On Ireland and Why It Has Already Won Its Marriage Referendum
What will happen on May 22nd in Ireland is important. For me personally, for Ireland personally, and for the world personally. One referendum, one question, two possible answers and a universe of worth. The way I see it though, it will provide an answer to a far bigger question: are people in Ireland truly ready to come out as changed, having moved on from identities that have been moulded for hundreds of years and accepting their fellow countrymen and their different and foreign identities for who they are. The Netherlands was the first country to allow marriage equality fourteen years ago but has been a liberal and open-minded for much longer than that. Ireland on the other hand, is trying to catch up with strides that are worthy of acknowledgement.
On May 22nd Ireland is putting its rate of change up for display for the whole world to see and watch on national television. This is the country that until recently did not have contraceptives and still does not allow abortion. This is the country whose legislators voted an amendment to the constitution eleven years ago, which specifies that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Yes, that same country, eleven years later, will be deciding for or against Marriage Equality by a transparent popular vote. It will be the first time ever in world history that this decision is being made in that manner. Because if it is to accept equality for all to marry, it will need to rewrite its constitution. Nothing less would suffice in making it the ubiquitous status quo. The entire nation will have to make the choice and live with the consequences. Has the famously conservative and religious country changed enough to allow a basic human right that the whole world seems to have self-righteously earned the right to have an opinion about? Should any couple of two individuals be able to use their ring fingers on purpose? It is silly someone has to decide this for someone else, but at least in Ireland that decision gets to be the litmus test for something far bigger. Can a country change fast enough so it can catch up with other civilized countries and lead the way or is this a silly aspiration to be shattered on May 22nd?
Change is a difficult subject matter. By default it attacks the very essence of human nature and identity. Survival has always been dependent on finding the warm and fuzzy place where the human can sustain its precious body and mind. Naturally, every brain neuron is against the exodus from that warm, fuzzy and secure place. Ireland is attempting to get out of its desolate comfort zone, not necessarily because it truly understands why but because it is the right thing to do for fellow humans. Because if the warm and fuzzy place is not warm and fuzzy for everyone in it, it is warm and fuzzy for no one. That is how Ireland and the Irish operate. They feel empathy for the fellow human being and understand that success and growth come only when it is done with fellow human beings in hand. Someone once warned me that the Irish friendliness is only exterior and ostensible and I should not be naive about it. What hides underneath is great sorrow, sadness and wrath, and the inability to deal with them is lurking to disappoint and unfriend. I come from a country where those emotions are projected externally but are in no way dealt better with as a result. They are all encompassing, overwhelming to be around and debilitating to the soul. Easy to succumb to, they are far more worth the warning. In Ireland there seems to be a reason to move beyond them and one own’s state of being. Perhaps stemming from a realization that there is more to being alive than acknowledging what is wrong with it and rather doing something about it.
Marriage equality will be the big test for that. Its dissonance with a mindset and an identity very deeply ingrained in the Irishness is exponential. For very long the Catholic church and the religion were here for them when all else was not. It is understandable to hang on to that particular warm and fuzzy place and the rules it comes with. The problem though is that this warm and fuzzy place is outdated to the world we now live in and the complex species we have learned we are. Ireland can adapt to the new identity or carry living in the sand castles someone else built for it. The real question that will be answered on May 22nd is in which tense the majority of this this country in fact resides in.
As difficult change is, Ireland seems to be the daring. The rates are remarkable. It has established itself as a technology and startup hub in Europe, an-aspiration-turned-reality in less than two decades. It made its mind to fit that new world order, changed its identity accordingly and offered a home and an accommodating low corporate tax for the foreign companies willing to come. It opened its doors for those who were different and foreign with a tech visa, unseen in any other English-speaking country, to help fill the gaps while the Irish caught up with the art of code. The country where I come from aspired to the new world order as far back as 1979 when it started producing computers. It happens to offer an even lower corporate tax. Yet all else seems not encompassing enough for it to be a hub of any sort. For starters, it is a deeply homophobic country. The acceptance of the different and foreign human souls, an irreplaceable part of becoming a hub of anything contemporary, is perhaps the key in the difference between the two. As the foreigners came to this island in the North Atlantic, for many Irish, it was the first time to hear a language they did not understand, taste food different from theirs, and accept a set of cultural values different from theirs. But they opened to it, change they did and have been accommodating ever since. I am one to tell, I too am a different and foreign soul.
