Since Mark had posted about Al Jadeed’s report on our national anthem [Link], I’ve seen the video several times and done some research and I am deeply convinced that AL Jadeed just wanted some attention and nothing more, specially when they got Ghassan Rahbani to enlighten us on this issue!
Minute 0:29 The memo sent noticed a similarity between the Lebanese National anthem adopted in 1927 and the Moroccan Royal anthem adopted in 1956.
Minute 1:03 The video being shown was shot in 1959 and the sound in the background was supposedly from that year or later.
Minute 1:49 The Reef Republic anthem was destroyed in 1926 and “Nasheed el Reef” written in 1924 without a tune. The music for the National Anthem was prepared in 1925 [Link] by Wadih Sabra, which means that the lyrics were done in 1925 or before (Given that a competition was organized to choose the best tune).
As far as the lyrics are concerned, they are very different from the Reef anthem except they both were done on “Ba7r el Raml” which was widespread back then.
As far as the music is concerned, there’s no proof that Mohammad Flayfel did the music and there’s no mention of when he did it. Add oto the fact that his own son clearly stated that his father did not do it.
Therefore, and in the lack of any proof that the music was done by Mohammad Flayfel, Moroccans are the ones who stole the anthem and set it as the royal anthem and not us.
Last but not least, the LAST person allowed to talk about plagiarizing tunes is Ghassan Rahbani and the Rahbanis in general. I love Fayrouz and all but it is a known fact that a considerable number of her songs are adaptations of old tunes.
For those who are unaware of this fact, check out those songs and let me know of what they remind you.
Polyushka Polye
Mozart Symphony #40
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Movement 1 Allegro
Don’t get me wrong as I am not trying to claim Fayrouz is bad or fake. On the contrary, I find it normal for artists to get inspired from beautiful music and re-adapt it with their own country’s lyrics.
Having said all that, let’s hope this Masquerade that Al Jadeed started is thrown in the trash can where it belongs. Our Lebanese National Anthem is unique and beautiful and its lyrics are great, so let’s play it loud and proud. [National Anthem]
My hat’s off to you Najib… truly impressed, especially with that last part…
the report, even if true, would do with a some more in depth reporting. even the Flayfel offspring talking is not accurate enough. more on the ground proof should have been done. watched the report several times, and something is missing. Not saying that Najib is wrong in his conclusion, I hope he’s not wrong, but the shadow of doubt should be obliterated at all costs…I like Guss, likes the parodies he used to pull in the 90s, gave us good riffs to sing when we were kids, he is a reference, but not THE reference for something of this potential magnitude…
It’s not a small thing to have your anthem based on one that belonged to a fallen republic…brings bad karma i think…
on another note, musical inspirations are accepted even for national anthems, The Star Spangled Banner’s tune is based on that of a drinking song that used to be sung in the old Pubs of England using several sets of lyrics…
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/september11/ssbfacts.html
However, until proven otherwise, “Our Lebanese National Anthem is unique and beautiful and its lyrics are great, so let’s play it loud and proud.” Koulllllounaaaa Lil Wattan….
Someone else did some research as well.
I think New TV just like scandals and this was one of the many. It gets people talking. And in this case, people are not divided and feel offended by the suggestion.
I’m one who believes its not actually stolen and that theres a bigger picture.
Meh, I love our anthem and its actually known to be one of the most beautiful.
Lebanon should be proud to have sons/daughters like Najib…
So Gianni if someone said that the Lebanese national anthem is a mediocre piece of music with borderline uninspired lyrics, he should be ashamed?
The national anthem is a piece of music just like any other, except it’s been given additional significance given its status.
If you want to add a layer of nationalism on top of that, that’s up to you, but whether or not the piece was plagiarized shouldn’t change your opinion of it, as a piece of music. Personally I didn’t think much of it for most of my life, no matter where it originated.. Music is a matter of taste after all, right ?
