Albania is the 'most anti-gay' country in Europe

[Flying Purple People Eater]

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/albania-most-anti-gay-country-europe260313


Albania is the 'most anti-gay' country in Europe

Data from the European Social Survey has deemed Albania to be the most homophobic country in Europe above conservative neighbors


26 MARCH 2013 | BY DAN BEESON

http://www.gaystarnews.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/400xY/Albania.png
Albanian Prime Minster, Sali Berisha, passed the anti-discrimination law in 2010, protecting LGBT members.

Albania is being called the most homophobic European country with 53% of participants are against homosexuality, according to a new survey published today (26 March).

The European Social Survey (ESS), established in 2001, intends to track the changing trends of social attitudes in European countries and is conducted every two years.

In Albania, it found 95% of participants said they had not lived with a partner before marriage.

Apart from Croatia, the survey does not include countries in the Western Balkans of Europe, where homophobia is arguably stronger.

In both Albania and Croatia, gay people who live together are not given the same legal protection as their straight counterparts.

The most liberal ESS results came from Sweden and the Netherlands, with only 3% of participants believing ‘gays and lesbians should not be free to live life as they wish’.

Kristi Pinderi, from LGBT Pro Albania, said he felt there was not enough participants in the survey to get a real idea of the country's attitude to homosexuality.

Speaking to Gay Star News, he said: ‘I believe participation is needed from everyone. That is the first step to knowing the [full] situation.’

The Open Society Foundation, who conducts the survey for Albania, said, for the country’s size, the amount of participants is ‘considered representative on a national scale’.

Albanian gay activist, Xheni Karaj, says their society ‘often perceives [being gay] as a phenomenon imported from developed countries.’

In 2009, Albania’s Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, publically announced his support for the recognition of same-sex civil marriages and cohabitation. However, the 2010 anti-discrimination law had no detail of any proposed plans.

In 2010, however, the Albanian government unanimously passed anti-discrimination laws to protect its LGBT members, one of few European countries to do so, encouraging questioning over the survey's validity.

In comparison, anti-discrimantory laws do not exist for LGBT members in Russia. In some regions, there are 'gay propaganda' laws banning gay people from expressing their views in public.

The ESS survey was rolled out in Albania for the first time in 2012 and surveyed 1200 people.

- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/albania-most-anti-gay-country-europe260313#sthash.nEwAOOr8.dpuf

[Misericordia]

Oh, the irony. Albania used to be the most gay-friendly country in Europe until Hoxhaism. Every second Albanian man(an "ashik"), before he married a woman in his mid-20s and started a family, would court a male youth(a "dyllber"). They would even have these gay marriage ceremonies called "vellamerias".

[Questionable]

Oh, the irony. Albania used to be the most gay-friendly country in Europe until Hoxhaism. Every second Albanian man(an "ashik"), before he married a woman in his mid-20s and started a family, would court a male youth(a "dyllber"). They would even have these gay marriage ceremonies called "vellamerias".

Those ritual customs are a little bit different than homosexuality as it is understood today.

This will probably start a shitstorm, but I'll just say it; people who think LBGT rights are the only thing that matters are pseudo-leftists. Yes, it's a shame that Albania and Russia were confined to their historical periods and could not predict the wave of gay rights that did not exist in their countries at that time, but there are other things that they did extremely well.

LBGT rights should be considered in its connection to the class struggle. If not, we could easily praise imperialist nations like America for their recent progressive policies on homosexuality, while condemning actual socialist countries for not having them (despite there not being any widespread movements for LBGT rights in Russia or Albania at the time).

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Oh, the irony. Albania used to be the most gay-friendly country in Europe until Hoxhaism. Every second Albanian man(an "ashik"), before he married a woman in his mid-20s and started a family, would court a male youth(a "dyllber"). They would even have these gay marriage ceremonies called "vellamerias".

I don't see what the tribal practices of pre PPSh Albania have to do with the blatant homophobia that's swept through the country. Is this a defense of Hoxha?

Hopefully I'm just being paranoid here, but I swear you sound as if you're alluding to homosexuals being pedophiles in this post. As a homosexual person, I can fully assure you that this is not the case, and no amount of historical allusion to Greek rapists who rounded up young boys or Japanese Buddhists who did the same (as some backwards leftists like to peddle to keep their bias alive) changes this fact.


This will probably start a shitstorm, but I'll just say it; people who think LBGT rights are the only thing that matters are pseudo-leftists.

I don't think people do think this way at all, but I do agree with you. However, people who use lines like yours to ignore LGBT rights issues are not much better. Because if that is the case, then who are they to claim that LGBT rights are a worthless ideological trap when they themselves are not gay!? When they have not experienced the ridiculous and arbitrary social discrimination that comes with being gay?


Yes, it's a shame that Albania and Russia were confined to their historical periods and could not predict the wave of gay rights that did not exist in their countries at that time, but there are other things that they did extremely well.
.

I don't understand how this relates to the context of the thread. This doesn't even concern Hoxha's Albania or the USSR. And even if you did, why are you so apologetic? Why not admit that the draconian laws against homosexuality in both countries were just that: disgusting draconian laws?

People could argue that Columbus was a product of his time, but he was still a mass-murdering, genocidal, deluded former slave-owner and devout Christian jihadi. Not trying to say that the two soviet-era leaders were equivalent to Columbus (that would be ridiculous), but why the cushioning of Stalin's bigotry with vague flimsy references to other accomplishments?

[Remus Bleys]

I don't see what the tribal practices of pre PPSh Albania have to do with the blatant homophobia that's swept through the country. Is this a defense of Hoxha?

Hopefully I'm just being paranoid here, but I swear you sound as if you're alluding to homosexuals being pedophiles in this post. As a homosexual person, I can fully assure you that this is not the case, and no amount of historical allusion to Greek rapists who rounded up young boys or Japanese Buddhists who did the same (as some backwards leftists like to peddle to keep their bias alive) changes this fact.I think you are being paranoid. I think what he said was that homosexuality was seen as an okay thing until Hoxha.



I don't think people do think this way at all, but I do agree with you. However, people who use lines like yours to ignore LGBT rights issues are not much better. Because if that is the case, then who are they to claim that LGBT rights are a worthless ideological trap when they themselves are not gay!? When they have not experienced the ridiculous and arbitrary social discrimination that comes with being gay?



I don't understand how this relates to the context of the thread. This doesn't even concern Hoxha's Albania or the USSR. And even if you did, why are you so apologetic? Why not admit that the draconian laws against homosexuality in both countries were just that: disgusting draconian laws?That would be admitting Hoxha did have failings that can't be brushed aside.

[synthesis]

Albanian gay activist, Xheni Karaj, says their society ‘often perceives [being gay] as a phenomenon imported from developed countries.’

I've noticed that this seems to be a fairly common sentiment from what I've experienced in post-colonial countries.

[Sudsy]

There was an old sentiment of homosexuality being part of the promiscuous moral decay of the aristocrats, which served socialist opinion on it during the years of socialist Albania and so on. But socialism`s relation to LGBT rights CAN withstand the test of time, as seen in Cuba, as one example.

[Art Vandelay]

It really shouldn't come as much of a surprise, that a country which has a history of repression against homosexuals during the later half of the 20th century, would be one of the most homophobic countries in Europe.

