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Dislike for a Govt. should not translate to disrespect for national symbols

Mar 10, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – I was a cinema freak in my days. I visited almost all of the cinemas in the city and even a few outside of the city. I used to enjoy especially the anticipation of waiting for the movies to begin, when the lights went out and the screen lit up.
There was a time, however, when that anticipation was dampened since when the lights went out, it was usually time to rise from your seat and stand at attention while the National Anthem was being played.
I recall distinctly when the then Burnham administration directed cinema owners to play the National Anthem before the start of shows. It occurred during a period when the ruling party was concerned about the fallout from its failed policies and wanted to keep the citizens in line by ensuring their continued obedience to edits emanating from the rulers.
All the cinemas complied with the directives to ensure that the National Anthem was played before the shows commenced. Not all the patrons were however comfortable with this imposition and a few persons often refused to stand during the National Anthem.
On occasions, policemen and policewomen planted in the cinemas would arrest those who did not stand for the National Anthem and cart them off to the station where they would be charged and taken in front of the Courts.
However, I cannot recall anyone being convicted for not standing during the playing of the National Anthem. My recollection is that one magistrate had made it clear that there was no law which insisted that persons must stand for the playing of the National Anthem.
This is my recollection: that there was no law at the time on which to convict someone who was charged for not standing in the cinema when the Anthem was being played.
A few years ago, a minister of the government appeared on local television. The topic moved towards the question of paramountcy of the party which was enunciated by the PNC government around the same time that the directives were given for the Anthem to be played in the local cinemas.
According to the minister, one of his colleagues recently told Cabinet that during this period, he got off two of his clients who were charged for not standing while the National Anthem was being played. The grounds on which he argued was that during the playing of the anthem, the PNC flag was on the screen being shown above that of the Guyana flag. The imputation was that the magistrate in the case dismissed the charges against the two persons on the basis of this act of paramountcy.
Despite my record of going to so many movies in Guyana, despite the fact that I have been to every cinema in the city, I cannot recall the ruling PNC’s flag being shown on the screen. Therefore I can only presume that it had to have been one of the cinema’s outside of the city that this was done.
I know that the PNC’s flag was flown over the Court of Appeal, but I cannot recall all of the time that the National Anthem was being played in the cinema, that it was ever shown in any of the movie houses in the city.
Thus, I can only presume that either my memory is failing me or that the incident on which Cabinet was so enlightened, occurred in one of the movie houses outside of the city.
Those who did not stand in those days for the playing of the National Anthem had their reasons. For some, the imposition offended their independence; they did not feel that they had to be compelled to stand. It is not that they were being rebellious against the Anthem or the government – this was no political action. It was simply that they felt that they should not be forced to do something which they were not required to do in the past. For others, it was simply being lazy to stand up.
However one feels about the government of the day, dislike for the ruling administration should never translate to disrespect for our national symbols.
Today, there hardly seems to be any complaints about standing up for the National Anthem.
There is today greater pride in our national symbols and persons are no longer being dragged before the courts for not standing while the National Anthem is being played, and thus avoid having to offer the defence that a party flag was being flown above the National Flag.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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