Focus on Nordic rainbow co-operation & cultural exchange with Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Belarus:
2nd Nordic Fire Solidarity Festival Ends in Stockholm
Stockholm —The second Nordic Fire on the Rainbow Barricades in Eastern Europe -- a mini-festival between Prides -- has ended in the Swedish capital after five days of seminars, discussions, art exhibits, music, song, stage performances, film screenings and study visits May2-6, 2012.
“This was a great opportunity for us to tell an international gathering about our newly-formed Belarus LGBT Journalists Union, “ says Andrus Klikunou -- one of the three-man delegation brought to the festival by Sweden’s Civil Rights Defenders and speaking at the festival seminar at the Old Town offices of the CRD. "It was also immensely important for us to see with our own eyes the activities carried out by Swedish organizations in the field of LGBT community support and defense. The meetings in Noah’s Ark and in the PostiHIVa Gruppen showed us that the Swedish experience of HIV prevention and HIV positive MSM people support has some significant differences with the Belarusian realities. It is arranged at a much higher quality level, similar groups in Belarus should aim for."
At the seminar at the Civil Rights Defenders, the CRD's Erik Esbjörnson: “We are proud to be working with LGBT organizations in St. Petersburg, the Balkans, Belarus and elsewhere -- and to bring more human rights activists to Stockholm to meet representatives of other Swedish organizations." The Swedish CRD is this country's former Helsinki Human Rights Committee – one of the few national Helsinki committees daring to deal with LGBT rights and supporting LGBT groups in their struggles.
“The RFSL continues with its international work in Uganda, Indonesia, Moldavia and elsewhere – and we are working very much with the coming ILGA (International Lesbian & Gay Association) World Conference taking place this December in Stockholm, “ said President Ulrika Westerholm of RFSL (Sweden’s national LGBT rights organization).
“This is my first LGBT event in Sweden and I’m very thankful for the support from the Tallink Silja ferry line making my trip possible,” says Alice Tsymbarevich. who presented her art work at the RFSL House festival event and also described the work of the Estonian Gay Youth and the LGBT community at home in Estonia.
Missing Latvians under Stress, Arrested Russians
“We are sorry that our delegation from Latvia was hindered from joining in us in person because of their intensive, last-minute work on the rotating Baltic Pride – this year scheduled for Riga May 30-June 2, 2012, “ says Bill Schiller of the festival organizers Tupilak (Nordic rainbow cultural workers) and the ILGCN (international rainbow cultural network) Information Secretariat – Stockholm. “And we’re sorry that our missing colleagues in St. Petersburg face not only a new wave of homophobia --with 17 activists arrested for carrying rainbow flags in the May Day demonstrations -- and new legislation banning all positive information about homosexuality.”
Swedish Parliamentarian Underlines International Solidarity
“We parliamentarians in Sweden and elsewhere should also be joining LGBT and other human rights activists on the rainbow barrieers in an Eastern Europe facing enormous homophobia from hostile politicians, religious leaders and a homophobic mass media,” said Hans Linde openly gay parliamentarian of the Swedish Left Party said at the festival event at the Swedish Film Insitute.
“I was pleased to screen my film about a strong and controversial lesbian pioneer, “ Polish film maker Malga Kubiak told festival audiences. Polish singer and performer Michal Piotrowski, also at the Swedish Film Institute event: “This was the first showing of my new video “Love & Calm” -- describing a passionate, transsexual, human being and store-window-dummy embrace and transformation.
“We are very proud of Michal’s work as an openly gay program producer at the Polish Institute here in Stockholm, helping bring Polish LGBT activists to different Pride events in Sweden last year. We sincerely hope that Tupilak co-operation with the Institute will result in continuing with this Polish-Swedish rainbow co-operation,” says Schiller.
Helge Brekkan, Icelandic journalist attending the event: “It’s very important to report on the LGBT human rights struggle described by the Belarus delegates and other festival participants from Croatia and Saudi Arabia.”
