Introduction
This year, exactly 10 years have passed since the violent events of May 17, 2013, when, on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, violent groups mobilized by the church brutally dispersed the participants of the rally including LGBTQ+ activists, community supporters and human rights defenders. The authorities failed to take the necessary measures to allow the participants of the rally to exercise their right to freedom of assembly and expression. The victims of the violent acts of May 17 still do not have the victim status. Later - on July 5, 2021, in defiance of efforts to contain aggression, the Prime Minister, himself, encouraged violence, which also led to the most dire consequences.
As we can see, political homophobia has been present in Georgian reality in different forms for a long time, although it has gained different intensity in recent years. If we consider the local processes as part of the global one, in the context of the transnational phenomenon of the emergence of the right-wing populist movement, we will be able to identify common features. Political regimes frequently resort to right-wing populist rhetoric and tactics in times of crisis of governance. Researchers of populist regimes link these processes with the crisis of liberal democracy and the tendencies of anti-liberalism, such as the rejection of civil liberalism, and consider them as a coordinated effort to undermine liberal values in the name of democracy.
Since 2010, the growing visibility of right-wing populist discourse has been pronounced in numerous countries around the world, but especially strongly in Russia and several countries in Eastern and Central Europe. In these contexts, as well as in ours, the right-wing conservative discourse often touches on sensitive topics such as the institution of the family and traditional values, religious values, issues of gender identity and sexuality. The mainstream messages of conservative groups often contain misogynistic and homophobic undertones, and the main targets of their attacks are various human rights and equality issues.
Feminist researchers focus on connections and relations between right-wing populist and anti-gender actors, since "gender" is one of the central concepts for the right-wing discourse. It is the so-called "Gender ideology" that is seen by conservative groups as the main enemy of the people and they are fighting against it with the pretext of protecting traditional values.
Right-wing populism in Georgia, the integral part of which is political homophobia, acquired new forms and content over time. It repeats the rhetoric of the right-wing populist governments and political leaders of both Russia and Europe and successfully adapts to the local context. If earlier the position of the ruling political class was vague in this regard, this time it is openly and clearly positioning itself in line with anti-Western and anti-liberal rhetoric. In light of the fact that, especially recently, the government has meticulously replicated the language of local conservative, violent groups, it is interesting to see what led to such a rapid conservative turn and a new wave of political homophobia.
This article contains the reflections and opinions of researchers, activists and experts who observe and study the dynamics of political instrumentalization of homophobia in Georgia both in the academic space and outside it.
Researchers and activists participating in the interview are:
Ana Rekhviashvili – PhD at the Graduate Program in Gender, Feminist & Women's Studies at York; Mariam Kajaia - queer activist; Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili - advisor on gender issues, Women's Initiatives Support Supporting Group (WISG); Ira Silanteva - queer activist; Malkhaz Saldadze - Associate Professor at Ilia State University.
1. How did political homophobia acquire forms and content in Georgia and how did the dynamics change in this regard ? What were the rhetoric and approaches of the authorities ?
Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili
When we talk about the political instrumentalization of homophobia, such a conclusion is primarily grounded in the research of media materials. This kind of political weight has been assigned to these issues since the 90s and is gradually getting stronger. The frequency and intensity in the media increases until the Rose Revolution. If you compare, this is the process of redistribution of power in the government, and if we follow the content, the hate speech was mainly directed not only towards the members of the community, but also against the political opponents. Nevertheless, it is self-evident that its use, even against an opponent, has awakened and strengthened negative sentiments in society.
After 2003, the language of homophobic hatred was suppressed and for some time - until 2005, it remained in comedy programs, although the political content was somewhat removed. Somewhere from 2005, it starts to rise again and towards 2007 there is a second peak.
During this period, on the one hand, the church became the main producer of this homophobic narrative, and on the other hand, the opposition at the time. Understanding homosexuality from a "disease" perspective has been replaced by a discourse on depravity. But in the convergence of the opposition politicians and the church, these issues acquired a completely different dimension and were included in the ethno-nationalist discourse. This framework has become completely anti-Western.
