All:
I wonder what Sam smokes, chews or injects. Maybe all three!
Richard
On 8/31/2016 12:53 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Truthdig
The Anti-Muslim Origins of 'The Star-Spangled Banner'
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_anti-muslim_origins_of_the_star-span
gled_banner_20160830/
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Posted on Aug 30, 2016
By Sam
Husseini(http://husseini.posthaven.com/the-anti-muslim-origins-of-the-star-s
pangled-banner)
The national anthem being performed at the beginning of a baseball game at
Citi Field in New York. (Chris Swann / CC
2.0(https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisswann26/9318516620/) )
As
several(http://www.accuracy.org/release/colin-kaepernick-and-racism-of-the-s
tar-spangled-banner/)
writers(https://theintercept.com/2016/08/28/colin-kaepernick-is-righter-than
-you-know-the-national-anthem-is-a-celebration-of-slavery/) have
noted-before and after the furor surrounding quarterback Colin Kaepernick
refusing to stand for "The Star-Spangled Banner"-the national anthem is
racist. Specifically, the third stanza:
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Even less well known, the song originates in slave owner Francis Scott Key's
"When the Warrior Returns(http://www.potw.org/archive/potw340.html) "-which
was set to the same tune.
As Alex Cockburn, the deceased and much missed co-editor of
CounterPunch,(http://www.counterpunch.org/) noted following President
Obama's celebrated 2009 address in
Cairo(http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/06/05/obama-in-cairo-high-words-low-t
ruths/) :
An early version of the "Star Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key, written
in 1805 amid the routing of the Barbary states, offered a view of Islam
markedly different from Obama's uplifting sentiments in Cairo:
In conflict resistless each toil they endur'd,
Till their foes shrunk dismay'd from the war's desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur'd
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban'd head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.
In 1814 Key rehabbed this doggerel into the Star Spangled Banner. So
America's national anthem began as a gleeful tirade against the Mahommedans.
And of course every member of the U.S. Marine Corps regularly bellows out
the USMC anthem, beginning "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of
Tripoli."
In short, America's march to Empire was minted in the crucible of
anti-Islamic sentiment. (One admirer of this early chapter in America's
imperial confrontations with Islam is that ardent Crusader, C. Hitchens who
cites Joshua London's Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary
Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, on the origins of the
Star Spangled Banner.)
I actually first learned of the racism of the national anthem from Alex
Cockburn's 1987 book, "Corruptions of Empire," which features a splendid
cover(http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-w-wRZxq0BeOkLyfwuxBOK2wZzTA
nKUw-J5_gQqr-UOvyV5br) :
Note to illustration on the front of jacket: In August 1814, a British
raiding party led by Admiral Sir George Cockburn launched an attack on
Washington. They set fire to the Capitol, then proceeded to the White House
and, before setting fire to it, consumed a meal set out by Dolly Madison
which had been abandoned by the fugitive President and his family. Cockburn
next proceeded to the offices of The National Intelligence to avenge himself
on the press which had abused him. He ordered his men to destroy the paper's
printing types, saying 'Be sure that all the Cs are destroyed so that the
rascals cannot any longer abuse my name'. Cockburn then laid siege to
Baltimore, the unsuccessful fusillades prompting the composition of 'The
Star Spangled Banner', whose reference to 'the hireling and slave' in the
British force alludes, as Robin Blackburn points out in The Overthrow of
Colonial Slavery, to the fact that Cockburn had offered freedom to all
slaves who would join him in his attacks of 1813 and 1814. According to a
British report these slaves conducted themselves very well and 'were
uniformly volunteers for the Station where they might expect to meet their
former masters.' Some of these black recruits were in the party that burned
the White House.
Alex's brothers
Andrew(http://harpers.org/archive/2014/09/washington-is-burning/) and
Patrick(http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/patrick-cockburn-th
e-day-a-cockburn-set-the-white-house-aflame-8100581.html) have also written
about this.
This highlights the darkest heart of the United States, eager to assault
indigenous people-be they Africans or natives of what we call "America" or
Berbers or Arabs or whoever. Native Americans who are perceived as having
been defeated now can be romanticized to an extent, while Arabs and Muslims
who are not eager to roll over for U.S. establishment power are demonized.
It also highlights that racism and violent nationalist identity are closely
intertwined, and attempts at separating the two may well be mere cover for
both.
Sam Husseini is founder of VotePact.org(http://www.votepact.org/) .
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