Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Pakistan needs a new and more effective national anthem

Pakistan's national anthem is one strange anthem that lacks passion and patriotism. For one it is in an old, outdated, Persian influenced dialect of Urdu that Pakistanis do not understand save for a few words.

Because of this the anthem has been ridiculed and mocked by many. Due to it's Persian influence, it is propagated by many to be in the Persian/Farsi language when that is clearly not the case. Even though there are national anthems of countries that the majority of the population does not understand, it doesn't mean Pakistan needs such a useless national anthem.

Not only are most of the words incomprehensible and meaningless to the country's unity, but the rhythm of the national anthem is also weak and does not hold a sense of patriotism.
Pakistan is a country that currently lacks unity and struggles with ethnic tension as well as political and religious divides. A powerful national anthem is one that contain two main important components:

1) A strong theme that is acceptable to all it's citizens. It must have ideologies that speak in favor of progress, unity and similar ideas that appeals to the entire population free of discrimination in any area be it religion, ethnicity or any other.

2) It must have a powerful rhythm. A rhythm is equally important to the self-respect and patriotism of a country by it's people. Many national anthems are weak in this respect and that includes Pakistan's current national anthem. I find patriotic songs are even more popular amongst Pakistanis than is the national anthem.

A new national anthem should be created fitting both categories and inclusive of all our main ethnic groups. If it is not inclusive of all our religions, then religion should be left out since Pakistan was meant to be a secular state.

An even more preferable and suitable national anthem would be one that encourages our unity as a predominantly Indo-Iranic people be it Baloch, Pakhtun (Iranic), Sindhi, Punjabi (Indo-Aryan) or Kashmiri (Dardic).

Such an anthem would significantly contribute to the feeling of patriotism towards our country and common ancestry as Indo-Iranic peoples. It should be made available and singable in all our country's spoken languages. A day should come when our new national anthem is created and finalized and set to be played on our independence anniversary on fourteenth August.

The current national anthem does not suit the needs of a country and lacks the main components a powerful and patriotic national anthem needs to promote unity and pride amongst the people.
I look forward to the day this useless anthem is scratched out in favor of a new and effective national anthem.

Below are examples of national anthems (note that some of these are not officially in use) that are strongly patriotic if one searches their lyrics. These are examples we need to learn from in order to come up with our new national anthem for it would be disaster if a new anthem is a failure like the current one:




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