BUS 449 Post 9

Dear Reader,

Let me introduce to you Maxim Martsinkevich, a Russian neo-Nazi activist and his organization “Occupy Pedophilia” which is incredibly popular in Russia and has over 90,000 followers in social network website. The main preoccupation of the group is a witch –hunting of LGBT community. Don’t be confused with the name; Occupy Pedophilia intentionally targets homosexuals as a way of cleansing population and protecting moral innocence of future generations.

Activists of “Occupy Pedophilia” use social network VKontakte as means to connect with young homosexuals posing as potential date in order to meet them and make a humiliating video that would later be posted on the aforementioned site. Despite universal awareness, some are still falling for the trick due to desperation or other reasons. After three hours of watching the videos of caught victims, one could witness the evolution of their methods of “treating” homosexuals from their illness. One of the more popular methods is so-called “urinotherapy”, when the boy is forced to drink urine and thus somehow cleanse himself. This method has gained certain popularity and LGBT activists cite bottles with urine as one of the common items thrown at them. Even though those videos sometimes get banned, they still are being shared on other sites without any obstacles and cause suicide rates among teenagers increase. This is what Occupy leader says about their procedures: “Let his life be broken by our methods, than by growing up to be a homosexual and selling himself for money. I do not care about their future. But they definitely shouldn’t expect an easy life after that”.

If you haven’t had enough of such monstrous hatred and violence, here is an article for you.

BUS 449 Post 8

Dear Reader,

I am sure you have heard bad news about what happened in Uganda. On 24 of February the President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni signed the bill called Anti-Homosexuality Act which “prohibits any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex and the promotion or recognition of such relations”. Originally, the punishment for engaging in “aggravated homosexuality” (defined as repeated gay sex between consenting adults and acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner was infected with HIV) was death penalty but it was “mercifully” changed to lifetime imprisonment. The law has already sparked violence where prominent gay activist David Kato was murdered after the list with top 100 homosexuals was published.

The President claims that he signed the bill into the law after his “team of scientists” showed that homosexual orientation is not a genetic disorder but rather a matter of choice. Here we need to remember that homosexuality was criminalized even before this law was enacted. This brings up a question: Why would anybody DELIBERATELY CHOOSE being a homosexual if it is clear that homosexuality is not only strongly opposed by Ugandan society but also is considered a crime?

Clearly this argument is absurd just like believing that gays want to recruit children and destroy the society. Many believe that Museveni did it to ensure public support for the upcoming election. At the same time he strongly dislikes gay people saying “They're disgusting. What sort of people are they?”

Many Ugandan homosexuals have fled the country in a fear of prosecution and I suspect there will be more willing to escape the country where freedom of choice is not a human right.

BUS 449 Post 7

Dear reader,

I want to continue with the Stephen Fry’s documentary “Out There”. Another country that Fry visited was Mother Russia. Unlike in Brazil, the situation with homophobia is on the other side of spectrum.

In Russia, government becomes more and more conservative, and the Orthodox Church is the most powerful institution in the country. Saint Petersburg – city that used to have reputation of being the most liberal – was the first to adopt anti-propaganda law, created by deputy Vitaly Milonov. As you may already know, according to his law it became illegal to promote homosexuality to minors. I believe everyone agrees that children are underage minors who unable to make rational decisions, therefore they cannot consent, and an attempt to force them into any sexually-related activity is illegal and has to be prevented. However, according to officials’ minds, the word “propaganda” has much broader meaning that aforementioned definition. Educating children of possibility of different sexuality is also considered to be illegal even though some of them start feeling that they might be gay. So now gay parents break law every day as the promote homosexuality to their own children. To highlight how absurd the law is, Fry comments: “I have never ever wanted anybody to become gay who is not gay. Just as I am English and I have never wanted anybody to become English”.

Deputy Milonov, who is currently training to become a priest, truly believes that he can save generations from being gay by banning gay propaganda. However, the result of this law is that there are so many children who attempted suicide because of their sexuality but offering them information and support is now illegal for everybody, including teachers, psychologists, and even their parents.

Here is a link to the interview where you can hear all ridiculous things he said by yourself

BUS 449 Post 6

Dear Reader,

This post will be about a documentary “Out There” that I have watched, made by Stephen Fry, a well-known British celebrity. In the film he travels from country to country and evaluates how people treat people, in particular, the level of homophobia in the society.

