https://www.reuters.com/world/rock-band-1975s-set-stopped-malaysia-after-onstage-kiss-2023-07-22/
Malaysia's government halted a music festival in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, a day after the frontman of British pop rock band The 1975 kissed a male bandmate onstage and criticised the country's anti-LGBT laws.
"Matt Healy undoubtedly just made it worse for queer Malaysians who actually live here, and have to face the consequences because we all know our politicians are gonna use this to further their agenda," Carmen Rose, a Malaysian drag queen and performer, said on Twitter.
No, he didn't make it worse. The government is making it worse
Because keeping a low profile is how they can manage to survive in a homophobic society. Everyone is grandstanding while living in liberal western societies, ignoring how hard things are for less fortunate people.
It's not like things are sunshines and roses for gay people in liberal western societies. Pride parades started in the US from a riot when they couldn't take it anymore. The UK chemically castrated Alan Turing. Hiding is a good way for the individual to survive, but to forward progress for the group in the future, attention needs to be brought to these issues.
Attention is only beneficial when you have the correct political conditions to do it. Drawing attention at the wrong time gets you cracked down upon or worse, killed.
An absolutist position on this is how western liberals continually contribute to worsening matters for lgbt people in the global south. Stick to your fucking lane and let people from that country handle their local issues, they understand the local culture and the conditions better than you do.
As someone who lives in SE Asia, I agree. The west have no idea, they think they know it all, judging everybody from that ivory tower they call moral high ground.
It's such a difficult topic. As an lgbt person I want the lgbt people in those countries leading the strategy to get change. Not a bunch of people that want to do regime change for the sake of US interests while weaponising marginalised peoples as a tool to create consent for it among the US home population.
All this does is make people in the global south see lgbt issues as a tool of US oppression. It actively harms efforts of local lgbt people in achieving the necessary cultural change in views because people see it as necessary to oppose it in order to protect their economic interests from becoming a US colony or vassal.
Alan Turing was castrated in the 1950s and has been posthumously pardoned at this point. The first pride parade in the US after Stonewall was in the 1970s.
Using examples half a century or more old as a comparison to what's happening today is incredibly disengenuious.
As if events like Stonewall never happened in the west. How did those western societies became liberal? Because people fought back, blood has been spilled to reach where those societies are now. Unfortunately keeping a low profile will not progress society and will keep the community at risk. Jews kept a low profile in Europe for centuries and then were exterminated.
Change takes time, decades, often centuries. You are asking a society that has norms similar to 100years ago in Europe to accelerate to where the West currently is. I dont think you understand how slow things improved for lgbtq in the West and how recent that change is.
Despite things not being perfect, lgbtq acceptance is 50%+ in most western countries. That means it usually isnt socially acceptable to go against lgbtq, neither for the people, nor for the politicians.
Now imagine a society whose people oppose lgbtq by 95%. Who is going to stick their neck out? Their neck will simply be chopped off. Change will take time. Slowly those lgbtq people will make lgbtq acceptable within their inner circle and then their inner circle will make lgbtq acceptable in a wider but small part of society(ie liberals) and that small part of society will slowly be able to make lgbtq acceptable as a societal norm by "converting" more and more people.
The structure does not exist in these societies for lgbtq people to fight for their rights. Their best hope is that their inner circle can accept them and they can live a normal life while keeping a low profile, they are still at stage 1.
Or to put it in a different perspective, what will happen to you if you go to a plaza in Pyongyang and demand democracy/human rights? Do you think that would be smart? Or productive? You will just get arrested and be sent to a prison camp. And it is even worse with lgbtq rights, because a lot of north koreans can get on board with democracy and human rights but in these societies, 95% of the people are actively against lgbtq.
PS I am not interested in debating about homosexuality in 1920s Germany or whatever because that is a niche that completely ignores actual societal historical facts.
In 1988, only 10% of Americans supported gay marriage. Change is slow, until it's not.
And even if you're afraid to push for change, someone else will find the courage.
True but they are still not at the pushing point. They are on "maybe i can get friends who accept me for who i am without anyone betraying my trust" stage. Once they can somewhat reliably do that, ie once there is a small part of non lgbtq allies, then with those allies they can start pushing.
10% is a when an idea is becoming mainstream and mass adoption is greatly accelerating.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725190044.htm
"When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority," said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. "Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame."
