Traditions. Bottom up or top down

[Navy_Pete]

There is a writing campaign to CRCN about this. I doubt it will have any effect. His issue is with the words that actually talk about the conquest of New France.

My response? Change the words! We do that all the time. The tune is great and I doubt that 1 in 50 RCN pers knows the words anyway. I can guarantee that what ever tune they come up with will be bland as wet toast.

Really glad he is focused on the important issues, between this and the updated dress regs our attrition/recruiting issues are over.

(Yes, I know we can do things concurrently, but we all know this will eat up a lot of staff time, when it should be getting exactly none).

So we're going to get rid of a march, that no one really knows the words to anyway, because of a very subtle reference to a battle between two different countries from 250 years in the past. Awesome.

I wonder if clown shoes and red noses come in FR?

Edit to add: no, FR clown shoes with steel toes would definitely be a custom job, and most are in fact, fairly flammable plastic. Probably also bad for greasy decks and no electrical shock rating either. On the plus side, following safety standards for PPE seems optional in todays RCN.

 

[Stoker]

Hard thing to rewrite but not impossible. Seems like their are alternative versions already out there.

Come, cheer up, my sailors, 'tis to glory we steer,
With heads carried high, we will banish all fear;
To honour we call you, as Canadians not slaves,
For who are so free as the masters of the waves?

Heart of Oak are our ships,
Jolly Tars are our friends,
We always are ready: Steady, sailors, Steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

We ne'er see our foes but we wish them to stay,
They never see us but they wish us away;
If they run, why we follow, and run them ashore,
For if they won't fight us, what can we do more?

Heart of Oak are our ships
Jolly Tars are our friends,
We always are ready: Steady, sailors, Steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

They say they'll fight us, these terrible foes,
They frighten our family, our children, our beaus,
But if they in their flat-bottoms, in darkness set oar,
Still Resolute they'll find us to receive them on shore.

Heart of Oak are our ships,
Jolly Tars are our friends,
We always are ready: Steady, sailors, Steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

The Navy triumphant their ships sail the seas,
The watchword is 'Justice' the password is 'Free',
So come cheer up my sailors, with one heart let us sing,
Our soldiers, our sailors, our aviator's, our King.

 

[FSTO]

Hard thing to rewrite but not impossible. Seems like their are alternative versions already out there.

Works for me, but I doubt for thou.

 

[NavalMoose]

Hard thing to rewrite but not impossible. Seems like their are alternative versions already out there.

Yuck...

 

[Navy_Pete]

Hard thing to rewrite but not impossible. Seems like their are alternative versions already out there.

How about 'Heart of Rust'?

'Heart of Rust are our ships
Structural paint is our friend,
We'll talk it 'til it's ready, steady, sailor steady,
We'll pretend that it's fine again and again'

Also, why would we not task the CAF musicians with this? Literally their only job, and there is an astonishing amount of talent there that we don't ever actually use.

This level of institutional distraction with things that don't matter makes me want to day drink.

 

[FSTO]

How about 'Heart of Rust'?

'Heart of Rust are our ships
Structural paint is our friend,
We'll talk it 'til it's ready, steady, sailor steady,
We'll pretend that it's fine again and again'

Also, why would we not task the CAF musicians with this? Literally their only job, and there is an astonishing amount of talent there that we don't ever actually use.

This level of institutional distraction with things that don't matter makes me want to day drink.

DHH Music is tasked to do this.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Openly.

Now, it's possible that they didn't complain, but it's also totally possible that they were complaining in private.

Nope. No self respecting Quebecois is going to care about insulting France....

 

[btrudy]

So now historical facts are offensive...got it...lol

Historical facts aren't offensive. Celebrating them can be.

Just like a wide variety of statue debates for figures from Robert E Lee to Sir John A, people don't learn history from statues and they don't learn it from Heart of Oak. What those things do is venerate the historical figures or events.

And when the thing being celebrated is a series British military victories enabling them to continue colonizing half the world, well, let's just say that history's view on that particular legacy hasn't exactly aged well.

 

[dapaterson]

Let's just replace Heart of Oak with Les Cowboys Fringants singing Marine Marchande.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Historical facts aren't offensive. Celebrating them can be.

Just like a wide variety of statue debates for figures from Robert E Lee to Sir John A, people don't learn history from statues and they don't learn it from Heart of Oak. What those things do is venerate the historical figures or events.

And when the thing being celebrated is a series British military victories enabling them to continue colonizing half the world, well, let's just say that history's view on that particular legacy hasn't exactly aged well.

#JesusFuckingChristMan. The instrument of that conquest was the Royal Navy. It stands to reason they’d be pretty happy about it and may have wrote a song or two about it. Don’t like it? Should have fought better, I guess. Then you could have your own songs about kicking RN ass.

Several pints of fine Pale Ale were harmed in the making of this post. Fucks sake.

