Can someone explain what this line from Muse to the Pharoah means. I went to www.nato.int and there is a "NATO/OTAN" symbol in the top left corner.
If it helps, I recall him changing that line to "the opposite of NATO is ME" during the ONA concert in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Wow! Looks like I stumped everyone with this one.

think of another way to spell OTAN the way it sounds in the song and u will have your answer.

Monotheisim.

Jestyr said:

Bingo. Princ is saying that the opposite of Nato is the belief in only one God.

There are hundreds of threads dealing with the subject in depth and a search should keep you very busy.

OTAN is the original One Man Jam

OTAN is the french "translation" of the abbreviation NATO. And that's all.

agotajonesmartha said:

And you know this how? Your theory makes absolutely no sense as the lyrics would then be the opposite of nato is the exact same word in a different language.

Besides he sang "The Opposite of Nato Is Monotheism" at most of the gigs which I take to be his clarification.

lovemachine said:

Well if he said "The Opposite of Nato Is Monotheism" at most of his gigs (not the one I saw) then I'm more confused than I was before I started this thread.
What does the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (a military agreement between nations) have to do with the concept of one god?

I'm confused :confused:

I thought OTAN was this cool guy from Atlanta that writes/produces great music.

JASONP32 said:

Otan pronounced by prince as aten is the one god represented by the sun in ancient egyptian culture, atenism introduced by the pharoah ahkenaton is credited by many scholars as the beginings of monotheism, as this religion temporaraly usurped the egyptian pantheon, prince has shown an interest in ahkenaton a couple of years before TRC on a number of occasions, before he changed the lyric to monotheism there was much debate about this theory, most did not accept the atensim theory, so he changed th elyric to remove any doubt...his origional lyric was symply too clever for most of his fans.

and before you say "but he spelt aten wrong" there is no wrong its transliteration from heiroglyphics, his otan spelling merely allowed his play on words.

why nato is opposite to monotheism i dont know.

Lala

Oh, and leave that blood alone.

More LALA

Otan is Prince's way of referring to Akhenaton, an Egyptian pharaoh from the 18th dynasty who believed in only 1 God, the Aten (the sun). There's this beautiful 'Great Hymn' about this new found religion, a part of it goes like this:

Thou arisest fair in the horizon of Heaven, O Living Aten, Beginner of Life. When thou dawnest in the East, thou fillest every land with thy beauty. Thou art indeed comely, great, radiant and high over every land. Thy rays embrace the lands to the full extent of all that thou hast made, for thou art Re and thou attainest their limits and subduest them for thy beloved son [Akhenaten].

JASONP32 said:

Prince (and most Jehovah's Witnesses) believe that man's possible uniting under one 'government' (such as NATO represents to them) is one of the final steps to Armageddon. They believe that man's law should be replaced by universal law or adherance to the New World Translation of God's law.

In French, Organisation du Traite de l'Atlantique Nord, hence OTAN.

I think he's just playing with words: the opposite of nato is otan which is not the opposite as it is the same though in other language, not only french but spanish, portuguese, italian and other lathin rooted languages.

In the ona tour he also said the opposite of nato is me.


in my opinion

lovemachine said:

Hence the fact that we should "come 2gether as 1". Cause we all share "similarities, not differences". All these "similarities" ARE Gods law, "differences" are the

Nato is a body ruled by different people from different nations - not 1 God, or their "similarities". So I believe both views (the aten theory, and the french translation theory) and they both clarify the meaning.

Hey, I think I'm starting to get it...
[This message was edited Wed Apr 16 17:23:58 PDT 2003 by toejam]

lust said:


Jestyr said:


That about covers it.
That's definitely what Prince is refering to.

lust said:

That is pretty much it right there. It's opposite to monotheism, cuz he believes people should put their trust not in man but God, hence the line...

"And the children will be laced with the protection of God
The opposite of NATO..."

Yeah, it should really be "the palindrome of NATO is OTAN"!

I like the fact that the French abbreviation for NATO is OTAN - if it's the same length how can it be an abbreviation?! Why is the word 'abbreviation' so long?! Why did they make the word 'dyslexia' so hard to spell?!

I like the lyric "an accurate understanding of the word of god will bring the everlasting now" on an album that has confusing ideas of a 'resistor' and 'digital gardens' and 'banished ones'. Yep, I think you'll find that's verbatum as it appears in the bible!

the opposites aren't human vs god. Look at the 3 versions of "the opposite of NATO..." and see what they have in common:

OTAN. who knows, but ATEN sounds plausible, given...

MONOTHEISM. like ATEN, this is about a single (as opposed to collective) god, a bit like...

ME, the singular individual (as opposed to the collective us)

So they're all about individuals/singulars versus colelctives, and NATO is just the most globally powerful collective around at the moment. So, GOD (dictator) is the opposite of NATO (collective, democracy).

personally, I think a better opposite to NATO is the US (ie Dubya) - decisions/actions based on (hard won) agreement/concensus as opposed to the classroom bully resorting to force because no-one will let him do what he wants.

okay, lecture over...

apart from...WRONG FORUM!

for what it is worth ...

here is my take on OTAN/NATO...

***NATO / OTAN………
where the forward slash represents a mirror

I think...
P is using NATO/OTAN as examples of appearances and contradiction.

If you look at the two acronyms ~
They are mirrored opposites of one another
~ appearance ~

Contradicting the fact that they are the exact same thing!

We here in the US say NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization

In Europe it is OTAN
Organization du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord,
For example.

This is due to the differences in American sentence structure
As compared to European.

So, although they appear to be mirror opposites
they are actually the exact same thing!!

Then he goes on to say that 13 is seen as a bad luck number

When there is no such thing as luck!!

Again ~ appearance and contradiction.

This is just another tiny segment of my own interpretation of TRC...

and if it may help you in your understanding ~
then great!!!

if you happen to not agree...that's cool too.

like I said this is just my interpretation!!!


...thought ya knew!!...
[This message was edited Thu Apr 17 5:05:04 PDT 2003 by Aannastesia]

ironically a few days after this thread was started the npgmc is up and running with the egyptian aten symbol all over it..the sun disc with the downward eminating rays.

i guess that answers that question once and 4 all