national anthems

Russell Grinker grinker at mweb.co.za
Tue Mar 14 01:03:35 PST 2000



>> On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, JC Helary wrote:
>>
>>> And some others remarked that the Japanese anthem was definitely not
>>> cool enough, but still they had to sing something in the Stadiums ...
>>
>> The Japanese sing their anthem in stadiums? I did an informal internet
>> survey a few years back, and my finding was that nobody sang the national
>> anthem in sports stadia except the US, Canada and Australia -- the three
>> classic immigrant nations. Naturally I made up a up theory about that.
>> And naturally it would blow it all to hell if the Japanese sang it at
>> therirs.

The anthem - 2 actually - gets sung at big rugby and soccer games here (South Africa). As part of the the Mandela-de Klerk peace deal we landed up, not only with a new flag designed by an ad agency, but also with a cobbled-together anthem which includes bits of the old white racist Stem or Voice of South Africa, mixed in with the Africanist, Nkosi Sikelele, or God Bless Africa. This somehow also lost its Africanist feel along the way when references to "Africa" mysteriously morphed into South Africa when it became the official anthem. This doesn't scan too well either. All in all it's a real mess with most people unwilling to sing the old racist bits and quite a lot of agitation currently to remove them altogether. People also used to sing the Internationale and even the Red Flag here in more radical times just a few years ago. Then there were the many revolutionary and nationalist songs, mostly designed to be sung on the run or accompanied by the toyi toyi. These still survive (for use on high holidays etc) but somehow seem a bit incongruous now in a new age of economic empowerment with its secular religion of fiscal rectitude and responsibility.

Russell



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list