 

[FSTO]

And when the thing being celebrated is a series British military victories enabling them to continue colonizing half the world, well, let's just say that history's view on that particular legacy hasn't exactly aged well.

Historical revisionisms is a bit of a mugs game don't you think? At what point do we think that historical event, if it didn't happen would make the world a better place.

Columbus not landing at the outer Antilles? So things would be much better now correct? Europeans were then never to discover (for them) an entire Hemisphere, there would be no trans-Atlantic slave trade? So the other slave trade to east would have continued to grow because the demand was still there and there were more than enough African leaders who had no qualms enslaving similar looking people because they could make a buck.

We could go on and on. Heck if it wasn't for the British victory on the Plains of Abraham, you could argue that New France was on the path to oblivion anyways and a newly formed United States would encompass all of North America and at the time took a very dim view of French Catholics to the north. They would have been as ruthless to Les Canadiennes as they were to all the native tribe who stood in the way of the Americans Manifest Destiny.

 

[OldSolduer]

Would the words "Jolly Tars" offend anyone? Just asking....

 

[dimsum]

Would the words "Jolly Tars" offend anyone? Just asking....

Folks without hair to tar?

 

[NavalMoose]

Historical facts aren't offensive. Celebrating them can be.

Just like a wide variety of statue debates for figures from Robert E Lee to Sir John A, people don't learn history from statues and they don't learn it from Heart of Oak. What those things do is venerate the historical figures or events.

And when the thing being celebrated is a series British military victories enabling them to continue colonizing half the world, well, let's just say that history's view on that particular legacy hasn't exactly aged well.

Yawn....please show us on the doll where a 260 odd year old British victory hurt you

 

[btrudy]

#JesusFuckingChristMan. The instrument of that conquest was the Royal Navy. It stands to reason they’d be pretty happy about it and may have wrote a song or two about it. Don’t like it? Should have fought better, I guess. Then you could have your own songs about kicking RN ass.

Several pints of fine Pale Ale were harmed in the making of this post. Fucks sake.

Yeah. I get that they'd want to brag about it at the time. Hell, probably still do now because the Brits are frankly terrible about confronting their colonial legacy.

That doesn't mean that we, as people living in the 21st century who have now recognized the innumerable harms caused by colonialism worldwide, shouldn't revisit the types of things we're in the habits of bragging about.

"Remember that time my country totally kicked your country's ass and took over the place, brutally oppressing your ancestors and stealing your resources" isn't actually something that we should be bragging about. It's something that's shameful.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Historical facts aren't offensive. Celebrating them can be.

Just like a wide variety of statue debates for figures from Robert E Lee to Sir John A, people don't learn history from statues and they don't learn it from Heart of Oak. What those things do is venerate the historical figures or events.

And when the thing being celebrated is a series British military victories enabling them to continue colonizing half the world, well, let's just say that history's view on that particular legacy hasn't exactly aged well.

Really, that's your take away? How about the track record of the French colonies? Or any other culture that colonized anyone else across history? People have been beating up their neighbours and taking their stuff since cavemen times.

And given that New France kept the language, legal system, culture and religion after France washed their hands following their loss, I'd say they overall did fairly well.

Besides, can you honestly read the lyrics on their own and clearly point to anything on their that relates specifically to that loss? I would have had no idea it was anything about that, and could just have easily been about any of the general RN battles of the day when 'Rule Britannia' wasn't just a jingo and they genuinely did rule the waves.

 

[Underway]

I dunno, for the RCN I'm all about overturning irrelevent UK decended traditions. Frankly the only place that holds onto them with a death grip is the naval reserve, and some wardroom historians (and those whose job it is like Buffers). Reg F does not care about them hardly at all from my experience switching over. At least in comparison.

• Toast of the Day. No one under the age of 30 give a rats ass that they changed them. For the one (maybe) mess dinner that a Reg F member below the rank of Lt(N) is forced to go to a year. They don't even know the current ones. Hands Holiday dinner might be the only time they even hear them (oh wait we changed the name from Mens Xmas dinner. Finally, I hated that one).
• Heart of Oak. We don't even do drill outside of Remembrance day, don't learn the tune as again no proper RCN basic training outside of the Nav Res, so does it really matter? I love it myself but I'll proudly march to whatever else is decided upon.
• We finally got rid of celebrating Trafalgar Day and changed it to Niobe Day. I was pushing for that since 2001 trying to explain the stupidity of celebrating a naval victory where the only people who could be called Canadian at the battle were actually Canadiens but because you know, the wardroom accents decided that it was more important they were percieved to be British than Canadian.
• Old wardroom members calling out a mess mate of mine because she was drinking water. She was pregnant. Also, I drink beer out of a bottle, not a glass. Deal with it.
• Saluting women when they cross the brow. Dumb. Got rid of that now as well.
• Calling it Passageway instead of Flats. Well technicially passageways go athwartships and flats go lengthwise but I'm not going to loose my mind that we are using the US language instead of the UK one.

