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| March on Bahamaland |
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Published: Aug 18, 2012
Dear editor,
"Lift up your head to the rising sun Bahamaland" are the proud words that we stand up for and sing every time we give honor to our nation. Some Bahamians know the U.S. national anthem by heart, as do I, and will sing that with more pride than our own. Yet they cannot recite the correct words for the Bahamian national anthem, or do not care that the national anthem is an outright acclamation of our right to claim the land where our navel strings are planted. In the past six months, I have heard more shameful renditions of the national anthem to last me a lifetime, and to make Mr. Timothy Gibson, and our forefathers and foremothers, cringe in their graves. I have heard wrong notes, wrong words and countless just "wrong" everything complete with curls, trills, trembles and note bending that makes the simple, beautiful melody almost unrecognizable. How can we as a nation stand by and cheer, scream and clap to encourage the absolute nonsense that has become acceptable when singing the national anthem? Shouldn't this be a sacred ode to our country? Persons have no idea how teachers "pull teeth" trying to get high school children to sing, mumble or say the national anthem. The students slouch, slump and refuse to open their mouths. It is disheartening to say the least. Who is to blame? Whatever happened to the pride, zest and zeal that was present for me and my peers when learning this new song by rote from our most adored teacher? Am I just old fashioned in this regard? Or just old? Independence, to a country, means pride, honor and respect to the people, beliefs and laws. When did it become acceptable to slouch, refuse to stand up, or grace the national stage inappropriately dressed or unprepared to belt out the national anthem? Since I am the only one bothered by this, I guess it doesn't matter because as in other things we will sit and snicker amongst ourselves rather than address the important issues so that we may present ourselves to the world as a proud nation. A nation that will do anything to preserve its proud identity; a nation that screamed, hollered and cheered in unison when our "men of gold" won that gold medal on August 10 at the XXX Summer Olympics. I bet they would have sung the national anthem then, because I stood up in my house and cried in my heart when I heard it being played because I knew the world was hearing it as well. My heart is hopeful and still looks up with expectation that someday the youth will not be ashamed to show pride for our country and realize that The Bahamas' true colors are aquamarine, gold and black and not red, green and yellow. I am also, hopeful that when we sing the national anthem, it will be sung with national pride and not as a way to show off our voice and do vocal tricks and acrobatics. Until the road we all trod, leads us unto our true, clear and heartfelt national pride, march on my brothers and sisters.
– Sonovia Pierre Musician, educator, Bahamian
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