Tomorrow is the day. Are you ready? Really, are you ready?Keep calm, get dressed, put on your Sunday smile, and head out to … No, not the referendum booth, or maybe later. First you really must go to the Scala Theatre in Siam Square, where for the first time in Thailand in decades, The Sound of Music will play on the big cinema screen with its historic overflowing of saccharine -- and with one of the strangest anti-dictatorship sentiments ever shown on film.
Fleeing the Nazis, the Von Trapp family -- how lovely these white kids are on the verdant pastures of the Austrian Alps -- rip off the Swastika flags and sing their guts out as a sweet missile against the Third Reich. "I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne," they sing. "No!" a Nazi replies. Fascists know no fun, naturally, even though they're the funniest species on Earth.
And when Julie Andrews hits that high note as she swirls like a helicopter on that hill, The Sound of Music sends a message as supremely syrupy as it is painfully true: Art can fulfil the imperfections of life, especially in the face of uncertainty. The music of your consciousness -- what you believe in, what you want to sing in the shower or in the face of those who imprison your soul -- can free you from the prescribed dogma of tradition, even of the authorities, legitimate or not.
Let's not read too much into this Robert Wise film, which was loved by an entire generation but also hated by a fair portion of global citizens ("the whole thing is staged in a cosy-cum-corny fashion", wrote the critic Bosley Crowther in 1965).
Still, without a moment's hesitation, I'd prefer The Sound of Music to The Sound of the Unbreakable Referendum Box Breaking In Front of Reporters, as happened on Tuesday when Election Commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn was testing the durability of his equipment. Something else also broke that day: Face.
It is a digressive co-incidence that The Sound of Music screening will take place on the very same day as the referendum (ideally, we should screen No, a Chilean film about how General Augusto Pinochet lost a plebiscite that brought about his downfall, but that would definitely break the referendum law).
Tomorrow at Scala, the film's overdose of sentimental chirpiness is up against the grim, unfunny voting that, as wiser men and women have pointed out on this page, will make everything grimmer and glummer regardless of the result. "Yes" or "No", the schizophrenia of the Thai soul will remain, deepened in fact; the existential divide that has carved up the nation will not vanish while the quiet storm of uncertainty -- let's face it, even the junta doesn't know what will come next despite their multiple roadmaps -- still looms over our heads.
The Von Trapps sing So Long, Farewell as they prepare to escape. We won't be able to sing the same song; no so long, neither farewell, because the generals and their assembly will be sitting here until at least December 2017, or actually longer, perhaps five or maybe 20 years, as a corporeal entity and also as a phantom, since the constitution has been engineered for the appointed power to cast a long shadow over the future politics of Thailand. And we won't be able to flee across the mountains into Switzerland, as did Maria and the blond kids in the film. The song we will sing is the eulogy of the establishment, the prescribed dogma of peace and security -- precisely what Maria's high notes defy in her helicopter twirl-singing scene.
There's a lesson we can learn, nevertheless, from the power figures. Yesterday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha set an example by saying loudly and clearly that, as a citizen of this country and not the junta leader, he will go to the polls tomorrow and tick "Yes". It's not against the law to announce his decision in public (how surprising), and he has arrived at that decision through careful reading of the draft constitution. Last week, Abhisit Vejjajiva, also as a Thai citizen, announced that he would tick "No", elaborating on what he saw as the draft's shortcomings. Earlier, Yingluck Shinawatra, again as a Thai citizen, said she would prefer the "No" box.
"Yes" or "No" -- even a symbolic boycott -- the lesson is to listen to the music of your consciousness: As individuals, our thoughts are sacred. Our personal choice, our willpower, our ability to decide based on belief, experience, knowledge and worldview, is indestructible -- more indestructible than the pathetic referendum boxes. If this sounds sentimental, it's because Thai politics is sentimental.
I can't tell you to vote "No". I can only tell you that The Sound of Music is showing at noon at Scala. Sing along.
Kong Rithdee is Life Editor, Bangkok Post.