Beef, alcohol and homosexuality...

Beef
Most Hindus around the world do not eat beef, and have an abhorrence of any contact with beef; some do not eat pork and others are vegeterian. Vegeterianism is a Hindu ideal.. and one which I hope to ascribe to someday.

Last year while helping out at the wonderful Wildlife Festival in the Rupununi, I found myself in the 'kitchen' as I always do, helping out (or being helped out since there was a need to ensure diplomacy and tact in that offering the help did not mean that the manager was incapable of managing). So, beef was on the menu, and farine or bread. And I found myself standing up, tall in a place with many people who are not so tall with a hunk of beef over my head and the juices dripping on me..

So I managed my morals and said okay, I will help out by not serving the beef, but by serving the other things and that I would ensure that my head did not bounce into the hunk of beef above me. One of my Hindu friends was shocked that I would even be near it and said sewa or no sewa (service).. he would not have been anywhere near beef.

I know many vegetarians who have maintained their diet in extreme circumstances .. even when others have the excuse 'but dem aint got nuttin else to eat.."

I have all sorts of excuses for why I am not vegetarian as yet - I am lazy to cook for myself; I am attached to fry fish and bread and the one which is true is that  since I have  a tendency to rabid activism.. that I would be trying to close down abbatoirs and promoting environmental consciousness (Apparently President Jagdeo and other environmental activists could do a lot more to save the earth if they stopped eating beef and other meat)

The rabid activism against alcohol consumption in Guyana consumes enough energy (which is not replenished by my meat eating habits). Taking on another windmill would not be good for my soul. Arite i know, this is a pathetic excuse for not going vegetarian.


Alcohol
I stopped drinking alcohol after joining Help & Shelter . In the early days, we used to say that there is no correlation between alcohol use and the violence (using the North American statistics) but the communities , the women especially believed differently. This was especially so in the 'closed' "Indian" communities which apparently resist any outsider interventions.   Other men have made similar decisions - Ravi Dev writes about his own experience.

Many of the people I know drink, and some not so nice people I know do not drink. I find myself in alcohol spaces from time to time such as at the SASOD Film Festival which is held in a place where alcohol is sold. I had purchased 100 shares in DDL a long time ago.. and I went to one AGM to ask that the company take seriously the effects of alcohol in the community but the proposal was laughed down. I could still go again.. following the example of the Sisters of St Francis of Philadelphia who have led the way in American shareholder activism for promoting change.
In the recent discussion around alcohol use at Feminition, I called for it be alcohol free. Andaiye's articulates the reasons why in ways which I never could.
I also asked Help & Shelter to withdraw from Feminition because of the need to make a strong statement about the connection between alcohol use and the destruction of the lives of many Guyanese women.
Help & Shelter decided not to withdraw. I resigned from Help & Shelter because I felt that it was important to also address systemic issues which contribute to our culture of violence.


Some have praised me for my principles.. others have said that I should see the greater good. I talked to a friend who is thinking through a separation in the marriage.. I found myself making the same 'dont leave' arguments to him.. that others were making to me about dialoguing, etc etc.

  (I am a conservative family values man at heart.. and don't like to see nice people part ways especially if children are there but I also know that staying together for the children does more damage than finding a way to live apart while still being there for the children)

Advocacy and activism rely on the use of opportunities to assert principles and if we are going to promote change, then I think we have to assert those principles.


Feminition is over, the violence continues.. and the use of alcohol would continue to be a problem for Guyana.

This thing about principles though and how we deal with them.. sometimes one could withdraw.. sometimes one cannot..


Homosexuality
Last night, SASOD screened the documentary My Wardrobe My Right and had an interactive discussion after the screening. I asked the panel (with Peaches, Gulliver, Joel Simpson and Neil  Marks - the producer) about where they felt God was in all of this since SASOD is accused of being Godless. In the responses, Peaches and Gulliver talked about the hypocrisy of those who judge them. Joel said he felt that the documentary was "God-blessed" . Neil said that he is a Jehovah Witness, and I understood him to say that he was doing his job  - that he was doing what SASOD wanted him /paid him to do.
I heard him say that he believes in the Bible and has his moral code.
The Jehovah Witness moral code includes among other things that "The Bible is clear: God does not approve of or condone homosexual practices. He also disapproves of people who “consent with those practicing them.” (Romans 1:32)" One of the December 2010 Watchtower Society publications had a discussion about the sins of homosexuals and homosexuality and loving the sinner and condmning the sin.

SASOD has people of different religious persuasions and we interact with faith on various levels. I wrote this article in Hinduism Today, one of the most widely read Hindu magazines. (There are many errors in the introduction and other parts of the article) . Matters of life and death cannot be down to just doing a good job.

What is the point of doing that job, when in personal time, there is a distribution of the views which fuel the hatred .. in Guyana sin is something evil and the LGBT community when pelted and assaulted, are assaulted by people who are doing what they feel is their God given right to do so.

No matter how polite the words sound (love the sinner, not the sin) those words have been used to destroy LGBT people.

One of my friends got pissed off and said that is why she fed up with SASOD.. no f....k..g politics and that they encourage s..t .

She walked out of the film festival .

I guess kind of how I walked out of Help & Shelter but with a more quick decision.

How then does an organisation deal with the work it has to do, when the people who do the work do not believe in its mission and objectives? Do we hire people or pay people who after they collect our money go and undermine the mission?

At what stage do we separate from groups and organisations.. that when our principles might be the same, that there are problems in how we adhere and work to achieve those principles?

Or do we celebrate that perhaps.. even in doing the job, that there are people who are violating their own moral codes and who might contribute to changing the views from within?    And what if they don't? Do we abandon them? How do we tell those good workers that the output of their work is not just 'satisfied' customers and that the most important work they can do is to actually share our mission and values and help to perpetuate them?

One of my  Muslim friends spoke last night about talking to her daughter about her lesbian friend . In October 2005, we had two clergy men and their wives at one of our screenings. We also had a Pastor who sat down to engage.. and argue.. about the SASOD agenda and so on. The discussions had continued long after the film had finished and I believe he had changed. We had a film one year in which two priests switched positions (one was in a gay friendly church, the other in a not-gay friendly church ) and how they come to realise the dilemmas each other faced.



Principles and pragmatism
Last night a man talked about how in his young days he used to discriminate against LGBT people, but now that is changing and he came to the film festival.
When he asked his questions, some people laughed and tried to shut him up. I was glad he came.. and talked about that process, because sometimes people have to move through their own processes for change. I was angry on hearing Neil's response and thinking of the other social workers and health care workers who do a miserable job in attending to the needs of the people they see.. and also thinking that they 'just doing a job'

On the other hand though.. this seventh Film Festival.. has seen people who have moved in from the outside, who have come from the first time, who might not come again.. and who have taken up and asserted progressive positions which we would never have imagined.

And if I had chased them away or cussed them up when they first came to SASOD, those changes would not have happened for them.