These views and utter fascination I have, may be naive and silly. I don’t mind. For a change I will allow myself to be that person and open the door for criticism from the ones who claim to know better. I recently read that the key to longevity may be the ability to be at awe with the world around us. I have been one of the negative and I have not been the happier as a result. Negativity, I always excused with innate realism. And what did that bring me? A diagnosed inability to consume the sweetness in life. What makes you happy, are you ever able to enjoy life, someone asked me recently? The negative realist would answer — not much. Is all that negativity worth it though, a new voice has lurked in and asked repeatedly. It is easy to focus on the negative, far too easy, especially when everyone else does so (remember the true warning). I have been hearing the whispers of the new voice since I moved here. It tells me I should live more like the people here, change and have their inclination for the positive. It tells me I should be at owe for what I have.
I certainly have a lot in Ireland. I am privileged to live in a country willing to redefine its national identity just so it can help a part of society feel better. That is change far bigger than the one I would have to make to improve my world view. It is willing to make a fool out of itself in front of the world in case it fails to prove on paper it has changed as much as it aspires and claims to have. It is willing to ask for abrupt changes, which as history speaks, humankind has too often declined. And for that willingness it is already a winner. No matter what happens on May 22nd it is already a winner for having the guts to go there. I win too because I get to surf on its bravery. And while this view of mine is still untainted by anything that may come, I write these words and seal them for myself, and whoever else needs reminding, to read. Once upon a time there was this country and even though its identity shouted no, its consciousness was yelling yes. It put both to the test, perhaps too early for its own good, without knowing which way the scales would lean. It understood that if they leaned in the wrong direction, it would have to work all that much harder to establish what the scales were supposed to. Not putting anything to the test in the first place, would have been the easier and safer, but it did it regardless.
When I wake up in 19 days or 19 months and by some chance do not feel the way I do now, I want to have this to read and remember how I felt and why. As I write this in the end of April, I am wearing far more layers of clothes than I would have wished but there is no place I would rather be right now. The wind may blow too strong for me to dress up to it and the wild north Atlantic may be just as unaccommodating of a place for me as it was for the Vikings hundreds of years ago but you will seldom find elsewhere what this island possesses.
People that are prepared to stay in the wind and rain for two hours just so they can make the biggest human-shaped heart in the world and hope it brings an extra vote or two for a referendum they have long ago made their personal mind about. People that are wearing badges on their jackets, knocking on stranger’s doors and canvassing with no fear. People that would sometimes be bullied as a result but would carry on regardless. People that will fight until the last minute and will genuinely celebrate after the last second of it passes, if a Yes vote passes. People that will cry if it doesn’t, but will wake up the next morning and begin the fight again. And it is because of those people and what they have grown up to be so quickly that no matter what happens on May 22nd, Ireland has already won its Marriage Referendum, all of us living here have already won and we should all celebrate. Because winning is in the acknowledged willingness to change, its full ubiquity being but a mere matter of time. Those people that will Vote Yes are already the modern citizens of the world in which there is no “this or that” couple and I am happy to take a piercing gust of wind alongside them. Because that is the same gust that will wave the rainbow flags on the Liffey. That is the same gust that brings the sunshine quickly after the rain. That is the wind of change and it will blow particularly strong on May 22nd.
Are you sure you want to live so far north where it is so cold and windy, someone asked me recently. Three months ago I would have said No, my heart belongs to the south. But in the time since, I have come to believe north and south are just simple geography terms that belong to my sixth grade books. My grown up heart, on the other hand, belongs to a place that accepts it for who it is and whom it loves. That is the home I am at awe with.
