Billy Bragg, singer songwriter and leftwing English patriot on the subject, for the Daily Mirror.
How right he is as well It's a hoary old cliche to point out that at football and rugby internationals the Scots and the Welsh have their own national anthems to proudly sing, English players have to mumble and mime along to a British song about a god they mostly don't believe in saving an elderly German immigrant...
This quote in particular sums up the case for Jerusalem
"Jerusalem would also make a great anthem for England because it's a song about idealism. While the Scottish anthem, Flower of Scotland, goes on about beating the English 600 years ago, Jerusalem talks of the future, of fighting for something yet to be achieved "till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land".
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3 comments:
You may be interested in this reply that I received today from Labour's David Lepper MP
Cheers for the heads up. What a mealy mouthed excuse for an excuse!
Some weeks ago I was in Croke Park, Dublin, to see England play Ireland in rugby. You may have noticed that there was a lot of discussion prior to the game regarding the playing of God Save the Queen, due to the nationalist sensibilities that it antagonizes. I want to mention that they played England's Green and Pleasant land beforehand and I choked; it's a great song, and visionary in a way which exposes anthems like the supposedly republican 'Soldiers Song' (Amhran na bhFiann) for the cloying chauvinistic dross that it is.
So props to the proposal, and I hope that Irish republicans can appreciate the wide significance of this: while sectarian dogmas and militaristic nationalism are dispensed with as offside activity (a good thing) we shouldn't just succumb to the royalist dross, but find our shared space in the fight for the New Jerusalem, here and now, which has always been the essence of the republicanism of Wolfe Tone and the United irishmen: equality, universal rights and anti-authoritarianism.
Rumour has it that the queen will visit Ireland in the next year, and she should be greeted with the opposition of William Blake on her arrival. Oh, Ireland and England, why has the timing of history conspired to create such hostility where there should be solidarity?!
hydra
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