May 8, 2010
I heard news today from Lithuanian friends about the Gay Pride Tolerance Parade in Vilnius this afternoon – the first parade of its kind in the history of Lithuania that took place under pressure from the EU community, despite 75% disapproval by Lithuanians. Any substantive gay rights organizing has long been banned by the same government that only a few months ago supported a SS rally and neo-Nazi march.
I send my love to the Gay Pride marchers in Vilnius, Lithuania, and to the brave-hearted, daisy-wearing kindred on the hill. Because hate is a form of gravity, and some people are weightless.
excerpt from BOURREAU “the tug of war” (c) quintan ana wikswo
Another stitch in time and space today – joining us in 2010 to other times and places perhaps not so far away.
As though some of our human places are so steeped in hate, as though hate has worn a groove and it fills with humans.
Like a grave that will not close up.
As though the groove has a gravity, a force. People are pulled into it. Do they resist?
On another May morning in 1933, a line of Hitler Youth children play tug-of-war in their gas masks. Children practicing for survival, for death, for themselves, for others.
For when the air is unsafe to breathe. For when children play in streets of smoke bombs, like today, in Vilnius.
Tug of war. Isn’t that what it is? War’s tug – a force that pulls, like a black hole. A nagging tug on a coat-tail. Demanding. Insistent, the tug boat that goes against the river’s stream.
The tug of war indeed, dragging us in the opposite direction.
Today, people in Vilnius who came to march in support of the parade were not allowed to join in – instead, they were corralled into an area cordoned off by the police…which was filled with neo-Nazi thugs.
In the city square, in Germany, small children in the Hitler Youth practice slipping and falling, practice pulling people over from one side to another. Who taught them how to put those masks over their heads? Who told them why?
Standing on a familiar hilltop, svelte and fashionable young women dressed all in black, long hair cascading down their backs, arms wrapped tenderly in swastika bands and holding fascist flags. Today’s black leggings, chic leather boots, as though wearing the newest spring fashions from 1933. Or 2010.
A battle of strength in numbers, of power and leverage. How best to shore up the thick-soled shoes on the cobblestones. How best to grip the rope.
How sure to force someone off their feet, out of their ranks, away from their line of defense.
Beside these women today stood their fascist thug brethren – arms free and tossing smoke and gas bombs into the gay pride parade, attempting to choke off the air supply to love and tolerance.
How familiar for Vilnius.
Who shall survive this tug of war.
It is impossible to walk safely in this city, not on such uneven stones.
They’re slippery, as though longing for someone to fall.