Julia Beffon
A couple of days ago, thinking about writing this article, I hauled out some pictures from the first Johannesburg gay march. The photos show a younger, rain-drenched me tarting a banner for the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (Glow) along the streets of Hillbrow.
Eleven years down the line I cannot recall why I was holding the banner I wasn’t a member of Glow but, though the photos are black-and-white, I can clearly remember its black, gold and green colours and the sense of exhilaration I felt parading the African National Congress flag. This was October 1990, just months after the ANC was unbanned, and the march reflected not just gay pride but a sense of sexual and political freedom.
There was no organised aprs-march: Champions opened that weekend and there was still a handful of clubs in the city that were either exclusively or predominantly gay. They were scattered around and club-hopping was de rigueur. Now we have our own exclusive ghetto, the Heartland (the Wasteland, if you prefer). The rough lesbian bars, like the notorious Together Bar in the heart of Hillbrow, have been replaced by tasteful supper-club restaurants in the ‘burbs. We now go to Therapy when once we went to Pieces.
The issues that dominated that 1990 march have disappeared along with the clubs and bars: the Constitution has answered most of our political demands and a huge community effort has reduced the Aids toll. Efforts to get common-law rights continue, but the urgency has gone out of the gay movement.
That’s not the only thing that has disappeared. Gone are the brown paper bags that some people wore so they would not be recognised. They’ve been replaced by floats defiantly blaring out music to the ever more bemused residents of the ‘Brow. It’s a sign of the progress that we’ve made.
But gone too are so many of the people from those photographs. In every one of the four pictures is someone I knew well who has since died. The close friend holding the other side of the Glow banner took his own life; the others succumbed to Aids.
The one constant is the drag queens, bless their size 12 heels.
A new generation, which was still at school during the first democratic election, is now at the forefront of the parade. Thankfully, they don’t have the fear and the anger of the first marchers. Along with the change from “march” to “parade” comes a shift in emphasis from protest to celebration.
But within this party mood is a sense of complacency and our gains are not yet so entrenched they cannot be whisked away by a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
The shocking statistics on condom use among gay men and the reemergence of the back rooms suggest the Aids lessons have not been learnt. And amid the current world political instability in the wake of the attacks on the United States it would be wise to remember that neither George W Bush’s right-wing hawks nor the Muslim zealots have any liking for queers. Nor do some of our northern neighbours.
If truth is the first casualty of war, surely tolerance is the second. With rumours of war and threats of global recession we must remember the origins of the pink triangle, and make sure that Pride does not come before a fall.