GLAM takes on corporations at Mardi Gras

BY ZANNY BEGG & VIV MILEY

SYDNEY — When the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade winds its way up Oxford Street on March 3, there will be more than one meaning to the word "glam". The newly-formed Gays and Lesbians Against Multinationals will also be marching the strip, with a float dedicated to protesting the power of the corporation.

GLAM was formed in January to organise gay and lesbian participation in the May 1 blockade of Sydney's stock exchange and financial district — the float in Mardi Gras will be its first public project.

The group's activists hope the float will give them a chance to publicise M1 to a much wider audience not yet in the know about the day of action.

They also hope it will inject a healthy dose of left-wing politics into the parade which is in danger of becoming just another hype event which Qantas, Stolichnaya, Hahn and Yellowglen or whoever can drape their logos over. While the corporate sponsors may hope to make Mardi Gras just a hedonistic celebration of the pink dollar, GLAM hopes to remake it as a symbol of liberation and defiance of the status quo.

GLAM convener Emma Banyer explained to Green Left Weekly that the new collective was a "queer anti-capitalist group which would make sure that queer issues were not sidelined in the anti-capitalist movement but also try to involve queer activists in anti-capitalist protests such as M1".

According to Banyer, GLAM grew out of campus queer action collectives but is also involving workers and non-student activists.

GLAM member Kate Carr explained that the anti-corporate movement has helped further politicise gay and lesbian activists.

"As long as I have been involved in queer campus collectives it has been a real struggle to get them to take up political questions," she explained. "In the past there has been a tendency for these collectives to become more like social clubs and actively ignore politics. Now, because of the impact of S11, we have a situation where not only are queer groups actively taking up political issues but they are forming explicitly anti-capitalist collectives."

Carr also believes that GLAM, and similarly politically explicit gay and lesbian groups, may also start to unite the broader gay and lesbian "community" into a gay and lesbian "movement" for change and help it forge a coalition with the wider movement against global capitalism.

GLAM is hoping that the Mardi Gras float will be a public demonstration of radical gay and lesbian politics. The float features a small number of suit-wearing capitalists gorging themselves on the world's resources whilst, around them, the majority of participants in the float wear or carry placards bearing anti-capitalist messages.

Carr explained "the GLAM float focuses on popularising the idea that inequality under capitalism is systemic".

Throughout the parade, participants will be leafleting the crowd with flyers detailing the upcoming M1 blockade and why queer people should get involved in the anti-corporate movement.

From GLW issue 438