[Red Commissar]

I've noticed that this seems to be a fairly common sentiment from what I've experienced in post-colonial countries.

There was a similar line among early socialist states, who viewed homosexuality as an example of a degradation resulting from capitalist corruption or some mess like that. Relegating homosexuality to a mental condition or lifestyle helps them to isolate and atomize LGBT communities as an aberration that they can blame on what ever bogeyman is in that particular country or region.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yes, it's a shame that Albania and Russia were confined to their historical periods and could not predict the wave of gay rights that did not exist in their countries at that time, but there are other things that they did extremely well.

What? The USSR and Albania existed up until the early 1990s, decades after a real fight for LGBT recognition had started. In Britain we had the horrendous section 28 debacle in the 1980s, as well as all the shit surrounding HIV/AIDS, so why should a 'socialist' country be immune from that? It clearly has nothing to do with 'historical periods', since such countries existed at the same time too, did they not?


LBGT rights should be considered in its connection to the class struggle. If not, we could easily praise imperialist nations like America for their recent progressive policies on homosexuality, while condemning actual socialist countries for not having them (despite there not being any widespread movements for LBGT rights in Russia or Albania at the time).

Yes, we can do that, because for a gay worker, their lives would be considerably more miserable in a place like Russia (or Albania) than in a place that at least recognises in law some basic rights for the LGBTQ community. This is the sort of issue that you really need to view through the prism of the gay worker, not your own class strugglist perspective alone, because there is a large, large human element to LGBTQ issues and politics.

[Ocean Seal]

Oh, the irony. Albania used to be the most gay-friendly country in Europe until Hoxhaism. Every second Albanian man(an "ashik"), before he married a woman in his mid-20s and started a family, would court a male youth(a "dyllber"). They would even have these gay marriage ceremonies called "vellamerias".
Do you even understand these customs? They weren't progressive LGBT-feminist policies, they were rooted in oppressing women. It was a union that gave the male an adviser to his property which included women--who were seen as childrearing tools at the time.

[Ismail]

Do you even understand these customs? They weren't progressive LGBT-feminist policies, they were rooted in oppressing women. It was a union that gave the male an adviser to his property which included women--who were seen as childrearing tools at the time.This. There is likewise a long and established tradition of Afghan tribal rulers engaging in pedophilia. Neither have anything to do with the struggle for equality for homosexuals.

Calling a country "gay-friendly" because tribal figures whose powers exist independent of the state engage in homoerotic activity is strange. I certainly have never heard of Albania having any kind of open homosexual presence in its cities/villages during the 1910s-30s. What is being described are traditional Albanian customs, operative in the highlands and, during the 19th century and earlier, in portions of southern Albania. And these were the sort of customs that gave the man a right to cart his woman around the village naked if she disobeyed her husband, and to kill her if she persisted.

As an aside, Albania is also by far the most pro-US country in Europe. They have gold-colored statues of Bill Clinton (in Kosovo) and George W. Bush, and just inaugurated a statue of Woodrow Wilson in November last year, for the 100th celebration of Albania's independence (which bourgeois historiography attributes to him.) Sali Berisha compared Ahmadinejad to Hitler (in regard to the former's attitude towards Israel) , the Albanian government is practically the only one besides the USA that still votes to keep sanctions on Cuba, etc.

[sixdollarchampagne]

... socialism`s relation to LGBT rights CAN withstand the test of time, as seen in Cuba, as one example.

I would be grateful if Sudsy could expand on the last part of what he wrote. From where I sit, it sure looks like the regime of the brothers Castro has been one of the most viciously homophobic governments on earth, what with years, if not decades, of government-sponsored discrimination against gay men. To take a random example that I read about, men who attended performances of Alicia Alonso's dance company in Cuba, without a female companion, were reportedly subject to arrest, since the government assumed those men were gay. That represents an extraordinary degree of state-sponsored prejudice. Is that really a part of "socialism"?

[Remus Bleys]

I would be grateful if Sudsy could expand on the last part of what he wrote. From where I sit, it sure looks like the regime of the brothers Castro has been one of the most viciously homophobic governments on earth, what with years, if not decades, of government-sponsored discrimination against gay men. To take a random example that I read about, men who attended performances of Alicia Alonso's dance company in Cuba, without a female companion, were reportedly subject to arrest, since the government assumed those men were gay. That represents an extraordinary degree of state-sponsored prejudice. Is that really a part of "socialism"?

The point was that now even cuba is getting better. Fidel said he wouldn't stop until homophobia is finished, and sex changes are part of the healthcare.

[d3crypt]

The fact that lgbtq were discriminated againist in "socialist" countries is disgusting to me. I don't think the historical context changes that it is terrible. Would someone being racist and sexist be excusable just because they lived in the 1800s? Why not admit that it was an atrocity instead of saying only psuedo leftists care about such things?

[Audeamus]

I've noticed that this seems to be a fairly common sentiment from what I've experienced in post-colonial countries.

I sometime wonder to what extent this attitude is influenced and reinforced by the exporting of popular culture, largely from the United States, to said countries. As LGBT rights gained more popular support LGBT characters and themes began being dealt with in movies, television, etc. which are then sent around the world. Then someone in one of said post-colonial countries makes the casual connection between US cultural exports and any rising LGBT visibility in their own country.


I would be grateful if Sudsy could expand on the last part of what he wrote. From where I sit, it sure looks like the regime of the brothers Castro has been one of the most viciously homophobic governments on earth, what with years, if not decades, of government-sponsored discrimination against gay men. To take a random example that I read about, men who attended performances of Alicia Alonso's dance company in Cuba, without a female companion, were reportedly subject to arrest, since the government assumed those men were gay. That represents an extraordinary degree of state-sponsored prejudice. Is that really a part of "socialism"?

While I can't speak to the event you are referring to, when it occurred and all, the Cuban government has been taking steps towards LGBT acceptance. I know Fidel Castro has publicly condemned past LGBT persecution and that his niece Mariela has undertaken government programs aimed at combating prejudice and educating the people. Cuba also provides free sex-reassignment surgery. Anti-LGBT attitudes do certainly continue to exist, of course, but I wouldn't say the Cuban government has been so decidedly on the side of prejudice in recent years.

[Sudsy]

Ok, here's an expansion on Cuba. I said socialism will withstand the test of time because it is evolutionary and proved to be. When Albania was homophobic, so was Cuba. Apparently, there was a large number of homosexuals in labour camps in the early days of Castro's Cuba. Recently, Castro in a public, called out the situation as an injustice; called his own action an injustice. So my point is socialism's relationship to LGBT is not static, the times change and socialism goes along. Also, Castro surely has no claim on socialism, but this is one example.

[Ismail]

The fact that lgbtq were discriminated againist in "socialist" countries is disgusting to me. I don't think the historical context changes that it is terrible. Would someone being racist and sexist be excusable just because they lived in the 1800s? Why not admit that it was an atrocity instead of saying only psuedo leftists care about such things?The point is that there were little, if any, countervailing forces against homophobia in these countries, including the most important of all: a large, organized movement in support of gay rights.

