نعتذر! هذه الوحدة غير متوفرة كلياً باللغة العربية في الوقت الحالي. إن صندوق العدة أداة حية تتطور باستمرار. يمكنكم التواصل معنا لمساعدتنا في ترجمة هذه الوحدة.
باختصار
A series of bold and creative direct action protests, from police station invasions to “wink-ins,” succeeded in pushing back against police persecution of gay men for consensual acts in the UK in the 1980s.
Isn’t the emotional buzz of a protest a legitimate part of the attraction?
— Peter Tatchell.
In the UK in the 1980s, thousands of men were being prosecuted for consensual gay behaviour — a level of institutionalized police and judicial discrimination greater than any other European Community member at the time. In 1989, convictions for “gross indecency” (a consensual, gay-only offense) were more than three and a half times higher than in 1966, the year before the decriminalization of male homosexuality. Lives and careers were ruined for the very act of flirting or winking. Thousands of serious violent crimes (including gay bashing) were being left unsolved while police resources went to creating a spy-house across from a public park with infrared cameras, a “hide” (a camouflaged shelter), and the installation of “pretty police”: officers posing as gay at public toilets to trap soliciting men. In this environment, angry gay men formed the lobbying group Stonewall and the more direct-action-focused group, OutRage!
The police were made to look mean-spirited and sex-obsessed, with a perverse sense of priorities.
OutRage! launched a wave of hit-and-run, guerrilla-style protests: invading police stations, photographing undercover pretty police, posting warning signs to frustrate entrapment operations, destroying hidden cameras, and disrupting public appearances by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. They widely publicized the fact that the costs incurred by police anti-gay shenanigans, and resulting prosecution and imprisonment, were estimated at £13 million, while serious crimes went unpunished (see: PRINCIPLE: Do the media’s work for them). The police were made to look mean-spirited and sex-obsessed, with a perverse sense of priorities.
OutRage! also organized a “wink-in” to protest against laws that prohibited men from winking, meeting, and exchanging numbers. Protesters held aloft giant eyes on pulleys, making the eyes wink. Oversized business cards were exchanged, with names and phone numbers. The phone numbers were actually for Buckingham Palace (the seat of the British monarchy) and 10 Downing Street (the home of the British Prime Minister).
Within three months of OutRage! starting their campaign, the police opened their first serious negotiations with gay community groups. “We would deliberately look smart, often wearing ties, to confound expectations of what a gay rights campaigner looks like,” leading gay activist Peter Tatchell, one of the leading active campaigners of OutRage!, recalled in an interview with the UK Independent (see: PRINCIPLE: Don’t dress like a protester). “We thought it would take years, but we won most of our demands from the police within 12 months. This gave us a real sense that what we were doing was a having a tangible, positive effect.” Within a year, the police agreed to five of OutRage!’s key demands for a non-homophobic policing policy. And within three years, the number of men convicted of gross indecency fell by two-thirds — saving thousands of gay men from arrest and a criminal record.
Tatchell told Beautiful Trouble, “We really shamed and embarrassed the police. They lost the PR battle. The public and the press had turned against them and they pleaded with us for negotiations. They had thought they could massage and fob us off, but we came back with really concrete, practical proposals about what a non-homophobic policing policy would look like.”
التكتيكات الأساسية
By deliberately, publicly, and theatrically breaking an antiquated law, dating from the nineteenth century, which made it an offense for a man to persistently “solicit or importune” in a public place for an “immoral purpose,” OutRage! drew widespread public attention and forced the authorities into a decision dilemma: Either they had to enforce the law, thus demonstrating how absurd it was, or they had to stand aside, emboldening those pushing for its removal (see: PRINCIPLE: Put your target in a decision dilemma). Mocking and flouting such a law on the streets of London won OutRage! lots of new friends and participants for their fun actions, which included a public “kiss-in” at Piccadilly Circus and “queer weddings” in Trafalgar Square. By targeting antiquated laws on London street behaviour in a loud and demonstrative way, they also helped make the invisible visible.
المبادئ الأساسية
In his interview with the Independent, Tatchell stated, “We would deliberately smile at the police and be ultra courteous. We would go up to them and shake their hands. It completely messed with their heads.” He told Beautiful Trouble, “I recently did a lecture at the police headquarters and the older officers came up to me afterwards, saying, ‘We remember those protests very well. We thought they were great fun.’ That was partly the reason why the police weren’t as heavy with us as they could have been. We presented well, very professionally, suit and tie — we were very chummy, and the humour made it hard for them to hate us.”
Demonstrations are fun. There’s nothing like the rush of standing up for something you believe in, surrounded by others who feel the same. Making signs, decorating outfits, and generating slogans are enjoyable activities, so remember the pleasure to be found in what you’re doing and let your creativity and joy guide you.
The first stage of George Lakey’s “Five-Stage Revolutionary Movement Framework” is cultural preparation. According to Lakey, the “primary task of every revolutionary movement is to create a vision of what activists want instead of the status quo.” Lakey gives examples of activists caught in sudden success with unrealized opportunities due to a lack of visioning homework. With OutRage!, Tatchell and his colleagues created a clear plan of what they wanted from the police. Knowing what victory would look like in concrete, specific terms prepared them well to make it happen when the police came looking for compromise.