Don’t get me wrong, as an advocate of liberal democracy, gay rights and especially gay rights team, the German national team, I celebrated wildly at Leon Goretzka’s draw against the Hungarian national team, and also in front of the his “one love” celebration. But at the same time I share some of the perplexities expressed by the director of the international section of New Statesman, Jeremy Cliffe, about how Hungarian players and fans have been collectively held responsible for the intolerant policies introduced by their country’s authoritarian regime. The clash “liberals against Hungary and Uefa” seems a bit out of place, to be honest.
Of course, like most major sports organizations, UEFA is incredibly hypocritical in its selective approach to mixing football and politics. Aside from the fact that all sports are political (as an expression of political and cultural norms), an international tournament played by teams representing entities such as states is by constitution extremely political. Furthermore, UEFA is promoting the Equal Game campaign to “fight discrimination” on the basis of gender, race and sexuality, a deeply political issue in today’s polarized world. And it is true that Hungarian authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán explicitly included football in his nationalist and populist campaign, investing large amounts of public money in privately owned stadiums. Having said all this, I would like to focus on a less obvious hypocrisy, on the opposite side.
For more than a decade, Orbán has taken democracy in Hungary by storm, and met with almost nonexistent opposition when he undermined and undermined the rights of migrants, women and workers. So why only now – not only because of the new law criminalizing LGBT + content in schools but, apparently, above all for the politicization of the affair within Euro 2020 – most of the EU states have decided that “it’s too much”? Are gay rights really that important to these politicians? Or is there something else underneath?
Rainbow but not too much
As many activists have pointed out (and criticized), “gay rights” have for years now become a marketing tool for companies, politicians and states. The companies “pink wash” using rainbow colors in their logos and products in an attempt to make them more appealing to the younger and more liberal segments. It makes sense, because for many products, in several countries, the benefits of this stance are potentially enormous, and the costs are relatively low. But the real benefits to the gay rights cause are also low. Let’s take BMW for example. The automaker wore the rainbow colors in the logo before the Germany-Hungary match, but a few years ago it also invested over a billion dollars in a new plant in Hungary. If BMW really wanted to uphold the rights of LGBT + people in Hungary, it could easily keep the colors of its logo and in the meantime threaten to pull the plug at the Debrecen plant if Orbán does not withdraw the law.
In politics the pink washing it is the use of “gay rights” to attack a political opponent and strengthen one’s credentials of modernity and tolerance. This process has become so prominent among Northern European far-right groups that it has given birth to an academic term, homonationalism. Some European far-right groups use gay rights to attack Islam and Muslims, calling them “backward” and “intolerant”, while claiming a status of modernity and tolerance for themselves. The Israeli government has been following this path for years. Yet both the Israeli and European far right pretend not to see rampant homophobia within their societies.
What is happening in Europe today seems to me to be a kind of homoliberalism, or the use of “gay rights” to explicitly attack Hungary and implicitly present oneself as tolerant. In other words, the matter is very much about politicians and governments and much less about Hungary. It certainly has almost nothing to do with the LGBT + community and its rights, in Hungary or elsewhere. To give an example, today the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte presents himself as a champion of gay rights, but he governs in coalition with a “soft” homophobic party (the Christian Union) and has contributed to the normalization of an “extreme” homophobic party (the Reformed Political Party). Similarly, several EU countries among the 17 that have asked to fight “anti-LGBT + discrimination” do not legally recognize gay marriages (Cyprus, Italy) or some form of civil union (Latvia), accepted even in Hungary.
If we really want to stand up for the LGBT + community and its rights, we need to stop accepting the pink washing and homoliberalism, starting to judge companies and politicians for what they do and not for what they say. Even more important is to make sure that the pride and the rainbow flag return to being symbols of the celebration and defense of our lgbt + communities (at home and abroad) rather than letting them be used as a strategy to attack a political opponent and hide. in the meantime, their behavior is far from perfect.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)
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