The outing last January of the bisexual Conservative MEP Tom Spencer once
Posted in General on 31. Jul, 2010
The “outing” last January of the bisexual Conservative MEP Tom Spencer once again put politicians’ sexuality centre-stage.”I’m out because I want privacy; that’s the conundrum. I made my homosexuality public when I joined the cast of EastEnders in 1986. I think there are some people in politics who still haven’t come out. It’s so easy to start going out with a girl simply because she’s a mate. You find yourself almost Vaselined into a set of circumstances where the small lie becomes the big lie.”But honesty is absolutely the best policy. There isn’t anything in the world I’m ashamed of; I even kept my clothes on in The Virgin Soldiers If it’s legal, I’ve done it.”. On Milah’s bedroom wall, there’s a poster of Titanic, a picture of a cat and a mini gallery of family photos.
And next to the airbrushed love clinch of Leonardo and Kate he has Blu-tacked his national flag, the red background and black raven of Kosovo. Milah being 16, and 16-year- olds’ rooms being worlds unto themselves, this conflagration of the ubiquitous and the personal, he will say, has its own particular significance. The flag to remind him of home, the family snapshots to remind him of his parents who are currently seeking asylum in Australia, and the Titanic poster because he’s a big Leonardo fan. If you bumped into Milah – and best friend Fatos – in the street you wouldn’t think immediately of the refugees who’ve been pouring out of Kosovo They look and sound like average teenage lads They talk about revision, football and films. Now, though, they talk of the fact that it looks as if the war in the Balkans is over. What is going to happen to them next?
Both are part of a charity called Albanian Youth Action.
As the Nato bombing ends, the charity, supported by Save the Children, is helping refugees to cope with the strange limbo they’re in. For months they’ve been trying to survive in Britain: now they’re facing the prospect of going home. But what will they be returning to? Relatives have died, houses burned down, unexploded mines left in the ground. The future seems as uncertain as when the war was still going on.The inspiration behind AYA is Xhevat Ademi, a teacher who arrived from Pristina six years ago. His latest project is a newsletter in Albanian and English to be distributed across the UK and refugee camps on the Kosovo borders.
The idea: to tell the stories of displacement, dispersion and assimilation – the experience of hundreds of teenagers from ordinary families in Kosovo. “We are trying to present refugees in the UK as real people,” explains Xhevat. “And it’s great for them to have a format to express themselves.”The charity’s headquarters are nicknamed “Xhevat’s Place” by Milah and friends. “I come to Xhevat’s place,” blurts Fatos between catching his breath from playing basketball, “to meet others in the same situation as me and pick up the skills I need to survive in London.