Anthem - Intellect

Anthem
degrees of acceptance. The original French lyrics of the Belgian ‘La Brabançonne’
(The Song of Brabant) from 1830 has continuously been revised to avoid anti-Dutch
elements, and of course also has a version in Flemish. Given the internal tensions
between the Vallonians and the Flemish, it is no surprise that the lyrics have no
official status, but still the song is actually used in practice. Finland’s ‘Maamme/Vårt
land’ (Our Land) from 1848 was written in Swedish but has a Finnish translation.
It is again not officially legislated but used in practice. Switzerland’s official anthem
‘Schweizerpsalm’ from 1841 has its text in all four official national languages, that
is, translated from the German original to French, Italian and Romansch. Only the
Spanish ‘Marcha Real’ (Royal March), going back to the mid-eighteenth century, is
mostly performed without words, and its link to the royalty makes it problematic for
semi-autonomous regions like Catalunya and the Basque countries. In Kosovo, the
European anthem is also often played, as an act of respect for EU’s role in assisting the
process of national independence. Since 2008 it has a conventional national anthem
named ‘Europe’ that has no lyrics, in order to avoid discrimination of any of its ethnic
groups, while neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina has chosen to have an anthem
with lyrics available in both Bosnian and Serbian language.
There is no officially established anthem for the whole of Asia, North or South
America, but the African Union has in 2010 adopted an official African Union anthem,
‘Let Us All Unite and Celebrate Together’. 424 It is on various websites played by a wind
orchestra in a classical European-French slow military march style, but there is also a
set of lyrics presented both in English and in French:
Let us all unite and celebrate together
The victories won for our liberation
Let us dedicate ourselves to rise together
To defend our liberty and unity
O Sons and Daughters of Africa
Flesh of the Sun and Flesh of the Sky
Let us make Africa the Tree of Life
The next verses speak of joint singing for fighting together ‘for lasting peace and
justice on earth’ and of joint working for Africa as ‘the cradle of mankind and fount of
culture’. The tune thus seamlessly inscribes itself in the European anthemic tradition,
but the lyrics recontextualise it into a postcolonial context. Africa is not so much
elevated to a supreme position (as is the case with Europe) but rather described in
terms of roots and origins of mankind and culture, with political liberation, cultural
creativity and unbroken ties to nature as main values, and with a union seemingly
(and unrealistically!) unthreatened by any internal divides.
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