Tre Mac

If we really want to update the national anthem to reflect modern sensitivities, as in changing “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command,” we’ve got a lot of work to do. 

“O Canada.” Start with “O.” It is such an 18th-century form of address. Nobody uses it anymore. When students text me, they write “Hey, Prof.” It’s 2016. We should go for “Hey Canada” rather than “O Canada.” Personally, I’d put a comma after Hey – a vocative comma, if I remember my grammar. But grammar is so last-century. We can probably leave it out. 

As for “Our home and native land”: A couple of problems here. Who exactly are the “we” represented by “our.” It’s only the native land of people who were born here, so right away we’re excluding immigrants. Not very inclusive of us!

Then there’s the problem of whose land it is, exactly. Natives are pretty clear it’s their land. So we should probably change to “Our home, but Native land.” And they prefer “First Nations” to “Native” so it should be “Our home, but First Nations’ land – and water, mineral, air and space rights,” just to represent their constitutional position accurately.

But that raises the problem of “our” again: “Our home, but First Nations’ land, water, etc. …”  seems to imply First Nations aren’t part of the “we” behind “our,” which of course is exactly what radical First Nations activists argue. Maybe it would be best to finesse that by saying “Shared home, but First Nations’ land, water, etc.”

Moving on: “True patriot love in all of us command” still needs work, despite its recent improvement. “True” is derivative of “truth” – or maybe it’s the other way ’round. But both are, as we say in the universities, “problematic constructs.” What is truth, after all, but an imposed set of value memes? Or is it tropes? Trope, meme: I always get them wrong way ’round. Whatever. In the 21st century we can’t really sing “true” with a straight face. (The ideological ramifications of singing – in unison, slavishly – we’ll leave for another time.)

“Patriot?” Patriotism, as we know, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Actually, oftentimes the first refuge (see Trump, Donald). Do we really want to validate unthinking acquiescence in conspiratorially constructed national mythics? Not to mention that “patriotism” derives from “pater,” which is Latin for father, or from the ancient Greek “patris,” for fatherland, which makes it extremely patriarchal. Patriarchy is no longer us. 

As for the “love” part of “true patriot love,” is there a more conflicted, complex or confusing concept than “love”? What is this thing, as the songwriter wrote? What do we mean precisely when we refer to “patriot love”? Is it responsible to insert such a notoriously ambiguous concept into national verse? And is patriot love really the only variety of love we want to privilege in Canada?

“In all of us command” is certainly better than “in all thy sons command.” But, again, who is “us”? And isn’t “command” inappropriately authoritarian?

“With glowing hearts”? Real hearts don’t glow. If your heart is glowing, you have a problem. Hearts may swell but when yours does, you need medication. 

Same with “true North strong and free.” Free is more an American concept, isn’t it? And strength is a very old-fashioned virtue, even assuming it still is a virtue. Millennial Canada surely favours “empathetic” and “diverse.” We’re a soft-power super-power. 

Finally, “standing on guard for thee.” “Thee”? Really? And isn’t all the standing on guard overly paranoiac? Who do we think we’re standing on guard against? 

Once you start, you never know where you’ll end up. Perhaps at bottom the meaning of the anthem is not so much the import of the words themselves as the fact that they are the same words previous generations of Canadians sang. The point – and the beauty – is the harmony echoing back and forth through time.

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Or so I thought...

What about 'far and wide'?

This is offensive to fat people and has been hurting feels since the words were planted into the anthem. #fatlivesmatter #equalityforfatpeople #conpensatethefatcommunity

it will probably become "in all thy daughters command" soon enough