Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
There are specific laws in place that prosecute "propaganda" of "LGBT" with the definitions of those terms being quite vague. Even if a conviction is not reached, as many mottizens have noticed, the process is the punishment. Especially when the process in question is the Russian jail (can't say anything about Middle East, but they're probably not very respectful and luxurious either).
Your flippant "they just don't want parades" comment shows either a lack of basic research, or more likely given your tenure in the community, deliberate downplaying.
I think more about Eastern (typically Asian countries that are too far north or east to be Muslim) cultures when I see this- they have a working system, but American progressives (and the progressives of old, now called traditionalists) don't know how it works/it doesn't play to their biases so they simply see an enemy to be destroyed.
Globohomo (and I mean that in both senses of the word) is just as much born of arrogance as Middle Eastern sexuality laws are.
There has been very limited attempts by American progressives to attack Japanese culture. There were coerced changes to Japanese culture immediately after WW2, but they were bipartisan (MacArthur was profoundly not a progressive - he would be fired by a Dem president for being based in an insubordinate way and would have been McCarthy's running mate if McCarthy had managed to run for president).
But since the end of the US occupation, the only attempt by US progressives to shame Japan for insufficient progressivism was when right-wing Japanese politicians started publicly paying respect to the memory of various controversial WW2-era Japanese leaders.
Despite having been consistently aware of the current thing since the 1990's, I don't know anything about the LGBXYZSNORE situation in Japan without looking it up, indicating that it has not been the current thing in my lifetime.
Interesting question - is this an unprincipled exception or is it just a case of Japanese internal affairs not being on the radar?
I suspect most internal affairs aren't actually on the radar.
Every now and then an issue bubbles up to the level of perception among the voter base. Some fraction of those make it through the social and political filters until "Something Has To Be Done." Then we might or might not spend diplomatic capital on doing that Something.
The temperature is lower for stable, allied nations like Japan. It's higher for suspected rivals. We have a long history of critiquing combloc countries for their freedom of expression, so it doesn't take much to get a Senator or newspaper bemoaning Russia's treatment of their dissidents--including anyone who uses a rainbow flag.
More options
Context Copy link
Allegations of American progressives trying and succeeding in pushing progressive/leftist policies in other developed countries are mostly unfounded. Firstly, a lot of the intellectual origins of modern progressivism emerged in Europe, and secondly most European activists who embrace US style racial progressivism do so proactively and because to Europeans (despite a performative disdain for supposed American boorishness) America is more dynamic, more advanced, more exciting, more ‘of the future’ than Europe is (even for those on the left), and everything associated with Americanness, including leftist American gender politics and so on, is cool and interesting and should be adopted by the French / Spanish / German left.
The British / German / Spanish leftists protesting for BLM in 2020 weren’t doing it on orders from the American left, they were doing it proactively because they wanted to.
Agreed as regards Western Europe - we have our own liberal and leftist political traditions which don't grok American progressivism and which American progressives grok even less. We also have our own idiotarian left tradition which has unthinkingly imported American progressivism without applying it to local conditions - but this has a lot less pull than people insist it does, and essentially none at all in France. But American progressives have tried to shame countries for insufficient progressivism - it just doesn't work.
When I pointed out the lack of US progressive bullying of Japan over insufficient progressivism (and there are obvious targets re. the role of women, immigration, outcaste treatment of barakumin) I realise I was implicitly comparing it to the bullying of mostly third-world countries over feminism, LGBFAGMORON, etc.
Okay, the "XYZSNORE" was one thing, but really?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This isn’t even a top ten free speech issue in a Russian context, though.
I remember reading a report on human rights in Morocco by some organization or other. Obviously, Islamic monarchies generally aren’t up to western snuff. But the report generally glossed over free speech and police corruption(both serious issues) to discuss how barbaric it was that homosexuality was illegal. The attitude towards Russia seems similar- we know it’s a thuggish dictatorship, why are gay rights the top issue over there? The suspicious number of dissidents falling out of windows seems far more serious. The hate speech laws have actual teeth, unlike in much of Europe, and Putin allows the chechens to punish islamophobes.
Because police corruption and suppression of anti-regime speech have motivations that are, if not particularly good, quite understandable to a rational person. A regime wants to keep political power and protect itself against threats almost by definition. A somewhat primitive authoritarian regime clings to power in the only way it knows how to, by throwing dissidents out of windows, duh, more news at 11. Not great all around, but very expected, and they probably won't stop even if the West tells them to – because keeping political power is their primary concern, more so than appeasing external forces.
In contrast, the laws against homosexuality seem like an exercise in pointless sadism for the sake of it. Despite what the original comment implied, countries like Russia don't just practice "don't ask, don't tell", outlawing parades and drag queen story hours at the local kindergarten. It's more like "don't ask, don't tell, don't host or participate in community events (police raids on LGBT parties at night clubs and even on private property have become the norm in Russia), don't run a private business that caters to LGBT customers (a Moscow businessman whose travel agency allegedly specialized in cruises for gay men was recently murder-suicided in jail), don't look like a fag walking down the street to a bored cop, etc". And, at least in the case of Eastern Europe, opposition to homosexuality is a top-down movement rather than a genuinely grassroots one – in the 1990s and 2000s regular Russians watched t.A.T.u girls kiss on live TV, performing alongside flagrantly gay male celebrities like Boris Moiseev and Sergey Zverev, and thought nothing of it. A Ukrainian crossdresser was one of the most popular music artists in the country for a long, long time.
Oppressing LGBT is all very based and trad if we ask the usual suspects (also Not Happening, but is a Good Thing), but serves close to no purpose in upholding these regimes, which is why it's so bizarre that they bother doing it. Coming down hard on those who swing at the king and miss is understandable, somewhat rational and also high-priority for those regimes for maintaining power, but proactively ostracizing and punishing a random group of citizens living their private lives is neither of those things, and demonstratively refusing to stop doing it in when asked nicely speaks of the barbaric nature of their elites, who seemingly delight in engaging in oppression for its own sake. There's a stark contrast with other authoritarian places like China – while the CCP isn't particularly LGBT-friendly either, but its approach is purely technocratic and doesn't demonstrate the same penchant for sadism, which is at least partly why China rarely gets singled out on this matter, at least compared to Russia.
For a regime which is an Islamic monarchy, criminalization of homosexuality- even if only enforced on the poor and unlucky- is quite understandable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I would like you to quote specific people who claim that gay rights is the top issue in Russia if you want that claim to be defended.
But to propose an answer that sounds plausible to me: the crowd who engages in active dissident politics is not large, and the wiser people are aware that blessed glorious West also has corruption, and perhaps will always have it. There is thus not much demand for being loud in a Putin-bothering way about it. Once Navalny got chased out and later offed, the anti-dictatorship side of dissident Russians has become much more disunited and self-eating.
As for islamic awareness, those of middle class means and above can largely avoid the worst of the Islamic component of Russia. Again, little demand. A lot of anti-Islamism is channeled through the gay rights issues, anyway.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link