Should Cruise Lines Boycott Russian Ports of Call?

[Austcruiser84]

Well wishes on your upcoming cruise shepp. Be nice to your fellow passengers.

[keithm]

I'm growing pretty weary of this discussion.

 

But here, I guess, is the thing. Maybe because I grew up both queer and Jewish, I'm predisposed to identify with the lot of the oppressed and suffering. And maybe because I cherish the good things my outsider status bestowed on me, I'm not much of an assimilationist. Yeah, I just got married. But not because I want to be the same as straight people. Because I want the same rights as straight people, a not insignificant distinction. And ever since Stonewall, I've been out on the streets for LGBT rights - early Gay Liberation, helping organize the San Francisco parade, ACT UP, Queer Nation, against Prop 8 - though not enough, and I'm getting lazy with age. Not that I'm nostalgic for some radical Good Old Days, but neither do I love the sense of bourgeois privilege some anti-activist types evince. So that's where I'm coming from.

 

I'm self-centered in a lot of ways, but I do feel solidarity with others, and that can transcend the nation-state. Had I been alive in the 1930s, I hope I would have identified with German Jews (and gays) rather than a US government that severely restricted immigration of Jewish refugees, with the Spanish Republicans rather than a US government that stood by and did nothing to oppose Franco's rise. You may view this as hopelessly romantic. But given the choice, I'd rather err on the side of too much idealism. Sue me.

 

A good while ago, I traveled in Burma, at a time when some Burmese were urging a tourist boycott, others hoping that visitors would come and keep communication with the outside world open, providing money to individual Burmese while avoiding as much as possible funding the government. I did the latter, and still have mixed feelings about it.

 

But as far as I know, there are no Russian queers urging us to get on cruise ships and head on over. None. As I've said many times, there are other places in the world to go. Sure, some of them are thoroughly distasteful; hell, I visited Syria under Hafez al-Assad, and maybe I shouldn't have. But there was no boycott in place, and while my not going might have made me feel better, it would have had no symbolic meaning. Breaking an ongoing boycott of Russia does have symbolic meaning.

 

I'm agnostic about an Olympic boycott, hoping that the Games will provide some ground for positive action. But not being a tourist in St. Petersburg? Easy one. If Cher and Wentworth Miller can stay away, so can I. Travel can be many things. But tourism, which is what we're talking about here, is self-indulgent entertainment.

 

I've been accused of being anti-Russian. It's a country where 5 out of 6 citizens are anti-gay, where even the leading queer spokesman just turned out to be a raving anti-Semite. I know the Russians suffered a lot, especially during WWII, when they fought the ****s, who were, of course, anti-gay and anti-Semitic. So pardon me if I'd rather, stereotypically speaking, admire the Dutch spirit rather than the Russian soul. You know, the Dutch, who hid away Jews from the ****s and famously scrawled defiant graffiti that read, "Whose dirty Jews? OUR dirty Jews." The Dutch, who right in the middle of Amsterdam have a monument to gays killed in the Holocaust. The Dutch aren't perfect either, but there it is. And Amsterdam is awfully nice this time of year.

 

I'd rather defer my desire to see the Hermitage, maybe even finally get off my butt and do more than go to a demo at the Russian consulate, than be sitting in my cruise ship cabin, headed for St. Petersburg, and thinking, "There's nothing wrong with Russia that more re-runs of Glee can't fix."

 

Whose dirty Russian queers? OUR dirty Russian queers.

 

And I have a cruise to leave for in a few days. I'm done with this thread for now.

I guess all it takes for evil to triumph, is for good to do nothing. It's an old saying but it still rings true. I don't always agree with you on things,but if we took a stand in 1938 & not appeased at all costs,perhaps this present world would be vastly different.

[IslandExplorer]

"Russian reports said that Mr Elderenbosch was tied up and beaten, and that the attackers daubed a heart on a mirror in lipstick with the letters LGBT. The letters are an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24545441

[jaydonny]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPfPVD8pRE

[jaydonny]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAPfPVD8pRE

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd3QTPNjDWg

[Ken_W]

The first known homosexual political organization in the U.S. was the Mattachine Society, founded in November of 1950 in Los Angeles .

 

Sorry, but I can't resist! The Mattachine Society was the most important and influential early organization in the U.S., but not the first organization concerned with gay rights.

 

That honor goes to the Society for Human Rights started by Henry Gerber in Chicago -- in 1924. Two issues of a monthly newsletter were published and two months worth of meetings were held before Gerber was arrested and tried in court.

 

You can check out the Wiki entry here, and I think it's fascinating -- who joined, (more importantly, who didn't join and why), and the lengths the Society went through to protect themselves...

 

And I believe the Wiki entry sheds an interesting light on this discussion as well.

[CanadaTraveller]

I know this thread is dead, but I just got to it today, returning from a cruise. Thank you Shep for capturing my feelings so well. At the FOD meetings on my cruise, there was talk of taking the Northern Europe cruise, including St. P, to which my partner and I both expressed our boycott and distaste for such a trip. Boycotting Russia and others who suppress glbt citizens is the least I can do. I can live with missing the Hermitage, rather than knowing any of my pink dollars go to the government. But I can also make sure others are aware of not only the oppression, but also their danger as a visitor.

 

I am amazed at the complacency of gays regarding Russia. This is the thin end of the wedge. This law is to protect children from such scary things as gays. What will be the next step to protect adults? We have seen what happens when a group is vilified at a national level in our not too distant past. I would hope that had I lived during that time, I would not have been planning trips to Berlin with my partner, but raising awareness back at home.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Roy&Adrian]

I naively thought this was a storm in a teacup and that Russia would eventually bow to international pressure. But after just seeing Stephen Fry's documentary where the politicians and church are intent on using gays as the scapegoats for 'traditional family values', I no longer regard St. P as a place I want to cruise to.

We've been there before but because of the need for a visa or sponsor, could only visit a few places and wanted to go back. But, like most of Africa, the Middle East and parts of the Caribbean, Russia is a place we will not be spending our pink pound

[Nick_C]

Interesting that the OP calls for a boycott of Russian ports (where homosexuality is legal), but is booked on a cruise that will call at St Kitts (where it is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison).

 

Homosexuality was illegal in many US states until 2003 when these laws were eventually declared to be unconstitutional, 10 years after Russia had decriminalised homosexual acts. Many US states, such as Florida, refuse to repeal the sodomy laws (although they are no longer enforceable). This discrimination against gay men never prevented me from visiting the United States, a country I love.

 

In the 80s, walking down the street in St Petersburg Florida, my boyfriend and I suffered verbal abuse and had things thrown at us by local youths driving by.

 

In the 90s, I visited the States several times with my boyfriend at the time, who was HIV positive. It did worry me that he was entering the country illegally, as he would have been refused entry if they had known his HIV status. Fortunately, this rule was eventually abolished - in 2010.

 

Now, when I visit the States with my lawful Civil Partner, we are still discriminated against when we try to go through Immigration as a couple. I have been told in no uncertain by US Immigration Officers that my lawful partner (my husband in all but name under UK legislation) is not a family member, and that we have to be processed separately. When entering the States from Canada recently, the Immigration Officer asked me my relationship to my partner. I told her "he is my partner". "What?" she asked. Three times. Before she recovered from the shock and accepted the fact that we were a couple of benders, at which point the expression on her face suggested she had stepped in something unpleasant.

 

Although I suffered homophobia in St Petersburg Florida in 1988, I didn't encounter any unpleasantness in St Petersburg Russia when we visited on a cruise in 2008.