Muslim is not a static or homogenous thing. The majority Muslim bit doesn't need to change - the majority of Muslims need to become more understanding.
This is about Malaysia though. Indonesia doesn’t have sharia law except for one region, called Aceh. Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia though the LGBT do face intolerance from the state.
The west used to be all hardcore Christians and hated LGBT just as much as Muslims do today. Like homosexuality wasn’t legalized until 1967 in the UK. Before that time gay people, like Alan Turing, were chemically castrated. Change came because people stood up and fought for their rights and put their lives on the line. Not because everyone became atheist.
@NIB @Larvitar so what is the solution? Stay hidden? Or show that this isn't a taboo! Isn't that what "pride" is all about?
Yes, stay hidden, try to curate and open up to your inner circle. They are still at step 1. They need to cultivate lgbtq acceptance slowly at this stage or they will be crashed.
Surprised Carmen Rose is able to tweet while licking authoritarian bigoted boots at the same time, impressive. They’d be stoked if Nazis came back I’m sure, they have some great boots.
Alternative text: Meme image from the movie Zoolander, "You know what we have to do now? Kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia."
I think the people at the festival are mostly going to remember that their government is a buzzkill.
Why shouldn't they protest bigotry? They have a platform to do it from. Some random gay couple kissing in Malaysia is a lot less impactful.
I agree but would like to add that on the other side we have typical homophobes thinking they can force their ideas on everyone else and oppress individual freedom.
Malaysian here 👋🏻
Honestly we have been having such a hard time getting international acts to the country (we have religious radicals that ate strongly opposing these shows).
It was only recently with a tough government swap that things are starting to get better - things were starting to open up.
Less than half a year since things got better, this clown decided to run his mouth, insulting the government and fueling these religious radicals with more reasons shows should be banned.
Honestly, good fcking job, 2 steps forward, 1 step back. You fcked us all.
Two steps forward, one step back, so it’s a step forward, yet he “fucked you all”?
If one side is a bigoted regime and the other side is speaking out against them, and you’re against the side speaking out against them, what does that make you?
Maybe listen to people from the actual country that understand the political conditions? They know what is useful and what is not in their current situation better than you do.
This isn't a game where shouting for one side the loudest and most often magically wins, unlike americans like to believe. Doing so at the wrong time gets you cracked down upon, or worse it gets lgbt people killed.
People from the west go to these countries and make these statements completely oblivious to the fact that they're harming the local efforts of lgbt activists within the country who are acting more strategically with a better understanding of what will and will not advance their position in the current climate they have.
I'm just dreading what the old bags in Parliament are gonna follow this up with. I hope they're too lazy to do anything. Just this once.
Depends on whether they've got something else to distract them really same as always. Could go either way. Anything involving their money could take away their focus.
Just wanted to note that this happened in Malaysia, not Indonesia. I’m not arguing with you, just wanted to point it out.
Because nothing can change religious fanatics, especially those in positions of power. The only way would be for other countries to take actions against the nations with such backwards governments (trade bans etc.) but seeing as Turkey and Hungary are allowed to stay in the EU I'm not hopeful this will ever happen.
*Turkey is not a EU-Memberstate and is no longer considered to be a candidate because of its shitty politics
history has proven that there is nothing you can do to please religious radicals and cow-towing to their demands will only backfire for you.
Malaysian here.
The clowns are the ones in our government. Just slightly less clownish than the previous govt, that's all
I wanted to reply to you but the thread is hidden. I just wanted to say that I had hopes that the smaller audience could detect nuance but clearly Lemmy people are as arrogant as Reddit.
Thanks 1975 for bringing to light that Malaysia should be ashamed about being backwards. But a lot of people will suddenly feel they need to vote Malay-first parties when they didn't before, because politics literally forgot LGBTQ+ exists. Malays-first parties is like Whites-first groups, to you who look at us like we're minority creatures squabbling over words.
I hope the government continues eating nasi lemak and sleeping during parliament. Their laziness will be very useful here. Although it would be nice if one of them says something like "People are people". 1 Malaysia should include LGBTQ+. Here's hoping, anyway.
People from the west don't understand how much more different bringing progressive thought to SEA is. Nobody here really cares about listening to the people who are actually affected. You can't burst in with freedom flags. We don't have that kind of freedom of speech. Don't provoke them into taking my freedom away.
Here's hoping the gov forgets this and moves on instead of putting down any dangerous laws.
