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Should we love the flag more?

August 15, 2012 11:04 am

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Like most people I will miss the Olympics and Paralympics when they’re finally finished. Our seven year, £9bn gamble has, surprisingly, united a nation and collectively given us the confidence to believe we can do things. Successful things.Things that make people from around the world go, “Cool.”

So that’s all good then.

Yet one of the most striking things to come out of the Olympics was probably something too easily missed: just how much love was nation’s flag getting? Did anyone else notice it? It has been everywhere. People waving it, holding it, wearing it…all with happy smiling faces.

It is quite odd to think of Britain comfortable with its flag. We so often struggle with national identity, endless debates about ‘Britishness’, so during the Olympics I can’t have been the only one who secretly thought: “all this flag stuff…so this must be what it’s like to be American!”

Don’t forget that the nationalism we’re more used to has nothing to do with Great Britain or (for more complexity) the United Kingdom. It is about flags that separate us or campaigns to break up the Union or the ugly racism of the BNP/EDL.

This, instead, was nationalism to make us smile and allow us to dream.

It didn’t seem like we needed to explain our pride for the red, white and blue. Whether you were Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis, Chris Hoy or Nicola Adams the crowds cheering you on and waving their Union Jacks were not worried about whether you ‘looked British’ or ‘sounded British’ – you were just their champion.

That means a lot. Like many British citizens, I’ve got quite a complex background. Father’s Sicilian (note how he rarely says he’s Italian…) and my mother’s Goan (a former Portuguese colony in India that feels more European than the rest of the country). Too often being asked if you’re British is accusatory and too hard to answer, as if doing so means denying everything other cultural pull (it would be so odd to not cheer the Azzurri during the World Cup!).

But then Eric idle danced with Indian dancers on top of a giant Union Jack at the Olympics closing ceremony and it didn’t seem like a problem anymore.

If London 2012 was actually about more than just sport; if it was a celebration of everything that makes us the nation we are and shows what we could be, aptly wrapped up in a blue, red and white flag – then that’s something we should hold on to.

That doesn’t mean forgetting all that has gone before, or to whitewash the challenges we face, but just to realise that sometimes we are one nation, united in common purpose. If only to win more Gold medals than the Australians.

For most people that is far healthier than getting hung up about whether everything is left- or right- wing. So why don’t we embrace it more?

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  • KonradBaxter

    I really hope that this is another step in taking the flag back from the lunatics.

    • treborc

      One man’s lunatic is another man’s saviour. or is that hero

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/ONP6Q5FAOH3CDIS3CTBRKIBZVI Derek

    Whose flag? There is no Welsh component in the Union Flag

    • treborc

      The wood for the pole is made in…..

      Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

    • http://twitter.com/tristanpw1 TristanPriceWilliams

      I hope soon that there will be no Scottish component in it, Derek. 

      It has always seemed to me to be a symbol of the Tory party, and every time I see it I remember  that old woman, Mrs Thatcher putting her dirty hanky over the tail fin of a BA plane that was without it.

      (The symbol I always associate with Labour is the Tudor rose of England.)The flag waving was largely orchestrated. Flags were handed out for free in some places; certainly when the torch was doing its rounds. Just afterwards, the park where it ended up was a sea of rubbish, largely comprising discarded, cheap plastic union flags. (They sell for 50p or thereby at ASDA and other such outlets.)People waved them and ditched them, along with the rest of the advertising crap that was handed out.Polls show that after a 6 month period of waving the union flag for Her Majesty and the CokaCola Olympics, support for Scottish independence has increased and the Scottish government would have won last year’s election with even more of a majority had it been replayed now.

      • http://twitter.com/vmrampulla Vincenzo Rampulla

        @twitter-98917296:disqus I’m not sure I was saying that it should be cherished or that people should have a little display case at home for it.

        Merely that during the Olympics people seems to be comfortable with the flag as a symbol of more that ‘P’olitics, that it represented the people, ideals and values that unite us…

        To have it celebrated for all the right, positive reasons was worth seeing…I hope it isn’t something we try to hastily discard.

        • Alan Giles

           Nothing personal against you, Vincenzo,   believe me, but before politicians start basking in the  reflected glory of Chris Hoy and Tom Daley and covering themselves with the flag, they should remember Dr Johnson’s words “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”

          • http://twitter.com/vmrampulla Vincenzo Rampulla

            @5d51ffafacf3e2e572a1bfb1e8219207:disqus I never said politicians should do anything of the kind. I was more interested in the ordinary people up and down the country that now felt close enough to the nation to wave its flag unselfconsciously.