One of the countries he traveled to was Brazil. It is one of the few countries where gay people have full legal equality with straight people; marriage is one of the rights as well. Such decision was made by Brazilian governmental officials unanimously, with no abstentions. Also, according to Guinness World Records, Brazil holds the world’s biggest Gay Pride Parade in a city of Sao Paulo.

Recently, new political debate has arisen where children were at the center of the discussion. New law was formulated but not yet implemented – the law prohibiting homophobia. It would introduce obligatory anti-homophobia classes in middle school where teenagers would learn about what damage homophobia causes.

Of course, there is a conservative party that wishes to prevent the law from being implemented and the leader of this party is interviewed by Stephen Fry. The main argument raised was that “no father would ever take pride in having a gay son” to which Fry replied that “the only reason parents might be unhappy is when they know that there is homophobia in society, therefore, this child may be bullied. However, if there is no homophobia, there is no pressure or abuse of children which makes both parents and children happy.”

The most common story that we can here is that evil gay people persuade and recruit children to become one of them and then abuse them. In fact, such lies create nothing but hysteria among uneducated from which violence can grow because you only hate when you are ignorant and afraid.  Perhaps anti-homophobia law is something all countries should think about and I hope this law eventually will pass.

Fun fact from zoology: there are 480 animal species that exhibit homosexual behavior but only one species of animal on the Earth that exhibits homophobic behavior. (So think twice before using “being normal” in your argument.)

BUS 449 Post 5

Dear Reader,

Today I want to talk about love and the beauty of it. I truly believe that everybody deserves to be loved no matter how this person identifies himself/herself. I was inspired to write about this after I have watched a video where Andrew Solomon talks about his experience working with deaf people. He says: “I had thought of deafness entirely as an illness. Those poor people, they couldn't hear. They lacked hearing and what could we do for them? And then I went out into the deaf world. I went to deaf clubs. I saw performances of deaf theater and of deaf poetry. I even went to the Miss Deaf America contest.” The point he tries to make here is that we tend to perceive people that are different from us in a certain way or a view, as a minority which we antagonize ourselves from both intentionally and unintentionally. We think of deaf people with pity while, in fact, they can be perfectly happy, having their own culture, family, communities etc. What he proposes is that we need to learn how to accept people who differ from us in a certain way or whose views mismatch ours as we are equal. There is no difference whether a person is deaf or blind or a dwarf…or a gay. We are all human beings, we all have feelings and we desperately need love.

Fortunately, and I think you agree with me, nowadays we can see the change in our perception of how we treat those people. We are raised with understanding that some people are a little bit different and we have learned from our childhood to accept them. As an example, here is a paragraph from the Time magazine in 1966:

"Even in purely non-religious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of the sexual faculty. It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality - a pitiable flight from life. As such, it deserves no compassion, it deserves no treatment as minority martyrdom, and it deserves not to be deemed anything but a pernicious sickness."

In 2014 we see that the same country (Time is an American magazine) not only tolerates but also defends same sex marriage. The illness has transformed to the identity and I think it is a big step in a social development. People are starting to understand that it is not a big deal if somebody is different from you. You still can love and be loved.

What I am trying to say to you, reader, is don’t be afraid to love, love no matter what! It doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight, deaf or blind…love! And if one day you realize that your child is different, I beg you to accept this difference. After all, the love you have for your children is like no other feeling in the world, right?

Here is the full speech of Andrew Solomon if you are interested.

Post 4

Dear reader,
As you have probably heard, today we had a screening of documentary “Young and Gay in Putin’s Russia” by VICE magazine. The description to the movie is:

“When Russian President Vladimir Putin banned gay "propaganda" in June last year, Russia's LGBT community went from being a stigmatized fringe group to full-blown enemies of the state. Homophobia becoming legislation means it’s now not only accepted in Russia but actively encouraged, which has led to a depressing rise in homophobic attacks and murders.The main aim of the law, which essentially bans any public display of homosexuality, is to prevent minors from getting the impression that being gay is normal. This means that, if you’re young and gay in Putin’s Russia, you’re ostracized and cut off from any kind of legal support network.”