Thank you Najib for the research u’ve done! I never trusted Ghassan Al Rahbani.
he’s aounist, what do u expect? 😛 (JK)
Thank you so much for this post! Finally, some proper research done!
Thank you for making me regain my faith in Lebanon, just until I get stuck at the City Mall bridge again 😛
I was doing my own research on this. Will paste it here to complement Najib’s findings.
This is a shocking and depressing conclusion that AlJadeed reached. But frankly I don’t think they gave enough effort to investigate and scrutinize allegations of such magnitude.
The whole thing is based on two “facts”:
1- A French documentary about a period in the 50s that plays the Batal el Reef Poem with the Lebanese Theme
2- A poem text that mentions it was written by Ibrahim Touqan and that the music was by Mohamad Fleifel.
But taking that to conclude that the Lebanese Antheme was “stolen” from Morocco is far fetched:
1- There is nothing that confirms this poem was the national Antheme of the Rif Republic. I especially doubt this was case because:
a- The poem was written by Touqan, saluting Al-Khattabi. It was not written by request from Khattabi. check this:
ÙÙŠ Ø£Øد أيام الشتاء من عام 1924 اجتمع إبراهيم طوقان وعبدالرØيم قليلات ومØمد ÙليÙÙ„ ÙÙŠ مقهى الكاريون.. (بيروت).. كانت البلاد العربية تعص٠يومذاك بأخبار انتصارات العرب ÙÙŠ شمال Ø¥Ùريقية.. وخطر لإبراهيم.. أن يضع نشيداً لهذه الثورة.. Ùكان هذا النشيد الذي وضعه إبراهيم ÙÙŠ تلك الجلسة التاريخية،.. واستطاع.. الأستاذ Ù…Øمد ÙليÙÙ„.. أن يضع Ù„Øناً قوياً… ÙÙŠ تلك الجلسة» من كتاب: «شاعران معاصران» ص 122-123.
b- It is really unlikely that a person such as Khattabi, would accept a national antheme that has his name in it!
c- The Rif Republic was an islamic Republic under Spanish siege. It is unlikely they maintained an orchestra to play a national antheme in the first place!
2- There is no confirmation that the Lebanese anthem music was the same music that Mohamad Fleifel put when Ibrahim Touqan created the poem:
a. Are there any recordings of the music that were created back in 1924-1926? This has to be checked
b. Mohamad Fleifel was Lebanese, living in Lebanon for 60 years after this antheme was created. If an antheme for his own country was stolen from him, wouldn’t he say anything – not even to his own son? Unlikely!
c. In some scripts of the “Batal El Reef” poem, it says “played under the lebanese national anthem”
The most likely explanation I can see, pending further research:
1- The poem was created by Ibrahim Touqan saluting the Rif hero, not as a national antheme. The original music done by Fleifel for this song, if any, was lost.
2- The poem was revived later on as a national Moroccan patriotic song, and the Lebanese anthem music was adapted for that
There are important flaws in this post, it’s not that I want to defend those who are attacking the national anthem for being plagiarized but the research made in this post is really poor. Please do a proper work if you want to put a title confirming that the anthem is not copied.
First of all you say: Minute 0:29 The memo sent noticed a similarity between the Lebanese National anthem adopted in 1927 and the Moroccan Royal anthem adopted in 1956.
It didn’t say it!! we all can read arabic, it said the contrary, it didn’t notice a similarity with the royal Moroccan anthem!
You say Minute 1:03 The video being shown was shot in 1959 and the sound in the background was supposedly from that year or later.
Was supposedly? is that a proof, does this by any mean prove that the music was not composed in 1924 or earlier?
Then Minute 1:49 The Reef Republic anthem was destroyed in 1926 and “Nasheed el Reef†written in 1924 without a tune.
Where did u get this confirmation that in 1924 it was written without a tune?
And regarding the examples you’ve given about Fairouz, the rahbani bros never claimed to compose those melodies, buy the original CDs and you’ll see that the original authors of the melodies are credited.
