The far-right Christian group whose name translates as ‘soldiers of god’, started their LGBTQIA+ fobe rhetoric several years ago and attempt to suppress all LGBTQIA+ events. Some call them ‘the Christian IS’. They focus their attacks not only on LGBTQIA+ persons but also on refugees, womens’ rights campaigners and anyone they believe who ‘sins’. During last week’s attack, they caused destruction and beat people up while chanting slogans such as “This is a devil’s bar”, “Promoting homosexuality is forbidden”, “We have warned you hundreds of times” and “This is just the beginning”.
Right-wing anti-LGBTQIA+ policies and impunity for LGBTQIA+ phobic violence
While the group has been around for several years, physical attacks have been increasing recently. This is partly because they feel supported by the anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and agenda openly held by more and more politicians and religious leaders. For instance, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently stated that homosexuality is punishable by death under Sharia law, a minister banned a game at schools because it featured a rainbow, the culture minister ruled that from now on the media must use ‘sexual perversion’ when talking about homosexuality and so on.
Similarly, the absence of real consequences/punitive measures against Jnoud El-Rab’s actions during last week’s attack in which the ISF (Internal Security Service) arrived on the scene but did not stop the violence, nor arrest anyone, reinforces the self-confidence of members of these and other far-right groups. Besides leading politicians, other members of Lebanon’s elite who provide (including financial) support to such groups are also responsible.
Global backlash against LGBTQIA+ rights in times of crisis
Lebanon is one of the countries suffering most from the current economic crisis, with food inflation of 278% in July 2023 compared to July 2022, and a huge devaluation of the national currency. After the 2019 revolutionary movement failed to reach its conclusions, the regime is attempting to restore its dominance. Without any economic basis and credibility to do so, its representatives need scapegoats to divert attention from their mismanagement and turn the population against each other.
However, right-wing attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights and welfare and the return of so-called ‘culture wars’ are not unique to Lebanon. We also see them popping up in the US (with more than 500 anti-LGBTA+ laws introduced this year!), Europe, China, Uganda, Russia, etc. While the world is on fire, politicians are staging a major drama around sex education classes, rainbow colours and Barbie movies. As poverty increases and fewer and fewer people earn enough to meet their basic needs, politicians shout about the danger of wokism and the importance of defending ’traditional family values’.
This global far-right backlash is no accident. The capitalist system is finding it increasingly difficult to find, even solutions, to the crises it itself causes (war/imperialism, climate crisis, purchasing power crisis, etc.). The LGBTQIA+ phobic attacks taking place globally today, both legally and in the streets, are not thought up by the broad strata of the population. They are actively organised from above, by right-wing forces and the ruling class. It is their deliberate tactic for securing their position through diverting attention from their mismanagement (policy for the very rich), and by pitting population groups against each other (based on sexuality, gender identity, nationality, skin colour, etc.) in order to reduce the possibility of a united struggle of all the exploited and oppressed against them and the system they represent.
The current attacks on rights that seemed acquired in many places show that within the capitalist system, legal improvements will never last for good, nor are they sufficient to really, fundamentally, resolve the issues of discrimination and oppression.
Capitalism, a system based on exploitation and inequality, breeds crises, which will always feed divide and rule tactics. LGBTQIA+ phobia is not a natural thing, it is not something innate or necessary. But it is necessary for the survival of capitalism. Because the survival of the system is based on the nuclear family (which provides it with the free reproductive labour of millions of women, necessary for the reproduction of exploitable labour forces), it has rigid gender norms, homophobia and transphobia in its DNA. In other words, a solution to LGBTQIA+ phobia will not come by lobbying the representatives of the current system, but rather by fighting for a different system.
That alternative is a democratic socialist society, where wealth is used for the needs of everyone in society, rather than for the profits of the elite. A socialist alternative that no longer builds on exploitation and inequality, and thus has no need for rigid gender norms, social control over sexuality, etc.
Organise resistance!
For a socialist alternative free from oppression and hatred!
The weakness of the left-wing movement and parties in Lebanon, as well as internationally, means a greater opening for right-wing and conservative ideas and groups. Although the LGBTQIA+ movement in many countries is on the defensive, pushed back, or sometimes has even had to go underground, it is clear that the issues that drive people to action have not disappeared. On the contrary. The wave of attacks on LGBTQIA+ individuals worldwide, comes on top of the day-to-day crises that queer working-class people face.
Clearly, the global phenomenon of backlash and the capitalist system at the root of it require a a coordinated response and international solidarity. As shown in the film Pride about the growing solidarity between striking workers and LGBTQIA+ persons in their joint struggle against Thatcher, it is in struggle that people lose their prejudices faster, it is in struggle that it becomes clear who are our real allies and who are our real enemies. The working class, like LGBTQIA+ people, has nothing to gain from the divide and rule tactics of the exploitative elite. It, like LGBTQIA+ persons, has everything to gain from a society that invests the wealth the working class itself produces in health care (free, accessible health care and a stop to all waiting lists that endanger our health), in education (including for decent sex education), in social housing and decent jobs (so that no one has to fear running the risk of ending up in poverty or on the streets for being themselves), in social and cultural organisations,…
For such a society, we organise, locally, regionally and internationally, in a militant LGBTQIA+ movement capable of countering right-wing attacks with a program that can unite the working class and fight for a classless society free of oppression and exploitation. If you want to help organise that struggle, contact Rosa International Socialist Feminists or ISA (International Socialist Alternative)!
