Some people want to organize the world according to their own longing for order and their own definition of purity, as if there is only one way of expressing love, one way to live, one single way of forming a family - just one way of being human. Some people assume it to be their right to be violent towards others, believing that only one right exists, only one thought is acceptable, only one opinion, one belief, and only one sexual identity. This is inhumane. It is cruel, it is unintelligent and it is also contrary to universal human rights. In this edition of the Dissident Blog, Swedish PEN touches upon this painful reality.
We are proud to present some of today’s courageous, angry and loving voices such as Max Lobe, a celebrated writer from Cameroon, living in Switzerland; Romeos Oriogun, a much loved award-winning poet from Nigeria; Dr Iman Al-Ghafari, from Syria but who sees her homeland in the heart of a woman. We have collaborated with the Jordanian online magazine “My.Kali”, which defines its profile as “LGTBQIA-inclusive”. A magazine that is constantly blocked by the Jordanian authorities. Through this collaboration we are gaining insight into what it's like to be queer and Arabic at the same time. And we publish texts by Algerian author Anouar Rahmani. He is threatened with imprisonment for insulting Islam in his novel Jibril's Hallucination - a crime that can incarcerate him for five years.
Earlier this year, the Russian filmmaker Anton Yarush´s film “Closeness” was selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival. On November 15th, on Imprisoned Writer's Day, he came to Stockholm to speak in front of a large audience about his work and the situation for LGBT issues in Russia and in the former Soviet Union. He cried when he held the speech and so did we who listened to it.
