rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (06/10/85)
I appreciate Prentiss' efforts to draw important distinctions and prevent us on the net from falling into the stupid anti-communism and chauvinism that seems to be wracking North America at present. I've deliberately stated the case I've made with vigor and a few dramatic flourishes to gain attention and wake people from their ideologically induced "sleep of reason" over Leninist regimes. But on the specific subject of Communist homophobia, I haven't exaggerated at all: in fact, the sheer amount of material to read (I've posted references to it) and digest prohibited me from trying to summarize it on the net. Castroite homophobia is particularly vicious: despite my former (& perhaps other people's) impressions of Castro's Cuba, there has been frequent torture, murder, summary executions, systematic abuse and deprivations of all kinds since the early days of the regime: there is little reason to believe it's even decreased, nevermind stopped. Of all the groups targeted for such treatment, gays by nearly all accounts have been victimized the most. As for brigadista claims that it's changed, such claims have always been made, even by gay spokespeople (eg, the lesbian leftists Ruby Rich & Lourdes Arguelles). The shameless deception of "political pilgrims", sympathetic foreign visitors, by Castro, is documented in detail (see Paul Hollander's bok POLITICAL PILGRIMS); accounts of the gay brigade indicate they're receiving and reacting to such deception as many of the thousands of gullible fidelistas before them have. Namely, eating it up, with little conscience about the regime's by now well-publicized crimes. Of course, Latin homophobia is very strong throughout the region. One of the worst atrocities against gays in the fascist 1930s happened in Peru: gay Peruvians were lured on board a ship, sailed out into the Pacific, and the ship was then bombarded and sunk by the Peruvian military with no survivors. The recent Argentine junta has been vicious toward gays, and Chile's Pinochet murdered a lot of gays during the 1973 coup. But except for these examples of what proved to be transitory right- wing totalitarianism, Latin dictatorships have not made homophobia official policy systematically pursued whose goal was the deliberate elimination of homosexuality, a goal of most Communist regimes. As with many other points of comparison, analogies between corrupt and/or dictatorial (but not totalitarian) rightwing regimes and the radical totalitarianism of Communism break down: repression under the latter is much more severe and inescapable. Even at Somoza's most corrupt and most violent, it was possible for gay Nicaraguans to get by and have a life, as crummy as it was. The neighborhood surveillance committees of Ortega suggest the Cuban model is being followed, one aimed at making a homosexual existence virtually impossible. Perhaps the biggest mystery is what happened to gay Chinese in the People's Republic. What the fragmentary information suggests is really horrific. Yet to my knowledge no one is bothering to find out more. Here's another detail of Cuban repression I just read in yesterday's Sunday Boston Globe. In an interview, Cuban-American film maker Enrique Oliver, whose award-winning short, PHOTO ALBUM, was screened with BEFORE STONEWALL a week ago at the Orson Welles, said that because Castro had special army units for homosexuals, Humas (punishment bri- gades designed to degrade and humiliate), and the regime considered any young men who went to church homosexual, most boys, including Oliver himself, never went to church (his family are devout Catholics). As someone said, Falwellian denunciations of perversion pale before the practices and beliefs of Communist homophobia. Regards, Ron Rizzo