THINKING PAST PRIDE: QUEER ARAB SHAME INBAREED MISTA3JIL

Abstract

This article offers a reading of the groundbreaking book Bareed Mista3jil: True Stories, a collection of the narratives of Lebanese queers. Here, I argue, a burgeoning collective queer experience is being mapped from the conditions of Western imperialism and globalization, from the legacies of a colonial past, and from everyday life in postwar Lebanon. Resisting the urge to reduce Arab queer identities as either Western or traditionally Arab, the article suggests that though Western constructions of sexualities have certainly been influential, these identities are also responding to the local and cultural context. If we attune our readings to the affects that underlie the stories in this collection, it becomes clear that the emotional strategies to survive and negotiate the difficulties of postcoloniality are different from the strategies of post-Stonewall pride culture. Rather than stifle shame with the insistence of queer pride, this community is creating itself by expressing its suffering from the effects of shame and social humiliation. The narrative thread that comes through is not pride but hope. That is because shame, as Elspeth Probyn contends, gives access to what is most important and, as Eve Sedgwick has argued, is a resource for imagining change.

(Un)critically queer organizing: Towards a more complex analysis of LGBTQ organizing in Lebanon

“…Meem's only public event was held in June of 2009 during the launching of their book Bareed Mista3jil (Fast Mail). The book, which is a collection of 41 LBTQ Arab women's narratives, depicts a wide range of queer women's experiences in the attempt to capture the intersectionality and complexity of these women's lived realities (Dropkin, 2011;Georgis, 2013). 14 Collective identity deployment locally: Coming out and translation As already mentioned, both Helem and Meem define collective identity and organize differently based on their different understandings of coming out and queer visibility and their engagements with the rights discourse.…”

Homemaking and perpetual liminality among queer refugees

“…As has been shown in this section, however, the nuclear family is equally likely to be the very institution that keeps migrants away from the family home spaces, as suggested in the homemaking literature (Tunåker, 2015). The interview excerpts illustrate that the family can ostracise members at any point in their lives due to nuclear families' views on how sexuality should be performed, as also suggested in the work by Georgis (2013). The consideration of family as affecting home spaces through inclusion/exclusion practices expands liminality discussions in migration studies, which often consider only state-controlled spaces (e.g.…”

“…Conforming to the correct sexuality is often experienced as vital for the reproduction of children. This means that when children do not adhere to expectations, they may be ostracised, punished, or even thrown out of the home (Georgis, 2013;Oksal, 2008). For example, Mustafa was 13 years old when he had sex with a man in an elevator and was caught and imprisoned by the police.…”

“…Although family expectations about the correct sexuality are important, the family also comes with expectations about how to perform gender roles. In contexts where strictly cis-gendered behaviour is common, individuals are sometimes advised to marry someone of the opposite cis-gender upon discovery of non-conforming genders and sexualities (Georgis, 2013;Oksal, 2008). Mårten explains this below.…”

“…This is not to say that all queer refugees are foreign to this way of thinking. As Georgis (2013) argues in relation to Arab sexualities, many have experience with negotiating their sexualities between globalised Western ways and traditional ways in their home countries. However, among the queer refugees interviewed, the majority preferred a less proclaimed way of life.…”