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It is still illegal
to be a gay man in Syria, with three year imprisonment sentences handed down if
apprehended. Assad's security services harass gay men, blackmail them and use
them as informants. There are no HIV/AIDS prevention services in that nation,
homophobic and misogynist "honour killings" are rife and arbitrary detention,
torture and apprehension of dissidents are rife.
Why is Syria's
current domestic situation so dire? One needs to examine that nations history to
work out why that is the case. Until the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918,
Syria was a tributary province of several affiliated caliphates. In 1918, France
became the temporary colonial overlord, although there was a major anti-colonial
revolt in 1925. Continued unrest forced France to sign an independence agreement
in 1936, but the French National Assembly refused to ratify it. The Nazi
occupation of France complicated matters, given that Britain and Free France
then occupied it for the next four years (1940-1944), and almost definitive
independence was declared in 1944, although the last French troops didn't leave
until 1946, given their burgeoning difficulties in Indochina and Algeria.
Factionalism and
political instability prevailed until 1948, worsened by Syrian involvement in
neighbouring Israel's War of Independence. Ultimately, Colonial Hasni al-Za'im
overthrew the first democratically elected post-independence Syrian government
in 1949. Five more years of repeated coups and military regimes followed, to be
replaced by another temporary democratic interlude (1954-56). In 1956, the Suez
Canal crisis caused the end of that brief interval and the consequence was a
compound "United Arab Republic" consisting of Iraq, Syria and Egypt, which
gradually fell apart due to religious and nationalist pressures. In 1963, the
Ba'ath Party seized power and announced a new constitution and regime in 1964.
In 1966, a rival Ba'ath Party faction seized power and the situation was
'stabilised' by the emergence of Colonel Hafez al-Assad as Syrian
dictator.
Syria has had an
ambivalent relationship with western nations. It has frequently interfered in
neighbouring Lebanon's domestic affairs, most particularly during Lebanon's
civil war during the seventies, eighties and nineties and has clashed with
Israel over the latter's occupation of the Golan Heights strategic site. It is
considered an Iranian ally, and provides aid to the anti-Israeli Palestinian
insurgents in Hamas and Hezbollah. Gradually, al-Assad's Alawite
Muslim-dominated regime was destabilised by al Qaeda Sunni Islamist
fundamentalists and Kurdish separatists. In 2000, Hafez al-Assad died and was
succeeded by his son, Bashir al-Assad. Hopes of democratic reform were quashed
by repression from the Ba'athist al-Assad regime in 2001 and 2005. Since March
2011, Syria has been in a state of civil war.
However, one of the
combatants, ISIS, predated that conflict. Formed in 2006, ISIS has been
bankrolled by Sunni fundamentalists in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and
Qatar, taking advantage of post-occupation fragmentation and misgovernment in
Iraq and the chaos of civil war in Syria which destabilised the al-Assad regime.
More recently, it has made considerable advances in western Iraq, exploiting
the weakness of the fragile legitimacy of the post-Saddam presidency and
national legislature and occupying important Iraqi cities such as Tikrit and
Mosul. It has established shariah law courts and Sunni Muslim educational
facilities. Its membership is estimated from 3000-10,000 combatants, mostly
Iraqi and Syrian Sunni Islamist fundamentalists, but also enlisting support from
Chechens, Afghans, Pakistanis and even some Europeans. Its extremism led to its
expulsion from al-Qaeda in February 2014- the organisation engages in
decapitation of western hostages and sexual slavery. Its leader is an Iraqi, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi, who wants to re-establish a 'caliphate' across Syria, Lebanon,
Iraq and Palestine. LGBT Iraqis are little better off than their Syrian
counterparts- theoretically, homosexuality is "legal," but according to the
Iraqi Criminal Code, gay adult media (Section 215), same-sex marriage
certificates (Section 375), 'immodest acts' (Section 401) and indecent advances
toward someone of the same sex (Section 402(b)) are all illegal. Although ISIS
is a Sunni Islamist organisation, LGBT Iraqis fare no better under the Shia
militia on the other side of the Islamic confessional divide. Baghdad's Mahdi
Army, the League of the Righteous (Asiab ahl al-Haq) and Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Badr Organisation) have presided over
kidnappings, mutilations, executions and murders of at least ninety lesbian and
gay Iraqis since 2012.
ISIS appears to be
an equal opportunity persecutor, attacking Northern Iraqi Kurds, destroying Shia
mosques and communities, enslaving Yazidi ethnic and religious minority women as
sexual slaves and throwing Iraqi gay men off tall buildings, as recounted on
Britain's Pinknews and
Gaystarnews websites. It is no wonder that LGBT Iraqis and Syrians are
fleeing such repression.
