You love to exaggerate and be sarcastic, wonder why, do you have something
against singing the anthem each morning, or even on Monday and Friday, that
is OK too. What is wrong with our anthem in your eyes? Aren't you canadian?
Or, are you a canadian who doesn't want to admit it, or just can't stand being
told what to do, and when there is rules you want to do the opposite.
What is the problem.
Being a canadian, and having an anthem to sing, which brings all of us together
is comforting for me, we all belong to a 'free' country.
Where else would 'you' rather live, and be a citizen, where no one has to give
a rat's a** about a silly anthem.
I'm sorry; I was in my giddy mood when I typed that. My fault for mixing humour with seriousness; always leads to misunderstandings. OK, now on to my serious side:
Though I agree with the necessity of promoting patriotism (a term which I use distinctly from nationalism mind you, which I abhor), I also believe that the reaction to the discontinuation of the daily singing of the anthem is excessive, irrational and showing a lack of understanding of the history and spirit of the anthem itself, which was never meant to be sung in blind tradition. I do think that some kind of ritual is good, be it the anthem, the Lord's Prayer, the Royal anthem, etc. But I also believe that for it to have the desired effect of promoting a healthy patriotism rather than blind nationalism or, inversely, apathy or even rejection, it's important for the participants to participate with understanding. Without that understanding, the ritual becomes blind tradition and means nothing. When people sing the anthem every day without understanding, it's bound to get boring after awhile. Or if they fundamentally disagree with certain passages of the anthem yet are never consulted, then they're bound to resent it.
This is where I beleive we can learn from history. Historically, the anthem meant something. But then again, people also understood it, were consulted on it, were free to discuss it, etc., and never took it for granted or sung it as nothing but blind tradition, dead of spirit. To take but just a few examples:
The Royal anthem:
God Save the Queen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Various versions have existed throughout history. Though a 'standard' version exists, even it is not official, and even then the notion of a standard version has been consciously revised over the years in reaction to changing events. To take but one example, in the first assembly of the United Nations in London in January, 1946, the king "ordered the belligerent imperious second stanza of 'God Save the King' rewritten to bring it more into the spirit of the brotherhood of nations."
The verse is as follows:
O Lord, our God, arise, Scatter his enemies, And make them fall. Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all.
In Scouting for Boys in 1908, the second verse is cut out too, probably for the same reason (after all, one reason Lord Baden Powell had created the Scouting movement in the first place was to promote brotherhood among boys across the Empire and not promote blind militarism).
So as we can see, the Royal Anthem was not blinbly imitated nut was rather consciously engaged, which of course makes the singer aware of its meaning, its import, its significance, which naturally brings each verse into question and, therefore, subject to revision as society continues to evolve. Yet that engagement alone alone proved the vitality and relevance of the Royal Anthem.
The Canadian National Anthem:
Like the Royal Anthem, the Canadian national anthem used likewise to be endowed with life and vibrancy. As Canadian society advanced, so did the Anthem. It was first written in French in 1880, then translated into English in 1909. Prior to this, the Royal Anthem and the Maple Leaf forever were competing for the position of national anthem. Afterwards, the new anthem also entered the fray.
The new anthem was revised in 1914, replacing the more archaic but irreligious "thou dost in us command" with the less archaic but more religious "in all thy sons command". In 1926 a fourth verse of a religious nature was added. The Anthem finally became official in 1980. In 1990, councillors for the City of Toronto voted 12-7 to revise "our home and native land" with "our home and cherished land", to take immigrants into account, and proposed "true patriot love in all thy sons command" be changed to "true patriot love in all of us command" to remove potentially sexist and Christian connotations to the verse.
In 2002, a Bill was presented to Parliament to try to change "in all thy sons command" to "in all of us command". And in 2006, the religious reference to God in the English version and to the Cross in the French version were criticized by secularists.
The French and English versions have also been mixed on many occasions by bilingual singers of the anthem. And the 20010 Olimpics will use the phrases "
With glowing hearts" and "
Des plus brillants exploits".
Our various anthems have a long history of being challenged, revised, polished, re-interpreted, debated, criticized, and that's what keeps them alive. If our children are just expected to blindly recite the anthem without ever engaging it, of course it will mean nothing to them. then it will be but a dead letter. Both the Royal Anthem and the Canadian national anthems have a long history since their births of constant evolution, and that evolution is a reflection of the evolution of our monarchy and society. The day the anthems become but a dead letter to be left unchallenged will be a reflection of how our society shall have ceased to evolve.
