LGBTI Rights in the Western Balkans - ERA Conference 2018

In recent months I have taken on a new role on the board of an organisation known as Rainbow Rose. It is an umbrella organisation of all the LGBTI organisations associated to social democratic and labour parties across Europe. My appointment came on the back of my two and a half year co-chairpersonship of LGBT Labour. To those of you who have read my posts, my awareness of south-east Europe came to maturity thanks to my work with the Labour Party. The board want me to lead on a new working group on the Western Balkans; so it seems that the three interests of my life – Labour politics, LGBTI activism, and south-east Europe – have come together in a new and exciting challenge for me.

So the start of this work centred on my organising a delegation of activists to the Equal Rights Association (ERA) Conference for the Western Balkans and Turkey in Skopje, Macedonia. ERA emanates from civil society, so we were lending our support as social democrats in order to learn, share our knowledge and experiences, and to create networks for our new working group. Noting my affection for Macedonia, the week we visited happened to be when Macedonia had just held the referendum on its name change.

So I organised for a delegation of 11, 7 from the board, 3 activists, and one speaker. We arrived after a Ministerial meeting took place on the Thursday morning, and went straight to the plenary hall. I was with Jose, Secretary General of Rainbow Rose, who was introducing me to a few people in the room – an ILGA Europe representative, two representatives from the Commission, and Dragana from ERA. I also met Amarildo from ERA again, as I first met him three weeks previously in London, at a Western Balkans event in Lancaster House and then Speakers’ House. It was nice of him to stop and chat for 5 minutes, given he was organising the day and I’m sure had more things to be doing. The plenary then began.

We had a couple of opening speeches, one of who was by the SDUM Minister for Labor and Social Affairs, Mila Carovska. This was my first hint of the seriousness and commitment that the new SDUM-led Government had taken LGBTI rights, as well as neighbouring countries. Especially those from Macedonia, where you would have thought they could have used the excuse of the name referendum to withdraw from participating. Over the course of three panel events throughout the day, we heard from a mixture of Ministers, MPs, NGO activists, and individuals just living their lives in the countries of the region. The one particularly striking panel was on trans and non-binary rights, as it laid bare how uneven the legal rights of trans people were across the region, but also how much depended on the state having to recognise you in order to provide for you. Unknown to me that day was the SDUM MP Pavle Bogoevski, who sat on a panel on non-discrimination. Jose and I couldn’t grab him as he left, but I soon invited him to a dinner I had planned on Saturday night for the social democrats present at the conference. After our first day, we met more of the delegation who arrived in the evening, on the central square at Pelister restaurant.

On a side note, I was in my element having returned to Skopje after 2 years. On the Wednesday, I explored a little by myself as no one else had arrived. I walked through the eastern side of Karposh district, where the hotel was located, as I had not done so on previous visits. Once you turned into the residential area between two parallel east/west main boulevards, there was a hive of cafes and bars. One of them, Radiobar, was noted in the schedule of the conference as being a ‘liberal’ bar to drink at. I popped in for a beer on the way to food. On the Thursday night, I returned to the main square. It was a lot quieter that it was when I was here last, in the hot August nights of 2016. It was mid-week, I supposed. The hideous statues and building facades remained, but I noticed that the splattered paint had now gone. The traces of the Colourful Revolution may have gone, but their legacy was established within the political ones.

The Friday of the conference was the first of the two-day ‘Open Source Technology’ workshops. An innovative approach to decide what issues should be discussed, relying on what participants bring to the table and what they want to participate in. The speaker we brought over, Cllr Bev Craig from Manchester City Council and an old friend of mine, was going to pitch in to discuss how we can create LGBTI polices at the local government level. I was to present on how LGBTI people can organise within political parties, and Arturas from our delegation was to lead a discussion on whether pride is a celebration or a protest. As participants added their interest to the workshop board, I was proud that our sessions were going to be well attended.

Over the course of the two days, we had genuine interest and participation in our sessions. The one thing I wanted to avoid was a patronising tone to come from our contribution. I would be embarrassed if we were seen to have just turned up, delivered a speech on what was wrong and how our way was the best way to solve it, and then leave. Instead what we aimed to do was provide an overview of our journey, and then provide a few questions/statements in order for participants to share experiences and decide on the best action plans in each of their countries. Macedonian and Turkish participants eagerly attended Bev’s session, with many representatives of NGOs attending my own.

