Abstract
As various countries pass laws to make the singing of national anthems compulsory,
Football fans boo the Chinese national anthem at a match in Hong Kong, 2015
CREDIT: Kin Cheung/Rex
Patrick Poon, a native Hong Konger, told Index that he would refuse to sing the national anthem on principle. “I’m not a nationalist. I don’t see the importance of national pride, I mean to all countries. I’m more inclined to be an internationalist and I believe in universal values rather than patriotism and nationalism.”
Once the law comes into full effect in his home city (it still needs to go through a few legal hurdles before being enshrined), it would affect many walks of life. “It’s already broadcast before the evening news every day. Now, even all schoolchildren will be asked to learn to sing the national anthem… I find it very disturbing,” said Poon. It’s also a fixture at many sports games, where it has been greeted with boos in some football matches, including as recently as this November. This force-feeding of nationalism is not unique to China.
National anthems are currently experiencing something of a revival around the world. In June, the Philippines approved a bill that would result in fines or prison sentences for anyone who did not sing the national anthem “with fervour”; Russia approved a similar bill a month earlier; and the Indian government passed a law last year ordering all cinemagoers to stand for their anthem, which has since resulted in several arrests.
Speaking to Index for a previous issue, Indian law student Shreela Manohar, who faces charges for not standing, said: “It’s a serious blow to my basic civil rights. My mother and I were merely sitting down when the anthem was being played. We didn’t stop anybody from singing it, nor did we in any way disrespect the anthem.” (Spring 2017, 46.01, p66-68.)
Some people in these countries are rightly irate, as well as concerned. Are these anthems part of a new form of nationalism that will impact free speech more broadly? In China, for example, it’s been asked whether this is another push by President Xi Jinping to silence opposition. And, anyway, how exactly do you police national anthems to make sure they are played to meet the legal restrictions? Musicians, for example, fear that they might unknowingly appropriate sounds or lyrics from anthems.
There is concern about the role of national anthems in other countries too. In the UK, the national anthem has started to be played at club football matches rather than just at international games. Anthony Clavane, a former sports writer at the Sunday Mirror, said that for him the national anthem doesn’t have “a place in club games”. “Why should you [sing it] if you’re part of a football club and you’re not English?” he told Index.
This was something that James McClean thought. The Republic of Ireland footballer found himself in the centre of a storm when he turned his back during the singing of the English anthem at a West Bromwich Albion pre-season friendly match against Charleston Battery in the USA in 2015. He was warned by his boss about his actions amid calls for his resignation. McClean responded by tweeting: “I don’t need to say anything or will I either.”
Clavane, who writes plays and books about football history, explains how it’s not a legal requirement to stand and sing in the UK during a game, but it can be a social one and, as McClean found out, it can be a professional one. Indeed, in the USA, the protest movement featuring National Football League players refusing to stand and sing the anthem to highlight police brutality has led to a call from President Donald Trump for their dismissal.
When England played Germany in Berlin in 1938, the team were instructed by the Foreign Office to stand and respect the German national anthem (and even do the Sieg Heil salute). The team initially refused, only to be told by the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Neville Henderson, that they had to.
“You think, well, anyone condemning NFL players should remember this,” said Clavane. “I support what’s happening with the NFL protest and if a similar thing was happening in England I would support play ers to take that step.”
National anthems gained traction in the 19th century, in tandem with the creation of the modern nation state, though some originated much earlier (the oldest is assumed to be the Wilhelmus from the Netherlands, which was written between 1568 and 1572). Anthems continued to rise in prominence in the early 20th century, especially during the wars, which demanded obvious and often all-consuming signs of loyalty from national subjects. Then, as the century progressed, their role in public life largely retreated. Some countries even passed laws stipulating that their singing was not legally compulsory. Now, sadly, these laws are being eroded.
But for every push to enforce the anthem, there’s often pushback, and this can be very effective. Refusal to sing the US anthem has led to the trending hashtag #taketheknee and seen the protest spread to baseball and basketball. In a more obvious sign of victory, teachers in Japan who refused to sing the anthem at school and subsequently lost their jobs took the case to the Supreme Court and were awarded damages in 2015.
Then there are those who sing it, with a twist. A particularly striking example comes from Uruguay, when the dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s demanded that everyone stood to attention and sang, explains Alex Marshall, author of Republic or Death: Travels in Search of National Anthems.
“What happened is anyone who hated the dictatorship used it almost against that,” he said. “So they would sing it as required, but they would sing it really quietly until they got to these lines which say ‘tyrants tremble’ and they would scream those. It made their point very clearly and no one could object to it.”
And another tactic from Uruguay: “When people were being beaten up by the dictatorship they often used to try sing the anthem because the police would have to stand to attention and because this song is so bloody long you could get six minutes respite from a beating.”
Marshall sees national anthems as an odd combination of the best and worst propaganda. They’re “banal nationalism”, he said. “It reminds you all the time that this is your country, this is where you are from, these are the values you’re meant to espouse.” But they’re not very effective because “very few of them make political points or tell you what your values are meant to be”.
“The Star-Spangled Banner – that’s very blatant – and in a lot of dictatorships they rewrite the lyrics to make it very clear what they are trying to achieve. But most of them, they pretty much just say our hills look nice,” said Marshall.
The hills might look nice, though perhaps less so when you’re being forced to sing about them.
Corrections & Clarifications
In this article on grassroots radio in the USA, it stated that Andy Bowers was a radio reporter with NPR for 20 years. In fact, though Bowers has worked in public radio for 20 years, not all of it was at NPR.
This article refers to the funding of the Radio Free Europe radio station suggesting that it is funded by the “congressional Broadcasting Board of Governors”. The BBG is actually a government agency that receives congressional funding for its work. A longer article on this subject was later published on www.indexoncensorship.org