National Day Design: Towards a Typology of Successful National Days

Abstract

The relative standardization of national days, their similarities with regard to expressions and imaginations, calls for an investigation of national day design. There are many themes related to this concept, some of which will be explored in this chapter. First, the syncretic nature of national days must be explored by comparing claimed origins to first celebrations and their transformations into national holidays. Moreover, ceremonial choreography, ceremonial routes and the creation of moral federations must be assessed in terms of ways in which nations authenticate their boundaries. Related to the nexus of national day design are national anthems — and the singing of nationalism — that constitute yet another building block of the nationalist parcel. Nation builders have continued to operate from the assumption that national days contribute to the maintaining of nations and these continue therefore to be introduced, abolished and re-introduced but also modernized, transformed and reinvented with changing circumstances. The extent to which national days contribute to community building is hard to assess in absence of adequate and comparative data, as is the actual influence of ceremonial structures that justify the official historical narratives.