As for the National Movement, its position was sterile, it did not have such an openly expressed homophobic position, but it did not carry a counter-narrative either. At least they tried not to talk about these things. After that, the UNM was assigned the image of pro-Western and they created an image of the enemy from each other in two ways - for the National Movement, Russia was an enemy, and the opposition was an agent of Russia. On the other hand, the opposition portrayed the government as pro-Western, which supported the legalization of debauchery.
"Georgian Dream" is not that uniform, and its policies have not been uniform during its rule. When it came to power, "Georgian Dream" was a coalition. They also had very homophobic members who made homophobic statements; at the same time, Bidzina Ivanishvili was the first politician who openly stated in a pre-election speech that, of course, LGBT people are citizens like other citizens and that they should enjoy the same rights. He didn't make any other statement on the subject, although it was big news at the time. Then an anti-discrimination law was adopted, although these legislative changes were carried out in the framework of Europeanization and were less the result of real political will. As a counterweight to this, a constitutional amendment was immediately followed, according to which marriage was defined as a relationship between a woman and a man.
If we follow the dynamics of the next period, as I said, the ethno-nationalist content and connotations fell into the framework of anti-Westernism, and that's how the anti-Western discourse sluggishly transformed into the anti-liberal.
Malkhaz Saldadze
Homophobia is a part of culture and, among other things, a part of existential culture, because there has never been a space in which LGBTQ people were given the opportunity to express themselves and realize themselves. The formation of the state in Western civilizations took place in such a way that it became possible to obtain and emerge these spaces. We didn't go through with it. Georgia was a part of the Russian Empire for a very long time, then a part of the Soviet Union, one was an Orthodox empire, the other was an indoctrinated political system, totalitarian, which did not leave space for different identities. After Georgia embarked on the path of building an independent and liberal democracy, of course, this issue was also raised.
The Soviet state simply did not give the public space to the social diversity that has always been there, but this heterogeneity now demands to be reflected in the public space, and the state suppresses it, because it becomes impossible to overcome this cultural dimension. Simply put, it is a struggle between the ideal public space in our imagination and the public space in which the particularistic visions of those in power and institutions determine what this public space should be.
Therefore, this conflict is not based on universal values, but on the basis of private ideas, in which people who hold state power or religious institutions that try to control state power establish their particularistic visions as the only possible way of what public space should be. In this regard, when can we imagine that there was openness towards the LGBTQ community in Georgia? The answer is never.
Anna Rekhviashvili
In my recollection, until the beginning of the 2010s, political homophobia was used to discredit opposition politicians, then, when they started to articulate the right-wing position, in a more open and substantiated way, some specific groups, for example, the church, developed a method of using homophobia politically. But I always lean towards transnational analysis, this does not mean that local processes and local homophobias do not exist, but these homophobic discourses are borrowed from each other, and what type of discourse enters in what period, what specific arguments are used, in my opinion, this is determined by the international political context . This does not mean that there is no local receptivity to receive and process these discourses. But, say, in 2012, the most relevant was homophobic propaganda discourse because then Russia passed the homophobic propaganda law, right-wing groups are gathering around the world, agreeing to some type of message box and argumentation, and Russia has a really big role in that, but Russia is not the only important actor. Homosexuality propaganda discourse - we must protect our homeland and our future from homosexuality propaganda - was strongest in 2013. I think that was the central discourse at the time.
Over the years, this discourse has arguably changed. Now that Gharibashvili is speaking at the anti-gender conference, the anti-gender discourse is similar to the homophobic discourse, but it is not the same. Anti-gender discourse does not come from Russia in the first place. Anti-gender discourse is directed mainly at feminists, people working on gender, but with the use of homophobia and transphobia.
The anti-gender discourse begins in the 90s. The Catholic Church specifically attacked the concept of gender, then it was slowly adopted by various groups and, of course, took on its own local form. The history of anti-gender discourse is a bit different. I think this discourse has not been very strong with us so far. If well versed in this anti-gender discourse, they are likely to attack gender as a discipline, and feminists, in a different way. Of course, Russia also uses this, but historically Putin's ideologists have not founded it. Homosexuality propaganda discourse is Russian and more directed against LGBT organizations and their public speeches.