            I’ll see your Dr Johnson and raise you Mark Twain: 

            Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

          • Alan Giles

             Touche! :-)

          • Billsilver

            Have you told Alec Salmond that?

      • KonradBaxter

        “It has always seemed to me to be a symbol of the Tory party”

        Why?

      • Brumanuensis

        Recent opinion polls suggest that the SNP’s lead for Holyrood elections has shrunk and for Westminster, Labour has a double-digit lead. Hold off on the celebrations for a while yet.

      • Billsilver

        Tablets nurse!

    • KonradBaxter

      A Union flag with the Welsh dragon in it would just be a sign that said ‘No Dragons’.

    • Brumanuensis

      Maybe a green fringe would do the trick?

      • treborc

        Mildew

  • http://twitter.com/robertsjonathan Jonathan Roberts

    I think very few people wring their hands over what all this stuff means – it is a trait of those engaged in politics to overthink things.  It is what it is.  The opening ceremony displayed our pride in our history and contribution to the world, the performance of our brilliant athletes reminded of us of our long tradition as a little island of punching above our weight, the fabulous buildings and logistical operations coming from our architects, builders (etc etc) reminded of us of our ability to think big and deliver on our promises, and our volunteers reminded us of our natural ‘niceness’ and decency.  Indeed, the whole thing showed our fondness of having a bloody good party too.

    Forget about the flag’s historical meanings, and forget about the morons in the BNP who have tried to commandeer it for their own political ends.  The flags were waved so enthusiastically because the British people are proud of who they are and wanted to use a rare opportunity to display that pride. 

    Yes, you get plenty of negative nancies, but the public response to the Olympics show them to be wildly out of touch, so who cares…

    Like many, I didn’t need the Olympics to be proud of my country (being half English and half Welsh), but I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to display it with such fervour.  I believe the Paralympics is now sold out too, so we get to wave those flags and cheer on Team GB all over again.  Bring it on.

    • treborc

      But it seems not on the BBC

      • http://twitter.com/robertsjonathan Jonathan Roberts

        Although the BBC did, charitably, run Channel 4′s advert for the Paralympics several times to promote their coverage of the upcoming games.  That to me  is a lovely sign of the Olympic spirit in action.

        • treborc

          Well if you say so, I have a sneaky feeling the BBC are very glad they are on channel four.

          • http://twitter.com/johnringer John Ringer

            Why do you say that?

  • http://www.englishstandard.org/ Wyrdtimes

    It will take more than a couple of weeks of sport to rehabilitate the flag of the Empire. the British Union of Fascists, the National Front, the British National Party and the British Freedom Party etc. 

    • KonradBaxter

      The flag that defeated the Japanese and Nazi empires, the flag that stood against the domination of the USSR, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm,  that has defended and supported freedom and democracy around the world, etc.

      • treborc

        Well if you say so, but is that it then Flags are for wars.

        • KonradBaxter

          I do say so becauase it is true. Just as it has been the butchers apron it has been the rag of liberation, freedom and democracy.

  • Brumanuensis

    I neither revere nor revile the Union flag, but as a unionist and someone who doesn’t care much for ‘Little Englandism’, I’m quite fond of it. It has negative and positive historical associations, but ultimately it’s an excellent symbolic shorthand for the UK as four countries in one nation, the British nation. That’s good enough for me. I’d also prefer we didn’t indulge in American-style ‘flagdolatory’, like ‘pledges of allegiance’ or other such maudlin nonsense.

    • treborc

      Of course remove the people and all you have is a piece of cloth flying in the wind, my wives father who was so ill after he came back from the war against the Japanese, he suffered the rest of his life with malaria. 

      The chap who carried the flag into battles never seems to be an officer.

      • KonradBaxter

        Probably because they’re already pretty busy, what with being an officer and all.

      • Brumanuensis

        True, my Uncle was much the same. Shame our generals no longer lead from the front.

  • Jim Dandy

    People matter not flags. If Scotland one day chooses to leave the United Kingdom and go it’s own way it will have its own flag and the Union Jack will lose the blue and diagonal white slashes inherited from St. Andrew’s Cross. People matter not flags. No one should worship coloured cloth.

    • treborc

      The Real Welsh flag is black with a yellow Cross of St David’s all  countries have flags named after a saint and all tend to have a cross.

  • MonkeyBot5000

    “For most people that is far healthier than getting hung up about whether
    everything is left- or right- wing. So why don’t we embrace it more?    ”

    Because it’s just as dumb as getting hung up about left and right.

    If being British is just about waving a flag, you can keep it.

  • Daniel Speight

    I guess it’s about time that Labour put the red flag back at the centre of the party where it belongs then.

    • ThePurpleBooker

      Are you having a laugh.

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