However I will draw the line at one tradition. If anyone comes for soup at standeasy there will be a need for another Manguay Report.

 

[btrudy]

Really, that's your take away? How about the track record of the French colonies? Or any other culture that colonized anyone else across history? People have been beating up their neighbours and taking their stuff since cavemen times.

And given that New France kept the language, legal system, culture and religion after France washed their hands following their loss, I'd say they overall did fairly well.

Besides, can you honestly read the lyrics on their own and clearly point to anything on their that relates specifically to that loss? I would have had no idea it was anything about that, and could just have easily been about any of the general RN battles of the day when 'Rule Britannia' wasn't just a jingo and they genuinely did rule the waves.

Pete, c'mon. Debate in good faith here.

The fact that the French's colonial legacy is also a steaming pile of atrocities doesn't in any way shape or form make the Brit's colonial legacy any more palatable. It's the entire colonial system which was terrible, and there all the European powers went all in on that shit.

I dunno, for the RCN I'm all about overturning irrelevent UK decended traditions. Frankly the only place that holds onto them with a death grip is the naval reserve, and some wardroom historians (and those whose job it is like Buffers). Reg F does not care about them hardly at all from my experience switching over. At least in comparison.

• Toast of the Day. No one under the age of 30 give a rats ass that they changed them. For the one (maybe) mess dinner that a Reg F member below the rank of Lt(N) is forced to go to a year. They don't even know the current ones. Hands Holiday dinner might be the only time they even hear them (oh wait we changed the name from Mens Xmas dinner. Finally, I hated that one).
• Heart of Oak. We don't even do drill outside of Remembrance day, don't learn the tune as again no proper RCN basic training outside of the Nav Res, so does it really matter? I love it myself but I'll proudly march to whatever else is decided upon.
• We finally got rid of celebrating Trafalgar Day and changed it to Niobe Day. I was pushing for that since 2001 trying to explain the stupidity of celebrating a naval victory where the only people who could be called Canadian at the battle were actually Canadiens but because you know, the wardroom accents decided that it was more important they were percieved to be British than Canadian.
• Old wardroom members calling out a mess mate of mine because she was drinking water. She was pregnant. Also, I drink beer out of a bottle, not a glass. Deal with it.
• Saluting women when they cross the brow. Dumb. Got rid of that now as well.
• Calling it Passageway instead of Flats. Well technicially passageways go athwartships and flats go lengthwise but I'm not going to loose my mind that we are using the US language instead of the UK one.

However I will draw the line at one tradition. If anyone comes for soup at standeasy there will be a need for another Manguay Report.

And this is why traditions needs to be examined and discarded, amended, or kept as needed. Soup is a great tradition; one of the best things we do for morale in the RCN. The alcohol culture in the CAF? Absolutely needs to be curtailed dramatically.

And I'm all for getting rid of the saluting women as they cross the brow. That's the type of patronistic sexist bullshit that I'm frankly shocked wasn't eliminated years ago. Now that I think about it, is that one of those things that's an actual regulation, or is it an unwritten rule that's just strictly enforced?

But yes, overall I think we should be very mindful about which aspects of the British military culture we choose to continue perpetuating. We're our own country, it's time to start acting like it.

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Lumber I couldn't care less about the historical ties to the RN, and think singing Heart of Oak and celebrating the age of sail is stupid, my objection is more that this is even on anyone's radar given the state of the RCN, where we don't have enough people for the ships we currently have. Best case a few CPFs self retire in the near future so we can remember what it's like to have adequate personnel on a ship outside of deployments.

But being concerned over the celebration of one colonial power over another from over a century before we were a country is a terrible reason to do it, especially when it's so vague the lyrics could refer to anything. We have better things to fix than to worry about the lyrics on a song you don't even hear when it's played for a march, and as tunes go it's an easy one to stay in step with on parade, so does the job well enough to leave it alone.

I keep hearing 'we can do these things concurrently', but after almost 20 years, I don't see a lot of substantive/effective changes but a lot of frequent things done on window dressing BS. Unless it's something that our allies tried, told us it didn't work... then we jump in and fully commit without a plan and act surprised when we get the same bad outcomes.

 

[OldSolduer]

Yeah. I get that they'd want to brag about it at the time. Hell, probably still do now because the Brits are frankly terrible about confronting their colonial legacy.

That doesn't mean that we, as people living in the 21st century who have now recognized the innumerable harms caused by colonialism worldwide, shouldn't revisit the types of things we're in the habits of bragging about.

"Remember that time my country totally kicked your country's ass and took over the place, brutally oppressing your ancestors and stealing your resources" isn't actually something that we should be bragging about. It's something that's shameful.

The British Empire has a legacy - sure what empire doesn't?

If only you denounced China and oh lets see - Russia with the same enthusiasm...

I'll wait.