Dear Editor,

“A fool says in his heart there is no God.” Oh, really?The

Bible can claim no greater inspiration over

Hamlet or

Fifty Shades of Grey. We erred in making our national anthem an invocation to any sort of biblical sky monster.Put the debate over the existence of God aside. This will be a never-ending disagreement. I ask a completely different question: If God exists or not, what difference does it make?The universe operates on natural laws, independent of any unseen hands, and human societies progress on the collective creativity of human beings. Whether you think God exists or does not exist it takes human effort to feed our hungry, protect our children, create opportunities for our people and reduce our spiralling murder rate. Children do not perform better because parents pray for them on exam days. Neither has Jamaica grown its economy because of the prayers from the podiums at the annual prayer breakfasts. In addition, it is clear that our nation’s pleading to God in the national anthem has not given us any trading advantage among our regional competitors.Religion is not a passive ideological framework. Religion possesses the ability of influencing thought processes. And, our national anthem, a product of religion, is not an innocent dispensing of sentiment; it is creative. But it is not the kind of creation any society should aim for.The anthem creates dependence. Subliminally, it matures the idea that our progress can be determined outside of our collective will.Still, the verses of the national anthem also deny the participation of atheists, agnostics and secularists.Reservation regarding the existence of God traces back to millennia. However, atheism and agnosticism have never been a pervading current among Africans or its diaspora. Philosophy, as a systematic intellectual activity, has never been a lure to our foreparents. Historically, with the exception of the ancient Egyptians, the”African approach to reality is based on emotion rather than logic, works itself out in participation rather than analysis, and manifests itself through the arts rather than the sciences”. (Leopold Senghor) This is changing nowadays, though.Exposure to European enlightenment ideas and a dissatisfaction with religion, as a result of unanswered questions, are producing militant atheists, agnostics and secularists within the black communities. The pews of the black church are been emptied and our people are increasingly challenging religious values.Not everybody will avow the “Eternal Father, bless our Land” anthem. Not everyone believes in the existence of an eternal father. Should children of atheist parents be forced to reverence a national prayer? Of course, not.We live in a present age where minorities are demanding equal participation in developing a nation’s values. More and more minorities are rejecting what is called by a medieval freethinker as the tyranny of the majority. We must create a national anthem in which every group can believe and participate. One that omits religious sympathies, stimulates patriotism, and nurtures creative collective ability and responsibility. Jamaica’s founding fathers erred in formulating the current national anthem, as theirs, simply, was a different time. 

Ricardo Cush McKenzie

ricardomckenzie383@yahoo.com