2. Recently, right -wing populism has become part of the official political rhetoric of the ruling team . Why does the ruling power rely on anti-democratic , anti -liberal rhetoric , especially recently ? Does this method work ?
Mariam Sajaia
I think that the talk of rights, including the use of homophobic language, was very deliberately done to promote partisan agendas, as it is today - in the form of various interest groups that are completely devoid of sharing the needs of primarily gay people, queer people. These approaches are usually related to electoral processes and maintaining political power. And here the role of the church is also important. The church is one of the leading forces that can guarantee electoral support for parties. As far as I can remember, no political party force has ever been interested in solving or listening to the problems of queers, quite the opposite.
Political homophobia is now being resorted to because it is a proven method. With this homophobic rhetoric, "Georgian Dream" adopted the law that marriage is a union between a man and a woman. During that election period, they gained ground with such shallow promises. Even now, they are trying to package the resistance among the people as the resistance of some "crazy children", "satanic queers". By creating an even more aggravating discourse, they are again trying to invalidate the plight of queers.
Ira Silanteva
As a rule, such methods are used by already bankrupt politicians and political power. It is at this time that they need a minority, from which they create a threat and with which they gather votes in the fight. In recent years, these are queer people. They do this with different media outlets or media actors. Moreover, if we take into account that we are the country of July 5, when Gharibashvili came out before the start of the march and marked the participants of the Pride march as radical opposition. Activists and community organizations avoided affiliation with any political group for years precisely not to be used by the ruling elite, which is exactly what Gharibashvili did the day he declared that all activists were from the radical opposition.
They use political technologies and measure sentiments, then they use the media to create those sentiments that the gays will come and make your children gay. In addition, I think the most unfortunate thing is that after the Russian law was withdrawn, Kobakhidze came out and mentioned "LGBT propaganda" for the first time. This means that if they tried to protect some political correctness in one way or another before, now they have clearly started using the ultra-right, Altinfo terminology. Which is a sign that they are likely to further aggravate the situation.
Malkhaz Saldadze
Now, in my opinion, they needed it because they have their political conjuncture, which implies a choice between Russia and the European Union. I may be wrong, but despite the fact that at one time they took steps to integrate Georgia into the European space, they are now slowing down this effort.
If you want it to be a public space adapted to the vision of the unified Orthodox Church, then Russia is such a space. In geopolitical terms, this topic enters, although it is absolutely not a geopolitical topic, but these are the alternatives that are offered to the public. If you want to be a diverse society, which means non-hierarchical and equal relations between different identity groups, including the LGBTQ group, then this is the EU, but if you want what you are already used to, then the EU is not the place. For such a long time, there were no non-hierarchical relations between identity groups, that is, the Georgian Orthodox always presented himself above people belonging to other identity groups, not only the LGBTQ group LGBTQ was generally a taboo topic. Now the question they ask is: do you wish there were no hierarchies? Then you have to give up your privileges, the EU is asking for it, then it's a problem for you.
Eka Aghdgomelashvili
By using a homophobic narrative, today "Georgian Dream" is practically depriving Altinfo of its supporters. I think this has to be explained by the fact that it started losing it own pro-Western voters very sharply after the last election. There is, of course, another explanation, that this was an intended move towards Russia. Things just happened too fast. There are also arguments in favor of this version, which cannot be denied, that since 2016 people with the most anti-Western, homophobic policies have been in positions. Practically, it turned out that the GD got rid of pro-Western forces from the Coalition, and those who remained remained. The third option is that since they lose voters, they also lose support from the West along with voters. The only way left is Russia. In any case, these three versions are not much incompatible with each other.
I think that the events in Ukraine made this picture even more intense, and the government could no longer stretch it and leave it in a vague perspective. Both, the society and the West expected a clear answer, and they could no longer leave this unresolved.
3 . According to the latest studies , there is a decrease in social homophobia and a strengthening of the legal discourse in the society. What are the explanations, causes and factors of this positive dynamic ? Isn't the use of political homophobia damaging this positive dynamic and going against it ?
