HELEM

"You can't have a position related to LGBT rights without fighting for everyone's rights. You can't be just against homophobia; you have to be against all discrimination and link these all together."

The LGBT struggle in Lebanon


I loved reading this article when it was first published on the Socialist Worker!  There is so much that LGBT activists in the West can learn from the vision and the social consciousness expressed in this article.  This article interviews Ghassan Makarem, the Executive Director of HELEM--a Lebanese organization which struggles for LGBTIQ liberation.  Their work is varied and broad--providing services, promoting action against discrimination, and refusing to trample on other demographics for the rights of their own.  There are far too many organizations here in the U.S. which separate their causes from the struggles of others--there are struggles for black communities, for women's rights, for disability rights, gay rights, etc.  Rather than [net]working together in mutual support, they often take a market-type approach of trying to convince (almost advertize to) "the public" that their cause is the most important, most dire, and most fundamental source of our current crises.  In this way, these organizations imitate popular business practices rather than working for holistic change.  What can we, in the West, learn from HELEM?