It is worth noting, though, that in East Germany homosexual activity was decriminalized in the early 70's and in the 80's medical personnel wrote of the need to ensure that gays did not feel discriminated against in blood transfusions and whatnot (due to the whole AIDS thing.) It's not a coincidence that the GDR did these things considering it was the most "Western" of the Eastern European countries.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This will probably start a shitstorm, but I'll just say it; people who think LBGT rights are the only thing that matters are pseudo-leftists.

Um obviously ... even a liberal would admit this


Yes, it's a shame that Albania and Russia were confined to their historical periods and could not predict the wave of gay rights that did not exist in their countries at that time, but there are other things that they did extremely well.
That's a terrible excuse. Both countries had harsher anti-gay laws than many Capitalist governments of the time, and even many of the other Socialist states which had historically repressed lgbt people (like Cuba) opened up to homosexuals much earlier.

The fact is, when you have a police state, and you ban homosexuality, it's kind of hard for homosexuals to organize for their rights. They basically have to wait for the so-called "vanguard" to get their heads out of their asses. That's the problem with Stalinist police states, and one of the reasons why the historical experience of them made so many modern workers leery about a "communist" future.



LBGT rights should be considered in its connection to the class struggle. If not, we could easily praise imperialist nations like America for their recent progressive policies on homosexuality, while condemning actual socialist countries for not having them (despite there not being any widespread movements for LBGT rights in Russia or Albania at the time).Uhm this is a ridiculous argument. Should LGBT rights be considered in connection to the class struggle? Yes, just as the class struggle should be considered in connection to LGBT rights, the struggle against racism, the struggle against patriarchy, etc. I think if the Imperialist governments in the US and UK adopt more radical rights for homosexuals than their counterpart governments in the "Socialist" world, there are legitimate reasons to question the application of their "socialist" theories and political discourses, or the organization of political, social and economic power in the "socialist" world. If the "liberal" world is moving faster or being more radical on a particular set of issues, it's good to question WHY that is the case instead of sticking one's head up their ass so as to prevent ever even implying the possibility that liberal states are more progressive on an issue.

[Ismail]

If the "liberal" world is moving faster or being more radical on a particular set of issues, it's good to question WHY that is the case instead of sticking one's head up their ass so as to prevent ever even implying the possibility that liberal states are more progressive on an issue.You can't expect a country with strongly conservative traditions (certainly more conservative than the USA and UK) to suddenly leapfrog ahead on a social issue over countries where said issue is only beginning to be recognized and confronted. Not to mention that the overall level of economic and cultural development between Russia and the USA to this day is obviously not comparable.


and even many of the other Socialist states which had historically repressed lgbt people (like Cuba) opened up to homosexuals much earlier.As a note, I don't get what you mean by this. From what I understand the position of homosexuals in Cuba only started to improve in the 90's (i.e. after the USSR ceased existence and after Albania ceased being socialist.)

It's also important to understand, again, how different homosexuality was viewed in some of these countries. In Albania "unnatural" relations between women were explicitly declared not against the law in the country's penal code, because the state saw homosexual relations as an example of patriarchy (and female homosexual relations as a sort of negative response to it.) As far as Albanian theorists were concerned, punishing male homosexuality was mainly in line with the country's efforts at overcoming backwardness. It's similar to how throughout the 20's in Soviet Central Asia homosexuals continued to be arrested due to the identification of such activity with pedophilia, an identification that was based on exploitative relations in tribal society.

[Old Bolshie]

It's also important to understand, again, how different homosexuality was viewed in some of these countries. In Albania "unnatural" relations between women were explicitly declared not against the law in the country's penal code, because the state saw homosexual relations as an example of patriarchy (and female homosexual relations as a sort of negative response to it.) As far as Albanian theorists were concerned, punishing male homosexuality was mainly in line with the country's efforts at overcoming backwardness. It's similar to how throughout the 20's in Soviet Central Asia homosexuals continued to be arrested due to the identification of such activity with pedophilia, an identification that was based on exploitative relations in tribal society.

In Stalin's USSR sexual relations between women weren't criminalized neither even after the criminalization of homosexuality in 1933.

Recently declassified soviet documents led many historians to believe that homosexuality was confused by the soviet authorities with pedophilia which was becoming a major issue at the time homosexuality was criminalized in USSR with several high profile arrests of pederasts.

In fact, the article 121 of the soviet criminal code which criminalized homosexuality in USSR states the follow:

"Artice 121. Pederasty.

Sexual relations of a man with a man (pederasty), shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term of up to five years. Pederasty committed with the application of physical force, or threats, or with respect to a minor, or taking advantage of the dependent position of the victim, shall be punished by the deprivation of freedom for a term of up to eight years.' (Basic Documents on the Soviet Legal System; by WE Butler - page 344 - The Criminal Code of the USSR)."

[Thirsty Crow]

The article you quote directly disproves your contention that somehow the Soviet ruling class confused homosexuality with pedophilia (broadly understood as sexual intercourse with minors).

Homosexual intercourse is clearly distinguished from the latter by legal prison sentence which it carries (5 years), while intercourse with minors and rape are subsumed under the same heading but carry an additional 3 years of prison.

[Old Bolshie]

The article you quote directly disproves your contention that somehow the Soviet ruling class confused homosexuality with pedophilia (broadly understood as sexual intercourse with minors).

Homosexual intercourse is clearly distinguished from the latter by legal prison sentence which it carries (5 years), while intercourse with minors and rape are subsumed under the same heading but carry an additional 3 years of prison.

I didn't contend anything. I just stated how many historians believe that homosexuality was connected to pedophilia due to recent declassified documents and how the law specifically considers homosexuality an act of pederasty which enforces the idea of a confusion of sexual relations between two adult males and sexual relations between one adult and one boy of the soviet authorities.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

You can't expect a country with strongly conservative traditions (certainly more conservative than the USA and UK) to suddenly leapfrog ahead on a social issue over countries where said issue is only beginning to be recognized and confronted. Not to mention that the overall level of economic and cultural development between Russia and the USA to this day is obviously not comparable.


Of course - the issue, though, is when you have a tightly regulated society, you have little or no opportunity for homosexuals to challenge the conservative hierarchy. This is probably one of the more liberating aspects of liberalism - it allows for conservative social norms to be challenged, and I don't know if that is a problem which has really been addressed by the authoritarian side of the Marxist movement. That is a very problematic fact and one which MLists like Questionable seem to dismiss without much thought.



As a note, I don't get what you mean by this. From what I understand the position of homosexuals in Cuba only started to improve in the 90's (i.e. after the USSR ceased existence and after Albania ceased being socialist.)
It was legalized in the late 70s/early 80s, which led the nation on the path to reconciling its view of "socialism" with homosexual rights. Of course, homophobic bigotry lasted much longer, even at the top, but the process was started in the 70s and 80s with decriminalization.



It's also important to understand, again, how different homosexuality was viewed in some of these countries. In Albania "unnatural" relations between women were explicitly declared not against the law in the country's penal code, because the state saw homosexual relations as an example of patriarchy (and female homosexual relations as a sort of negative response to it.) As far as Albanian theorists were concerned, punishing male homosexuality was mainly in line with the country's efforts at overcoming backwardness. It's similar to how throughout the 20's in Soviet Central Asia homosexuals continued to be arrested due to the identification of such activity with pedophilia, an identification that was based on exploitative relations in tribal society.Yeah and thinking that homosexuality is a form of pedophilia or patriarchy is not at all supported by empirical data or science. When you use the state and police to repress homosexuals after prejudging the nature of their actions, you're not going to be able to understand why they're doing what they're doing. You're not going to give gay people the freedom to organize on behalf of advocating for their rights and say "yeah, actually our behavior has nothing to do with patriarchy".

