Roald Tjon talks to human rights legend Peter Tatchell

1. F
or a man who once ambushed
Mike Tyson and demanded he
explain why he had been
making homophobic comments
towards Lennox Lewis, Peter
Tatchell is a small, and surprisingly
slight, person.
He’s well-spoken and calm, and if
you passed him on the street you’d
never suspect that his confrontation
with Tyson is one of a long list of
dangerous campaigns he’s undertaken
in the last 40 years.
“I was shaking like a leaf in a force
ten gale. It was a hot day, but my body
temperature dropped and my stomach
was turning over,” says Peter. “I knew
there was a serious risk that he might
floor me. But I also thought that some
good might come out of it.”
Peter and two other gay
campaigners were waiting outside the
Memphis gym Six50 in the US where
Tyson was planning to arrive to
prepare for his world title fight against
Lennox Lewis in June 2002.
“The minute he stepped out of his
SUV we ran towards him and
surrounded him, holding up placards,
condemning his homophobic remarks
and abuse.”
Peter nonchalantly describes
Tyson’s reaction as one of “startle-
ment”.
“There’s no such word, is there?
Startlement? Oh, I’ll just invent a new
word. His first reaction was one of
startlement.”
“He laughed for like a second or
two and then he grimaced a bit and I
saw him clench his fist and raise his
hand like he was going to hit me,” says
Peter. “Suddenly, he obviously
thought the better of it and relaxed
and we charged him ‘Why are you
saying all these homophobic things
against Lennox Lewis?’”
“He was immediately very
defensive and said, ‘Hey I didn’t mean
it, I said it, but I didn’t mean.’ But why
did you say it? ‘Well it’s just banter
between boxers’. I said to him, ‘This
feeds homophobia. It’s just like if
people use racist language, it feeds
racism.’”
To Peter and the two campaigners
it was a relief when the boxer
ultimately shook their hands. “It was
quite a warm, almost affectionate
handshake and then he hugged us
both. I was expecting a vice-like
handshake and I was expecting an iron
like hug to just about crush me, but
again it was very warm,” recalls Peter.
“I got the feeling that he really was
genuinely sorry that he said those
things.”
Peter says: “I sort of feel some
respect and admiration for him despite
the many other bad things he’s done.
No other boxer, as I’m aware of, has
publicly supported gay human rights.
Lennox Lewis wouldn’t, he refused.
Tyson can’t be all bad.”
Peter has been campaigning for
human rights since 1967, and after
realising he was gay in 1969 at the age
of 17, queer rights have been one of the
main points of his activism. He
co-founded the campaigning group
OutRage! in 1990 and has become
notorious as its’ public figure.
He is known to many as the man
who twice tried to place Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe under
citizens’ arrest using the UN
conventions on torture, after picketing
at the Zimbabwean embassy in
London failed to make an impact.
“I hit on the idea of using
international law as a way of both
trying to bring President Mugabe to
justice and highlighting awareness of
his human rights abuses,” says Peter.
“I got a late night anonymous phone
tip-off that he was going to be staying
at the St James’ Court hotel in
Victoria.”
The plan, however, failed and when
Peter tried again in Brussels two years
later he was beaten unconscious by
President Mugabe’s bodyguards.
Despite the violent memories he
sees a curious and possibly
hypocritical side to the Zimbabwean
leader: “President Mugabe comes
across as a macho liberation fighter,
but in reality he’s physically quite
short and slight. His mannerisms are
quite effeminate. If I saw him in a gay
venue I wouldn’t have thought him
out of place.
“You might say that’s the classic
case of a homophobe who rants and
raves against homosexuality, precisely
because he’s insecure about his own
sexual orientation and because he
wants to deflect suspicion that he
might himself be gay. It seems plausi-
ble to me.”
OutRage! also became infamous in
1994 when it outed 10 Church of Eng-
land bishops for being hypocritical, by
acting publicly homophobic while pri-
vately having gay affairs. Peter was
branded a “homosexual ter-
rorist” by The Daily Mail as
well as “public enemy num-
ber one” by The Sunday
Times.
“I’m not ashamed of
anything I’ve done,” says
Peter. “The one thing that
has been difficult, psycholog-
ically and emotionally to deal
with, has been quite inaccurate
and malicious attacks from
other people within
the gay community
and the Left.
Being attacked
by the homo-
phobes, it’s water
off a duck’s back.
Being attacked
by your own
side, that’s more
difficult to deal
with.”
Some vin-
dication for
Peter came last
year when read-
ers of The New
S t a t e s m a n
voted him the
sixth greatest
hero of
o u r
time, under the likes of Nelson Man-
dela and Margaret Thatcher. He
says:“The readers of The New States-
man were being a little over generous,
there are a lot of people who deserve
greater accolades than me.”
Peter also writes columns for The
Guardian and speaks at events. He says
he earns about £8,000 a year, but works
16 hours a day.
“You can see why I haven’t got a
boyfriend, who would put up with me?
I would probably make time if I met
the right person, but it is a bit frantic.”
He’s been in London since 1972
after leaving Melbourne to avoid
conscription and harbours occasional
dreams - in his security monitored
council flat in Southwark - of leading a
quieter life.
“I always have my little fantasies of
taking off and disappearing to lead a
more quiet and normal existence.
Another fantasy is to indulge my
passion for extreme sports like
mountain climbing and surfing,” he
says. “If I could clone myself and have
two of me, I’d have one for campaign-
ing side and then one for trekking
around the world and indulging in my
passion for extreme sport.”
But when I suggest
that if he cloned himself,
we’d end up seeing his
clone campaigning with
him, he laughs and
nods.
“Possibly, he muses,
“you’re right.”
www.london-student.net · 26th November 2007
LondonStudent
INTERVIEW NEWS 9
AA mmaann ooff eexxttrreemmeessRRooaalldd TTjjoonn--KKoonn--FFaatt talks to human rights legend Peter Tatchell