Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Dear Editor,
In a Letter to the Editor (Amandala 7/7/24) titled “Decolonizing Belize’s graduation ceremonies”, your correspondent, Mr. Ray Meyers, sought to smear Elgar’s POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE with the brush of colonialism, imagining a supposed alliance with the era of bloody and inhumane colonial tyranny. His categorization of this masterpiece as “offensive” and “anathema” to our supposedly grand 43-year-old independent democracy, denigrated what has become part and parcel of graduation ceremonies the world over. One must wonder how, in this age of enlightenment, anyone could describe this epic classic, written for 15 different instruments, in this demeaning way? And for no better reason, it appears, than that it was written in the “colonial” era by an Englishman!
Attempts to erase British colonial legacy in Belize have met with only an indifferent success. We still use England’s language, practice her legal system, indulge her educational practices, govern the way she does, engage her religion, christen our children using mostly British names, and the like. The successes we’ve had have to do with soft targets (names of places and things). And now, Elgar’s music! Additionally, being British, he is made to personify all the opprobrium of colonialism: “Just look at his lyrics,” the writer coaches.
Now, it was not Elgar who wrote the lyrics that Mr. Meyers and others before him found repulsive: he wrote the score, then someone penned the accompanying patriotic LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY lines for it. Additionally, his March was not written for a graduation: it was an American university that first recruited it into that service, and the rest of the world, like us, followed. (He gave his score the more scholarly name POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, a tribute to Shakespeare’s Othello.)
Having said that, I should add that, had your correspondent not mentioned it, many may not have known about the lyrics of the piece. POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE is always rendered as an instrumental work, and knowing this, Mr. Meyers may have deliberately tried to provoke a situation from which could be garnered some patriotic traction.
Hart Tillett