Johannesburg Pride venue controversy gets mainstream coverage
The Sunday Times has now weighed in on the debate around this year’s venue for Johannesburg Pride in an article published this weekend.
The 2016 event is taking place on Saturday 29 October at Melrose Arch, an upmarket residential, office and retail precinct; a fact that has led some to classify the Pride as exclusionary.
Speaking to the newspaper, activist and filmmaker Bev Ditsie, who was one of the founders of the first Johannesburg Pride in 1990, distanced herself from the upcoming event.
She described it as “a celebration of whiteness and freedom” that did not address LGBT people who continued to be persecuted in the townships.
Thami Kotlolo, former member of the Zoo Lake-based Joburg Pride Board (which was disbanded after the infamous 2012 altercation with feminist activists), also questioned the appropriateness of the location.
“Who are we talking to in Melrose Arch? I feel the event is too commercialised,” he said. Kotlolo argued that “the struggle of gay men and lesbians in the township was different from those in urban areas”.
He said that Melrose Arch “caters for the privileged majority – white gays and only a few black gays” and pointed out that his board had transported people who couldn’t afford to get to Zoo Lake to and from the venue.
It is worth noting that, at the time, Zoo Lake also came under considerable criticism from activists as a venue because it too is in a suburban area. It was also slammed as being exclusionary on the basis of class, socio-economic status and race.
Kaye Ally, current Johannesburg Pride organiser, has dismissed the complaints against her event. “We are a Pride for all,” she told the Sunday Times. “We know corrective rape is not right, but we cannot focus on one aspect, we need to cater for the whole LGBT community.”
She also said that without funding Pride could not organise transport and insisted that the event had to appeal to a younger generation.
Meanwhile, other Pride events in the city appear to be in disarray. Soweto Pride was recently postponed after city authorities raised its risk rating at the last minute; leading to additional costs and restrictions. A new date has not been confirmed. People’s Pride, set up in 2013 as a more radical, political and inclusive alternative to Johannesburg Pride, has yet to announce a date for this year.
For more on the debate on the 2016 Johannesburg Pride venue, read our article Finding a Platform for Johannesburg Pride. For details on Saturday’s Pride, click here.
- Facebook Messenger
- Total141
I think in this political climate, every venue or space proposed is going to be labeled ‘white’ ‘elitist’ ‘etc.’ even if you could find a suitable venue in a township (playing to the crowds) the risk factor in taking it there would alienate both audiences and sponsors alike. The issues raised and faced by the LGBT community are never going to be addressed through the forum of “Pride”.
YannR, you said it all. I think it would be impossible to arrange a pride event in Johannesburg that will satisfy all.
The issue remains that “new prides” are focussing on superficial nonsense. The day of pride should be a day of celebration for that, that our predecessors fought for, but also a remembrance of what it used to be like. It should encourage discussion and inclusion. I don’t think it is necessary for emotional protest, but it should create and make known forums where issues can be raised and addressed in an applicable platform. I will personally not support pride again until it aligns more with the above.
I’ve said this before about the Pride events in Cape Town as well. You need to have numerous well-coordinated events that tie many areas, suburbs and privilege structures together with various activities – instead of making it an elitist muscle and white party. The march is dead, having died naturally upon equality under law being established. We need to nurture our gay communities instead. That is what Pride must evolve to. But we have become complacent.
I think this is disgusting. Melrose Arch sponsored the venue and security and now we drum up some bad publicity for Melrose to shadow pride… How ungrateful are south african homosexuals?… This is why I give up on the gay community. Always complaining. I wish I was straight… I am ashamed of you all and your ungrateful behavior.
People seem to think there is one coordinating Pride organising committee or something. There is not, there are just some proactive people here and there who make things happen. Perhaps we need more of these so that there can be more pride events organised locally, like we have seen. Who has supported Kanana, Vosloo or Orange Farm Prides? But we like to bitch and moan.
This being the first pride I’d been to since the late 90’s I must say that I was massively disappointed with the march. It was great to see so much more melanin on the march but where was the fabulous?!!? No floats! No sound systems! No one waving meter-long dildos in the air! WTF!?!?! It felt like a primary school fundraiser.