Amazing Middle Eastern Gay Blog

I forget how lucky I am to be gay in the US.  I forget that our brothers and sisters over there (everywhere) are still apologizing for who they were born to be….apologizing to themselves.  I forget they are slaughtered like cattle with machetes, and I forget to fight for them because I forget how lucky I am to be gay in the US.  I am not forgetting today.  I am remembering today.  They need all of us to remember.  [Memorial Day is for whatever I think needs to be remembered.  Long-gone veterans of wars are at peace.  They don't need me to remember.]

I found an amazing middle eastern gay blog “An Epilogue to a Black Orchid” [http://poetx.tumblr.com/] via another amazing international gay rights blog “LGBT Asylum News” [http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/].  Judge for yourself. I’m posting two excerpts below and a pic posted there.

First,

“Following the [Iraq] war, the state of lawlessness fueled sectarianism that are at the countries [sic] social fabric. The minorities of Iraq suffered the hardest hit. Militias -most notably Al-Mahid Army and League of the Righteous- began engaging in psychological and physical torture practices that exclusively targeted the queer community of Iraq. Typically, militia members forge romantic relationships with their victims, as what happened to 21 year-old A.S, a young gay Iraqi currently living in Jordan. A.S was unaware of his lover’s affiliations, until the night he visited his house for the first time, only to get brutally raped by four men (including his boyfriend), and receive a home-delivered death threat disclosing A.S’s sexual orientation to his family. While A.S is lucky to be alive, many victims are not only sexually violated but murdered; their mutilated corpses are left in public markets to serve as an example to others.

These are the lives of human beings, who had to supersede cultural and religious limitations to accept themselves. These are people who continue to look at the dingy floors of their apartments  and apologize to me about about “unnatural instincts”; they apologize for having partners; for wanting resettlement in countries that may allow them to live, perhaps even live comfortably. I cannot out myself to them, because I fear my own family.  I fear ending up on the same side of the table as them. I am scared for myself as much as I am scared of myself [sic], so I chew on my words, and when I do write my truth, I write it under false names. I am sorry that our homeland is so quick to abort its children. No one wants to be exiled.”

Second,  {I’ll try to post the pic the author is referring to here}

“sorry for shitty quality, taken on my phone

this is for people who are unhappy, this is for people who don’t want to get up in the morning, this is for the people who stay up until 4 A.M. because they’re too afraid of their own dreams, this is for the people who hold a gun to their head to a blade to their wrist or a pill to their lips, this is for my aunt who attempted 4 times and we’re all so happy she didn’t succeed (and so is she) this is for the people who are too ashamed of their bodies to want to be in public, this is for the boys and girls who are too scared to go to school, this is for the people who are scared as fuck to be alone, this is for the people who have fallen and picked themselves up again, this is for the people who have been broken too many times and are missing tons of their own pieces, this is for the people who have been abandoned and are still waiting for them to come back, this is for the people who were ready to jump, this is for the people who cut but didn’t understand it, this is for the people who are confused, this is for the people who don’t think they can make it, this is for the people who cry and don’t understand where the fuck the tears are coming from,
and this is for the people who just want to be happy.
this is for you, this is for me, this is for everyone.
reblog if you support people dealing with depression/self harm/suicide.put your heart on your sleeve. ”

May they all find the strength and peace to live.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 30th, 2011 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Images, People, Politics & Activism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.