Welcome to my new website!
Posted on October 22, 2022 | Thank you for checking out my new website douglasvictorjanoff.com, a platform that will allow me put out the occasional blog. To kick things off on a high note, consider the image on the right, taken in Dubai in 2019 in the shadow of in the shadow of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
As Sophia in the Golden Girls would say, “Picture this!” It was Christmas 2019. I was serving as the human rights officer at the Canadian Embassy in Afghanistan and had managed to sneak away for a few days of R&R, shopping at gourmet delis and luxuriating by the pool. It was the calm before the storm. Two months later, the US and the Taliban signed an agreement that triggered an explosion in the number of Afghan civilian casualties, including some of the human rights activists who had visited me at the Embassy just before this picture was taken – hunted down on the streets of Kabul and assassinated.
Meanwhile, the pandemic was beginning its grim global march. Less than three months after this picture was taken, as the first wave was decimating Europe, I ended up in a Madrid hospital. I was evacuated to Canada and spent several months recovering in a hotel room in Ottawa. There was tremendous suffering at that time: Jaime, a Colombian friend who had saved my life 37 years earlier, died in a New York hospital.
During the lockdowns, I channelled my energy into other projects, including finishing my Ph.D. dissertation, which provided the basis for my book Queer Diplomacy. For a detailed overview of the contents of the book, you can go to the publisher’s link, scroll down to the list of chapters, and click on each chapter to read an abstract.
Many thanks to Toronto artist, writer and director Raymond Helkio for patiently creating this website. It began as a platform for information about Queer Diplomacy and what people are saying about it – I also share a few details of my life, my professional experience, my previous writings and research, and how to contact me. However, since I’m not very active on social media, I’m hoping my book – and this website – will take me a step closer towards bursting the residual bubbles of grief and isolation and reconnecting me the wider world. Feel free to connect with me anytime.