Anyhow, homophobia seems to be deeply intertwined with patriarchy - in fact, it is a form of attacking men who fail to behave within the proper patriarchal norms of a society.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ismail defending homophobia yet again. Oh dear.

Britain must be a wonderful place, having gone from section 28 shit in the 1980s, to gay marriage less than 30 years later.

I guess we just have to allow extra time for these conservative countries to 'construct socialism', eh? :rolleyes:

[sixdollarchampagne]

The point is that there were little, if any, countervailing forces against homophobia in these countries, including the most important of all: a large, organized movement in support of gay rights....


Yeah, and if gay men in Cuba had tried to organize such a movement, the Cuban police would have smashed it immediately, and the organizers would have been given prison terms, because, in Castro's Cuba, the government, run by the Cuban Communist Party, has to control everything, down to the type of music that is acceptable, to take a random example. Is that degree of control from above, really "socialism"?

[Remus Bleys]

Yeah, and if gay men in Cuba had tried to organize such a movement, the Cuban police would have smashed it immediately, and the organizers would have been given prison terms, because, in Castro's Cuba, the government, run by the Cuban Communist Party, has to control everything, down to the type of music that is acceptable, to take a random example. Is that degree of control from above, really "socialism"?
Ismail only considers stalinist Russia and Albania to be real socialism. It would have been better to use hoxha.

Ismail's just using Castro to make it look like he isn't defending Hoxha when he is.

[Ismail]

Of course - the issue, though, is when you have a tightly regulated society, you have little or no opportunity for homosexuals to challenge the conservative hierarchy. This is probably one of the more liberating aspects of liberalism - it allows for conservative social norms to be challenged, and I don't know if that is a problem which has really been addressed by the authoritarian side of the Marxist movement. That is a very problematic fact and one which MLists like Questionable seem to dismiss without much thought.Except if you're talking about how Cuba apparently decriminalized homosexual acts in the late 70's/early 80's (despite obviously much of the population remaining homophobic) then I don't really see the basis for this claim, since you'd certainly attack Cuba as "authoritarian."


In Stalin's USSR sexual relations between women weren't criminalized neither even after the criminalization of homosexuality in 1933.The Albanian penal code, though, explicitly claimed that "unnatural" sexual acts between men and women (i.e. sodomy in the legal sense, not "another way of saying homosexual acts" sense) and between women were not persecuted. I don't know if the Soviet penal code had those provisions.


Ismail defending homophobia yet again. Oh dear.

Britain must be a wonderful place, having gone from section 28 shit in the 1980s, to gay marriage less than 30 years later.

I guess we just have to allow extra time for these conservative countries to 'construct socialism', eh? :rolleyes:I don't see your point, unless you're arguing homosexuals don't face largely fundamental discrimination in capitalist society or that Britain can be compared to Eastern Europe in terms of its cultural development. After all, there is no Albanian equivalent to Oscar Wilde, let alone any significant homosexual cultural life during the 10's-30's.

It's strange for so-called "materialists" to completely discount the role of actual homosexual movements. It's like saying that national discrimination or racism can be overcome in a country without the oppressed nations/persons playing an active role organizing and struggling for equality. Just because such movements aren't given room to grow inside a particular country doesn't give one an excuse; homosexuals can exert international influence as well, particularly by uniting the homosexual movement with the struggle for socialism in one's own country and demonstrating that both are inseparable when talking about fundamental changes and genuine equality.

It should be quite obvious that homosexual movements and culture were much more developed in Germany, and had some influence in Cuba, than in Albania and in much of Russia.


It would have been better to use hoxha.

Ismail's just using Castro to make it look like he isn't defending Hoxha when he is.It wouldn't have been better considering that Hoxha died in 1985 (when homosexuality was still seen as a taboo subject in the West, let alone the East) whereas Castroite Cuba is still around, as is Fidel himself.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's strange for so-called "materialists" to completely discount the role of actual homosexual movements. It's like saying that national discrimination or racism can be overcome in a country without the oppressed nations/persons playing an active role organizing and struggling for equality. Just because such movements aren't given room to grow inside a particular country doesn't give one an excuse; homosexuals can exert international influence as well, particularly by uniting the homosexual movement with the struggle for socialism in one's own country and demonstrating that both are inseparable when talking about fundamental changes and genuine equality.

It should be quite obvious that homosexual movements and culture were much more developed in Germany, and had some influence in Cuba, than in Albania and in much of Russia.


I thought the 'party' was the leading light in society. So what does it say about the ruling party, in Albania for example, that no proper LGBTQ movements existed in Albania, or seem to be recognised by the likes of you if they did exist underground?

[Ismail]

I thought the 'party' was the leading light in society. So what does it say about the ruling party, in Albania for example, that no proper LGBTQ movements existed in Albania, or seem to be recognised by the likes of you if they did exist underground?It says that, contrary to Maoist or Castroite voluntarism, the material conditions decide in the main the subjective conditions and their chances for success. You can't have a movement for gay rights in a country where homosexuality had no influence in society and homosexuals could not organize not due to the state, but due to the lack of economic and cultural development which would engender such activity.

There was no underground movement in Albania, BTW. Albania never had any sort of dissident movements, in contrast to every other Eastern European country (the likes of Rudolf Bahro in the GDR, Andrei Sakharov and various others in the USSR, Praxis in Yugoslavia, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, etc.) In fact the first major dissident activity occurred when Sali Berisha (the PM mentioned in the original post) was sent by Ramiz Alia to the Enver Hoxha University of Tirana in December 1990 to talk with students protesting power outages in the dorms and whatnot, and instead he sought to politicize the students, and thus the following occurred: "According to a highly reliable source and an eyewitness, a bewildered student leader asked Berisha: 'What is political pluralism?' An intellectual who had joined the demonstrators with Berisha reportedly had to give the students a crash course on political pluralism before they would agree to include in their petition a demand to legalize opposition parties." (Biberaj, Albania in Transition, 1998, p. 79.)

[G4b3n]

Those ritual customs are a little bit different than homosexuality as it is understood today.

This will probably start a shitstorm, but I'll just say it; people who think LBGT rights are the only thing that matters are pseudo-leftists. Yes, it's a shame that Albania and Russia were confined to their historical periods and could not predict the wave of gay rights that did not exist in their countries at that time, but there are other things that they did extremely well.

LBGT rights should be considered in its connection to the class struggle. If not, we could easily praise imperialist nations like America for their recent progressive policies on homosexuality, while condemning actual socialist countries for not having them (despite there not being any widespread movements for LBGT rights in Russia or Albania at the time).

You can keep your genuine leftism. I will stay over here in my bourgeois psuedo-leftist bubble, where I can freely express my thoughts and marry who I wish.

