Football And The King

Or, Common Ground in a Fractured World Part I

THE KING

As I mentioned in a previous post, last Friday and the subsequent Monday and Tuesday were declared a national holiday in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the King's coronation. The way people here rally around their King is quite awe-inspiring to an American like myself. Beginning on 9 June and proceeding through 15 June, every single front page of The Nation - the leading English-language newspaper in Thailand - was devoted entirely to showing love and respect for the King. "King of Hearts"; "Our Beloved King"; "A Royal Celebration"; etc. I wish I had the papers in front of me: the selection of headlines is really quite remarkable.

My conclusion? Let's import monarchy to the United States.

Mae Sot was a sea of yellow shirts the entire last week. I bought mine for 130 baht - about $4 - and have thoroughly enjoyed feeling a part of the common experience. Such a coming together I have never before witnessed. One headline in The Nation - maybe 3 or 4 pages inside of it - read something to the effect of "Political Quarreling On Hold For King's Holiday." That seems to me to be the most valuable part of the entire coronation holiday - its (apparently) wholesale transcendence of politics. The April elections here were extraordinarily divisive, and the front page of today's Nation, the first in a week not to be drowned in the color yellow, reported 40 separate bombings in the southern Thailand. Nevertheless, the people here were glued to their televisions to watch the celebrations in Bangkok. Coverage of the coronation events even pre-empted the first 20-30 minutes of every 8pm World Cup match during the holiday. The Brits, perhaps less impressed by monarchy, were also not impressed with sacrificing football for the King.

When I say the US needs a monarchy, then, - and I've said it several times over the past few days - I'm really only about 60% kidding. As for that other 40%, well - one needs only take stock of the bitter divisions in the United States to see what a tonic some unity could be. I'm not talking political unity, either; Unity 08 is a pathetic farce of an idea that I hope will never come to any kind of fruition. I'm talking about a unity that is fundamentally *apolitical*, something that would completely and utterly transcend politics - something the entire country really could share. There are, of course, plenty of reasons why finding this kind of common ground would be difficult or even impossible in the United States, but I personally have a strong hunch that George Washington was on a mission from God. And no one can argue with the Divine Right of Kings. Rewriting national history seems to be a daily agenda item for the Bush administration, so I ask: Why stop now?

(That picture shows just one of the shops selling the yellow t-shirts on sale for the holiday; nearly every street stall and storefront vendor is offering these shirts. This particular vendor is in the Day Market.)