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Here I Stand. Or Not.

My first moral dilemma with upright patriotism occurred after watching John Schlesinger's Far From the Madding Crowd at the old Ceilidh on Lothian Road. You see, for most films, you knew who was playing who, or you didn't care, so who needed to watch a film through to the bitter end? As soon as the credits started rolling, you were on your feet, grabbing your coat, your unfinished popcorn and the arm of whoever you had come with, in a determined dash in the dark to make the exit before the credits ended and the National Anthem was played.

 

 

A dash that was impeded by everyone else in the cinema trying exactly the same thing.

 

But Far From the Madding Crowd had someone playing Fanny Robin who I didn't recognize (since it was virtually her first role). So I hung about waiting for her name to appear. (For those of you who delight in these trivia, it was Prunella Ransome, and she doesn't seem to have gone onto the glory that I predicted for her at the time.)

 

So I wasn't completely off the premises when that execution-style drum roll started and the Ceilidh's crackly version of the plea for God to save the Queen (who knew she needed saving?) came over the loudspeakers. Stranded among the laggards and the incurably patriotic, what was I to do? Stand to respectful attention, or slink off into the night before the pubs closed?

 

 

I slunk.

 

 

Some 10 years later, I watched a respectable-looking Thai matron face the same problem. We were on an early morning Number 15 on Ratchadamnoen Avenue in the middle of a downpour. With the racket from the engine and the drumming of the rain on the roof, no one had heard the loudspeakers. A few months earlier, the highly authoritarian Thanin government had demanded stock-still attention from the citizenry at 8 every morning and 6 every evening while the National Anthem was played from every available speaker.

 

 

Now the eaves of the art deco buildings along Ratchadamnoen Avenue provide adequate protection from the rain. But that is a good few metres from the bus stop. Only when she had stepped off the bus did the poor woman hear the music and realize her dilemma.

 

 

Should she make as dignified a dash for shelter as she could manage? Or should she stand still and give herself a patriotic drenching?

 

 

Back in the British cinemas of 1967, these stampedes to evade one's nationalistic duty had become near universal (and I'm sure the staff waiting to clean the place before the next house much appreciated them). But questions were being asked about declining moral standards, a do-as-you-please culture and the lack of respect among the youth of this country for blah blah blah.

 

 

At least, such questions were asked in the predictable places - the House of Lords, the letters column of the Times, school staffrooms and other bastions of reaction. And in a way you could understand it. Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells had a bad few years. The Beatles, miniskirts, Lady Chatterley, England's footballers giving each other a kiss when they won the World Cup, Celtic supporters giving Lisbon police the Gorbals kiss when they won the European Cup - the country was palpably going to the dogs. And worst of all, people were clearly enjoying themselves in the process.

 

 

Intolerable. Something Must Be Done. They'd tried playing the Anthem in the middle of the show (normally right after a jeweller's ad for engagement rings - talk about targeted advertising), but that had just led to unpleasant altercations between those who wouldn't stand and those wouldn't stand for not standing.

 

 

So they gave up. The National Anthem is no longer de rigueur at British cinemas, it's disappeared from the end of TV transmission for the day (well, it's 24 hours now, so there never is an end). It still gets played at those ‘non-political' events like the Olympics, but not often since Britain doesn't win that many gold medals. And the current England football team are criticized for not knowing the words when it's played before internationals. (To which I say just two words in their defence - ‘England', not the United Kingdom, and ‘Rooney'.)

 

 

There is an inherent problem with laws or traditions that try to enforce respect. When England played football against Germany in 1938 in front of Hitler, they were asked to ‘show respect' by giving the fascist salute. They did and now everyone thinks they shouldn't have. When Smith and Carlos gave the Power to the People salute on the medals podium in the 1968 Olympics, they were ‘not showing respect' and vilified. Teenage female gymnasts from the US who giggled and waved to Mom at their medals ceremony at the same Games were just cute, so they must have been showing respect.

 

Satanic Verses does not respect Islam; so ban it and order the assassination of the author. A bar down by Suan Lum decks itself out in Nazi regalia, thus failing to show respect to the victims of the war; so close it down. Protestors in Paris fail to show respect to the Olympic flame; so boycott French supermarkets in China.

 

 

You hold some things sacred and some taboo. I divide things differently. I defile your sacred cows or flout your taboos, and you get upset. I am not respecting your opinions.

 

 

Are you respecting mine?

 

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns

 

 

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).

And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns

 

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