DEPARTURE GATE, Damascus airport: a young Arab man in jeans, T-shirt and the latest style of trainers is leaving on a flight to London. He passes through final security checks, puts down his bag, takes something out and fiddles furtively in a corner. No, he is not preparing to hijack the plane; he is putting rings in his ears. When he arrives in London the tiny gold rings will become a fashion statement that is un-remarkable and shocks no one, but back home in Damascus it’s different. Arab men, real Arab men, do not wear jewellery in their ears.
This is one small example of the double life that Arabs, especially the younger ones, increasingly lead – of a growing gap between the requirements of society and life as it is actually lived, between keeping up appearances in the name of tradition or respectability and the things people do in private or when away from home.
For many, the pretence of complying with the rules is no more than a minor irritation. Men who like earrings can put them in or take them out at will, but sometimes it’s more complicated. Arab society usually expects women to be virgins when they marry. That doesn’t stop them having sex with boyfriends but it means that when the time comes to marry many of them will have an operation to restore their virginity – and with it their respectability. There is no medical solution, however, when a boy grows up too feminine for the expectations of a macho culture. When he is mocked for his girlish mannerisms but can do nothing to control them, when his family beat him and ostracise him and accuse him of bringing shame upon their household, the result is despair and sometimes tragedy.
This book was inspired – if that is the right word – by an event in 2001 when Egyptian police raided the Queen Boat, a floating night club on the River Nile which was frequented by men attracted to other men. Several dozen were arrested on the boat or later. The arrests, the resulting trial, and the attendant publicity in the Egyptian press (much of it highly fanciful) wrecked numerous lives, all in the name of moral rectitude. It was one of the few recent occasions when homosexuality has attracted widespread public attention from the Arab media.
Some time afterwards, while visiting Cairo as a correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, I met two people intimately connected with the case: a defendant who had since been released and the partner of another defendant who was still in jail. At that stage I was thinking of writing a feature article, but later I met a young Egyptian activist (identified as ‘Salim’ elsewhere in this book). As we chatted over lunch, our conversation moved on from the Queen Boat case to questions of homosexuality in the wider Arab world. He seemed very knowledgeable and I remarked casually: ‘You should write a book about it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You should write one.’
I mulled this over for several months. It was clearly time for someone to raise the issue in a serious way but, as Salim had indicated, it was difficult for Arabs – at least those living in the region – to do so. Foreign correspondents such as myself often write books about the Middle East, though they tend to be about wars or the big, newsworthy events: Palestine, Iraq, and so on. I had no desire to follow that well-worn path, but this was one topic that would break new ground as well as some long-standing taboos. Homosexuality was a subject that Arabs, even reform-minded Arabs, were generally reluctant to discuss. If mentioned at all, it was treated as a subject for ribald laughter or (more often) as a foul, unnatural, repulsive, un-Islamic, Western perversion. Since almost everyone agreed on that, there was no debate – which was one very good reason for writing about it.
My primary concern in this book is with the Arab countries (though it also includes some discussion of Iran and Israel) but to try to give a country-by-country picture would be both impractical and repetitive. Instead, I wanted to highlight the issues that are faced throughout the region, to a greater or lesser degree, by Arabs whose sexuality does not fit the public concepts of ‘normal’. Most of the face-to-face research was done in Egypt and Lebanon – two countries that provide interesting contrasts. This was supplemented from a variety of other sources including news reports, correspondence by email, articles in magazines and academic journals, discussions published on websites, plus a review of the way homosexuality is treated in the Arabic media, in novels and in films.
One basic issue that I have sought to explain is the reluctance of Arab societies to tolerate homosexuality or even to acknowledge that it exists. This has not always been the case. Historically, Arab societies have been relatively tolerant of sexual diversity – perhaps more so than others. Evidence of their previous tolerance can be found in Arabic literary works, in the accounts of early travellers and the examples of Europeans who settled in Arab countries to escape sexual persecution at home. Despite the more hostile moral climate today, however, same-sex activity continues largely undeterred. This is not quite as paradoxical as it might seem. As with many other things that are forbidden in Arab society, appearances are what count; so long as everyone can pretend that it doesn’t happen, there is no need to do anything stop it. That scarcely amounts to tolerance and the effects, unfortunately, are all too obvious. People whose sexuality does not fit the norm have no legal rights; they are condemned to a life of secrecy, fearing exposure and sometimes blackmail; many are forced into unwanted marriages for the sake of their family’s reputation; there is no redress if they are discriminated against; and agencies providing advice on sexuality and related health matters are virtually non-existent.
A point to be made clear from the outset is that Arabs who engage in same-sex activities do not necessarily regard themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. Some do, but many (probably the vast majority) do not. This is partly because the boundaries of sexuality are less clearly defined than in the West but also because Arab society is more concerned with sexual acts than sexual orientations or identities. Although it is generally accepted in many parts of the world that sexual orientation is neither a conscious choice nor anything that can be changed voluntarily, this idea has not yet taken hold in Arab countries – with the result that homosexuality tends to be viewed either as wilfully perverse behaviour or as a symptom of mental illness, and dealt with accordingly.
A further complication in the Middle East is that attitudes towards homosexuality (along with women’s rights and human rights in general) have become entangled in international politics, forming yet another barrier to social progress. Cultural protectionism is one way of opposing Western policies that are viewed as domineering, imperialistic, etc, and so exaggerated images of a licentious West, characterised in the popular imagination by female nudity and male homosexuality, are countered by invoking a supposedly traditional Arab morality.
To portray such attitudes as collective homophobia misses the mark, however. They are part of the overall fabric and cannot be addressed in isolation: they are intimately linked to other issues – political, social, religious and cultural – that must all be confronted if there is ever to be genuine reform. One of the core arguments of this book, therefore, is that sexual rights are not only a basic element of human rights but should have an integral part in moves towards Arab reform, too. Open discussion of sexuality can also bring other reform-related issues into sharper focus.
Many of the Arabs that I interviewed were deeply pessimistic about the likelihood of significant change, though personally I have always been more hopeful. In countries where sexual diversity is now tolerated and respected the prospects must have looked similarly bleak in the past. The denunciations of sexual non-conformity emanating from the Arab world today are also uncannily similar, in both their tone and their arguments, to those that were heard in other places years ago … and ultimately rejected.
Unspeakable Love was first published in 2006. Since then, I have continued following developments in the Middle East and this second edition brings the picture up to date. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the situation on the ground has improved much, though there seems to be more recognition that homosexuality does exist in the Arab countries – which is a start. Where opportunities have arisen, gay and lesbian Arabs have become more visible and assertive, with some of them writing blogs. Several new publications have appeared, either in print or on the internet, and the number of Arab LGBT organisations has grown – though with the exception of Lebanon they still tend to be based outside their home countries.
Many people have helped with this work by offering their time for discussions, providing contacts, reading drafts of the text and suggesting improvements. For obvious reasons, most would prefer not to be thanked by name but I am grateful to them all, nonetheless.
Since the main object of this book is to stimulate debate, readers who wish to take part in further discussion can do so by visiting the relevant section of my website, www.al-bab.com/unspeakablelove. The footnotes are also available there in an online version which provides easy access to web pages mentioned in the text.
I might add, for the benefit of any readers whose native language is not English, that Unspeakable Love is also available in Arabic (Al-Hubb al-Mamnu’a) published by Dar al Saqi and from other publishers in French (Parias: gays et lesbiennes dans le monde arabe), Italian (L’amore che non si puo dire), Spanish (Amor sin nombre) and Swedish (Onämnbar Kärlek).
Brian Whitaker
March 2011