Who are 'we' and who is 'thee'? George Elliott Clarke ponders 'standing on guard'

We sing them so often — Robert Stanley Weir's English lyrics (1906) of the official national anthem (the French lyrics are religiously different) — that we can't be blamed for not pondering those straightforward words, "We stand on guard…."  We presume that we are remaining vigilant "for thee" — Canada.  But against whom?  "Separatists"?  Yanks?  Pesky immigrants?  Uppity visible minorities?  Republicans (I mean, anti-Monarchists)? Communists?  Fascists?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Then again, who are the "we"?  Does the word include Inuit, dozens of whom got shunted to the High Arctic in 1953, partly to protect Canadian sovereignty.  Whether they wanted to or not, they were obliged to "stand on guard" for our territorial integrity.  But who "stood on guard" for them?  The Monarch?  The Governor-General?  The Prime Minister?  Well, history provides righteously embarrassing answers.

In any event, the phrase asks us citizens (or patriots) to adopt a militant stance, an aggressive stolidity or martial pose. Think of Her Majesty's palace guard, or the Swiss Guards of the Vatican, or to be en garde in fencing.  Alongside these images of fixed readiness, though, we must also note such actively violent forces as the Red Guard of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76), or various U.S. National Guard such as those deployed to Kent State University in May 1970, or the "épater les bourgeois" enthusiasms of any proper, artistic avant-garde.

Bearing the above in mind, it is impossible to consider "stand on guard" as a lacklustre, namby-pamby utterance.

Certainly, on Canada's incipient coalescence, in 1867, the (Anglo) Fathers of Confederation understood that Canada would serve "the interests of the British Empire" (the phrase ends the second paragraph of the original Constitution, the British North America Act).  This clause presumed — with diplomatic metaphors — Canadian preparedness to go to war— in the North West — i.e. Saskatchewan —versus Louis Riel (1885-86), in South Africa versus the Boers (1899-1902), and, of course, in Europe (1914-18).

Canadian troops were gallant, heroic, did their duty, and were victorious, but that did not mean that they were serving Canada's interests alone, a point that many Francophones deplored.

When I think about it in literary terms, "stand on guard" seems a version of poet John Milton's famous line (circa 1655), "They also serve who merely stand and wait," which offers a defence of patient, alert loyalty in preparedness for whatever service God may ask of His servant.  (Recall also the Boy Scouts motto, "Be Prepared," circa 1908.)  But there's also an echo, arguably, of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade (1854), with its indelible couplet, "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."  When we "stand on guard," are we unthinking, unblinking patriots? Or are "we" able to defend Canada while remaining critical of politicians' motives and parties' interests?

I'd like to think that Canadians stood on guard — as critical citizens — when we rejected the American overtures to join the Third Reich-reminiscent Coalition of the Willing in the massacre-prone invasion of Iraq in 2003.  May we always "stand on guard" for Peace, Justice, Equality.  And, yes, "Maintiens le droit."

Next in So, Canada...: Bill Richardson's take on "O Canada, we stand on guard for thee:"