WHAT'S IN AN ANTHEM ?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WHO WE ARE AS CANADIANS...THE P.M. SAYS": 

I think it is great that newcomers are able to join in singing the anthem as it is now. There is no need to change it unless one wants to see Canadian athletes on the podium unable to contribute a few lyrics.

Posted by Anonymous to  Our Town and Its Business at 25 February 2016 at 09:2

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We have social media and can chat amiably about all kinds of things:  like the words of an anthem.

We can talk about why we have anthems  and what is their purpose?

In the States once ,we had to  scramble up from the sand in bathing suits and stand to attention 

for the National anthem . Armed police officers stood behind us to complete the macabre  scene. The water was too dirty and oily for swimming. 

Nazis were big on anthems and salutes and marching in jackboots and instilling in children great pride in the superiority of  race. 

I read once where Hitler  took a leaf out of the Catholic method of teaching  faith to children.

So what's in an anthem? If a person lived in a wilderness area without government services, and loved it....would they love it more, if it was Canadian, American, Mexican or Chilean. 

I suppose so if one needed to feel secure.....had rights.... and laws to protect them.

I think most people feel the need to belong. 

A heart-stirring anthem, familiar since childhood,might provide that feeling of security. 

An anthem is likely intended to instill  something else as well. 

"TRUE PATRIOT LOVE IN ALL HER SONS COMMAND" 

Nothing ambiguous there. It means patriotism is required and whatever else may be needed

to protect and defend. 

The anthem was written when sons were expected to do what was required. And they  did.

In hundreds of thousands. Memorials  in towns and villages everywhere bear their names.

There may be women's names among them. They would be few. Nurses mostly. 

In WW 2 women were conscripted but the choice of service in the forces was personal. They were not armed. They did not go to theatres of war. They didn't fly planes ,drop bombs ,and get shot down in flames. 

They didn't "man" submarines , torpedo ships and depth-charged into oblivion. 

If  modern women demand  their place in modern warfare, firing off heat -seeking missiles indiscriminately killing other women, children and old people, I suppose, in the battle for equality,they  should have that responsibility.  

But evidence of post traumatic stress among returning warriors, incurable depression and mass  suicides  numbering more than front-line casualties,offers a different perspective on the story of glory and heroism. 

If conscription came to a vote in any future conflict, I believe I might withhold my support.  

I don't believe the words of the anthem should be changed either. 

Young fathers in uniform being greeted by infants and small children on a return from a tour of duty in some foreign land  is hard enough to watch. 

Young mothers required to go off to war, leaving  their offspring to someone else's care is 

entirely unnatural in my judgement. 

For either parent to do so voluntarily is beyond my comprehension. 

Now....let's see what can be made out of that. .