Sunday 28 March 2021

Flag mania

National flags seem to divide people quite dramatically. Some people love them and display them at every opportunity to show how much they love their country. Others loathe them and find their display irritating and unnecessary. Others are simply indifferent to them.

The British government has taken to displaying the union flag at every media briefing. They're also stipulating that every government office must fly the union flag not just on special occasions but every day of the year.

One Tory MP has even criticised the BBC's Annual Report for not including the union flag and said the flag should appear several times. Other Tory MPs have suggested the BBC is ashamed of its British links.

It seems shocking to me that there's so much fuss over the national flag when other important issues like poverty and homelessness never get the attention they deserve.

Quite honestly I don't understand why the union flag needs to be publicly displayed at all. If you're patriotic and proud of your country, isn't that enough? Why the need for flags?

And it's beyond ridiculous when people declare that if you don't like flying the flag then you're unpatriotic or even some kind of traitor to your native land.

I've no objection to flags in general. If people want to fly a gay pride flag or a Thank You NHS flag or a Green Party flag, good luck to them. They may ruffle a few feathers but they don't arouse the violent tribal passions the union flag is now burdened with.

Incidentally, the union jack isn't even recognised in law as the national flag. It has become so purely through custom and practice. Unfortunately custom and practice has also led to a jingoistic intolerance of flag sceptics like myself.

22 comments:

  1. Very well said. There are more pressing issues that MPs need to focus on. Warm greetings!

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    1. Blogoratti: There are dozens of more pressing issues. But hey, jingoism is a great vote-catcher.

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  2. I hoist our National Flag in my garden every Independence Day and Republic Day.

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    1. Ramana: With its green and orange stripes, the Indian flag could easily be flown in the Republic of Ireland!

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  3. I do love our dragon and find the idea of it having to be flown below the union jack on government buildings wrong. But I don't care enough to protest. Far more important things. Another distraction strategy by the Tories.

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    1. Liz: The dragon is rather wonderful. Much more fun than the boring old union jack.

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  4. I wouldn't mind wrapping Johnson's body in it and burying him...he doesn't have to be dead, either...

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    1. Fly: I'm surprised he stops at the union flag. Why not a union jack hat, union jack shirt, union jack pants. Come on, Boris, step on the gas....

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    2. Ha ha! I love Fly's comment!
      Sx

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    3. Ms Scarlet: Well, Boris did say he'd rather die in a ditch than agree a Brexit extension. So he's overdue for burial....

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  5. I have no objection to people who like their flags and want to display them.

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    1. Mary: I agree, as long as they aren't an attempt to shame people who don't fly them.

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  6. Flags seem more popular today than when I was growing up. I often see people flying flags of their heritage. Saw a few Greek flags on people’s front doors last week. I think it was Greek Independence Day.

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    1. Bijoux: Yes, heritage flags seem quite common nowadays. And of course Wales and Scotland have their own national flags.

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  7. Over here, displaying the flag has become a mark of which political party the flyer supports. It seems less a show of patriotism as a defiance of the other half of the nation.

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    1. Joanne: Same here. The union jack is now closely associated with right-wing political parties and beliefs.

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  8. I wish the Union Jack didn't have so many negative meanings - I mean it's a jolly pattern and looks nice on a cushion, but sadly I cannot bring myself to buy one.
    Sx

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    1. Ms Scarlet: Yes, it's hopelessly tarnished by all the xenophobic right-wingers who've adopted it.

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  9. I've never seen the need to fly our flag... except once. After 9-11, I had the flag up for a couple of years.

    Around here, the Confederate flag is quite common. Often the people who fly claim they are honoring the civil war heritage of their ancestors. What most don't understand is that the heritage here is that almost everyone left because of the horrible partisan almost family on family violence that existed in most of this state, particularly our northwest corner. I had a several generations back uncle who was killed by confederate bushwhackers at the very end of the war and his children taken to an orphanage in Illinois by Illinois troops returning home after the war.

    The weirdest flag I've seen recently on a flagpole in someone's yard was a Nazi flag. I only saw it twice. I think the redneck(s) who flew got arrested for some other infraction and don't live there any more.

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    1. Mike: Like the union jack, the confederate flag has acquired very negative overtones about white supremacy, racial segregation and so on. Very sad about your uncle and his children.

      Nazi flags and insignia keep popping up in the UK as well. Sometimes arrests are made, sometimes they get away with it.

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  10. Always astonished at the flag pins the US presidents wear and the swearing allegiance on the bible thing with such diverse beliefs.

    Yes, it smacks of jingoism and Christianity with disrespect for those of other persuasions.

    I always thinks of the swastikas and all that meant.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Like other Nazi insignia, swastikas are flaunted now and again in the UK. Do you remember that Prince Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a party when he was 20. What the hell was he thinking?

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