But there is
another side to this grim triangle. How did Hungary's political culture
deteriorate to the point where it tries to forcibly prevent the transit of
refugees? The answer is to be found in the context of that nation's domestic
politics. In 1990, following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, Hungary's
Socialist Worker/Communist Party relinquished government. For eighteen years
afterward, it was replaced by alternating governments from the Hungarian
Democratic Forum and Socialist Party, which were ostensibly centre-right and
centre-left, although both were committed to asset sales, an open market
economy, foreign investment and escalation of foreign debt, as well as
membership of NATO (1999) and the European Union (2002). Unfortunately, this
apparent equilibrium and democratisation broke down in 2008 following the global
economic crisis and a reactionary nationalist anti-market party came to power.
Fidesz had begun its existence as a 'classical liberal' party in 1994, but then
deteriorated into something akin to New Zealand First here. It is in coalition
with Jobbik, a blatantly neofascist political party. It is also socially
conservative.
As for LGBT
Hungarians, a brief description of their lives under communism and
post-communism is in order. In 1961, Hungary decriminalised male homosexuality,
albeit with age of consent inequality at twenty, reduced to eighteen (1978) and
finally equality at sixteen (2002). For a while, it looked as if Hungary was
making the transition to a mainstream pluralist democratic society. By 1997, it
had passed legislation that protected de facto straight and gay couples from
discrimination and in 2007, it introduced registered partnerships/civil unions.
Unfortunately, things went into reverse when Fidesz and its coalition partners
won the 2008 Hungarian election. The new right-wing government banned marriage
equality, excised LGBT status from national antidiscrimination laws, got into
trouble with Germany over plans to withdraw from the European Single Currency
Zone. There have also been reports of office stacking corruption and
anti-abortion "fetal protection" legislation. In 2012, it tried to garner
support for legislation that attacked "the promotion of sexual deviance", thinly
masked antigay legislation, but failed.
The current
Hungarian Constitution has also been strongly criticised by the Council of
Europe, European Parliament and United States for its worrying concentration of
power in the hands of Fidesz office holders, limiting accountability to the
Constitutional Court of Hungary and limiting judicial independence and media
freedom of expression. However, it has subsequently won legislature majorities
in 2010 and 2014. Moreover, one of its supporters is the Jobbik Party, which
bluntly can be described as neofascist. Jobbik is anti-Semitic, lambasting
Jewish foreign investment in Hungary and has connections to the neofascist
vigilante Magyar Garda paramilitary group. It is actively hostile toward
neighbouring Roumania, is Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant. Here, one suspects
that one can find the origins of current Hungarian anti-immigrant violence,
given that some Jobbik members are involved in law enforcement. It is no wonder
that its abusive behaviour toward Syrian refugees and asylum seekers is so
repressive. Hungary is not alone in this, as similar far rightist tendencies
are apparent in Serbia, Slovakia and even the Czech Republic, once seen as a
paragon of post-communist liberal humanism. Only time will tell whether the
current situation leads to soul-searching and an arrest to Hungary's drift
toward right-wing extremism.
Recommended:
Eyal Zisser: Commanding Syria: London:
IB Tauris: 2007.
David Lasch: The New Lion of Damascus: Bashir al-Assad and
Modern Syria: New Haven: Yale University Press: 2005
"Hungary's
Government: To Viktor the Spoils" Economist: 07.01.2012: http://www.economist.com/node/21542414
Ruth Wodak et al
(ed) Right-Wing Populism in Europe:
Politics and Discourse: London: Bloomsbury Academic: 2013
Michael Hindenberg:
Transforming the Transformation? The
Eastern European Radical Right in the Political Process: London: Routledge:
2015
Edith Oltay: Fidesz and the Reinvention of the Hungarian
Centre-Right: Budapest: Szazadreg Kiodo: 2012
Aleks Szczerbiap
and Jean Henley: Centre-Right Parties in
Post-Communist Eastern and Central Europe: London: Routledge: 2006.
Josh Lowe: "Iraq
Crisis: Who or What is ISIS?" Prospect
Magazine: 12.06.2014: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/iraq-crisis-who-and-what-is-isis/#.U54olPmSyPY
Iravati Guha: "Who
is IS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?" Prospect Magazine: 02.07.2014: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/who-is-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-isis-leader/#.U7xqD_mSyPY
Will Stroude: "Gay
men recount the horrors of life under ISIS" Attitude: 25.08.2015: http://www.attitude.co.uk/gay-men-recount-the-horrors-of-life-under-isis/
Clive Simmons: "Iraq: The New Dark Age" DNA 101 (June 2008):96-100
Austin Mackell:
"Under Attack" DNA 122 (March 2010): 62-67
Tim Warrington: "The Killing Fields" DNA 149 (June 2012): 34-39
