CommentaryOpinion
What’s in a National Anthem?
In this week’s issue, Weekly columnist Raffi Elliott offered a satirical piece poking some fun at the recent controversy over a proposed change to Armenia’s National Anthem, ‘Mer Hayrenik.’ The intent of his article, from what I gathered, was to point out that such issues pale in comparison to the many challenges facing the Armenian people. However, the controversy already initiated, it behooves us to at least explore the various aspects of the issue.
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The example of Kaepernick’s protest is an ill-chosen and uncalled for stretch. There has to be a better example, especially in the context of discussing national symbols. The only way the brouhaha could have been prevented is if Kaepernick had never protested in the first place. It seems to me he has paid a pretty hefty already for living up to his principles. And, by the way, he was not protesting ‘discrimination’, he was protesting the almost daily killing of young African-Americans by police across this country.
I am sorry but I beg to differ. If Kaepernick cared about the issue he was supposedly protesting for, then he would have taken advantage of the heightened focus to actually have the discussion be about those issues. Instead he turned it into an issue of whether he (or anyone) can sit or kneel versus standing for the national anthem. I did not think that was the purpose of the protests, but maybe I was the one that was mistaken. There are plenty of parallels in an Armenian context. You do not have many such opportunities and he wasted a rare one for an important issue and continuing injustice.
Let’s hope that the misinterpretation of the efforts of Colin Kaepernick’s protest efforts against the police killing of African-Americans in the USA by kneeling during the playing of the American National Anthem by the Chairman of the ARF Central Committee of the Eastern Region does not reflect any of the new decisions made by the ARF World Congress held in January. The chairman’s approach reflects a regressive mindset on social/political injustice.
Where did you get the idea that police are systematically discriminating against black people? Don’t peddle the virtue signaling politics of the extreme left please. If he really cared he would’ve spoken up about the bloodbath and disproportionatly high rate of crime within the black community.
Our anthem and flag should be reconsidered. Our nation is surrounded by enemies and at risk of war. We should have an anthem and flag that is more motivating. Like Georgia, we should also consider redesigning our flag to something that honors our Christian background or past kingdoms. A flag that is a powerful symbol to rally people in a time of war. The problem with our current flag is the colors aren’t the same everywhere. Sometimes the 3rd color is orange and sometimes it’s golden. Even the red and blue are not specified by a specific hue. Other nations flags are very distinct about these details.
And the meaning of the colors are different depending on who you ask.
The Armenian government states that the red on our flag stands for 3 or 4 different things, while the blue is always the sky and the orange/apricot could mean our literature or courage or harvest.
A flag shouldn’t be vague. In our case it should be simple, symbolic and powerful. The same goes for our national anthem. I prefer something like ‘harach nahadag’ which has powerful lyrics and a melody that sounds like something a matching military band would play. This isnt an unimportant issue, especially in our case.