The history of standing for the Royal Anthem
Published on May 6, 2008, The Nation
The recent case of the man who did not stand while the Royal Anthem was played in a theatre has become the talk of the town.
The case stirred up hot debate on media channels and on the Internet.
I was shocked to hear some people say they wanted to beat up or even kill the man who had challenged the tradition.
Amid the debate, I got an interesting e-mail from historian Charnvit Kasetsiri, telling us about the history of the Royal Anthem in Siam.
The historian has researched the practice of standing up for the Royal Anthem in Siam, now the Kingdom of Thailand. He said the tradition appeared about a century ago.
"Siam adopted this practice from Great Britain," he said.
It was during the early days of motion picture theatres in the 1910s that the tradition was introduced by the British. When a movie ended, the image of King George would be projected on to the screen and the British anthem "God Save the King" would be played.
The tradition was created to promote nationalism and loyalty to the king under the motto "God, King, and Country".
World War I was being fought at the time, and Britain had been at war against Germany. The king of Britain even had to change his family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which sounded German, to the more English-sounding Windsor.
The tradition of standing up for the anthem was strictly enforced in Great Britain and its colonies including India, Singapore, Malaya and Burma, Charnvit said.
The practice continued during the early reign of Queen Elizabeth and the anthem was changed to "God Save the Queen".
However, it was dropped in the late 1950s and early 1960s when students at Oxford and Cambridge Universities began to resist the tradition. They protested by not standing up during the anthem or walking out of theatres as soon as the movie ended.
To deal with the resistance, authorities and cinema owners decided to play the anthem before the show, but to no avail.
The tradition of standing up for the anthem was abolished in Britain about 40 years ago.
When Siam first adopted the tradition, the anthem was played after movies. In the 1970s, the anthem was moved to precede movies as it still does today.
Social critic Sulak Sivaraksa has another interesting story about the tradition here.
During the reign of King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), when Siam was an absolute monarchy, an old lady was arrested because she did not stand up for the Royal Anthem at a state ceremony.
When Krom Phra Nakhon Sawan-pinit, who was home minister at the time, heard about the arrest, he ordered the authorities to release the lady immediately.
The prince said the lady did nothing wrong, as the practice was not a Thai tradition, Sulak said.
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