Anthem and the Union

In early 20th-century France, the Nobel laureate Romain Rolland declared it to be the great humanist ode to the brotherhood of all people, and it came to be called 8216;the Marseillaise of humanity.8217; In 1938, it was performed as the high point of the Reichsmusiktage, the Nazi music festival, and was later used to celebrate Hitler8217;s birthday. In China during the Cultural Revolution, in an atmosphere of total rejection of European classics, it was redeemed by some as a piece of progressive class struggle.

In the 1950s and 8216;60s, when the West German and East German Olympic squads were forced to compete as a single team, gold medals were handed out to the strains of the 8216;Ode to Joy8217; in lieu of a national anthem. It served as the anthem, too, for the Rhodesian white supremacist regime of Ian Smith. One can imagine a fictional performance at which all sworn enemies 8212; Hitler and Stalin,

Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush 8212; for a moment forget their adversities and participate in the same magic moment of ecstatic musical brotherhood.

There is, however, a weird imbalance in this piece of music. In the middle of the movement, after we hear the main melody the 8216;joy8217; theme in three orchestral and three vocal variations, something unexpected happens that has bothered critics for the last 180 years: at Bar 331, the tone changes totally, and, instead of the solemn hymnic progression, the same 8216;joy8217; theme is repeated in the 8216;marcia turca8217; or Turkish march style, a conceit borrowed from military music for wind and percussion instruments that 18th-century

European armies adopted from the Turkish janissaries.

The mode then becomes one of a carnivalesque parade, a mocking spectacle 8212; critics have even compared the sounds of the bassoons and bass drum that accompany the beginning of the marcia turca to flatulence. After this point, such critics feel, everything goes wrong, the simple solemn dignity of the first part of the movement is never recovered.

But what if these critics are only partly correct 8212; what if things do not go wrong only with the entrance of the marcia turca? What if they go wrong from the very beginning? Perhaps, one should accept that there is something of an insipid fake in the very 8216;Ode to Joy,8217; so that the chaos that enters after Bar 331 is a kind of the 8216;return of the repressed,8217; a symptom of what was errant from the beginning.

If this is the case, we should thus shift the entire perspective and perceive the marcia as a return to normality that cuts short the display of preposterous portentousness of what precedes it 8212; it is the moment the music brings us back to earth, as if saying: 8220;You want to celebrate the brotherhood of men? Here they are, the real humanity 8230;8221;

And does the same not hold for Europe today? The second stanza of Friedrich Schiller8217;s poem that is set to the music in 8216;Ode to Joy,8217; coming on the heels of a chorus that invites the world8217;s 8216;millions8217; to 8216;be embraced,8217; ominously ends: 8220;But he who cannot rejoice, let him steal weeping away.8221; With this in mind, one recent paradox of the marcia turca is difficult to miss: as Europe makes the final adjustments to its continental solidarity in Lisbon, the Turks, despite their hopes, are outside the embrace.

So, when in the forthcoming days we hear again and again the 8216;Ode to Joy8217;, it would be appropriate to remember what comes after this triumphant melody. Before succumbing to the warm sentiment of how we are all one big family, I think my fellow Europeans should spare a thought for all those who cannot rejoice with us, all those who are forced to 8216;steal weeping away.8217; It is, perhaps, the only way we8217;ll put an end to the rioting and car burnings and other forms of the Turkish march we now see in our very own cities.

Slavoj Zizek, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the author, most recently, of 8216;The Parallax View8217;