We on the board had to miss out on the Saturday proceedings, as we had to take the day to plan for our General Assembly that was taking place a few weeks later. The Friday evening saw us all congregate at RadioBar. This underlined the change in atmosphere that I felt whilst I was in Skopje. Although still very conservative, and LGBTI people could not be open, having a group of 100 odd LGBT people in a bar, out on the streets, felt liberating. Someone had even gone on well-known gay social networking apps to tell people that we were at this bar and to come and meet other LGBT people. A very novel and positive thing to do, I thought.

But before we arrived at the bar, 3 of the delegation were keen to see Skopje and I was more than happy to take them on a tour. Over the course of an hour and a half, I relayed my knowledge of the history of the country and the city, as I pointed out such buildings as the Government HQ, the old, brutalist Post Office and the Kale Fortress looming over the city, hidden behind those horrid buildings. We ventured into the old town, which was buzzing with a mainly younger crowd. This area has clearly seen investment as many of the shop fronts had been done up, and many of the bars and cafes had a hipster feel to it. It also seemed that this had not led to residents being pushed out, which is pleasant to see. We had a beer at one of the cafes, as I continued my history lesson. My only hope was that I didn’t bore my colleagues.

The Saturday night saw us host our social democrats dinner at La Terrazza, just off the main square. I arrived with a small number of our delegation, the rest following half an hour later. We had Julie Ward MEP, Pavle Bogoevski MP, Danijel Kalezic from Queer Montenegro, Antonio Mihajlov from Subversive Front, and Cllr Stamat Stamatovski from Skopje. Over the course of dinner, wine, and a few Rakija, we had a great discussion on the current state of politics in Macedonia, commitments to help our Montenegrin MPs set up an LGBTI working group in their parliament, as well as the great back story of Pavle.

He worked for the LGBTI Support Centre in Skopje, and it was this organisation that he said gave him a leg up in the world of work. It was his work for this organisation, too, that gave his cousin the courage to come out to his family. I was genuinely struck by how Pavle’s work and advocacy had helped his family member, and reminded me how small acts like this can help those closest to us. His activism then spread to become one of the leaders of the Colourful Revolution. I sort of knew this, having done a quick Google search of his name. But the stories he came out with were second to none. For example, in order to not be prosecuted by the authorities, instead of breaking windows by throwing objects, which was a criminal offence, they came up with using paint to merely mark the outside of buildings, as this was only a misdemeanour. This way they could make their point, without going to jail. But then the plans had to be expanded. As the police cordoned off buildings, they had farther to send their balloons of paint. So they made huge catapults in order to reach the buildings now a hundred or so yards away.  Despite getting elected to Parliament, and the paint being washed off the walls, he said that there is still a small patch of paint at the back of the Government building. When he takes guests on a tour, he proudly points out this reminder of recent political history of which he was a leading part.

That night, as we went to a bar where his cousin was actually leading a karaoke night, we rejoined the rest of the participants. The bar was packed, and Jose and I sang a rendition of Fuego. We met the Mayor of Skopje, and we thanked him for hosting the conference. I also let my guard down as, whilst I was in the queue to the toilet, I began chatting to a young woman, who asked why I was visiting Skopje. Perhaps the Rakija Pavle fed me made me lose my inhibitions, but I said I was here for an LGBTI conference. Her non-reaction to this news led on to a short conversation about why Macedonia needed to move forward on this issue. A sense of joy rose up within me.

The next day, I left Skopje full of hope. Pavle’s story and his continuing solidarity with us was a major factor in this. I look forward to his star rising. But the ERA conference really showed the power of collective action, with the participants sharing ideas and best practice, and then going away to accelerate the work they have already begun. From our perspective, it allowed for us to gain further knowledge of the situation in each of the countries and to develop our own strategy to support the LGBTI community in each country. The obvious channel is with those countries that have PES member parties in Government. But the role of our movement is not solely in getting the low hanging fruit, but to meet the challenges head on, especially when we are not in power.