There is no debate whether we need a cultural policy or not. We do need it, but there are different ways of doing it.

Today, nobody cares about European culture. We have a tradition, a vision, a culture of the past, we have legacy, but we don’t have a present culture and we don’t have a future.

Culture has become one of the last elements of our identity. We have to act in favor of cultural diversity abroad as well as at home, we need strong cultural diplomacy but we have to create it.

Let my pussy free.” On a sign, I also read: “Gay Pride sent to Siberia in chains” (an allusion to one of Pussy Riot’s punk prayers).

Gay life in Amman, as in Havana, Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo, Mumbai, and Beijing, is a marginal, dangerous, and marvelous underground counterculture: a fear and a promise. The phrase “one thousand and one nights” has never seemed to me both so unsettling—and so gay-friendly.

Homogeneity is arguably a necessary step in the process of socialization for gays who have so long been isolated and alone.

Not all Englishmen are homosexual.

And a major phenomenon that is still underreported is taking place before our very eyes: the globalization of LGBT rights.

The problem with provocation is that it is often counterproductive.

Bureaucracy progresses at its own pace. That is to say, slowly.