[EdvardK]

As an aside, Albania is also by far the most pro-US country in Europe. They have gold-colored statues of Bill Clinton (in Kosovo)
Calling Kosovo as Albanian is immature or just shows the true colours of your hoxhaism and The Greater Albania project which he failed in providing.
I could just as well claim that Girokaster is port in Montenegro.

How come that Albania is so anti-gay, you little hoxha? Can you give me some hoxha quotes that you usually provide whenever your idol is being brought up?
I really wonder how you will rationalize the fact that what is happening today in Albania is a direct consequence of what's been happening in Albania during hoxhaist regime? Afterall, you do know that people have not changed once your hoxhaist regime failed, but continued to live on until this day. Ergo... they were anti-gay then, they are anti-gay now.

[Bea Arthur]

It says that, contrary to Maoist or Castroite voluntarism, the material conditions decide in the main the subjective conditions and their chances for success. You can't have a movement for gay rights in a country where homosexuality had no influence in society and homosexuals could not organize not due to the state, but due to the lack of economic and cultural development which would engender such activity.

There was no underground movement in Albania, BTW. Albania never had any sort of dissident movements, in contrast to every other Eastern European country (the likes of Rudolf Bahro in the GDR, Andrei Sakharov and various others in the USSR, Praxis in Yugoslavia, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, etc.)

Gay people could not organize due to the lack of economic and cultural development? You are so disoriented in trying to defend your cult leader at any cost that I don't think you even know what you're arguing. Are you saying that Albania's backwardness did not lead to the development of gay identities? Or are you saying that gay people existed, but just did not organize?

If you choose option A, I hope you realize you are following in the footsteps of the great Iranian socialist Ahmadinejad. No gays in Albanian or Iran! And it still doesn't address the superstitious anti-socialist cracking down on non-heteronormative practices, whether they're labelled gay or not. Option B is not much better. I am sure that the gay people who worked in Tirana's and other urban areas' industry were thinking about organizing to get the state off their back, but when they stopped to think about it, they realized they just weren't economically developed enough! "Three more Enver Hoxha hydroelectric power plants," the gay factory worker thought, "until I can talk to other gay people about fighting state repression!" The Sigurimi under the control of Jesus Hoxha, which would have viewed this transgression of socialist cooperativist values with utmost and repressive alarm, did not enter into their calculations at all! Talk about economic reductionism!

The offer of help is still open, Ismail! Break free from your self-imposed shackles of cultism!! Only you can make the choice to lead a healthier life!!

[Ismail]

Calling Kosovo as Albanian is immature or just shows the true colours of your hoxhaism and The Greater Albania project which he failed in providing.Alternatively, Albania and Kosovo are both rabidly pro-US states and, by virtue of both being inhabited by Albanians, can be grouped together in this context.


I could just as well claim that Girokaster is port in Montenegro.What's the Montenegrin population of Gjirokastër, then?


How come that Albania is so anti-gay, you little hoxha? Can you give me some hoxha quotes that you usually provide whenever your idol is being brought up?

I really wonder how you will rationalize the fact that what is happening today in Albania is a direct consequence of what's been happening in Albania during hoxhaist regime? Afterall, you do know that people have not changed once your hoxhaist regime failed, but continued to live on until this day. Ergo... they were anti-gay then, they are anti-gay now.I must have missed the part where Tito was a valiant fighter for gay liberation and how homophobia actually isn't widespread in the former Yugoslav states.


I am sure that the gay people who worked in Tirana's and other urban areas' industry were thinking about organizing to get the state off their back, but when they stopped to think about it, they realized they just weren't economically developed enough! "Three more Enver Hoxha hydroelectric power plants," the gay factory worker thought, "until I can talk to other gay people about fighting state repression!" The Sigurimi under the control of Jesus Hoxha, which would have viewed this transgression of socialist cooperativist values with utmost and repressive alarm, did not enter into their calculations at all!The size of the working-class upon Albania's independence in 1912 was less than 1000 persons. I'm pretty sure even the most ideologically immature leftist can understand a natural link between capitalist development and the development of organized movements for social change. Case in point: the women's movement in the 20's-30's was confined almost entirely to the well-off wives of the incipient bourgeoisie. There was little foundation for a mass women's movement under such conditions.

[Bea Arthur]

The size of the working-class upon Albania's independence in 1912 was less than 1000 persons. I'm pretty sure even the most ideologically immature leftist can understand a natural link between capitalist development and the development of organized movements for social change.

Not developed enough to have even the beginnings of a gay movement or even gay people, but developed enough to have a sizable enough "organized movement for social change" to overthrow the ruling class AND establish socialism! Talk about confused!!

See a shrink, Ismail! You need help!!

[Ismail]

Not developed enough to have even the beginnings of a gay movement or even gay people, but developed enough to have a sizable enough "organized movement for social change" to overthrow the ruling class AND establish socialism! Talk about confused!!Well first off the working-class did grow a fair bit between 1912-1939 (although in size it was still very small compared to the rest of Europe.) But that's not the point of why I brought this up. Also if you're going to use this strange logic that equates socialism in any period with the automatic equality of homosexuals then one might as well ask why Marx's declaration that the "proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains" wasn't accompanied by various writings on discrimination against homosexuals, and why Engels, Bebel and others made homophobic statements.

And I never claimed gay people didn't exist in Albania. I have no idea where you got that from. Although certainly if any Albanian homosexuals self-identified as "gay" in the modern sense and tried to form some sort of common association with each other in the 1910s-30s, history has not taken note of it.

[EdvardK]

Alternatively, Albania and Kosovo are both rabidly pro-US states and, by virtue of both being inhabited by Albanians, can be grouped together in this context.
They could be GROUPED together, but you put it in a sentence in a way that IMPLIED that Kosovo IS Albanian. And you know it!!!



I must have missed the part where Tito was a valiant fighter for gay liberation and how homophobia actually isn't widespread in the former Yugoslav states.
Again, as you always do, you are DODGING the question. Whenever a straight question about your hoxha comes up, you bring up a diversion which comes in the form of Tito :) That's so transparent, my Albanian friedn...

[Ismail]

They could be GROUPED together, but you put it in a sentence in a way that IMPLIED that Kosovo IS Albanian. And you know it!!!Using that logic I would have just mentioned the Bill Clinton statue without pointing out it was actually in Kosovo.


Again, as you always do, you are DODGING the question. Whenever a straight question about your hoxha comes up, you bring up a diversion which comes in the form of Tito That's so transparent, my Albanian friedn...I'm not dodging the question because I don't assume, unlike certain figures on here, that Albanian and other communists in Eastern Europe would have any reason to care about gay rights if not actually scorn homosexuality based on the knowledge available to them at the time and the actual state of homosexual movements in these countries (i.e. generally non-existent.) It is not me who is denouncing Tito for homophobia, it is you who is denouncing Hoxha on the subject.

And again you call me an "Albanian" even though I'm not.

[Bea Arthur]

Well first off the working-class did grow a fair bit between 1912-1939 (although in size it was still very small compared to the rest of Europe.) But that's not the point of why I brought this up. Also if you're going to use this strange logic that equates socialism in any period with the automatic equality of homosexuals then one might as well ask why Marx's declaration that the "proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains" wasn't accompanied by various writings on discrimination against homosexuals, and why Engels, Bebel and others made homophobic statements.

