Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Pride funding likely safe — for now, says Mammoliti

Toronto Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is conceding that hundreds of thousands of dollars of Pride funding already promised to organizers for 2011 will likely be delivered.

Mammoliti sent a release to media outlets Monday detailing his stance on publicly funded parades and marches. He had been expected to put forward a motion Tuesday to withhold the nearly $130,000 in grant money already committed to Pride organizers.

A video shot by Mammoliti on July 2, showing Dyke March participants carrying anti-Israeli apartheid signage, caused some concern about whether the City would make good on its promise to fund this year’s Pride events.

Earlier this year, Mammoliti demanded a written guarantee from festival organizers that the controversial group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid be banned from participating in Pride events.

QuAIA voluntarily agreed to stay away and in May, council approved funding on the condition that organizers ensure all participants adhere to the city’s anti-discrimination policy.

Mammoliti believes the presence of anti-Israeli apartheid signage constitutes a breach of the commitment organizers made, whether or not the signs belonged to members of QuAIA specifically. He also noted that some participants chanted, “We’re queer, we’re hot, Israeli apartheid is not.”

This year’s Pride funding “shouldn’t be safe,” he said, “but . . . it’ll probably be paid out because it’s deemed to be within policy by our bureaucrats. And while I still believe they’ve broken their commitment to the City of Toronto there’ll probably be nothing I can do to take this funding away this year.”

But Mammoliti’s watchful eyes are not resting solely on Pride.

“I have to congratulate the Pride Parade and the organizers because what they’ve done is they’ve opened up the eyes of City Hall to the larger picture. City taxpayers’ dollars should not be going towards any venue, including marches and parades, that have a political message slant to them.”

Mammoliti confirmed that if it were up to him, this would include funding for any artistic endeavour with a political message.

He denied that withdrawing public funding from anything considered “political messaging” might be fraught with problems.

“There’s no slippery slope here. It’s either we want tax dollars to go toward political messaging or we don’t. This councillor believes that we shouldn’t.”

Full Article
Source: Toronto Star 

No comments:

Post a Comment