Mariam Sajaia
Perhaps an important role is played by community organizations that work with people to raise awareness, empower queers, and help with self-identification, including settling relationships with homophobic families, for example, in workplaces, universities, classrooms, and so on. The role of queer-friendly media has to be also noted, which arose out of necessity, that is, when preparing a media product, they managed to more or less show real needs. And the national media speak in the language of sensationalism, which artificially causes arguments and divisions.
Anna Rekhviashvili
In my opinion, we all worked very hard in this direction, that this discourse was created, that some people dared to tell us on the air that all people are human, we have slowly broken this taboo topic of sexuality. This is not to say that polarization has helped reduce homophobia. It also reinforced some type of homophobia. On the other hand, the Internet has also worked, movies, there is not Netflix series without a gay character. This was not the case in the early 2000s. In general, discourse changes and people change. Public discourse has changed a lot worldwide, homosexuality is part of modern pop culture.
But in my view, public homophobia is still not a reliable indicator of whether right-wing discourse will be popular. Because the right-wing discourse hits more on the basic identity, belonging to the nation and so on. When you are homophobic, you don’t have to have much affiliation with right-wing discourse anyway. Or one may be right-wing and not necessarily a homophobe towards specific people. Right-wing discourse as a whole is more than these individualized homophobic views.
Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili
The main actors certainly influence the society, but things still change. Firstly, trust in politicians is extremely low. Trust in the church also shows a decreasing trend. However, under these conditions, trust does not increase in any other institution, and in the end I do not know how this will affect the society. At least that would have had an effect. In addition, in the hierarchy of values, the number of those who named religion in the top three values decreased by two times. Another determinant is the age difference. The young people are less likely to express homophobic attitudes. A recent study showed that those who fell into the first age group (18-24 year olds), born in the 2000s, do not experience homophobia at all. On the contrary, they most often pointed out that it is a choice, they perceive it as a part of self-expression and evaluate it positively. I think that the introduction of the first age group in research has changed the picture a lot. This generation, unlike the previous generation, thanks to information technology, is more connected to the global world and considers itself a part of it.
4 . What counter strategy should activist progressive groups have in the conditions of growing populism ?
Ira Silanteva
One thing activists and activist groups with limited resources can do is talk to people. Try to get to as much media as possible and inform the public more that this is some kind of political game. To show as much as possible that we, queer people, have the same interests and needs as the rest of society, without separating ourselves from others, other groups. We are part of this community. We have common interests and intersections. I would also add that great care must be taken not to become again a political tool in the hands of various groups. It is not only the ruling party that needs scapegoat, there are also opposition parties and other so-called progressive groups that need you to show their Europeanness and progressiveness. I actually find the so-called support from people or political groups who want to take a photo with you on May 17th a bit pretentious and ridiculous because when important decisions are being made, no one remembers queer people.
Mariam Sajaia
It is important for activist groups working on gender issues to work with the people, to show or discuss together the evils of the government or party forces, it is necessary to raise as many critical voices as possible. Also, other activist groups, which, for example, work with other priorities, should be connected with the people as closely as possible. Together, we must try to find forces, to create coalitions, to confront this propaganda machine, expose it and effectively resist it in all possible ways.
Malkhaz Saldadze
I think that in this case it is simply impossible to have a strategy, because the civil sector is being marginalized, that is, you may not have an sound strategy. A sound strategy can be expressed in being principled to fight for what you believe is right. Let's say, advocate for what public space should actually be in order to conform to democratic standards and fundamental principles of human rights. I believe that keeping silent is not the right strategy.
Anna Rekhviashvili
It's hard to say. In my opinion, it is important to determine whether civil society actually has the capacity and power to challenge this huge transnational right-wing politics with its own correct policies. We should know that we are still fighting in some marginal space and we don't have that much power. My position is that you should systematically and as much as possible try to do your work conscientiously and well, of course, always have self-reflection, also, not to serve only the elites and middle-class Georgians, the elite of Tbilisi, and try to be inclusive in your politics.
I think that in the case of a confrontation with the right-wing, it is an unequal battle and you should not always be in reactive position. When you constantly oppose what one says, you are moving into their discourse, you discuss only what they want to talk about, you can't get away from it. Instead, in my opinion, we should do our work conscientiously.
