating, also when Thai people were adressing workshops and meeting, she told me that she did that to help them understand and follow the conference better and also because a lot of words being use don the conference were so called HiSo (Academic words being also HiSo words) and those needed to be translated in a way they could understand.

This side step I now realize easily creates a new sidstep about HiSo, etc.... but I won't do that, takes us too far from the main subject at hand here! ;-)

Cambodia

Cambodians LGBT's awareness came strongly out in the open when, according to the initiator, students, young artists, and others had gotten together at meetingplaces, bars etcetera in and around Pnom Phen and this urging for getting out in society and try to claim their rightfull place as part of that society.

Among others they felt like expressing it by way of holding their own Pride.

Getting there was a whole different ball game, no one really had any idear how to do it, how to get their

messages across...

First of all it had to be and come from them, if it wanted to get any significant support from the other LGBT members in Cambodia as well as from the people at large. It was, according to them, the only way!

How they went at it, as far as I was able to follow all that was being said that is....

They decided they were going to ask all the different groups they knew of, what they would like to do, how to express and what to express and then let them express it. This suggested somekind of organisation was then already in place, nothing of the sort... just members of different groups knowing eachother, infecting eachother and coordinating voluntarily between the groups..thats how they started!

And thats how the first cambodian gay Pride came into being in 2009, by a bold, liberal approach, respectfull to all its diversity, no commercialism (as of yet, I understood), keeping it quite pure!

Happy logo and slogan. The slogan is quite different from
 Phukets 2013: Sama same not different

This approach allowed a colorfull and very divers first Pride, carried by the youth of the LGBT community.

Since then of course some organising structure has come into place, a more unified voice for all, but same time they seem to have kept this pretty basic and fun approach , in way of expressing, of their Gay Pride. It was their Gay Pride! Their own responsibility to voice what they thought needed to be said on behalf of the LGBT community.

They also clearly included the monkhood, the monks and temples! And now every year the Pride chooses one temple where they all get together to ask and receive their blessings on their Pride, pay alms, and work together. Cambodian initaitor told that this approach with the temple(s), and every year choosing another one, had created a good and helpful understanding from the temples and the monks in general and likewise made it more easier for the LGBT community to come out and take part.

I got a feeling this was a more then helpful approach, also something to maybe seriously consider here on Phuket, and for sure elsewhere in Thailand, if that hasn't been done already at one stage or another... if not, it should! ;-)

And by now most of us had heard about their creative solution to get attention with relative little effort: The Tuk-tuk rally they organised last year, with ordinary as well as more prominent people along most if not all important places for the LGBT community, from past and present. Getting a group of Embassies involved helped too as well as inviting neighbouring countries LGBT organisations to participate and caling it ASEANs first Gay Pride.

With little means a most effective Gay Pride as such came into being, how clever young minds become when challenged …. by themselves!

During a series of workshops at this conference
 advocacy was beng teached in practical approach

Listening to this contribution from Cambodia I also felt again sad that the PLU on Phuket, nowadays organising the Gay Pride there, doesn't want to have anything to do with politics or what Gay Pride stands for and is mainly if not fully organised and run by expats.... it taking place remains important whatever, I think, but it is somewhat sad. Also so sad that none of their organisation had or expressed any interest in this conference., even after several times being attended to it, I so wished they would have given it the attention it deserved, it would have no doubt open some minds in a way, I realised, that could also have created, or help to create bridges towards the local LGBT community on Phuket and the LGBT community as a whole ..... well maybe by 2015 they will be ready, if still needed by then of course ;-)

Listening to this Cambodian contribution, it was clear that the Thai, and Burmese people present liked their approach, and my Phuketians: They just smiled and nodded their heads but kept quiet...again and for now ;-)

Part III will go about a new and usefull abreviation I learned, other workshops, among them

- Experiences in disaster and disaster preparedness of Sexual Minority Communities

- LGBT in national education systems

And if you wonder why not more in one go here, well, maybe your attention span, or mine for that matter but most of all I seem to have entered a fight with an adversary which you can not see but it seems to happily disrupt my normal use of my computer and as such its costing me way to much time to produce this report, while a half eye is not helping much either, hence me cutting it in parts ;-)