Judith Butler has turned down a prize for social courage awarded by Berlin’s gay pride comitee this afternoon. In a statement she read out in German at the Brandenburger Tor she critizised the commercial focus of Berlin’s Christopher Street Day and argued that the organisators of the pride still refused to deal with issues such as racism, islamophobia and the discrimination of queer immigrants while at the same time some of them had even stated racist opinions in the past without withdrawing them. She also expressed the fear that for the sake of “individual freedom” queer people could let themselves be taken by nationalist, racist and militarist policies, underlining that the people really deserving the prize are the antiracist groups that amongst other important work help organizing the alternative gay pride (“Transgenialer CSD“) annualy held in Berlin-Kreuzberg and Neukölln. The event takes place next weekend. Here’s a statement by SUSPECT, one of these groups. It leaves me rather ambivalent, but maybe that’s just the wounded pride of a white gay middle class man who’s accused of being the source of all evil here.

UPDATE: Here’s a video of the whole event (via Eike):

UPDATE II: Here’s an interview in which Butler outlines her speach in English. It’s done by Joey Hansom for a Germany gay magazine called blu-fm shortly after the award ceremony took place.

(copyright picture on top: Jerry Bauer)