There is something that ought to be special about your National Anthem and the reason why you stand when it is being sung
Dr Keith Rowley
By Prior Beharry
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley does not like Iwer George’s singing the National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago at the beginning of his newest Soca song.
He said, “…I would rather if, the National Anthem is not treated in that way.”
Dr Rowley was responding to a question from AZP News at a press conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s on Monday.
George’s song Happy People released for Carnival 2024 starts with the word, “Attention” and is then followed with him singing the National Anthem of T&T.
In his response, Dr Rowley said, “Let me take off my prime minister hat and leave my baldhead and talk to you as a fellow citizen.
“Frankly, I am not, what’s the verbs I should use, I am not jumping up and down about the National Anthem being used that way in any calypso.
“There is something that ought to be special about your National Anthem and the reason why you stand when it is being sung, I don’t stand up with any hymn being sung or any other, you stand when the National Anthem is being sung for a reason and that gives it a profile and a place that no other song has.
“And on that basis, I would say, I would rather if, the National Anthem is not treated in that way.”
The entire media should put a ban on Iwer, he once told me he likes controversy in his songs, that way he gets publicity and the attention of the public.
Firstly why doesn’t he stand for hymns. As a Christian I find this deeply disturbing for my Prime Minister to say.
And secondly, wasn’t the national anthem stolen by Eric Williams from Patrick Castagne and the West Indian Federation. Or did I read the wrong thing in our history books?
The National Anthem have its own home and place, only to be sung in it’s original form.Is the only sung you do not dance too.