Here we see your legendary strawman building. I did not equate socialism with equality for gays. I pointed out that you are contradicting yourself. You are defending Hoxha by saying that he inherited superstitious laws because no gay movement existed to challenge them as a result of the economic backwardness of the country. On the other hand, you want to say that Albania is socialist, which is according to Marx a higher stage of economic development than capitalism and can only exist when scarcity no longer dictates production decisions and legal regimes. Hence there is a link between the two, although they are not the same thing.

Next time get your head out of your strange cultist rear (or Hoxha's rear) long enough to understand the arguments you are responding to!!


And I never claimed gay people didn't exist in Albania. I have no idea where you got that from. Although certainly if any Albanian homosexuals self-identified as "gay" in the modern sense and tried to form some sort of common association with each other in the 1910s-30s, history has not taken note of it.

This is the point that I and everybody else here has been making. You're not going to have a movement when sigurimi informants will be at the first meeting to make a list of people to be rounded up and sent to work camps. That is why history hasn't taken note of a gay dissident movement in Albania. Your argument that it was because there weren't gay people or political movements due to poor economic development is weak and was clearly constructed to arrive at a preordained conclusion.

If economic backwardness hamstrung mass political movements, a socialist revolution would not have been possible.

Get help, Ismail!! I have numbers to several hotlines you can call for anonymous consultation!!

[Remus Bleys]

In the 90s homosexuality in albania was legalized.
In the 70s homosexuality in Yugoslavia was legalized.

Unlike Ismail, I can admit my inspirations were wrong, whereas Ismail has said that Hoxha and Xstalin never made mistkaes.

[Ismail]

In the 90s homosexuality in albania was legalized.
In the 70s homosexuality in Yugoslavia was legalized.It was also decriminalized in the GDR and, if I recall right, in some form in Bulgaria, both during their revisionist periods, which, if nothing else, demonstrates that there is no automatic link between homosexuality and socialist construction.

Likewise after Stalin's death the USSR and Eastern Europe (with the exception of Albania) permitted abortion once more. Again, either these regimes were now striving to correct the "distortions" of the "cult of the individual" and "return to Leninist norms" and whatnot, or there's no innate link between socialist construction and the issue of abortion.


Unlike Ismail, I can admit my inspirations were wrong, whereas Ismail has said that Hoxha and Xstalin never made mistkaes.No one ever claimed Stalin and Hoxha never made mistakes on social issues. On theoretical issues, though, yes; they made no mistakes that we can see, although certainly the revisionists of all hues went on about his supposed "mistakes," "subjectivism," "distrust of [insert]," etc.

Anyway this thread is basically becoming a paean to liberalism (you have some posters avowedly writing about the "strengths" of bourgeois liberal regimes), which isn't surprising. Every attack on the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin has behind it ulterior motives, no matter in what direction or on which subject the attack is carried out. Every one eventually makes its way back to a defense of capitalism. The subject of homosexuality in these countries is no different, there's no real analysis, just an excuse to attack socialism.

[Remus Bleys]

It was also decriminalized in the GDR and, if I recall right, in some form in Bulgaria, both during their revisionist periods, which, if nothing else, demonstrates that there is no automatic link between homosexuality and socialist construction.

Likewise after Stalin's death the USSR and Eastern Europe (with the exception of Albania) permitted abortion once more. Again, either these regimes were now striving to correct the "distortions" of the "cult of the individual" and "return to Leninist norms" and whatnot, or there's no innate link between socialist construction and the issue of abortion.

No one ever claimed Stalin and Hoxha never made mistakes on social issues. On theoretical issues, though, yes; they made no mistakes that we can see, although certainly the revisionists of all hues went on about his supposed "mistakes," "subjectivism," "distrust of [insert]," etc.

Anyway this thread is basically becoming a paean to liberalism (you have some posters avowedly writing about the "strengths" of bourgeois liberal regimes), which isn't surprising. Every attack on the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin has behind it ulterior motives, no matter in what direction or on which subject the attack is carried out.

I AM SO FUCKING SORRY MY SEXUALITY IS AN ATTACK ON STALIN.
Your argument was albania didn't have the mass movements. Okay, but they would have been suppressed.
Then, you talk about the balkans, where yugoslavia wasn't. As bad as albania.
Then you have the gull to try and link homosexuality with "revisionism" whatever the fuck that means.

[Ismail]

Then you have the gull to try and link homosexuality with "revisionism" whatever the fuck that means.Well again, if repressing homosexuality and abortion are proof a country isn't socialist, what does it say when those same regimes (in which a new leadership denounces its predecessor and in fact restores capitalism though retaining a "socialist" façade) decriminalize/legalize both?

[Remus Bleys]

Dat strawman ismail. Did I ever say lgbt rights are required to be socialist?

[Ismail]

Dat strawman ismail. Did I ever say lgbt rights are required to be socialist?No, but you certainly like to attack Stalin and Hoxha over the subject.

[Remus Bleys]

No, but you certainly like to attack Stalin and Hoxha over the subject.

Translation: you criticised one thing, therefore you think they are all bad.
This is a fallacy, even if I do criticize them over everything else.
However, that is indicative of their greater huge authoritarianism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No, but you certainly like to attack Stalin and Hoxha over the subject.

Because Stalin reverted Russia back to conservative social values after the initial liberalisation, presumably. It's not that hard to understand.

[Remus Bleys]

Its funny, Ismail. Albania was deveoped enough for feminism, destruction of tribal regimes, even "advanced" enough to destroy religion. (Hell, they were advanced enough to destroy beards)
But not aadvanced enough to combat homophobia? Just fuckinng admit hoxha could have, and should have, done better in this regard.

[Ismail]

Because Stalin reverted Russia back to conservative social values after the initial liberalisation, presumably. It's not that hard to understand.Except this is being used as a way of attacking socialism (= the leaderships of Stalin and Hoxha.) Yet the Soviet revisionists legalized abortion and the East German and some other revisionists (Castroites, Titoites) decriminalized homosexuality.

My point is, how do you account for this?


Its funny, Ismail. Albania was deveoped enough for feminism, destruction of tribal regimes, even "advanced" enough to destroy religion. (Hell, they were advanced enough to destroy beards)
But not aadvanced enough to combat homophobia? Just fuckinng admit hoxha could have, and should have, done better in this regard.Women's emancipation was a fundamental plank of all socialists, starting from Marx and Engels themselves. Obviously the destruction of tribalism as an archaic social system was not contested by any socialist whatsoever. Religion was likewise denounced by Marx and Engels, Lenin said every socialist was an atheist as a rule, etc.

Homosexuality does not fit into any of this.

[Remus Bleys]

Except this is being used as a way of attacking socialism. Yet the Soviet revisionists legalized abortion and the East German and some other revisionists (Castroites, Titoites) decriminalized homosexuality.

Women's emancipation was a fundamental plank of all socialists, starting from Marx and Engels themselves.
1 no one with half a brain is using this to attack economics of albania
2. The revisionists is contentible, but let's ignore that. So fucking what?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Except this is being used as a way of attacking socialism (= the leaderships of Stalin and Hoxha.) Yet the Soviet revisionists legalized abortion and the East German and some other revisionists (Castroites, Titoites) decriminalized homosexuality.

