To Spalding in Lincolnshire, where the town’s small but vocal homosexual community has reacted in an unexpected way to local
activist Avatus Kammenjunker (right), a 27 year old who is making a name for himself by being outspoken in one very specific area.
“Atavus is extremely focussed on his chosen field, a field that’s basically quite narrow.” Kammenjunker’s former schoolfriend and
present acquaintance, Melanoma Glint (left), told Home Defence. Indeed, this Office Manager regularly observes her acquaintance’s activity on social media, saying: “He’s always up and down the country, going on marches, trying to raise funds and get to Gay Pride events around the world.”
“It’s admirable, in a way, how knowledgeable Avatus is about Putin’s secret oppression of Russia’s underground communities, or the risk to homosexuals across several African states.”
Miss Glint went on. “He can speak for hours on the problems faced by gay men; from Old Testament attitudes to the more subtle hate peddled by certain tabloid newspapers. But try to
widen the conversation to cover other forms of injustice, and Avatus either loses interest or shouts over you, which is hardly what I'd expect from a civil rights campaigner.”
Indeed, while Avatus is extremely strident in his chosen field, to the extent that he works seven days a week on letter writing campaigns; pressuring the police into clamping down on hate
speech and leading a network of gay rights ambassadors who identify bigoted views across the internet, when it comes to wider questions of prejudice, liberty, human respect or
common decency, may see Mr Kammenjunker as sorely lacking.
“I posted a link to a particularly vile piece from Kelvin MacKenzie decrying travellers as ‘scum’ the other day - I wanted to shame the columnist, gain attention for their plight and
generally feel better about myself.” Miss Melanoma went on. “Everyone chimed in saying it was terrible, which made me feel like I was making a difference somehow. The next
time I looked Avatus had added a comment below my link saying: Gay men have suffered just as much!, as if it was some kind of competition.”
“Some people tried to make him see that wasn’t the point and, in an ideal world, all oppressed groups would join forces to have their voices heard, since every persecuted
minority has a good deal in common with the others, but Avatus was having none of it. I didn’t realise activists could have what my boss calls a ‘silo mentality’ but apparently
they can.”
Indeed, other members of Spalding’s pink-power group we spoke with confided that Avatus would “feel like a fraud” if he pursued activism on behalf of a minority group he
wasn’t a member of. This in spite of the terrible treatment being received by refugees in Calais right now, or victims of domestic violence across supposedly-civilized
societies.
“Avatus told me once it was because he doesn’t know anything about their worlds, or the type of suffering Trans people, for example, experience.” Melonoma Glint nodded.
“But how hard is it to do a bit of research? I think Avatus puts so much effort into being an anti-homophobe 24/7, he doesn’t have the energy to consider how people are
being treated outside that particular subculture.”
But not everyone is willing to give Mr Kammenjunker the benefit of the doubt. Academic Delbert Favicon (right) has devoted years of
study to the contemporary phenomenon of ‘Single-Issue Stridency’. We spoke to him when HDUK visited Professor Favicon’s office at the
University of Mansbury.
“There used to be an unspoken assumption anyone who was sympathetic to a victimized minority, Palestinians for example, would also have time for others suffering at the hands of
racists or misogynists or whoever. It’s the kind of idea that underpins the worldview of 80s throwbacks like Jeremy Corbyn or Bob Geldof.” Delbert told us. “Unfortunately, what the
non-stop opinion spew of social media has revealed is that, for many modern Brits, a lot of times these days such across-the-board support simply isn’t the case.”
“What my research and the statistics show is that the time when someone like George Orwell would support all those suffering society’s collective prejudice is long gone.
These days online warriors like Avatus specialise in outrage that relates to a very narrow tranche of bigotry, to the extent they can appear entirely without empathy when it
comes to people outside their pet sphere. Ordinary Syrians for example, or fat people.”
“Someone like Mr Kammenjunker, who devotes his free time to calling out homophobes on Twitter, would have nothing to say about
rising levels of poverty in rural parts of the country, or inner-city children whose parents can’t afford to feed them. Not only that, but
an individual who is strident elsewhere can often be reluctant to give an opinion, because they’re not poor, never have been, and
can’t be bothered to endorse even an innocuous observation like: ‘Rising inequality in the world’s fifth richest country is probably
quite a bad thing’ in case someone calls them out on it and the depth of their ignorance is revealed to the public at large.”
“Likewise,” Professor Favicon went on. “I recently observed a single-minded feminist with a huge online presence who saw nothing
wrong in expressing her disgust for “all these smelly homeless men in central London, bothering me for spare change – ugh! Who
do they think they are?” The absence of understanding here is striking, especially from someone who, in the past, spoke of feeling the pain of ‘all my sisters worldwide - from
Saudi Arabia to Humpybong, Australia’.”
“If anyone tried to generalise on the negative attributes of feminists she would be up in arms, and quite right too. So why can’t this woman see that the reflexive denigration of people sleeping rough is just as reprehensible? Well, it’s because they aren't a group she feels any affinity for. This ‘radical feminist’ has never been at risk of homelessness, while most of the tramps you see in central London are male.”
“It’s the same for this Avatus individual – he has little interest in how the police persecute the black community, or the epithets hurled at Muslims on a daily basis.
That’s because he doesn’t recognise either of these demographics as containing gay men, even though they inevitably will.”
Indeed, when Home Defence contacted Avatus to ask for his opinion on the recent firebombing of a Mosque in the nearby town of Boston, his response was an
utter cop out.
“I’m going to sit on the fence with this one,” Avatus noted, “I’m not the best man to ask. I know a lot of people round here have their own views on religion, so I
won’t stick my neck out and condemn it. After all, I might not have the full picture.”
Such pusillanimity ties in with Professor Favicon’s theory; that people like Kammenjunker identify with one particular subculture and have as little time for those
outside it as they do for the conventional world. In one of his academic essays, Delbert suggests this type of activism might ultimately be diagnosed as a form
of narcissism.
But we’ll give the final word to Melanoma Glint who told us: “I don’t understand all these people on Facebook who want to stop other people saying things, but
only in a really specific area. I mean sure, it’s an area which clearly means a lot to them, but why don’t they give a toss about anyone else? I thought someone
against specific injustices would be a fully politicized being who tried to stand up for all victimized people, but clearly I was wrong. I’m not an activist, so what do
I know?”
“But if I did devote myself to a cause, I hope I wouldn’t stay wilfully blind to everything the rest of the world were doing or thinking. To me, someone willing to fight
for a group of people they aren’t naturally part of – that takes true courage. Rather than just responding to the denigration of lesbians by citing the prejudice and fear
experienced by gay men every day, as if that trumps everything.”
