/ 5 January 2003

The eroticisation of politics

Last week 50-odd activists at the Workers Library sat engrossed in discussions about the grave political implications of a Bill that seems bent on linking South Africa’s social movement activists to al-Qaeda.

There we were with our red T-shirts, workshop papers and markers, getting to grips with the legislation and mapping strategies to alert the public to this threatening development.

Then the atmosphere rapidly went from politically charged to testosterone charged. A well-known local activist had arrived with Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on his arm. He looked like he’d found his personal Nirvana.

Within seconds the Joburg left intellectual vanguard was on the move, and a hasty plan was hatched for Roy to make a brief, but inspiring, input to the gathering. So far, so good.

A key strength of the growing world struggle against globalisation has been the ability of activists from different parts of the world to meet and exchange stories that demonstrate the international nature of the problem. Struggles for land, water, electricity and housing here are often the same being waged on the other side of the world.

But neither the hushed whispers that resonated through the hall when Roy entered, nor the flushed attentiveness of the male comrades at the podium and in various seats around the room had much to do with this proud tradition of internationalism.

It was, rather, the soft voice of the petite writer shrouded in pink, talking about the struggles in her home country that glued these battle-hardened male comrades to their seats and that sent half of the movement’s leading male intellectuals scurrying for introductions as she left.

By the time we gathered outside the United States embassy for the closing ceremony of the Anti-War Coalition vigil the next day, the tittering about lost chances, dashed fantasies and how lucky so-and-so was (for the company of Roy) had reached fever pitch among the country’s leading left male intellectuals.

When a woman activist complained about the line-up of four male speakers, asking, ”Where is the women’s movement?”, it occurred to me that the left women intellectuals whose names feature on the A-list of anti-globalisation activists are those who, in addition to their actual struggle contributions, happen also to send shivers down the spines (or other places) of the left male intellectuals.

When you ask them why, it’s for the same old boring standards of beauty, glamour and sensuality set by Hollywood, Bollywood and Vogue magazine. Ironic, isn’t it, that ”No Label” Naomi Klein (most famous for her book rubbishing the power of labels) is fêted in part as a ”glamour girl” of the anti-globalisation struggle by the men of the movement? They make of her a label.

Ask a left male intellectual to defend this patriarchal behaviour and he will surely respond that he likes these women ”both because they are beautiful and because they write well/are great activists/whatever”.

But dig a little deeper and you will hear that their ”writing reflects their beauty”, or other such hormonally-challenged drivel! You might even hear, as I have, that ”there can be no politics without sensuality”.

Really, comrade? Can you reference that theory for me? Or explain why photographs of Roy and others are rapidly increasing the hits on key left websites?

What are the implications of this eroticisation of politics for the kind of world we are all struggling to create? On the one hand, we have possibly never before seen so many women leading so many struggles on the ground — especially struggles that push far beyond the ghettoised terrain of ”women’s issues” into the heart of economic and political territory.

On the other hand, when left women intellectuals look around for role models, there are very few, and even these are too often recognised in relation to men. In the past women activist intellectuals were often either the daughters (Eleanor Marx), wives (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela), or lovers (Simone de Beauvoir) of seemingly more important men. Today it seems we are still somehow ”of men”, even if only of their fantasies.

Clearly, the anti-globalisation movement needs writers who can tell the international story, write books and spread the stories of local struggles from one continent to the next. And both Roy and Klein have made, and hopefully will continue to make, important contributions to this effort, both as activists and as women.

But both the eroticisation standards applied to women seeking to occupy that political space and the raw maleness of the ”judges” of intellectual relevance beg the question: what would happen if the same standards applied to men? Would ageing luminaries like Dennis Brutus, Noam Chomsky and James Petras make the grade? What about the balding, grey and pot-bellied local intellectuals?

What of those male activists we have never even seen? Who knows what the the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement’s Joao Pedro Stedile looks like? Or Antonio Negri and Micheal Hardt of Empire fame, or the Zapatista’s balaclava-clad Sub-Commandante Marcos for that matter?

Maybe it’s time we women activists made them all stroll down an anti-globalisation cat-walk to see whether they have enough ”sensuality” to be taken seriously as leading writers, intellectuals and activists.

Or maybe we just need to change the judges, kick the balding, pot-bellied old men off the podiums and replace them with the kick-ass grassroots women who actually lead the struggles on the ground.