My point is, how do you account for this?


It's not a way of attacking socialism. What sort of socialism leaves women and the LGBT community behind? Even if we are to account for the possible anachronism of judging LGBT values of 1930s Russia by today's progressive standards, the pro-family, anti-abortion legislation is legitimate reason enough to attack Stalin. It's not an attack on socialism to point out that this move back towards conservative social values was fucked up and wrong.

[Remus Bleys]

Id rather live in revisionist land where I can fuck who I want.(and feel a bit more accepted) than socialist land where I can't, even though comrade hoxha let's me vote at the union meetings.

You obviously aren't gay ismail. Its a big fucking deal, and a cornerstone of who I am. Its a fucking dealbreaker dude.

[EdvardK]

Using that logic I would have just mentioned the Bill Clinton statue without pointing out it was actually in Kosovo.
My mistake - you should NOT have grouped the two together as we were discussing Albania and not Kosovo.
You get it wrong on so many levels and you're doing it so profusely that others nonintentionally believe you're actually telling the truth. Not me, pedro...



I'm not dodging the question because I don't assume, unlike certain figures on here, that Albanian and other communists in Eastern Europe would have any reason to care about gay rights if not actually scorn homosexuality based on the knowledge available to them at the time and the actual state of homosexual movements in these countries (i.e. generally non-existent.)
The thread title and main discussion is very defined and one cannot dodge it unless one has something to hide or does not want to concede that it's true what it says.



It is not me who is denouncing Tito for homophobia, it is you who is denouncing Hoxha on the subject.
Please re-read the title of this thread - it's got nothing to do with Yugoslavia, you again dragged it into because you only know how to point to others when directly challenged on the issue which you cannot answer.
And you usually answer questions by quoting your hoxha... I'm awaiting a quote by hoxha on homosexuality, one that you could use to your advantage. But since there's no such advantageous quote, you prefer to dogde the issue and bring Tito and Yugoslavia into the discussion :)


And again you call me an "Albanian" even though I'm not.
Of course you're not. You're an insult to Albanians, both socialist and capitalist.

[Remus Bleys]

I'm awaiting a quote by hoxha on homosexuality,
I'm actually looking forward to one actually. One on both male and female homosexuality.

[EdvardK]

I'm actually looking forward to one actually. One on both male and female homosexuality.
You're giving him too much credit - if he touched those subjects as well, he must've been an expert on all things general :) I truly wonder what his view is on quantum electrodynamics by Richard Feynmann and his take on the impact of large populations of bees for the development of rural Pennsylvania...:laugh:

[EdvardK]

Every attack on the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin has behind it ulterior motives, no matter in what direction or on which subject the attack is carried out. Every one eventually makes its way back to a defense of capitalism.
Every sentence like this has behind it a sickness called PARANOIA...
I wonder what my ulterior motive is for this thread - I'd really like to know because even I myself did not know I had an ulterior motive until you enlightened me, dude.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Except if you're talking about how Cuba apparently decriminalized homosexual acts in the late 70's/early 80's (despite obviously much of the population remaining homophobic) then I don't really see the basis for this claim, since you'd certainly attack Cuba as "authoritarian."


Cuba's authoritarianism was not quite so extreme from what I understand of the Cuban regime, although it was obviously authoritarian in its own right. There were always various social movements which were independent or semi-independent of the regime (Raul Castro's daughter became a big advocate for gay rights for instance)




The Albanian penal code, though, explicitly claimed that "unnatural" sexual acts between men and women (i.e. sodomy in the legal sense, not "another way of saying homosexual acts" sense) and between women were not persecuted. I don't know if the Soviet penal code had those provisions.
"Unnatural" sex ... clearly feudal and bourgeois moralism remained a significant force in Albania.



It's strange for so-called "materialists" to completely discount the role of actual homosexual movements. It's like saying that national discrimination or racism can be overcome in a country without the oppressed nations/persons playing an active role organizing and struggling for equality. Just because such movements aren't given room to grow inside a particular country doesn't give one an excuse; homosexuals can exert international influence as well, particularly by uniting the homosexual movement with the struggle for socialism in one's own country and demonstrating that both are inseparable when talking about fundamental changes and genuine equality.
Well that's precisely the problem with insular, highly authoritarian police states like Albania. Gay people cannot form communities, start organizations, make movies or write books about their lives and build a movement, either inside or outside the country.



It was also decriminalized in the GDR and, if I recall right, in some form in Bulgaria, both during their revisionist periods, which, if nothing else, demonstrates that there is no automatic link between homosexuality and socialist construction.
A socialist society cannot really be socialist if there are minorities who are economically, politically and socially repressed based on some bourgeois moral code.


Anyway this thread is basically becoming a paean to liberalism (you have some posters avowedly writing about the "strengths" of bourgeois liberal regimes), which isn't surprising. Every attack on the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin has behind it ulterior motives, no matter in what direction or on which subject the attack is carried out. Every one eventually makes its way back to a defense of capitalism. The subject of homosexuality in these countries is no different, there's no real analysis, just an excuse to attack socialism. Don't be foolish, everyone here is a "socialist" of some type. The issue is that certain models for building socialism, particularly the authoritarian kind, bring with them a huge disadvantage in liberating certain sectors which have been traditionally disadvantaged, because the police state will reify various moral assumptions held by society from before the revolution. Nobody is defending Capitalism, they are critiquing a particular socialist model which is bold enough to call all other forms "Revisionist" while maintaining certain reactionary social norms. Insofar as liberalism is being "defended", it is only as evidence of the failures of certain socialist models to advance socially and culturally at a more rapid pace, not to defend the liberal project against socialism.


Also if you're going to use this strange logic that equates socialism in any period with the automatic equality of homosexuals then one might as well ask why Marx's declaration that the "proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains" wasn't accompanied by various writings on discrimination against homosexuals, and why Engels, Bebel and others made homophobic statements.Marx and Engels weren't the Moses of socialism. They saw the basic structure of Capitalism, how it was flawed, how bourgeois morality replicated certain social norms, how labor was divided by gender, and so on. That doesn't mean that they were able to reason through all of the consequences of their positions to explain what a socialist society would really look like. Marx did not leave us a religious dogma, he left us a methodology.

[synthesis]

Well that's precisely the problem with insular, highly authoritarian police states like Albania. Gay people cannot form communities, start organizations, make movies or write books about their lives and build a movement, either inside or outside the country.

This seems to be the major point of contention here. The poor state of gay rights in Hoxha's Albania were related to the lack of gay movements, this seems to be agreed upon here; but were these movements stymied by the state itself or principally by broader Albanian society and culture? If gay rights movements existed and were suppressed (I have no idea if this was the case or not) then was this by a broadly homophobic society first and the state second, or vice versa, or did the state in fact play no real role at all except perhaps as a passive observer?

Those aren't rhetorical questions; I really don't know. Obviously in the West, the state didn't need to play a role in suppressing gay rights movements until Western society itself was liberalized to the point where activists felt "comfortable" enough to agitate politically and/or felt that there would be any point to agitating at all. I think that to understand this issue, it is important to look at how the law against homosexuality was actually implemented. Was it used to persecute political rivals, or to satisfy conservative elements, or to attack "Western influence"? None of these are justified in any way, but I don't know if this discussion will have any useful outcome if these aspects of the situation are not examined more closely.

