As a kid, I loved going to my cousin’s weddings because it was one of the handful of times in a year that I got to see all of them. I did not understand the gravity of those events back then, because everyone assured me that it was all worth celebrating and I should just have fun and be a kid.
As I got older and older and had witnessed enough family drama, these events drew less and less joy out of me. The tediousness of the travel and the repetitive, meaningless conversations these events brought forth started getting to me.
But whether or not | felt joy, I was expected to celebrate. | was expected to perform the role of an audience, and cheer on for the bride and groom. One of these countless times, the question of “why” occurred to me.
“Why are we celebrating? What are we celebrating? How do we already know this marriage is going to help or make these people happy? They barely know each other and met like a month or two ago.”
I maybe didn’t say all that out loud, but I did express some parts of it.
“What’s the harm in just expressing some small joy”
“It’s just a congratulation, we don’t have to read too much into it”
These were the responses I got.
There is a lot we do under the guise of a simple “congrats” and a cheer. What we cheer, we endorse. What we endorse, we consent to.
Cheering is not inherently harmless. Celebrating something is not “just positive vibes”. Every action we take has the potential to cause harm – positive vibes are not somehow exempt from this.
When we simply celebrate a caste-endogamous wedding just because it’s “an occasion”, we are playing a part in the consent manufacturing process for caste endogamy and the caste system as a whole. We say “Yes, this can keep going on, I’m here to witness this”.
When we cheer for our favourite team in a sports match or our favourite celebrity for some award they’re getting on a stage built by slave labour and funded by fascist exploitative capitalist companies we’re saying “Yes, I’m here to witness this, this can continue, and I won’t mind”.
When we cheer for supposedly progressive but consistently problematic organizations in the name of “celebrating Pride” and “just experiencing the small joys”, we’re saying “Yes, I’m here for this, and I don’t mind the cost a marginalized group is paying for this to exist”
But you might tell me, “Hey, I don’t really agree with all this. I don’t like casteism, capitalism, or fascism, but what can I do, just not celebrate anything? How is THIS an endorsement of THAT?”
Something vital to understand here is that casteism, capitalism, and fascism are not just active when a mosque is demolished or an honour killing happens or when there’s a suicide at a sweatshop in a South Asian country. All of these systems are working 24/7. They exist and thrive in the way the world runs on a day-to-day basis.
You might not endorse and agree with these extreme events, but we have been and are a part of the process that LEADS to these events. And we play that part every day through the things we silently nod to and the things we “don’t really mind”.
And don’t let these oppressive systems fool you into thinking “Ohh there are very few things to celebrate in my life and this will take away even that”. There is an abundance of things to be joyous about in this world – things to celebrate, cheer, and cherish, and they don’t HAVE to come at the cost of oppression for someone else.
Posted to Instagram on June 30, 2024
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