Melville Cooke

I nah leave yah

Till me get me visa

-Pluto Shervington's amended version of I Man Born Yah, performed after migration

The second verse of Jamaica's national anthem is a rather slippery beast, which often eludes many of a group of persons singing it or turns around and bites them with mumbled lyrics (as, apparently, happened to that personable person, Digicel Rising Stars 2005 winner Christopher Martin at the National Stadium recently).

The most awkward part of singing the national anthem comes at the last long 'love' of the first verse. There is the hesitation, some invariably attempting to sit and, half stooping, as a few lusty lungs take up on "teach us true respect". And we need that. True respect for all means not only that the people in the supermarkets who do the bagging up should leap at the bags of those with full trolleys and those with quarter dozen 'dutty gal' with equal alacrity, but also that the law should be applied without fear (or fair) or favour. So no policeman being convicted after giving the standard "police party was fired upon and the fire returned" story and the BSI (which means Bureau of Special Investigation. I tend to think of it as the Bull Secretion Institute) probing the matter makes that line redundant.

"Stir response to duty's call." What duty is that? To work as hard as we can in our own self-interests and achieve a decent standard of living, or give all we can to the public good and end up with a pension that can hardly pay the light bill. The sentiments of the anthem seem to tend to the latter; I believe in the former.

"Strengthen us the weak to cherish." Again, definitions are important. What weak? Those with disabilities, mental and physical? Sure, if they need or want it. Those who are physically weaker? Sure (this having passed Munro days when the weak were prey). Those who sit on the road, drinking Guinness and burning weed every day, complaining that 'nutten nah gwaan' but still find enough going on to buy Motorola Razr phones? Hell no.

Nominal Independence

"Give us vision, lest we perish." That line has been around since nominal Independence and yet we are filling the roads with cars while the first railway system in the hemisphere goes to rot. The cataract of imports has certainly blinded us. And "knowledge send us Heavenly Father, grant true wisdom from above." As in the first verse, I do not believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful Father, in or out of frock, I do not believe in knowledge from above and there can be no heaven better than the love and security of a family.

All this floating around drinking milk and honey sounds like eternal laziness to me. And suppose you are lactose intolerant? What does that mean for your white robes?

Then "justice, truth be ours" yadda yadda yadda yadda. Flip back to last week's column for that one.

National anthems, like anything nationalistic such as sports teams and companies branded by country, are designed to build patriotism, shore up pride in country and engender loyalty. Which really means nothing. A poor Jamaican has more in common with a poor Russian than a wealthy Jamaican. Bands of income brackets mean that people have much more in common in their lifestyles across the borders which contain the subjects (in both senses of the word) of anthems than their financially removed countrymen.

Patriotism is the prison of the poor, which is what many Jamaicans have, thankfully, realised, which is why Pluto Shervington can sing his amended version of I Man Born Yah and be sure to get a smile.

So even though we generally stand for the National Anthem of Jamaica (myself included), we certainly do not stand by it. By our actions, we sit firmly.

Imagine there's no country

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

- John Lennon, Imagine

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer