"I'm sure he wanted to defy the way the tradition of resistance and struggle has been dismissed," she says, "to reassert and renew the idea that you can make society more equal, more democratic, more human to live in." No wonder Béart looked so distracted. But she absolves Loach from charges of affectation. The libertarian tradition is now asserting itself and anti-globalisation protesters are more attracted to the Buddhist sign, with hands held up and open." It is, she says, now almost impossible for a western liberal to use the clenched-fist salute unself-consciously. "It symbolises power clenched within the group, and since the 1960s the left has felt ambiguous about the exercise of power. She also doubts whether anarchists and anti-globalisation protesters today would find its overtones of power and enclosedness attractive. It was connected to communism and post-'56, using it made you feel slightly uneasy." "Even in the 1960s," she says, "my generation used it slightly self-consciously.
But it is now so freighted with historical associations - the murky faction fighting on the left in the Spanish civil war, the perversion of communism in the Soviet Union, the tyrannies that emerged in post-colonial Africa - that, according to the socialist historian Sheila Rowbotham, it has become a double-edged symbol.
It became a symbol of communism and was co-opted to many revolutionary causes, most potently the civil rights struggle in the US and opposition to colonialism in the third world. The clenched fist symbolises strength and unity - fingers which are individually fragile can together make a powerful fist. The clenched fist was first used by the communists in the Spanish civil war, as a counterpoint to the open-palmed Roman salute adopted by the fascists. "Maybe if you tell the truth about the past, you might tell the truth about the present," he said, neatly linking British policy towards Ireland in the early 20th century with Iraq today. But at least Ken Loach, who made the salute at the weekend when he collected his prize from a bemused-looking Emmanuelle Béart, understands its symbolism and was using it to underscore the message of his anti-colonialist film, The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Whether it is a suitable way to celebrate winning the Palme D'Or at Cannes may also be a moot point. But while sport is the home of the clenched-fist salute, its most famous appearance came courtesy of the black American sprinters Tommy Smith and John Carlos on the victory podium at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968 and it seems somewhat bathetic that this symbol of unity and revolutionary fervour should have become the preferred way of celebrating a successful backhand volley.
Paul Gascoigne, too, was partial to it during his footballing days. 2 days ago &0183 &32 The Vulcain x Seconde/Seconde/ x Revolution Cricket Tradition Vulcain Salute revealed just how much I enjoy this style as I was instantly hooked by the concept. In the UK, it is nowadays mainly associated with Tim Henman, whose mock-heroic pumping has become as much a part of Wimbledon as strawberries and cream.
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