Ian Alkadi: Translating LGBT information into Arabic
The camera flickers into life to reveal a small Berlin apartment. Ian, a Syrian refugee now living in Germany, sits with a well-groomed beard and a business-like expression. He is the founder of LGBTArabic, a human rights organisation formed almost four years ago, during which he has watched it grow from strength-to-strength.
“In the Arabic world, if you don’t speak English, you think you’re a sick person forever”
LGBTArabic isn’t, yet, a registered foundation, although Ian tells me that is coming. They don’t have offices, paid staff, or funding. They are purely online. Yet their influence has spread across the entire Middle East.
“We started just to translate information into Arabic. Now we’re one of the biggest LGBT Middle-East pages on Facebook.” He said assuringly. The information he shares is mostly medical, with some social commentary. Politics is almost strictly avoided, he explained, primarily for the safety of some of his Syrian-based volunteers. They recently had a two-month campaign where they only translated information from the American Psychiatric Association.
The reason? “You can’t talk about these things in Arabic” He explains to me.
In a world where English has become the de-facto world language, long-since surpassing French, the challenge is making sure everyone in the Arabic-speaking world has a chance to understand what it means to be LGBT.
“In the Arabic world, if you don’t speak English, you think you’re a sick person forever. You won’t have access to information on LGBT issues” he says, explaining the work he does. “So many people still don’t understand what being ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ means. Back in Syria, the first gay man I spoke to; we had to speak in English for the first six months! We want to normalize things.”
The effect of this work has been positive and LGBTArabic has grown steadily. More people have access to important information in Arabic. Every month, between 200,000 and 400,000 people access their social media accounts to view one of their posts; once they hit almost 800,000 views. They have a volunteer group of 25 people, based mostly in Syria and Egypt, who meet once a month to decide what to translate.
‘This breaks my heart’
The experiences of the Syrian and Egyptian volunteers reflects the wider stories of the two countries in the post-Arabic Spring world. In Syria, there is no help. No cavalry round the corner. No underground network. If someone gets arrested or gets into some kind of trouble, there’s little to be done. If that person has money, they might be able to escape to a safer country. Otherwise, LGBTArabic just can’t help.
“This breaks my heart” Ian says with a sad smile. He describes sadly all-to-common occurrences of ‘lavender weddings’, where young gay or lesbian Syrians are forced to marry heterosexual partners.
In Egypt, various groups exist that can come to the aid of LGBT youth. There are foreign-registered organizations working in the country that can provide aid and there are links with other countries where they can help each other.
“There is this group called ‘SafeSpace’. It’s closed and has about 500 people no one can get in. If someone needs help, they can post something and someone will help. Last week, someone got kicked out of their house and another person took them in!”
There’s a feeling of unity within the LGBT community “They have the same discrimination, that’s something they share.
“Now, a lot of people messaged me like ‘hey, because of LGBTArabic, I understand a lot about myself and my sexuality. I understand what I am. It’s really to raise this subject inside the Arabic world. Now a lot of LGBT people and their allies understand the issues they face.”
Depression in the Middle Eastern LGBT community
The mood darkens slightly as we talk about health issues. Depression is a big issue in the LGBT Middle-Eastern community, probably more-so than sexual health. Some are forced into relationships. Others can never really come out and live almost a private life. “When someone cannot come out to their parents, they feel bad about this. They live in secret inside the Arabic World. Basically, it is a bit like the US in the 70’s in the sense”
Ian himself who lives in Germany, told me that several members of his family don’t know he’s gay, and he has almost a separate side that he has to show them. But for many, they don’t even get the chance to have this ‘second, straight personality’.
Most of their work and connections are with younger people. For the older generation, there isn’t much contact. “I think mainly because the older people are living abroad or safe, they don’t have this need to send a message. The ones still in the Arabic world, who have been living for forty-or-so years in the closet, they feel under threat”
The Future
Ian speaks of the optimism he has for the LGBT movement, both inside the Middle-East and the wider world. His network of volunteers in both Syria and Egypt are more optimistic and Ian himself sees light at the end of the tunnel: “Ultimately, a lot of our community thinks they won’t have equal rights, but the next generation will.”
There was also progress in other areas. When a Berlin-based Syrian restaurant posted a homophobic slur about Sarah Hegazi, an Egyptian LGBT activist who died after being tortured by security forces for flying the LGBT flag, the backlash elicited an apology. When a charity compared him to a dictator, the criticism was so fierce that the person who posted the comment was fired.
“This would never have happened five years ago” Ian says, happily. Inside Egypt, her death prompted an outpouring of grief and protest at her treatment.
“When Sarah Hegazi died, there was a change. When the US legalized gay marriage in 2014, the rainbow flags on Facebook never really made it to the Arab world. But this time, it was different”, he says, commenting on the practice of changing your Facebook or Twitter picture to include an LGBT watermark. In Western Europe, almost everyone saw some version of this. In the Middle East, not so much.
After this interview was completed, Biden subsequently announced Reggie Greer as an LGBT+ advisor, who promised to ‘fight for LGBTQ+ rights here at home and abroad’.
“In Syria, homophobic people who make homophobic jokes base them on toxic masculinity. They always see the woman as the ‘lower being’. They say ‘ok, gay people are the same as women’. So I think if women have rights, then we will have the rights.”
There is still time for a last question. When asked what his message for the world would be, Ian takes a breath and responds:
“LGBT Arabic issues are left out of the Western media somehow. For example, two months ago so many Arabic organizations signed a petition calling on Facebook to work harder on LGBT issues. The Western media only focused on this because we talked about Facebook, not because we talked about LGBT rights. I think we should focus on these issues. Please.”
