Posted on 05/20/2014 7:12:56 PM PDT by Steelfish
16 May 2014 Is the French National Anthem 'Racist'? BBC Trending
Race and the French national anthem have been discussed all week on Twitter and Facebook, after a French minister was criticised for not knowing the words.
It all started with a tweet. Following a ceremony commemorating the abolition of slavery, French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira was criticised by fellow politician Geoffroy Boulard for declining to sing the national anthem, La Marseillaise.
Tweet posted by Geoffroy Boulard criticising Christiane Taubira Boulard's tweet says: "Taubira isn't singing La Marseillaise under the pretext that she doesn't know the words. Resignation!" This ignited a conversation which trended on Twitter for several days around the hashtag #LaMarseillaise. For some, Christiane Taubira is a controversial figure associated with the radical left, and she was accused of deliberately not singing to make a political point. Others argued that the attack was racially motivated and that Christiane Taubira was being unfairly singled out (she is black and was born in French Guyana).
Taubira herself defended her decision not to sing by telling her Facebook followers, "some occasions are more suitable for contemplation… than stage karaoke". This didn't defuse the tension. Instead, the hashtag #karaokedestrade ("stage karaoke") began trending on Twitter and generated further criticism of Taubira.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Roberto Alagna - La Marseillaise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXXstOweChc
The French national anthem isn’t Deutschland uber alles or Edelweiss?
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 America demands Justice for the Fallen of Benghazi! |
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I’m sure the Left eventually will want to do away with The Star Spangled Banner, and replace it with that Commie “This Land is Your Land.”
All I know is that in the last century, the French fields were irrigated by the blood of Americans simply because the French were too lazy to get off their asses and defend their own country.
In a word --- NO.
I am amazed that the Brits have lost their sense of history, context and reality. But then we're talking the BBC which may not be the sober entity it once was. It is sometimes indistinguishable from the U.S. MSM.
Context is everything; Historical isolation is the tool of the contemporary clueless of every country.
The Reign of Terror may be characterized as an excess, but the underlying causes extreme.
France is a much older country than the U.S., but a younger Republic. They had the long history of governmental abuse, and the explosion was inevitable.
We may be at a different place and in different times but the underlying political and social trajectory of the U.S. is not terribly different. Something has to give, when the "leaders" whatever their -ocracy are out of touch with the populace out of arrogance, stupidity or deliberate delusion.
Making a comparison, as is implied by the question, is food for only the uninformed, uninterested and unengaged parasitic populace that has been allowed to vote.
How that turns out remains to be seen...
It’s certainly nationalist, and isn’t every national anthem?
I read a book on this once, linguistically, French was largely spoken in the area where Paris is and surrounding. Though the other dialects may have often been related, still different, different ethnic peoples, say such as the Basque or Celtic peoples would be obvious examples.
A lot of people like the Marseillaise and just say it’s a good song. Mireille Mathieu does a splendid version of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxOl1EraXA Easy on the eyes as well and a striking rendition with the accompaniments.
Impure blood to me always meant the dreaded invaders. I don’t see that as really racist.
She can sing it!
The French may be cheese eating surrender monkeys, but they have a great national anthem. The Casablanca singing scene is great.
Liberal Translation of the Refrain:
“Citizens take up arms
Form your battalions
March, march
Spill the enemy’s blood
Over the land”
http://marseillaise.org/english/translation.html?liberal
Standard Translation of the Refrain:
“To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows”
http://marseillaise.org/english/translation.html?standard
At that, I think most National Anthems sound good.
Italy, now, I think they are the country that doesn’t have any words to the song. Canada’s is okay. Dare I say, the Mexican National Anthem is stirring.
And UK, God save the Queen but a fair number would like it to be Jerusalem if people know that musical piece.
What is interesting about the Polish anthem is that it mentions Napoleon by name:
We’ll cross the Wisla and the Warta,
We shall be Polish.
Bonaparte has given us the example
Of how we should prevail
I’ve heard Napoleon freed Slaves. It almost sounds like the verse you quote could be related to that. Thanks!
Nah - nothin’ wrong with that - that “impure blood” came from all the rich people being sent to the guillotine to help out the poor and downtrodden - just what we want to see happen here.....
Yes, but "Die Wacht am Rhein" is very stirring, too.
Regards,
For the French it sounds more overoptimistic than racist.
Dude, I am no Francophile and certainly no fan of modern France, but I am a careful student of history, especially World War II history, and calling the French soldier lazy is not correct.
At the time of the Nazi invasion in 1940, the French soldier was ill-trained and ill-motivated to fight because of the French leadership, in both the military and in the capital. The head of government changed several times in the leadup to the German invasion, including the night before the invasion, and the head of the military was an old man who was questionably senile. The French soldier was well-equipped -- not as well as the Germans, but equipped well enough to cause the Germans a lot of problems -- but it was all squandered because of horrible leadership and a predictable and fixed defensive strategy. The French soldier was not trained to fight for his country in 1940.
It was Napoleon who said there are no bad soldiers, only bad leaders. That was ever so true in 1940. Had Napoleon been alive he would have been shocked at the behavior of the great-grandsons of the men he led in the 1800s.
Incidentally, I have had some rip-roaring arguments here in FR taking the other side, meaning your side. One fellow said that the French soldier acquitted himself well in 1940. I told him that, his leadership notwithstanding, there are virtually no examples of French heroism during the German invasion.
I especially remember that one anecdote where the French soldiers were walking off the Maginot Line, because the Germans had already leaped behind them and cut off the supply lines. The soldiers were walking back to home and hearth, dejected. One platoon saw a German tank and walked over to surrender. 50 men surrendering to a tank crew, maybe 5 men. The German officer ordered the French poilus to put their rifles in a pile, ran over the pile several times with the tank tread, and then continued on toward the coast. Talk about cowardice. At the least the soldiers should have hid and brought their weapons home for a future fight.
I think the French acquitted themselves well, eventually, during the Resistance. Many men and women, some in their early teens, risked their lives and lost their lives committing sabotage, rescuing downed airmen, and gathering information about the German order of battle in the leadup to D-Day.
Had the French fought the Germans, Hitler might well have not had the hubris to invade the Soviet Union the following year. Think about that for a minute.
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