On parade night the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival, the pre-parade revels in and around the Hyde Park lock-up zone, must rank as one of the world’s greatest free parties.
Twelve thousand five hundred participants of every shape, colour, nationality, origin, gender, (dis)ability, age and/or even height, fill the restricted pre-parade holding pen. There, they coalesce into one joyful, breezy mashed-up love-in—all before anyone’s peaked or got trashed. The air is expectant and sparkling and for what will be a long, exhausting, yet exhilarating night.
Like waiting hours in an international terminal, time spent in the enclosure could be excruciating. But these are the effervescently, expectant marchers, and time wistfully fades as they primp their costumes, fix their make-up and glitter and perfect their steps. Others meanwhile are happy to collectively chill or just loll about in the late afternoon sunlight.
Those with time, roam about the vast pen gaping at the extraordinary sights emanating from what appears as one huge, stranded, squashed-up, multiheaded mobile-carnival. A cacophony of competing dance tracks blasts from the pod of marooned trucks and floats; some with blinking antennae. Raised decks are sounding off in sheer exuberance. Others accompany groups as they check on the precision of their routines. All through, curious crowds flow and squeeze through the throngs. Others simply join in; happy to dance to the rhythms of the oddly stationary marching groups. Time in the pen doesn’t allow for a full tour of this free-wheeling but temporary, apparition.
All too quickly, marchers need to fall in with their groups, before being marshalled out for their brief turns in the spotlight. As they variously stride, sashay and stumble up the faded Golden Mile of today’s Oxford Street, everyone gets to show who they are, and what they’ve got and spread their particular message. No matter how plain or extravagant the group, huge crowds embrace them with unceasing adulation, reaching crescendos for the particularly extravagant and expressive. If only time could linger.
The mash-up in the lock-up demonstrates perfectly what diversity looks and feels like in post-Marriage Equality Australia. It’s a space where differences are rendered indifferent. The unrequested vote of the entire country actually served to confirm a significant shift in the relationship between LGBTI people and broader society. What better rebuke to the narrow, nasty politicians who set it up to fail? The vote formally expressed the acceptance of new norms for this country more convincingly than any Brexit vote did in the UK. It was emphatic. The overwhelming result was the sure mandate for a more tolerant and inclusive society. It means expanded opportunities for all people and groups to realise their potentials and participate more equally in society. Marriage Equality was the vanguard issue for a more inclusive societal vision.
Of course, in terms of diversity, there is still more to be done, but the framework is set. Rather than looking back, the exciting story now is how people are embracing and evolving within the newly confirmed landscape. In many less lucky countries, politicians and institutional actors are happy to maintain their power bases by exaggerating differences and maintaining divisions within society. Northern Ireland is an extreme example of how "identity politics” keep people apart, and limit their opportunities. As Christopher Patten, who helped reform the Province's police force, said; the divisions are always about power, not identity. No wonder that Belfast Pride—incorporating the same inclusive values on display in Sydney—is the largest cross-communal event in Northern Ireland. So many people in Northern Ireland don't want in a divided society, and Belfast Pride allows them to subvert the politically exaggerated divisions they are forced to live with.
With Marriage Equality now resolved in Australia, everything has changed. It’s out now. The cutting edge of Mardi Gras today is lending the unique experiences, viewpoints and sensibilities of LGBTI people to offer new direction of possibilities. The pre-Mardi Gras lock-up experience shows how 12,500 LGBTI people, along with their equally committed friends and associates, remain in the vanguard. It's an extraordinarily Lucky Country where revolutionary change is played out through a communal party.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras uniquely stands apart from the many similar-looking Pride events around the world. For starters, its night-time setting means people look so much better dressed-up than they would in the middle of the day. Imagination gives way more easily at night. It's really worthwhile for its participants to make an effort for what is one huge exercise in unself-conscious creativity expression. All the better for an extravagant gesture.
The huge crowds love everything and anything that's thrown at them. The Parade becomes one huge, two-way, mass participation event. It's a “bottom-up” expression of lived understandings, giving the event an “unpurchaseable” authenticity. In a country with a relatively short settled history and few naturally occurring mass-events, public authorities can easily discount the invaluable attribute of authenticity.
The pre-parade lock-up experience provides the pristine, first-look snapshot of our evolving realities and how they are being expressed with innate dynamism, creativity and some wit. Next time Mardi Gras time comes around, see if you can find a way to join in this extraordinary experience.
