West Indian anthem
West Indians now have a regional anthem
A new West Indian anthem was played for the first time on Wednesday night at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain at the start of the pre-World Cup friendly between the Trinidad and Tobago Soca Warriors and Peru.
Composer Ernie Ross, a Trinidad-based, Guyana-born advertising executive Ernie Ross , says it comes out of a need to establish a West Indian identity beyond cricket.
Mr Ross is also Trinidad and Tobago's Honorary Consul to Guyana.
"The West Indian identity has always largely been defined by cricket, but cricket has only been one - or perhaps the best known - expression of this identity", he told BBC Caribbean radio.
"In fact, it's quite ironic that at next year's Cricket World Cup to be hosted by the West Indies, all the other nations would have been playing their individual national anthems and hoisting their national flags, except for the West Indies.
It's against this background that the idea for a West Indian anthem came about."
The lyrics
We are united through struggles and triumphs of history.
We are the children of proud generations that yearned to be free
Rainbows of a people resilient and strong
We have created a home where we belong
The greatness of small treasures unearthed
A paradise land where cultures converge
to make West Indian nations colourful and proud
Our West Indian nations always shining
As one under God
(Music composed by Anil Hardithsingh, lyrics by Ernie Ross and Anil Hardithsingh)
A regional refrain
hopefully what we have created here is a vehicle through which people can participate in that expression of West Indian identity and feel proud about it.
Ernie Ross
Ernie Ross says copies of the composition will be sent around the region and each country and territory will be allowed to give it their own interpretation according to their heritage,"without altering the fundamentals of the work", he stresses.
"One of the requirements is that the music be played on the steel-pan, regarded as the common instrument of the Caribbean"
Ernie Ross explains that he had approached Guyana's president Bharrat Jagdeo with the composition, who then presented it to regional leaders at a Caricom summit this past February in Port of Spain, where it got the nod.
No contest
On why the West Indian anthem was not open to more public involvement Mr Ross says, "it would always be difficult to get a unanimous decision on a composition of a piece of music or a flag that would define the West Indies - the very nature of our development would suggest that."
He also feels that putting it out to competition "would have probably resulted in a hybrid of reggae, pan, zouk and soca.
At the end of the day an anthem is a classical composition which can be rendered in any number of ways."
The bigger issue, he declares, was to address the need for a formal expression of the West Indian identity.
According to the anthem's co-composer, "if the answer is yes, then hopefully, what we have created here is a vehicle through which people can participate in that expression of West Indian identity and feel proud about it."
Already one sports organisation, the Caribbean Football Union, has adopted it as their anthem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2006/05/060511_westindiananthem.shtml