Being in attendance at an event yesterday, It was begun by singing of the #Nigerian National Anthem (Arise O Compatriots) ,The #Finnish Anthem (gracing the presence of Ambassador of Finland to Nigeria) and The University Anthem.
It made me wonder- 'why do we bother to sing national anthems?'
And I nose-dived into the history of anthems and came up with some answers:
National Anthems can unite the community on a superficial level.
For instance the SouthEastern part of Nigeria wanted to create an independent state of Biafra and for this reason of unity, they came up with the Biafrian anthem (Land of the rising Sun).
Nationalism is associated with an ethnic,linguistic, cultural or religious identity,
so Nationalism encouraged by an anthem can inspire strong feelings of loyalty and devotion, create a sense of pride toward national culture and develop a sense of common identity.
It is also an interesting concept that national anthems bring people together in times of war..and give that great feeling of being an ambassador for your country
A notable example is that the anthem of USA (The Star-Spangled Banner) was played a lot during the begining of the Vietnam war.
An anthem could also be used to take a swipe at Government(form of protest)
as demonstrated by NFL players in the US who knelt,raised fists or locked hands during rendition of the National Anthem to pass across their displeasure
It's also interesting to point out that anthems have been criticized severally as some have decribed it as 'playing songs of war'
I won't absolutely fault that description because the lyrics of some national anthems could be termed militarized.
Also stumbled on some cool facts about anthems:
The presumed oldest national anthem belongs to the #Netherlands and is called the "Wilhelmus"
The Marcha Real is the national anthem of #Spain. It is one of only four national anthems in the world (along with those of #Bosnia and Herzegovina, #Kosovo, and #San Marino) that has no official lyrics
#Greece has the longest national anthem in the world.
It has 158 stanzas, written by the poet Dionysios Solomos
The shortest national anthem in the world, is the #Japanese anthem, Kimigayo, which is comprised of 32 kanji, and is only 11 bars of music in length (and also famous for being one of the oldest national anthems in the world).
Thanks for reading through
Your Fellow Steemian
@davidjossy