It’s the second time I was watching it but still I couldn't stay emotionless during the screening. It shows all the horror gay people (especially teenagers) have to go through living in Russia. Keep in mind that my message here is that people suffer and we do need to stop it. I do not say that Russia is the only country that ignores the rights of its citizen, no; there are many other countries in the world that have the same issues. I want to talk about Russia because it is MY country, I was born there, I grew up there, and my whole family lives there. Anti-gay law does not directly affect ME but it affects people I deeply care about. This law is not the first one that to some extend limits people’s rights. And I am afraid it is not the last one. Who knows, maybe next time I will be oppressed and who will stand up for me? Gay people haven’t done anything wrong but they suffer only because their views do not match ours. So, what if my view will become one of those unaccepted ones (let’s use our imagination and, say, substitute the word “gay” with “atheist”)? Just ask yourself this question, reader.
You all know Niemöller’s poem: 

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
There was no one left to speak out.

Also, if you missed the screening but want to watch it, here is the link.

BUS 449 Post 3

Dear reader,

I hope you watched the opening ceremony of Olympic Games in Sochi and enjoyed a beautiful show! Ignore those who complain about minor defects. It was astonishing!

In the meantime, as you may know from AUBG e-mail or Facebook, our students decided to make a one-day trip to Sofia in order to lay a basket with flowers on the doorsteps of Russian Embassy. Flowers were accompanied with an open letter to the Government.

More than 30 people from 13 countries signed the letter and supported initiative, however there were a lot of hateful and derogatory remarks about the idea.

One of the top senseless comments was questioning how those, who have signed the open letter do not understand that this “stupid letter won’t even reach Moscow”. Well, in response to such weak attempt I can say that the purpose of the open letter is not reaching certain place but rather attracting attention of a wide audience.

Another comment was sending this message: from all the injustices and misfortunes that Russian people suffer from (high level of corruption, unemployment, low income, etc.) how dare AUBGers be concerned with just human rights violation! Although words of the message were reasonable worry, call to not to join the group think was a bit too far. Who knew what did the person think when saying this?

Anyways, I was one of the students who supported the idea and decided to go. To my surprise everything went very smoothly despite the fact that Embassies are very cautious about foreign objects being left nearby them. So we made lots of pictures and left the bouquet in the close by park.

P.S. There is still time if you want to sign the letter. It will be available until Monday and you can find it at the front desk of your Skapto.

BUS 449 Post 2

Dear Reader,

Congrats with making it to the second post! Keep up the good work!

A lot of interesting things are happening this week in the world but the biggest event of this week is, of course, the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi. We are all excited about games and a great show, that is a fabulous end of a campaign where even the Olympic torch had to travel more than any other person on earth (and out of it).

However, not everything is as rosy as every one of us, but especially Mr. Putin wants it to be. A dark cloud on this bright blue sky appeared to be a number of protests and boycotts that demand Olympics to be banned. Sochi is facing many obstacles and problems, but among the rest the most important are: one third of the dedicated amount of money is gone as a result of a corruption; stray animals are being poisoned or shot so they don’t run into a stadium during the game; and, of course, the new-born legislature that makes LGBT propaganda illegal, and, therefore, effectively puts homosexual sportsmen and visitors in danger. (Note: according to the law, holding hands in public is propaganda as well.)

One of the first individuals who spoke about the latter issue was British celebrity Stephen Fry, who wrote “An Open Letter to David Cameron and the IOC” asking to ban the Olympics over the anti-gay laws. Numerous online campaigns and petitions also occur, but it looks like nothing really had been changed.

Fun fact: the mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov, claims there are no gay people in the city. Who knows what he bases his theories on, considering the fact that there are several gay bars that somehow survived in business environment and have revenue? As there are no gay people in Sochi, therefore everyone [Games guests] should “respect the laws of the Russian Federation and do not impose their habits on others”. And this is what amuses me the most in his interview.

"There are no gay people in Sochi." 

Anatoly Pakhomov

It's worth remembering that the Olympic Games are not about politics - they are about peaceful international competition, in the spirit of unity. In that spirit, let's all root for a happy, safe and prosperous Olympics. In this positive note, please follow here for an uplifting video.