Politicising Queer Trauma and

Heterotopia: Contextualising
Mayer’s ‘Out in the Dark’ (2012) in
the Israel-Palestine Conflict

RAJESHWARI GUHA,
Centre for English Studies,
JNU, New Delhi.
 Edward Said's ‘The Question of
Palestine’
If we try to juxtapose the ‘x’ in Said’s question, it has
to be a concern that is “uncertain, questionable,
unstable” (Said, 4), and the question of Palestine is
definitely one that fits the bill. There’s a Spivakian

The ‘Question of X’ double displacement that functions in the context of

Palestinian queers – firstly, being forcefully

and Queerness colonised and secondly, being oppressed by a

closeted, homophobic, radically religious society.

Before analysing the so-called academic praxis of queerness, one

must understand the distinct translations, experiences, and pitfalls of
the term and concept of ‘Queer’ globally. The dominant narrative and
understanding of queerness (especially the definitions imposed upon
the community via Western systems of knowledge) do not fit like a
missing puzzle piece in the context of Third World countries in Asia.
Intersectionality and
its (Dis)contents
One of the majoritarian tenets of queer
theory and activism in today’s world is
intersectionality, a concept that has been
presupposed since the nineteenth century.
The overarching intent behind it is
understandable; the fight for equal rights
needs to penetrate both vertically and
horizontally across ethnicities, races,
genders, and sexualities. But in concentrated
regions like Israel and Palestine, where
homophobia and Zionism have taken strong
roots, intersectionality often leads to loss
of sight of what is truly important for the
queer community.
Intersectionality takes a different form when
applied to queer activism in Palestine, though –
the somewhat ‘woke’ advocates consider their
central ideology, that is, queer liberation, to
be intrinsically linked to the end of Israel’s
occupation of the Palestinians, and to the end
of Israel’s exploitation of queer Palestinians, via
pinkwashing, to create a better image of itself
globally. However, reading certain accounts of
queer people living in Palestine posted online,
one feels that the rights and liberty of the
community remain unfulfilled even at the
‘height’ of queer activism. Spivak-ian 'double
displacement’ at play.
Israel's Pinkwashing Tactics

“...despite the pain of war - the IDF is the only army in the Middle East that defends
democratic values. It is the only army that allows gay people the freedom to be who
they are. And so I fully believe in the righteousness of our cause.”
It has always been a part of Israel’s message, a way of using their ‘liberal values’, showcasing their
undying commitment towards liberating the queer community, which in turn, gives them legitimate
grounds to carry on their onslaught.
Out in the Dark (2012), dir. Michael Mayer
The neo-noir film starts off with Nimr, a queer Palestinian
university student, seeking refuge from his homophobic and
traditional West Bank village in the more bustling
metropolitan space of Tel Aviv, where he interns under a
clinical psychology department in a city college. Besides
amping up for a potential scholarship and, consequently, the
prospect of securing state permission to live in Tel Aviv, he
gets a chance to explore his sexuality in gay clubs with the
help of his trans friend Mustafa, who has also fled Palestine.

Michael Mayer exposes the rampant anti-semitism that

exists alongside homophobia in Palestine as Nimr navigates
his fulfilling relationship with an Israeli lawyer named Roy,
whom he met in the club Mustafa works in. Nimr’s elder
brother, Nabil, is seen to lead and actively engage in a militant
group that works towards the elimination of Jews or
Palestinians who sympathise with or have fled to Israel.
 The Dichotomy of Oppression
A researcher with a keen eye would definitely
consider the plot so far to be a branching or
manifestation of the Israeli promotion of its
liberalism, what with the portrayal of Tel Aviv
as the haven for gay men, who freely access
education and public spaces, and the openness
of its cosmopolitan charm.