Also, this is just a point of personal curiosity, but given the apparent role of pederastic relations in repressing women in Albanian society, could a ban on male homosexuality be related to suppressing that, analogous to the way beards were banned to challenge religious and tribal authority? This would just be in theory, of course; I have no doubt it was rooted in homophobia. I just find it interesting that male homosexuality was illegal whereas lesbianism was not. (Interesting in an "intellectual" way, obviously it's fucked up and reactionary.)

[Ismail]

I've never come across any mention of homosexual movements or groups/associations of any kind in the 1910s-80s. The first mention of an organized gay group is in 1994.


or did the state in fact play no real role at all except perhaps as a passive observer?As far as I know homosexuality was almost never mentioned in Albanian publications except dealing with criminal law (and perhaps mental health.)


I think that to understand this issue, it is important to look at how the law against homosexuality was actually implemented. Was it used to persecute political rivals, or to satisfy conservative elements, or to attack "Western influence"?Of all the notable persons arrested and/or shot during the 1940's-80's, not one had homosexuality mentioned in relation to them. In fact the only person who was alleged to have been a homosexual was.... Enver Hoxha, which anti-communists like bringing up again and again.


Also, this is just a point of personal curiosity, but given the apparent role of pederastic relations in repressing women in Albanian society, could a ban on male homosexuality be related to suppressing that, analogous to the way beards were banned to challenge religious and tribal authority? This would just be in theory, of course; I have no doubt it was rooted in homophobia. I just find it interesting that male homosexuality was illegal whereas lesbianism was not. (Interesting in an "intellectual" way, obviously it's fucked up and reactionary.)Bill Bland, who was one of the foremost experts on Socialist Albania, did interpret the anti-gay attitude as being mostly associated in the minds of the party/government with patriarchal backwardness: http://ml-review.ca/aml/Albania/ALBANIANLIFE/No441989.htm

[Remus Bleys]

In fact the only person who was alleged to have been a homosexual was.... Enver Hoxha

:lol::lol:
I want this to be true so much.

This would explain a lot *coughcough*Stalin*coughcough*

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

:lol::lol:
I want this to be true so much.

This would explain a lot *coughcough*Stalin*coughcough*

That's thoroughly inappropriate. It would explain nothing, unless you're intimating that Hoxha was an undesirable leader because he might have been gay, in which case you are the pot calling the kettle black, or worse.

[Remus Bleys]

That's thoroughly inappropriate. It would explain nothing, unless you're intimating that Hoxha was an undesirable leader because he might have been gay, in which case you are the pot calling the kettle black, or worse.
No. Me and a group of friends have an on going joke that Hoxha was gay for Stalin, explaining the rampant "anyone who disagrees with Stalin is stupid" and the weird sounding wording of his memoirs of Stalin in the IMA; nothing to do with his policies, just his attitude as a person.

However, if it were true Hoxha was gay, it would probably boost the (little) respect I have for the guy.

[Misericordia]

I don't see what the tribal practices of pre PPSh Albania have to do with the blatant homophobia that's swept through the country. Is this a defense of Hoxha?

Hopefully I'm just being paranoid here, but I swear you sound as if you're alluding to homosexuals being pedophiles in this post. As a homosexual person, I can fully assure you that this is not the case, and no amount of historical allusion to Greek rapists who rounded up young boys or Japanese Buddhists who did the same (as some backwards leftists like to peddle to keep their bias alive) changes this fact.



I don't think people do think this way at all, but I do agree with you. However, people who use lines like yours to ignore LGBT rights issues are not much better. Because if that is the case, then who are they to claim that LGBT rights are a worthless ideological trap when they themselves are not gay!? When they have not experienced the ridiculous and arbitrary social discrimination that comes with being gay?



I don't understand how this relates to the context of the thread. This doesn't even concern Hoxha's Albania or the USSR. And even if you did, why are you so apologetic? Why not admit that the draconian laws against homosexuality in both countries were just that: disgusting draconian laws?

People could argue that Columbus was a product of his time, but he was still a mass-murdering, genocidal, deluded former slave-owner and devout Christian jihadi. Not trying to say that the two soviet-era leaders were equivalent to Columbus (that would be ridiculous), but why the cushioning of Stalin's bigotry with vague flimsy references to other accomplishments?
Pedophilia has nothing to do with it, pedophilia involves prepubescent children.

[Misericordia]

No. Me and a group of friends have an on going joke that Hoxha was gay for Stalin, explaining the rampant "anyone who disagrees with Stalin is stupid" and the weird sounding wording of his memoirs of Stalin in the IMA; nothing to do with his policies, just his attitude as a person.

However, if it were true Hoxha was gay, it would probably boost the (little) respect I have for the guy.
Why would somebody's sexual orientation have anything to do with how much you respect that person?

[Remus Bleys]

Why would somebody's sexual orientation have anything to do with how much you respect that person?

It would be more of a better reason to his homophobia, as well as have some explanation of his fawnning over stalin (cuz I know that feel) - which isn't too say that his stalinism was influenced by orientation, just that his near worship of stalin would be more understandable. So it was probably a poor choice of wording. Shoulda said understanding maybe.

[Super international]

In all honesty. I think its because of their high Muslim population.
I'm not saying that all Muslims are homophobes, but Islam is probably the most right wing religion, and much of it is still stuck in the past.

[Ismail]

In all honesty. I think its because of their high Muslim population.
I'm not saying that all Muslims are homophobes, but Islam is probably the most right wing religion, and much of it is still stuck in the past.You do realize that the Prime Minister mentioned in the OP is a Muslim and that Albanian Muslims are actually pretty well-known as not being all that devout, right? Not to mention that in Uganda and Zimbabwe (which have been in the news for the past decade due to homophobia) Christians, not Muslims, are leading the anti-gay charge, with the Ugandan homophobes enjoying extensive collaboration with Western Christian organizations and personalities.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Re: Hoxha's Albania and Cuba in the past, even the US Left has a history when it comes to homophobia or dismissing LGBT liberation as irrelevant to the class struggle, and during the same time periods we're discussing.

For that matter, there are still some US Leftists who are homophobic, or dismissive, or who paint radical LGBT liberationists as utopian (or blame us for some gay liberationists in the 1970s advocating pederasty). I've experienced that just this year from some supposed comrades, and had to walk away from them.

[Super international]

You do realize that the Prime Minister mentioned in the OP is a Muslim and that Albanian Muslims are actually pretty well-known as not being all that devout, right? Not to mention that in Uganda and Zimbabwe (which have been in the news for the past decade due to homophobia) Christians, not Muslims, are leading the anti-gay charge, with the Ugandan homophobes enjoying extensive collaboration with Western Christian organizations and personalities.

Yes I am aware of this. But, due to their history and culture it is not surprising that there is some prejudice towards non straights.

[Devrim]

Yes I am aware of this. But, due to their history and culture it is not surprising that there is some prejudice towards non straights.

Yes because in Albania, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, homosexuality was legalised in 1858, which is 110 years earlier than it was legalised in Canada. How could those Muslims have been so backward?

Devrim