Notes on the rainbow flag, neocolonialism, and capitalism

Klapeer and Laskar 2018, Transnational ways of belonging and queer ways of being. Exploring transnationalism through the trajectories of the rainbow flag

• the rainbow flag is waved in pride parades and LGBTIQ related events all over the globe – in Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Johannesburg, Taipei, Berlin, San Francisco, and in many more cities and venues – even though the political struggles, contexts and intentions of the activists and participants do differ.
• the rainbow flag is also becoming increasingly entangled with the emergence of homo(trans) nationalist configurations (see Puar 2007) and what Haritaworn, Erdem, Tauqir have termed ‘gay imperialism’ – the racialised usage of LGBTIQ friendliness as an indicator for (western) modernity, civilization and development (Haritaworn, Erdem, Tauqir 2008; Klapeer 2018). Thus, the emergence and global circulation of the rainbow flag, or rainbow items, can be analysed as a highly ambivalent process shaped by neoliberal, capitalist, but also homonational and neo/colonial formations and logics.
• Thus, not everyone who engages in queer ways of being necessarily identifies with the rainbow flag as a symbol of a particular way of queer belonging, but rather may reject this symbol (for instance, the rainbow flag might be perceived as too much connected to a ‘moderate’ or white LGBTIQ movement).
• the links between the rainbow flag and homonationalist projects and homonormative policies in for example the US, Israel and Europe (see Puar 2002; Duggan 2003). As a significant consequence, several scholars and activists have an ambivalent relationship to the rainbow flag. Some regard the rainbow flag as a sign of a growing globalised commercialisation, homonormalisation, whitewashing and commodification of queer cultures. The flag is also seen as a symbol for a new sexual neo/colonialism, gay imperialism as well as Islamophobia enacted and promoted by states besides LGBTIQ organisations from, and in, the Global North (Altman 1996a; Bacchetta and Haritaworn 2011; Massad 2007; Puar 2007).
• the local is not simply a negotiation of the transnational and related hegemonies, rather it is entangled in it in complex and messy ways, opening up for multifaceted understandings of the relationship between queerness, transnationalism and floating symbols like the rainbow flag (Grewal and Kaplan 2001). It is therefore highly problematic to locate the rainbow flag only in the Westernised transnational space, and to perceive all those who use the flag, particularly those situated in the Global South and East, as passive victims of its hegemonic meaning (Grewal and Kaplan 2001, 671). The rainbow flag is therefore less of a representation of stable or prediscursive universal queer identities and more of a floating signifier which becomes interpreted, used and contested with regard to particular places, situations, and political struggles (see Laskar, Johansson, and Mulinari 2016; Alm and Martinsson 2016).

Laskar et al 2017, Decolonising the Rainbow Flag

• the rainbow flag is given a multitude of original and radical different meanings that may challenge the colonial/Eurocentric notions which up to a certain extent are embedded in the rainbow flag
• Puar convincingly shows how queer discourses are incorporated into the US post-9-11 ethos as a regulatory norm aiming at the racialisation of Muslims as terrorists, dangerous radical individuals belonging to repressive and patriarchal cultures.
• The decolonial reading of the rainbow flag carried out in this work suggests that the flag as a symbol is far from fixed; rather, it is given a multitude of innovative and radical different meanings. Moreover, in the second and third case, it is obvious that rather than passively producing responses, the actors are creatively and collectively producing alternative definitions and politics from their specific locations and positionings – definitions that potentially challenge and destabilise the colonial/ Eurocentric notions embedded in the rainbow flag.
• In the first case, the rainbow flag is used to construct a homophobic Syrian Assyrian Other as a counter-image to homonationalistic Swedishness.
• In both contexts of the Global South (Palestine and Buenos Aires), the symbolic meaning of the rainbow flag is expanded
• The rainbow mural painted on the Apartheid Wall in Palestine contests the separation between issues of LGTBIQ rights and the military occupation of Palestine, which is fundamental to the national project of Israel.
• The researcher finds herself hoping that no rainbow flags are visible in any restaurants, because the activists’ veto targets the main restaurants with rainbow flags. […] Why the avoidance of restaurants displaying the rainbow flag by these two lesbian-identified feminist activists who had been carrying impressively large rainbow flags for hours, who had cried and cried when the votes showed on the screen that “we” were winning and the law allowing same-sex couples to get married was about to be passed? After everybody has ordered the first beer Julia states: “[…] They want the flag but they do not want our bodies. […] If you respect the flag, you do not put it in a window together with the menu.”

Muth 2019, Arab LGBTQ Subjects: Trapped Between Universalism and Particularity?

• a split regarding LGBTQ rights in a global context. Western concepts have tried to be implemented on a universal scale in global forums such as the UN. In this respect, concepts of sexuality stemming from the global North have been diffused by Western states and international organizations by deploying the ideas of homonationalism and homocolonialism. At the same time, resistance from non-Western countries, especially from the MENA region, is ubiquitous. They utilize the concept of Western exceptionalism for their purposes. […] As a consequence, many of the activists stated that they do not want to come out or, even if they would like to go public, they do not do this because they know that “it will backfire more than it creates change” (Human Rights Watch, 2018a, p. 50).
• The discourse about LGBTQ rights is no longer solely occupied and dominated by Western states and NGOs but it is resituated in the MENA region. Pan-Arabic LGBTQ activisms can thus be seen as a successful counterhegemonic intervention (Birdal, 2015). Transnational movements have the capability to relocate LGBTQ issues in a local rather than a global context and thereby emphasize the particularity of a respective region. Hence, thinking about global LGBTQ rights movements have to be rethought in terms of transnational LGBTQ movements.