I wonder, I know what it means to be queer—the tiring yet fascinating journey of finding a home in a world that doesn’t feel like one—the endless struggle of calling a community, a ‘family’ that is endlessly divided. Perhaps the ‘family’ is living through moments that constantly pull us together; otherwise, a bunch of alienated people. I am witnessing histories being erased and rewritten—people being celebrated for their legacies, but not for their contributions. I cannot unsee influencers becoming activists and activists becoming rogues. Popularity becomes the currency of advocacy, and politics loses its relevance in the realm of advocacy. I am the obvious loser of this popularity contest. I don’t crave popularity in a world that I have little faith in. Why is it so difficult to be quiet and remarkable at the same time? But I am not going to be either quiet or remarkable.
Never knew it was a sin to question. Some say it is pointless to question. Sometimes all you can do is question, not in search of answers, but to resist. Not everyone is lucky enough to know a language to question. It’s not about knowing any language, it’s about knowing the right language. Unless you know the right language, your question has no legitimacy. Questioners can be troublemakers, attackers, or pure menace. It’s the worst enemy of the most fragile egos. Questioning can result in a tarnished reputation, being blacklisted, excluded, deplatformed, disrespected, ridiculed, and ultimately turning into a fly on the wall. A very small one. Maybe it’s better than being a bluefly on a pile of shit. You decide what that pile of shit is.
Communities have way too many leaders, and the rest are passive followers who aspire to be loud leaders who tell others what to do. These loud leaders come in different shapes, forms, colours, and of course, at different price rates. Some come with a hefty price tag attached to them. You find these loud leaders in politics, corporations, religion, culture, and within every establishment and non-establishment. Their conscience comes in handy to carry in your coin purse. Why too many leaders? Nobody asks why we don’t have enough living, thinking individuals who dare to question the collective stupidity. Anyways, most individuals don’t seem to be interested in living or thinking. What is living in the times we live? Having a great education, even better if it is elite; a high-power, high-income career; big fat houses, fancy cars, luxury vacations and a progressive veneer to hide one’s apathy. Thinking has become dreaming, planning, strategising, or scheming to acquire that great education, climb up the career ladder while pulling others down, buy those big fat houses, fancy cars and go on luxury vacations.
Trying to make sense of activism in times when the Left looks like the Right, and the Right feels like wrong. Of course, everything Right is wrong. The Right certainly doesn’t recognise rights. It seems like the Left has only left its faint presence. Maybe that is why red has turned into violet or pink.
I am fed up with being told what to do, what not to do, what to be, and what not to be. Very early on, I was being told not to be queer, then being told how to be queer. I was taught to stand up for rights, but not to resist, certainly not too much. The state would be very happy for me to be unqueer; being queer is fine, as long as I am a good queer subject that does not trouble it too much. NGO money pays my bills, and in return, I am expected to be an obedient NGO worker who neatly writes project outputs and outcomes in reports—chant “Love is Love” during Pride month, but not to say it out loud “End the Genocide.” My fellow benevolent LGBTIQ+ activist colleagues are busy networking with diplomatic missions of the West because they always run out of money doing good. Still, there is no single safe house or functioning counselling line for queer folks in Colombo.
I never get stopped and questioned by the shit-coloured uniform-clad Police, perhaps I don’t seem to disturb the order too much—I am too middle-class, too respectable, and too unqueer to be a rule-breaker. All this time, I thought I wasn’t middle-class, at least in my mind. What am I even if I don’t acknowledge my privilege? What does respectability mean to someone who desires to disrespect most, if not all forms of social norms? I also thought I was a disruptor, but it seems like I am not one, maybe because I don’t act like one. Maybe I am one, because I don’t act like one. The ones who act are acknowledged, respected, funded, and ultimately ingrained in collective memory. Why would I ever want respect in a world where some don’t even have the right to life? In a world like that, what does even ‘respect’ mean?
Horrors of society are being turned into flat, lifeless data to facilitate policymakers. The very same policymakers who were in a deep slumber when the economy was set out to take a pro-corporate liberal economic pathway, which eventually led to the destination of bankruptcy. I’m sure they were doing their job right. Maybe they were busy pursuing scholarships to complete their postgraduate qualifications, or maybe they were busy eyeing their next promotion. How could one take their eyes off such important priorities? How dare I even imagine, at least once, that such important priorities should have been sacrificed for something less important?
I don’t know if my resilience is being tested or simply descended into madness. Absolutely, there is no method to my madness. I am mad as mad can be. I am mad at way too many things.
You may ask why I am so mad, or what is the use of being so mad? What’s so bad about being mad, unhappy or frustrated? They might say all I need is self-care, self-help, or self-preservation. What do they mean, actually? They mean everything and nothing all at the same time. They can mean a touch of luxury, escapism, and deliberate oblivion, and much more. It could be helpful for some. Call this a rant, I am going to make it heard. But that rant does not have to be the loudest. Even if I don’t write, or even if this does not get published, my existence is that rant. That‘s what I was made for.