I do think that it’s an issue worth investigating to understand what happened, though it seems for me like they made a tune for the Reef republic and when it collapsed they decided to use a tune too beautiful to waste and adapt new lyrics to it to make the Lebanese anthem.
Is this truly the caseØŸ I can’t be sure it should be investigated, does it mean that our anthem would lose its originality if this was the case? Maybe but it’s not a big fuss as ghassan is doing, it’s still a lebanese tune written by lebanese composers.
Al Jadeed group lack professional ethics, they shouldn’t be operating anyhow… a bunch or liars and scandalous people…
I find it sad that our faith can be shaken by rumors. Our media should be held accountable for the harmful stories they spread #justSaying
Oh and based on the clip, I would think “someone” got excited because he was looking forward to create a new version of the National anthem himself #HowItLooks
Koullouna lil watan 🙂
This is a very professional research. Hats up! . I admit I was shocked by the “al-Jadeed” report, and made harsh comments about this issueon tiwtter. Thanks for explaining the facts about this critical issue. Well done Najib.
Ghassan rahbani did all this thinking that they will tell him to create a new lebanese anthem!! He is one of the worst singers in lebanon!!! He is trying to make some money out of this. He did not do enough research to prove that the anthem was stollen!
Good job Najib on ur research.
Life With Subtitles,
Did I say anything about the national anthem? Are you disputing my statement?
Rany,
There is no proof whatsoever that the anthem was copied as there are no material proof that the Reef anthem was played before our anthem, therefore we can confirm that it is still ours until further notice.
Minute 0:29 it clearly states there is a similarity in the music. Start it back from 0:21.
Minute 1:03 The video shown does not prove that we copied our anthem because the video shown was from 1959 and the report was done in 2001, so how the hell can the music be done before based on this video? This is pointless and useless evidence that Al Jadeed has shown.
Minute 1:49 Again there is no proof that there was a tune to begin with, but given the document Al Jadeed has shown, the poem was written in 1924 without a tune and the tune was done by a certain Mhammad Flayfel as claimed in the document, yet there’s no date to it and according to his son, he did not do it, so as far as we know, it was just a poem.
There’s nothing to investigate here until further evidence is brought to light.
Thank you Tarek for your insightful comment. You are absolutely right.
Just a note is that Mohamad Flayfel is not a “Certain composer”.. he is a famous
Lebanese composer and did many national anthemes and very popular patriotic songs (e.g: Syrian antehme, mawtini (currently palestinan and Iraqi anthem), na7nou al shabab, fee sabeel al majd, etc. etc. Look him up.
and again I highly doubt that if he composed the Lebanese anthem he would stayed quiet about it being stolen from him!
i think it was George Carlin who said: national anthems and flags are just symbols, and i leave symbols to the symbol-minded..
it’s alarming to see our list of national priorities held up-side down by so many well-read individuals.
i wish it was a clean country, with no national debt, where people know how to stand in line, not talk loud, and i’d be happy with 3ala dal3ona for a national anthem.
There’s going to be a follow-up feature guys, either tonight or tomorrow.
Just a heads-up =P
Najib,
Yes I didn’t say that it was copied I just proposed a possible scenario, I totally agree that the report doesn’t prove anything and that Ghassan el Rahbani is making a fuss out of nothing, the issue needs more investigation to uncover more evidence about what happened.
@Life in Subtitles…. Gianni and I usually disagree, but i don’t get your negative reply to him…
why do you, and people like you argue about what was not said? Gianni’s sentence was complete, there were no if’s or buts… He’s proud of Najib and people like Najib and what they stand for… he didn’t mention anything else, and as such you should refrain from countering with a bogus attack… which was uncalled for…
Perhaps you should learn to live without reading the subtitles when there are no subtitles to be read….not sure if you noticed, Subtitle are often incorrect and misleading….
@Gianni,
Lebanon is Proud, too bad there’s no one giving the country the time of day to listen and appreciate, myself included…