Racism? Civilizationism? Something, anyway.
Everybody is up in arms about the Olympics being held in Russia, thanks to that country's "gay propaganda" law (which is both wider and less damning that it's made out to be, though very likely the camel's nose for Russian legislation).
But Qatar, which has a World Cup coming up, is much worse. And India just criminalized homosexuality. Uganda's draconian law passed without much, if indeed any, mainstream media attention.
I can't help but wonder how much of this is because - maybe only subconsciously - we hold Russia, as a European country filled with white people, to a different standard. (Or maybe figure we can harangue them with impunity, unlike the others.)
3 Comments:
-
At 3:02 PM, January 02, 2014
Kathie had this to say...
-
-
At 9:06 PM, January 02, 2014
Bill the Butcher had this to say...
-
-
At 7:59 AM, January 03, 2014
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
-
-
<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->Perhaps more just a matter of temporal proximity, since the Olympic opening ceremony is just weeks away?
I'm hoping that, analogous to Jesse Owens, Ralph Metcalfe et al. in Munich in 1936, gay athletes clean up on medals at Sochi, preferably at events and awards ceremonies attended by Putin.
Actually, India didn't quite criminalise homosexuality. Male homosexuality (though not female, since pure chaste Indian women aren't supposed to have sexual desire anyway) had been formally illegal in India from the mid-1800s owing to a British era law, though it wasn't actually ever enforced. In 2008, the Delhi High Court struck down the law as unconstitutional. What a reactionary Supreme Court did was say that the High Court had no authority to rule on constitutionality and so the old law stood. (And, by the way, everyone but the extreme Hindu Right was outraged. )
Thanks, Bill. As you can see, the coverage we got here was miniscule and inaccurate.
I did not intend to imply that no one in India (or elsewhere) was outraged; only that compared to the media outcry in the US over the Russian law you would have to assume that no one in this country was.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]