By

Vishnuguptha

“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
~Charles de Gaulle

In this fast changing world, most of those closet-gay guys and gals came out of their self-built closets and identified themselves as what they really are-either gay or not. The badge of sexual-preference was not one of disgrace anymore; on the contrary, it became a badge of honor, indeed. The changing world with its ever-increasing propensities for promiscuity began embracing various concepts of sexual preferences with no further inhibitions. The hang-ups that were hitherto embargoed by ‘conservative’ thinkers and pundits as ‘unnatural’ are being treated with ‘celebratory’ echoes. The long lines that were formed behind these once-closeted ‘complexes’ began to add more and more newcomers who earlier did not have either the courage of their sexual convictions or the knowledge based on science that would have shone more light on these behavioral concepts, an openness which would have made Oscar Wilde an instant celebrity instead of the castigated sub-human of yesteryear.

The advance that man has made in the sphere of sexual preference-acceptance is enormous and in such a short time of just four years, the world and especially the United States of America, has gleefully embraced homosexuality as another phenomenon of natural human behavior. To add more spice to an already enlivened field of political activity in the USA, Senators and Congressmen and women wasted no time in endorsing gay-marriage as a societal phenomenon. The 2012 Presidential Elections, proved to be a launching pad for the growing acceptance of ‘gayness’ as quite normal and natural. In the 2004 US Presidential Elections, the Republicans were encouraged to come to the polling booths by introducing anti-gay propositions in certain ‘Purple’ States so that they could secure a majority in those States, giving a more certain chance of George W Bush’s victory. Now in 2013, with ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ (DOMA) being challenged in the US Supreme Courts and every indication given by those who occupy the exalted halls of the US Supreme Courts that the DOMA would be reversed, the tide seems to have taken a right about turn.

The growing trend in this human indulgence has made many a closet gay guy and gal to come out of their closets and openly being recognized for what they are without any embarrassments or shame. The outcome is extremely pleasing to the development and advance of human freedom and freedom of expression. Those who were hibernating in closets because of their true tendencies and behavioral patterns and frightened of exposure, are coming out in dozens and hundreds. It is indeed a healthy sign of an advancing society. The era of shaming and casting away people for choosing homosexuality instead of heterosexuality are slowly fading away. A more modern and tolerant man is emerging in the twenty first century. Whether this is part of the natural evolution process of man or it has been imposed upon him by some external forces, only history would tell us. However, no reasonable person can argue against this new trend that is taking the world by storm, so to speak.

When such a lively debate is being reasoned by those who occupy both extremes of the spectrum, another discourse is being debated about whose pros and cons are more glamorous than in the case of the gay debate. In an expanding era of fundamentalism, particularly in religion, those who chose to conceal their base instincts and prejudices too are coming out of their respective closets and baring open their utter nudity and barrenness of tolerance to an unsuspecting mass of people and ever so greedy politicians. And they call it ‘patriotism’ and ask for undivided loyalty to their faith. I have written before on this same subject and I hasten to write again and again that from time immemorial, more blood has been shed by man for the sake of religion and its spread and perceived sustenance. The cruel irony of this most strange phenomenon is that all major religions in the world, be it Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or Christianity, have taught man love against hatred, tolerance against fanaticism and ahimsa against violence. Yet time and time again, man driven by his primordial instincts has striven to dominate his fellow men by discarding the golden principles of religion that he has been taught and for whose professed preservation he is resorting to very destructive methods and means, all in order to satisfy his base greed and needs.

Declaring their intentions without any shame or hesitancy and indulging in a naked, transparent and gory spectacle of narrow-minded slogan-mongering, some ‘guardians’ of the ‘teachings’ are openly flaunting their venomous weapons of racial and religious hatred and are in the process of causing irreparable and lasting damage to the collective psyche of the Sinhalese Buddhists who most innocently cling on to their age-old fantasies and myths with religious adherence. These ‘closet-patriots’ have emerged from their dungeons and shed their ‘reasonableness’ garb; they are openly vandalizing the teachings and they are being protected by the powers that be while they are threatening the very foundations of the peace that we are supposed to have won after defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam on the military front. The only difference now is that instead of the ‘Tigers’ they are fighting the Muslims living in Sri Lanka.

To add more absurdity to an already bizarre situation, society leaders of the majority Sinhalese Buddhists are observing a curious silence; their reasonable voices have been muted by the thunder of pseudo-patriotism and ‘protection’ of ‘the Land, the Race and the Faith’(Rata, Deya; Samaya). Empty rhetoric has replaced serene preaching and the disciples have become captive birds of a colony of vultures whose battle cry seems to know no frontier.

When the closets that protected homosexuals and lesbians were opened, what poured out was innocence that was closely guarded, an unusual practice the practitioners of which were derided and scorned and ridiculed for though the world that did the ridiculing and scorning had more sinister skeletons to hide. But in the case of these closet-patriots of today, the most compelling reason for them to expose themselves to the public was that they simply wanted to be portrayed as ‘reasonable’ members of a reasonable society. Taking a ‘nationalistic’ posture on highly sensitive issues would invariably paint a picture of ‘fanaticism’ and they would like to avoid wearing such a badge. Yet when a movement is being driven to its most illogical ends by half-educated members of the Buddhist Order and when the movement’s attraction to the Sinhala-educated middle class which is in a constant search for legitimate identity, is irresistible, the coffers of the movement get filled in no time. Nothing gives more legitimacy to the collective mindset of a generation or a class of a fraternity than a sense of ‘patriotism’, the lure of which never fails to entrap those susceptible members of the fraternity willingly and readily.

This chain of entrapment process will continue until a crescendo is reached, at which point the only scenario that would be manifestly present is chaos and ethno-religious riots. No force would be willing or even be equipped to retard the pace at which these unrelenting measures and counter-measures would eventually march towards its own illogical end. As this writer stated in his last column, the 1983 ethnic riots would look like a walk in the park should a Muslim-Sinhala riot occur. No defense machinery will be able to curtail the cataclysmic agony that would befall a whole nation whose major religion is based on ahimsa and compassion. Religious riots actually have produced more corpses and dismembered homes than any other kind.

The closets that protected the gay community had, for all accounts, performed a relatively harmless function when compared with those that protected the bigoted religious fanatics for whom this insane fanaticism is only a transparent veneer that concealed their true nature of social impotency and intellectual infertility.

The closet gay community might have been a much maligned sector of the human family while those closet-patriots are a living danger to human decency.