SINGERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Watching the players for the World Cup lined up proudly singing the anthem of their nation, some seeming sure of the words, some maybe not so sure, you sense their pride, hope and faith.

After the game, watching men and women and their children unashamedly  weeping in defeat you wonder. People say sport is a kind of war, described in terms of attack and defence,  beginning with pride and naturally ending with tears for somebody. People say too that sport is a substitute for war - with  your games of win and lose you can dissolve real enmities in life - if ever  you feel like  scraping notches on your gun commemorating real deaths of real people who have never done you a bit of real harm then you may find opposition and victory in a reasonable  substitute.  Sad business  war, always . Sad business sport, but only sometimes.

But  sport as an image of real war never, as it were, completely leaves the field. They say one of the aims of the European Union was to do away with wars between European nations  but   memories and images of a bloody past still remain. Even in sport. The French national anthem has this :

Arise, children of the Fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised,

Do you hear, in the countryside,
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They're coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your women!

To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let's march, let's march!
Let an impure blood
Water our furrows!

And that even at the start of a football match !

The Belgian national anthem is a bit more gracious :

O dear Belgium, O holy land of the fathers –
Our soul and our heart are devoted to you!
With blood to spill for you, O fatherland!
We swear with one cry – You shall live!
So gladly bloom in beauty full,
Into what freedom has taught you to be,
And evermore shall sing your sons:
The King, the Law, the Liberty!
Faithful to the word that you may speak boldly,
For King, for Freedom and for Law!
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!
The King, the Law, the Liberty       !

The anthem of Russia, the 2018 World Cup host nation,  seems more civil also:

Russia – our sacred state,
Russia – our beloved country.
A mighty will, a great glory –
Yours forever for all time!

Be glorious, our free Fatherland,
Ancient union of brotherly peoples,
Ancestor-given wisdom of the people!
Be glorious, our country! We are proud of you.

The English anthem is less about the Fatherland, Motherland , Nation, and more about the Monarch, which is a fair reflection of a British  constitutional position:

God save our gracious Queen!
Long live our noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen!

O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall:
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix:
God save us all. (This verse is often left out)

In  basic laws of England  power resides in the Monarch, with the Monarch devolving power to the Lords, Commons.   A  British writer described this distribution of power as being held  together not by a formal integrated written Constitution but by  a kind  of  "gentleman's agreement"  that the monarch will never grab power.  This was his reply to the suggestion that the British basic laws could too easily be taken over in a coup d'état by a faction supported by the army ! Without breaking a single British foundation law too. But of course a "gentleman's agreement" is hardly a citizens'  safeguard  if the  coup d'etat is organised  by Gentlemen !  The British national anthem refers to the monarch "frustrating  the knavish tricks " of his or her enemies - but not to the people subverting a monarch's knavish tricks if any should occur!

The Belgian anthem does a nice job of making a fine balance however between monarch, law, liberty, freedom,  singing :

The King, the Law, the Liberty!
Faithful to the word that you may speak boldly,
For King, for Freedom and for Law!
To Law and King and Freedom, hail!
The King, the Law, the Liberty!

So Belgians seem intent on shifting the primacy of monarch, law and  freedom around a fair bit so as not to let  monarch, law or even liberty get too free a hand over people!

Croatia has a nice anthem :

"Our beautiful homeland,

so fearless and gracious,

Our  fathers' ancient glory,

May  you be happy for ever.

Beloved , how glorious you are,

You are beloved, our only one.

Beloved wherever you are plain,

Beloved, wherever you are mountain."

It has been  suggested  we should remove  the blood-letting bits of our national anthems , including  Ireland's.  Sporting people ( be a sport !, they say) have the choice then, sing an anthem that reflects present courtesy  for your opponents and respect for yourselves , come what may, or repeat on the playing fields the desire to settle old scores or wage war against enemies who haven't even appeared yet.

No harm for Real Sports to take a lead.