HIV/AIDS in the Rainbow Rights Battles
“We are happy to be once again a venue of the Nordic Fire festival and we welcome the invitation of the Belarus delegates to visit their country, “ said Anders at the downtown office of PositHIVagruppen (men with HIV having sex with men) also reminding the foreign visitors that they and other Swedes are still fighting the almost unique legislation punishing with imprisonment an HIV man having sex without informing the partner of his HIV status even if no further infection has taken place.
At the festival discussions at HIV\AIDS support organization, Noak’s Ark's offices, NA’s Maria Björkqvist: “We are very sorry that the Swedish foreign assistance authorities have decided to cancel our HIV/AIDS program with Belarus on the grounds that this was not part of its “human rights” policies – as if the isolation and discrimination of HIV-infected is not part of the fight against intolerance and fear.”
Belarusians at Future Rainbow Journalist Conference in Vilnius
The three visiting Belarus activists Andrus, Max and Oleg added: "Taking into account the highly discriminatory environment for LGBT community members in Belarus, it was highly important for us to learn the Swedish experience of struggle for equal rights. Apart from motivating us to hold similar activities in Belarus, such meetings are extremely valuable for us, since they provide us with fresh ideas on what efficient directions and new methods of information and general enlightening work could be applied even in our desperate situation, in order to bring to the fellow-citizens’ minds a clear thought that LGBT people in Belarus are mentally normal and meeting the norms of the civilized moral, on the one hand, and that they deserve equal rights with other Belarusians, in order to leave in the same peaceful and calm way, as all the other people in the country do.
"We would like to pass sincere words of gratitude to Tupilak as well as to the Civil Rights Defenders for a perfectly organized event and fantastic hospitality!"
Living constantly under the threat of imprisonment for their critical journalistic and LGBT work, the three Belarus journalists have already announced plans to hold a rainbow journalist conference “in exile” in Vilnius June 22-23, 2012 for a meeting of Belarus, Lithuanian, Swedish and other journalists interested in rainbow co-operation.
Stockholm Island, Popular Bar, Lesbian Film, Rainbow Art & Photography
Other festival events included presentations and film screenings at the RFSL House, discussions and musical performances at the Moonbow Cultural Center on the Stockholm archipelago island of Runmarö, meetings at the popular Stockholm gay bar, Side Track and a study visit to the Gay Seniorer -- Sweden's organization for elderly LGBT men -- an crucial organization still to be created in most Eastern European countries.
Art and photography displayed at all festival events came from the ever-expanding ILGCN & Tupilak International Travelling Art & Photography Exhibit, this time concentrating on works from the Nordic region and Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Russia and Belarus -- with new contributions coming from these countries.
Other films screened at the festival included the short, music-filled document on Tupilak's recent Swedish Institute-supported delegation visits to Kiev and Minsk and the inauguration of the 1st Nordic LGBT Monument in the region -- inaugurated last year on the Baltic island of Gotland -- filmed by Swedish Tupilak's Willi Reichhold -- as well as the trailer of a new, in-production, humor-filled feature film about a wild, renegade lesbian music group by ILGCN-prize winning Swedish cultural personality, Bitte Andersson, who brought her production crew to the festival.
Support for the Nordic Fire festival also came from the Nordic Rainbow Humanists and the Nordic-Baltic-Polish-Russian-Belarus Network.
“It hasn’t been easy to organize an international, 0-budget festival... and without the generous support from different organizations, venues and individuals, this 2nd Nordic Fire wouldn’t have been possible,“ concludes Schiller. "The 1st Nordic Fire focused on solidarity with colleagues in Hungary and the Ukraine. If we arrange a 3rd Nordic Fire festival here in the future, we hope to put the spotlight on Nordic co-operation with colleagues on the rainbow barricades in Lithuania, Turkey and Serbia.”
*********************************************************
 |
| Nordic Fire songs at Moonbow Cultural Center, Runmarö |
 |
| Belarus journalists at Nordic Fire festival |
