Our National Anthems

As songs, most national anthems don't have a lot going for them. They are self-indulgent, propagandistic pieces that accentuate superiority or grievance: both forms of separateness from the human community. They attempt to affirm a sense of specialness for their group, that may be sought in bygone battles, purity of race, belief or some other quality.

International anthems aren’t much better. That's because any song that sets out intentionally to teach something becomes distorted. Look at the ditties written to teach children manners, morals or hygiene.

Zoltan Kodály declared that children deserve good music. That includes us all. Schiller's Ode to Joy, set to music in the finale to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was been used effectively as a European and world anthem. That's because the music and sentiments expressed move us in themselves, not because it was the winner in a competition.

Yet in a discussion of songs shared across the Canada-US border, it is with our respective national anthems that we must begin. In our contemporary cultures of public sports events, that's how many Americans and Canadians first encounter each other.

The singing of O Canada and Star Spangled Banner at hockey and football games, and playing them on the podium at Olympics and other international events, can be rituals as powerful as religious gatherings, whether we see ourselves as religious or not.

What do these songs say about ourselves and each other?

I first paid attention to the American national anthem after the death of John F. Kennedy. I knew the tune long before I heard the words. As a tune, I found it stirring though, as someone pointed out to me, the high notes made it hard to sing.

I wasn't a regular spectator at games where it was sung, so I didn't heard it line by line, week by week. When I finally tuned in to the words, I was in for a bit of a shock: "Rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air..." What's that about?

I don't care what it referred to in 1814. To sing that song regularly is to conjure up a continual state of battle. Against whom? the British? Spanish, Germans, Russians, Islamic terrorists?

Canada's national anthem is not much better. The original French words—no longer popular in Quebec but still "official"—translates literally:

"As your arm can carry the sword, it can carry the Cross:
Your story is an epic of shining exploits.
Your courage, saturated in faith, will protect our homes and our rights."

The English language words repeat the line "We stand on guard for thee" three times: four times before the last revision. What are we protecting our rights, or standing on guard, against?

To the original French speaking settlers, it was the Iroquois, whose enmity they had incurred as a result of Samuel de Champlain's arming of their Huron rivals. To the first generation of English speaking settlers, it was the Americans, from whose Revolution they had fled, and who invaded Canada a second time in the War of 1812.

Ask school children today and if they have any answer at all, it will be vague mouthings about "people dying so we can be free" from Remembrance Day celebrations. In other words, the Germans, Japanese, Italians and, after the Korean War, the Chinese and North Koreans.

I do not seek to diminish war time sacrifices, or quarrel with the cross generational communion of school children and veterans on November 11. These are part of our journey which needs to be remembered and respected. But they are not an original part of our national raison d'être.

We do not need an adversary to have a national anthem. We can celebrate a collective "we" without an opposing "them." And there are parts of both our national anthems that do this: that can stand alone and inspire. The best of the US anthem is the final question

"O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

The repetition of this summary statement in the three following verses works, and shows its power. Much of what precedes and surrounds it could be cleansed, to allow these transcendent words to come through more clearly.

The most enduring and inspiring part of Canada's anthem in the English words are the lines 4-7:

"With glowing hearts we see thee rise, the true North strong and free
From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee."

Commenting critically on the anthem of any country may make one a target! But let us remember our anthems have not been with us from the beginning. They have grown and changed, gained some verses and lost others. They have competed with other contenders.

The best tribute we can pay to those who have penned those words and sung them is to hold a vision and to strive for it. Seeing our faults as human beings does not mean we have to excuse or criticize them. And the hopes and experiences that have drawn people together in both countries will continue to find new modes of expression and inspiration.