Texto: por que os hinos nacionais são baseados em música clássica ocidental?

 Texto autoral, originalmente publicado na plataforma Quora (em inglês). Como não é uma publicação acadêmica, linguagem coloquial foi utilizada, porém fundamentada em fatos históricos.

link para acesso à publicação original aqui.

texto:

The national anthem is a western fabrication. It come into existence in the 19th century, and it makes sense that it began in this period, since there would not be a central, organized effort to create national symbols prior to the nationalism. The first national anthem was the French, and it was based on a military song of the revolutionary era.

So as countries modernized and adopted nationalism they increasingly began to adopt western symbolism as well, up to the point that it is said these countries did not only modernize, they “westernized”.

You can see it in the military uniforms as well, they are all in the western style.

Update: Since a persons doubt may be another’s, I decided to paste my answer here to a comment disputing France’s anthem as being the oldest. Many national anthems are based on songs that existed way before, but the first time a country decided to officially institute a song as being it’s national anthem was in the 19th century France. The comment explicitly mentioned England’s (actually UK) anthem as being the oldest, which isn’t true in more than one level. Here comes my answer, with sources:

• “it wasn’t a national anthem. It was the monarchy anthem, it seems like a minor difference but it is not. There are many national anthems that are based on songs that existed before the French anthem. The dutch one is even older than the English, for instance.
  And this may seem mind boggling, but even today the United Kingdom remains without an official national anthem. The “god save the queen/king” function as a “de facto” anthem, it has never been oficialized.”
  
  National anthem - Wikipedia
  God Save the Queen - Wikipedia