http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...oing-the-Hokey-Cokey-could-be-hate-crime.html For those outside the UK, the hokey cokey is a group dance often preformed at children's parties. Apparently it is anti-catholic. I'm quite amused by this discovery and have definitely renewed my affection for the hokey cokey. When a priest does some weird hokus pokus incantations in a society where explanations of the silliness of magic are readily available, they deserve to be made fun of. It is a service to common sense.
It's not a hate crime and only one fringe MSP (not even a real politician ) has argued that it is. So before we head off down the 'political correctness is evil' tunnel, let's keep some perspective.
I always considered anyone playing this as 'inciting violence' particularly at family events after about 10pm.
Or trying to start some kind of messed up orgy. N.B. Not at family events. That would be far too messed up. Unless of course your family consists of about 20 dodgy uncles.
I used to sing this song in playgroups when I was a tadpole. I had no idea it was a mockery of the Catholic Church until I read this thread. So calling attention to it is a bit like having a big zit on your bum and rather than keeping your trousers on and being quiet about it, instead telling everybody it's there and insisting that they don't laugh at it. But then, this strikes me as another example of politicians showing everyone that they're the only people more out of touch with reality than the religious. Also, the article is two years old, for what that's worth.
I can see why they'd be upset though. They're something of a minority with only 1.2 billion members, their own state, God alone knows how many millions of dollars, ~1,500 years of dominating much of Western Culture and a leader who is infallible (handy for winning those pub quizzes, I'd imagine!) In their position, I'd be upset by a few football fans singing rude songs too.
I always like to think of the burning of Guy Fawlks as the burning of someone who wanted to install a proper and unadulterated theocracy.
Most people don't realise that bonfire night celebrates the execution of a man who tried to kill politicians, aka Britain's greatest ever hero!
hmmm is the hokey cokey anything similar to the hokey pokey in the US? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK_lIcv7sic"]YouTube - Brave Combo - The Hokey Pokey[/ame]
Situations like this make me face palm at the lack of emotional control displayed by some authority figures. Jesus, too.
- "whoever doesn't jump is an Englishman" (argie hatred) - God knows what bigoted nazi crap we sing at the germans - We hate the french - The Scots hate everyone (but mostly the english) - There are more incidents than I care to remember of monkey chants at black players If you're trying to get a priority list of objectionable material to remove from football, I think that the hokey cokey comes just below the fashion sense of some of the fans. But it is very amusing that someone has managed to twist enough to get this in the papers, is that puritan business even true? Seems a bit dodgy to me.
That's funny, I've known quite a few Catholics to do the hokey cokey. On the other hand, to those for whom Catholicism is more a part of their cultural identity than a religious belief, it does bring up some unfortunate history with regard to Protest England. Surely in this day and age we can put down the effigies and forget the insulting "traditions" that have caused so much unhappiness in the past.
According to the Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokey_Cokey , not only is the derivation of "Cokey Pokey" (or "Hokey Pokey") probably unrelated to "hocus pocus", but there's not even a very good chance that the words "hocus pocus" themselves have anything to do with the Latin mass.