It is not enough to stand in si­lence and lis­ten to the mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment of this coun­try's na­tion­al an­them.I think that every­one, when called up­on or, for that mat­ter, any­where, should stand and sing the words and be con­scious of the mean­ing of the words which are prayer­ful, melod­ic and in­spi­ra­tional.

I am sure that no one lis­ten­ing to the voic­es of the Olympic au­di­ence singing the na­tion­al an­them of Great Britain-God Save the Queen-could miss the fer­vour and pride that re­sult­ed from the re­sound­ing cho­rus. We, at this point in our na­tion's life, need to use what­ev­er means pos­si­ble to in­still pride and re­spect for our­selves and for our past and fu­ture.

The words of our an­them are soul-stir­ring and mov­ing. They con­sti­tute a na­tion­al, hope­ful, op­ti­mistic prayer. At this time, when an an­nounc­er asks peo­ple to "stand for the na­tion­al an­them," the im­pli­ca­tion is that they should stand and lis­ten to it. He/she should say in­stead: "Let us stand and sing the na­tion­al an­them"-for we need pub­licly to ex­press our bound­less faith in our des­tiny, as side by side we stand.We need to promise that, de­spite the some­times aw­ful re­al­i­ty of our dai­ly lives, our ideals are above ques­tion and we thank God for re­mind­ing us of them.

May God bless our na­tion.

Anony­mous