Anthem - Intellect

Anthem
states a will to define Europeanness as having top quality and status. Also, both
the lyrics and music contain several markers of uplifted, solemn or even divine
attributes. On the other hand, they both also present a temporal narrative moving
through initial troubles upwards towards a jubilant climax—and this applies to
the short anthem versions as well as the full symphony movement. The same is
true for several of the other examples, including the Eurovision and the UEFA
anthems, as well as for some of the popular songs with European titles, where
Europe is described either as a particularly happy and lovable place, or as selected
for a fateful world battle against evil forces. The few dystopic songs that instead
describe Europe as a particularly nasty and doomed place are critical exceptions
to the by now well-established rule, but even they tend to define Europe as
something special (even if bad), that is, they reproduce the trope of selectedness.
4. Finally, there are plenty of hybrid structures in Beethoven’s original work—
so much that Nicholas Cook and others have concluded that all its internal
contradictions make it impossible to interpret it in any coherent fashion.
Schiller’s reference to humanity as becoming ‘brothers’ in combination with that
to ‘daughter of Elysium’ immediately combines the two main genders, and the
music then also adds different ethnic flavours, particularly the Oriental flavour
of the central march section. Here again, the EU anthem carefully avoids all
such complications and presents a sanitised version of Europeanness as white
and (with the brass instruments) male. Uniform homogeneity rules, with only
faint traces of any kind of diversity. This is also true for the other organisational
anthems, while it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions from the popular
songs. However, EU authorities’ parallel release of anthem variants in a wide
range of styles, from rap to romani, have again opened it up for recognising
diversity, in a similar manner as the barcode has supplemented the official flag
with its missing element of vital pluralism and difference.
All in all, the anthem basically confirms the main message conveyed by the
flag, with a certain affinity to that from Captain Euro, depicting Europe as a rather
controlled, fixed and unitary entity. However, its various contextual neighbours
provide contesting identifications, and in particular the anthem’s origin in Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony, which still remains hard to repress as even the omission of the lyrics
is not always respected when the anthem is performed at EU-related events, casts a
shadow reminding the listeners of the heritage expressed by the Europa myth of a
Europe full of dislocation, desire and diversity. As with all other official symbols, the
idea of some kind of selectedness and elevation remains a constant element that in a
naturalising way places Europe in the centre of its own universe, as if its status as the
first geocultural world region was completely self-evident.
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