But the illusion of safety is shattered with the

entry of Israel’s state security forces, who find
out that Nimr has been travelling in Tel Aviv –
Nimr is innocent, but his brother is not; Nabil is a
wanted fugitive in the eyes of both Israel and
his home country, and unsurprisingly so, with
his basement full of illegal firearms and bombs.
The state security revokes Nimr’s access to
Tel Aviv, but he can gain it back on one 26:45; Out in the Dark (2012)
condition: to act as a spy at his university in
Palestine.
 'Sweeping Generalisations’ &
Foucauldian Heterotopia

“Israel’s premise that queer people under Hamas and the Palestinian Authority do not
have a chance of survival is assuming that all queer people have equal chances in life.”
-Rayyan Dabbous, Scroll.in

In Foucault’s essay Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopia, he talks about the heterogeneity of
the space we live in and how we live inside a set of relations that delineates sites that are
irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another. (Foucault, 3) In the
context of the queer issue at hand, superimposing the general resistance against colonialism
reduces the multiplicity and plurality of the queer existence and the rights needed for sustenance.
Contemporary queer and gender activism indulge themselves in the creation of a utopia – an ideal
world where all is equal, where everyone’s needs are attainable through the same line of action,
notwithstanding one’s ethnicity, social and political environment, and race.
Problematising Intersectionality and
the Monolithic View of Queerness
Massad, J. Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World-
“...supporters of the Gay International’s missionary tasks produced two kinds of
literature on the Muslim world in order to propagate their cause: an academic
literature produced mostly by white male European or American gay scholars
“describing” and “explaining” what they call “homosexuality” in Arab and Muslim
history to the present; and the journalistic accounts of the lives of the so-called
“gays” and (much less so) “lesbians” in the contemporary Arab and Muslim worlds.”

It stands to reason then that the growing crisis of establishing a safe space for
Palestinian queers is falling victim to the dubious gains of the gay mainstream
surrendering to a single-interest group politic of assimilationism, which suggests and
leads to the exhaustion of the dominant templates of lesbian and gay politics.
(Seidman, 117)
 Concluding Arguments
Nimr-Roy-Mustafa’s story gets absorbed by the overarching conflict between the
two states, and the three end up simply as collateral damage with no achievable
resolution. This is feasibly the situation we are inching towards, having very
conveniently merged the queer resistance with the one against Zionism and settler-
colonialism.

Contemporary queer politics finds itself amidst an ambush by people who,

intentionally or otherwise, attempt to suppress its voice and make it conform to the
dominant narrative of resistance. This is the only bone this paper would like to pick:
introducing the narrative of queer liberation to the Israeli occupation of Palestine
could lead to significant damage to the cause. In this case, the queer population would
simply be overshadowed and recurringly halted in its tracks, thereby exacerbating
the social and political influence of heteronormativity.

It is a completely futile strategy to expect people to be able to simultaneously claim

their Palestinian identity and their queerness, all the while calling for the end of Israeli
occupation.
REFERENCES
1. Abualsaid, S. Mohammed. “Palestinian Visibility and Activism: The Plight of Queer Palestinians under
Occupation and Homophobia”, Advances in Anthropology, Vol 13 No. 2, May 2023, University of Toronto,
Canada, p. 204-213.
2. Dabbous, Rayyan. ‘In the name of love’: Israel’s ‘pinkwashing’ obscures and legitimises violence against
Palestinians, Dec 2023: https://scroll.in/article/1059702/in-the-name-of-love-israels-pinkwashing-
obscures-and-legitimises-violence-against-palestinians
3. Edward W. Said. The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage, 1992), p. 4-7
4. Elamoor, Izat. For Queer Palestinians Like Me, Intersectionality Isn’t Working, Nov. 2021.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-11-11/ty-article-opinion/for-queer-palestinians-like-me-
intersectionality-isnt-working/0000017f-f63c-ddde-abff-fe7d99280000
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Queering Palestine (Spring 2018), pp. 13-28
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9. Shafie, Ghadir. ‘Pinkwashing: Israel’s International Strategy and Internal Agenda’, Kohl: A Journal for Body
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