by Michael Pugliese
18 April 2004 14:46 UTC < < <
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..Over the past five years, the Soros network has given a successful
start to previously nonexistent "gay" activism in almost all of its
areas of operation. The campaign for "LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender] Rights" is directed from Budapest, where Miriam Molnar's
1999 policy paper published by OSI defined the "problem" as
discrimination and the low level of acceptance, visibility, and
political representation of LGBT's. It was necessary either "to
convince the society to accept LGBT people as equal and let the society
make pressure [sic] to the politicians (through media) to change laws"
or "to convince the politicians that LGBT people are equal and that
they need help in convincing the rest of the society." The overall
goals were to generate discussion about LGBT identity within the
community, to make them visible and "create a positive image," and to
establish regular forums of discussion with other groups in the region.
Specific tasks included the development of websites in English with
subsites in local languages, the establishment of task forces that
would react to all "homophobic" media outbursts in one "Pink Book," and
the organization of two-week summer schools for teachers that
would "provide training about discrimination of [sic] LGBT people,
disabled people, overweight people etc."
In November 1999, a pilot project began at the Center for Publishing
Development (OSI Budapest) on homosexual books in Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Slovakia. That same year, Nash Mir
(Our World) Gay and Lesbian Center announced that it had been
registered as an NGO in the Ukraine. From that moment, the group was
free to pursue its stated goals, including "fight against sexual-
orientation discrimination" and "homophobic sentiments in societal
consciousness" and "assistance to upbringing of gays' and lesbians'
self-consciousness as equal and valuable members of society." The group
expressed gratitude for its legalization to the "Ukrainian branch of
Soros Foundation Network (Renaissance Foundation) which lobbied our
question in the Ministry of Justice and render [sic] legal assistance
to us."
Gay.ru is a Soros-funded Moscow NGO that has developed "into an
established and recognized Russian gay and lesbian center" and "the
clearing house for lesbian and gay groups scattered across the country":
We keep contacts with all existing gay, lesbian, and AIDS organizations
in Russia and maintain on-going correspondence and reporting to
international gay and lesbian organizations . . . We have collected the
biggest off-line library that features over a hundred Russian titles
and some fifty English classic books on gay studies. It was greatly
enhanced by the Core Collection on Gay and Lesbian Issues awarded to us
by the Soros Foundation in 2000.
In Bucharest, Monika Barcsy of the local Soros branch bewailed the fact
that, in Rumania, "the homosexual identity is stigmatized" and is one
of the main bases for treating individuals as "the others" in an
attitude of intolerance. Their families became the victims of
prejudice "just because the society is unable to accept the legitimacy
of same-sex relations as a 'normal' manifestation." The author singles
out the Rumanian Orthodox Church as a prime culprit: "The problem is
that many Christian Orthodox students' organizations and other student
groups support the church." In 1994, she points out, more than 100
theology students began a series of demonstrations in front of
Rumania's parliament against homosexual propaganda in the media and
collected signatures demanding legislation to criminalize same-sex
relations. Barcsy concludes by reiterating the standard Soros line:
Gay men and lesbians need rights that guarantee them the _expression_ of
their identity in the public sphere . . . [T]he legal status of gays
and lesbians, their ability to move and appear in public, to speak out
and act together should be considered a very good test of the civic
openness. [It] can't be resolved with the new laws made under the
pressure of different human rights organizations. Romania needs . . .
to ameliorate the negative responses towards the homosexuals from the
majority population . . . There are "problems" with the society as a
whole, and the society's mentality can't be changed overnight.
A key pillar of Soros' activities is his dictum that "no-one has a
monopoly on the truth" and that "civic education" should replace the
old "authoritarian" model. Civic education does not have to be "just a
dialogue" between a teacher and students, he says; in addition, "we
have projects like health education, where people use new ways to
discuss issues like hygiene, diet, and sex." While "this does not sound
like traditional civic education," he continues, it is "a new way for
teachers to relate to their pupils," just as citizens must relate in
new ways to governments and elected officials in societies trying to
become more open and democratic.
Accordingly, throughout postcommunist Eastern Europe, the Soros
Foundation's primary stated goal is to "democratize the education
system" by "instituting curriculum reforms." What this means in
practice has been demonstrated over the past three years by Serbia's
education minister Gaso Knezevic, a friend and confidante of Soros.
Since the first day of his tenure, Mr. Knezevic has insisted that
schools must be transformed from "authoritarian" institutions
into "exercise grounds" for the "unhindered _expression_ of students'
personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the
teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and
discipline rooted in the oppressive legacy of patriarchal past." Mr.
Knezevic started his reform with primary schools, with a pilot program
of "educational workshops" for children ages 7 to 12. The accompanying
manual, financed by the Open Society, rejects the quaint notion that
the purpose of education is the "acquisition of knowledge" and insists
that the teacher has to become the class "designer" and that his
relationship with students should be based on "partnership."
--
Michael Pugliese
__________
bwanika
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