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JANICE WELLS: The ‘Ode to Newfoundland’ is a feeling greater than its words
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I’m writing this on a morning when blinding storm gusts are fretting our shores and wild waves are lashing our strands but, you know, thro’ spindrift swirl, and tempest roar, I love my windswept land.
Even if I had no idea that rills could be little streams or small channels cut in soil or even long narrow valleys on the moon’s surface. Or that ‘silvern’ — as in the voices tuning said rills — isn’t in any dictionary — not even the Dictionary of Newfoundland English) but ‘sylvan’ meaning forested and bucolic is — loved my smiling land no less.
Like most anthems, “Ode to Newfoundland” is a feeling greater than the meaning of its words, which is why the decision to stop singing it at MUNL’s convocation saddens me to no end and in no small way because of the ridiculous irony of the reasoning put forward.
Memorial president Neil Bose is quoted as saying, “The decision to remove the ‘Ode to Newfoundland’ from convocation was intended to create safer and more welcoming spaces for all students.”
I’d challenge anyone to find a university anywhere in the world that is safe and welcoming for all students. I also challenge anyone to find one anywhere in the world that is safer and more welcoming for more students than Memorial University Newfoundland and Labrador.
Yet, somehow, by some bizarre twist of logic, removing one of the more stirring symbols and reminders of who we are is supposed to make Memorial safer and more welcoming.
Earlier fiasco
I’m reminded of the great clothesline fiasco of 1970, when Gros Morne was being established as a National Park. Existing National Park regulations decreed that communities within National Park boundaries could not have clotheslines marring the natural beauty of the landscape.
You can imagine how well that went over in Rocky Harbour and Cow Head.
I was hosting a talk show with CBC TV in Corner Brook at the time, and let me tell you, the National Park crowd didn’t have a chance. Such a regulation may have been acceptable elsewhere, but in Newfoundland it was, as one of my guests summed it up, “too foolish to talk about,” because what was more natural than a line of clothes out in the sun and wind?
Loud and indignant was the protest. Foolish bureaucracy gave way to tradition and way of life, and I have strict doubts if Gros Morne could ever have become a National Park otherwise.
And what do you see prominently featured in tourism ads for this province nowadays? Lines of clothes flapping in the wind with handmade quilts, trigger mitts, aprons or plain everyday laundry, part of the intangible soul of this place and visitors love it.
What’s that got to do with singing the Ode? Nothing and everything. It just makes about as much sense to try to mold a national park to a pre-set image as it does to do away with a deeply felt expression of allegiance to one’s place of birth in the interest of inclusiveness.
Somehow, by some bizarre twist of logic, removing one of the more stirring symbols and reminders of who we are is supposed to make Memorial safer and more welcoming
Exclusionary by nature
Every national anthem in the world by its very definition excludes those from other places of birth. I wonder how many other universities exclude their own anthem from their own ceremonies.
Memorial University was born and nurtured in a nation with its own anthem. The fact that that nation is now part of a larger nation in no way diminishes its fealty to its past or its allegiance to its present.
I suspect the majority of MUNL’s decision-makers on this issue have no idea what I’m talking about.
How do you describe a feeling to someone who has never felt it? The feeling of standing with your daughter’s school choir on a mainland tour and closing with the “Ode to Newfoundland”? The feeling of regret expressed by a teacher from Ontario that her province had nothing like it and the goosebumps it gave her to hear our children sing it with such enthusiasm. The feeling of being in a hotel dining room in Trinity when someone started tinkling the notes of the “Ode” on the piano and every Newfoundlander in the room stood and sang and everyone else stood and cheered when it was over.
If it wasn’t so sad and unnecessary it would be just plain “too foolish to talk about.”
Janice Wells writes from St. John’s.
