30 years

Thirty years ago this past month, this was heard for the first time on television and radio sets across the country, back home. Despite its overwhelmingly--and deliberate, of course--religious overtones, everyone knew it, everyone sang it, and everyone hummed it within a few days. Everyone, even my sister and I.

(Damn if it doesn't totally take me back, even after all this time.)




It slowly but surely replaced the most beloved of the country's many anthems (but never its national anthem, contrary to information on youtube and elsewhere to that effect), something else everyone knew and sang and hummed. The old anthem was one of national pride and devotion, not of religious fervor and obedience, but that is what was needed to fuel the flames, even that of the so called intellectuals and educated, white collar class. Because religion? Truly is the opium of the masses.



But when the 'cleansing' huntings and killings grew exponentially those first few years--and then especially when the war broke out and there was the undercurrent of talk about young boys of 12 and 13 running out on the battle fields first to deactivate the mines, with their life--the song took on a different light and became almost a macabre warning of the bloodshed that was happening (and to come) rather than of the bloodshed that supposedly had happened under the old regime. It was around then that the song was banned and the old anthem resurrected and played over the airwaves, to unify a country that was already--and only a very few years in--doubting the revolution, and to redirect the people's growing concern against a new enemy. (And, most importantly, divert their attention from the growing controls and limitations, which were by then far beyond what had been in the past regime; controls and limitations that were being used to increase the power of those who were now at the top of the food chain).


(Sounds familiar? Go skim the middle chapters in Animal Farm, especially where the song 'Beasts of England' gets banned in favor of a new song lauding Napoleon the boar, and then is briefly permitted to support the emotional manipulation of the animals against their growing unrest. It is almost funny how that whole book reads like a blueprint for those first 15 years, if it wasn't so terribly sad.)