sabato 24 agosto 2013

Gramscisexual

I chose a sensational title, but I can explain you now why I can define myself "gramscisexual".

My current self-definition is of a liberal-democrat, although I'm member of no party, but I was a member of the PCI from 1980 to 1988. Among the few things I learnt while I was in the party, there is the concept of cultural hegemony, created by Antonio Gramsci.

The concept can be used by any political movement that wants to transform society with pacific means, and among them there is, obviously, the bisexual movement. Shiri Eisner wants a bisexual revolution, but to really cause it you need Antonio Gramsci's tools.

Among the readers, somebody would likely wonder: "Who is to make the revolution? The bisexual movement or the LGBT* movement as a whole?" In my opinion (confirmed by a conversation with Shiri Eisner), it is impossible to make a unified movement, but it is necessary to keep distinct and allied the gay/lesbian movement (which is called the "GGGG" movement by Shiri Eisner) and the bisexual, trans*, etc. movements, as all those who have studied bisexual people and directed bisexual organizations claim that, besides the issues all LGBT* people share, there are distinctive problems of each category, among  them bisexuals.

The White House itself, arranging a closed door session dedicated to bisexual issues on September, 23rd, 2013 [Bi Pride - Day of Bisexual Pride and Visibility], acknowledges that they have peculiarities irreducible to the general characteristics of LGBT* people.

Please, don't be shocked: Gramsci, in his analysis of the Southern Question, wrote at length about the need for an alliance, not a fusion, between workers and peasants, as he apparently acknowledged that these two classes had different interests to reconcile. If you carefully read his piece, you realize that it wasn't just the peasants who were to evolve in order to be up to the task - workers had to do that beforehand.

Moreover, Gramsci was well aware of the risks entailed by prejudices among the different components of a social block - in the same text you find a beautiful description of the resentment Southern peasants harbored against Northern workers after the end of WW1, and what it took to defuse it.

Alas, bisexual people are often victims of akin prejuices harbored by other LGBT* people, and there is no Gramsci able to solve the problem.

Obviously, you can't mechanically transpose Gramsci's thought (which wasn't, by the way, able to pave the way for the dictatorship of the proletariat, a goal I now vehemently oppose) to the LGBT* reality and struggle, but I think that it may enlighten the issue from a different and useful viewpoint.

Raffaele Ladu

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