A cold and gray September 2017 afternoon in Bristol (the principal city of Englandâs greater southwest region) and the 80 attendees of the Gays Against Sharia march shuffled their underwhelming way through the city centerâs peripheral streets, on a route configured by the authorities to ensure the least possible inconvenience to the cityâs throngs of weekend shoppers. Organized by former English Defence League (EDL) activist Tommy English (aka Thomas Cook) under the joint banners of the fledgling micro-movements Gays Against Sharia and British and Immigrants United Against Terrorism , the march sought to build on the momentum established by the much larger, and more eventful, demonstration in Manchester in the wake of the Islamist terror attack in the same city (killing 22 people). The Manchester demo had in fact also been organized by Tommy English under the same Gays Against Sharia banner, but looked set for a pitifully low attendance until organizationally hijacked by Tommy Robinson 1 (aka Stephen Lennon), now leader of UK Against Hate and Pegida UK. As the Gays Against Sharia branding of the Manchester demo progressively succumbed to the more forceful banner of Tommy Robinsonâs UK Against Hate, the demonstration ultimately became a catalyst for re-uniting many of the (largely violent) activists and leaders associated with the now dissolved EDL. Estimated as being attended by up to 2000 people, the Manchester demonstration evidenced the still potent force of extreme nationalist protest , at the same time as its descent into violence and chaos gave ample voice to its unruly masculinist energies.
For the Bristol event, no doubt mindful of the chaos in Manchester, and aware of the scheduled presence of a number of âcelebrityâ figures from the anti-Islamic radical right in the UK,2 the police: deployed some 250 officers; enacted special powers banning face coverings, masks, banners, and flags âthat might incite hatredâ; and barricaded the attendees into the grandeur of Queen Square for collective address on the threats presented by the âEvil and Hateful Ideology of Sharia Lawâ. Attendees were promised representation on topics such as female genital mutilation, homophobia within Islam, and the perils of Sharia Law. With hindsight, the police neednât have worried. The counter-demonstration, organized by Bristol Stand Up To Racism , and supported by diversity and anti-fascist groups, local politicians, and a coalition of unions, had little to get its teeth into with a mere 80 marchers on the rally. Undoubtedly, the Gays Against Sharia organizers would have felt bitterly disappointed with the pitifully low turnout, and for an event so clearly seeking to work the political capital of potentially fruitful conflations of sexual cosmopolitanism , liberalism, and anti-Islamic politics . If the Bristol march represented something of an acid test of how much grassroots traction had been secured through the deployment of sexual cosmopolitanism as a recruiting sergeant for a radical anti-Islamic politics , then it would appear as though recruitment had not been going particularly well. For the anti-Islamic political entrepreneurs who would seek to build alliances between sexual minorities and the broader interests of the radical and extreme right, the Bristol march appears suggestive that such alliances remain tenuous, at least in the context of organized street-level political action in the UK.
In that same year, the long Italian summer had been marked by a series of incidents that had served to bring the linkages of nationalism, gender, and sexuality to the forefront of public debate. Two principal events drew the attention of media and public alike. On the night of 26 August 2017, a group of young men, identified by the victims as North-African, attacked two Polish tourists (a heterosexual couple) on a Rimini beach, one of the most popular destinations on the Adriatic coast for young tourists and revelers alike. What at first appeared a friendly approach from the group quickly turned into a violent and sexual assault, with the man being knocked unconscious and the woman repeatedly raped. After attacking the Polish couple, the group of young men would continue their night of violence under the influence of alcohol and drugs, heading to Miramare , on the border with Rimini, where they sexually abused a transsexual of Peruvian origin.
Changing scene to Florence , a regional city attracting millions of tourists every year, in addition to thousands of overseas students (particularly from the USA), the night of 7 September saw two 21-year-old American students sexually assaulted. Approached outside a club in central Florence by two on duty carabinieri 3 patrolling the area after receiving a call from the owner of the premises, journalistic reports account for how the two women were raped by the two carabinieri in the lift and on the stairs of the womenâs place of residence. CCTV footage showed that the two carabinieri used their police vehicle to take the American students home, an illegal act according to Italian law.
The two cases elicited quite different responses from both public opinion and the media. The rape in Rimini was treated from the outset as a confirmed case of sexual violence and was associated with a general outcry against asylum seekers, refugees, âdo-gooderâ (buonisti in Italian) advocates of migrant interests, and an overly tolerant and permissive immigration policy. Media headlines accounted for the rape in Rimini in terms implying the certain guilt of the accused. The main Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera , for instance, entitled its Bologna online edition, âRimini, gang rapes a tourist on the beach, and a transsexualâ, and added in the summary, âA group of foreigners attacked the couple last night: first beating the man and then abusing the woman. Then they would move to State 16, and also abused a transsexualâ (26 August 2017).
In contrast, in the Florence case, though the government soon realized that the American studentsâ claims were fully grounded, the general public appeared more reluctant to accept the possibility that the two carabinieri were capable of committing rape. Media presentations of the case clearly stressed that the studentsâ allegations were yet to be proven. In fact the Corriere della Sera entitled its online edition: âFlorence , the allegation of two American students: âWe were raped by two carabinieriâ â (07 September 2017). Following confirmation of their guilt, the two officers were quickly reconstructed as ârotten applesâ in an otherwise healthy barrel of national masculinity, thus protecting the national body from implication in such sexual crime. Media defense of the carabinieri, as representatives of the nation itself, here became a mechanism for defending national masculinities.
Our final case concerns a quite different continental context and one for that matter not substantively addressed in this text. In February of 2014, Yoweri Museveni , the president of Uganda signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law. The Act criminalizes any sexual contact between persons of the same sex, where the initial bill (introduced in 2009) originally included the death penalty for certain homosexual acts . Karimi and Thompson (2014) note that capital punishment was rescinded after the UK and many other European nations threatened to withdraw millions of dollars of aid to the country. However, the bill includes a provisional of life imprisonment for several specific crimes and includes prison sentences for groups that work with or counsel the LGBT community , essentially criminalizing many organizations and individuals who seek to support or otherwise work with an already vulnerable group.
In an interview with CNN , President Museveni was asked if he was worried whether the new laws were a step backwards for the people of Uganda. He replied:
Worried? Not at all. If the West doesnât want to work with us because of homosexuals then we have enough space here to live by ourselves and do business with other people. We see ...