March 26, 2021 - 6:34pm
Yesterday, Greece celebrated its 200th birthday, commemorating the anniversary of the country’s revolt against Ottoman rule which, after a long and bloody decade of war, saw the establishment of the first Greek nation state. On normal independence days, in every town and village in Greece, the blue and white Greek flag flutters from houses, shops, schools and churches.
This special anniversary year, huge Greek flags were raised, with great ceremony, from the Acropolis and across the country, with the island of Santorini raising a gigantic flag by crane as an expression of national pride. Such is Greece, a fiercely patriotic country because of its troubled and divided history, and not despite it.
https://twitter.com/TheSuperGreek_/status/1375196327081095170
It was very strange then, to observe the parallel flag discourse in the UK, seemingly taking place in another universe entirely. Making hay with the Labour membership’s howls of outrage at Keir Starmer daring to appear on video with the flag of the country he wishes to lead behind him, the government has decided to fly the Union flag from every government building in the country, with predictable results.
On the Labour Left, Corbynite apparatchik Kerry Ann Mendoza published a self-penned poem fully worthy of Adrian Mole expressing her horror at the very idea of national flags. On the Liberal end of Right-thinking Twitter opinion, the historian of medieval literature Dr Janina Ramirez displayed her academic credentials by warning that governments wishing to fly their own national flag can lead only in one, dark direction.
While Liberal opinion in this country is remarkably insular and hysterical at the best of times, the sheer horror and repugnance inspired in the British middle classes by the national flag is still worthy of analysis. It’s genuinely difficult to think of another country in the world, and certainly in Europe, where a government wishing to fly its own flag can inspire such howls of outrage. Is it a class thing? The cultural semiotics of the English flag, as Emily Thornberry famously showed, are a marker of the growing gulf between the Labour Party and the voter base it purports to represent — but is this now the case for the Union flag as well? An argument could be made that it represents a fear of nationalism, yet the comfort with which the flag-flying of our own separatist nationalist movements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is accepted by the same people would surely imply the opposite.
Indeed, many of those shuddering at the Union flag are happy with an ostentatious form of flag-waving nationalism-by-proxy, with Corbyn-era Labour conferences displaying a sea of Palestinian flags on the one hand, and FBPE centrists forming a bizarre grey-haired army of EU flag-wavers on the other. Perhaps Britain is ironically crippled, in this regard, by never having to have suffered foreign occupation and a fight for independence of its own.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeFrom a purely aesthetic point of view the Union Jack is a magnificent flag, both in design and colour. There is no other flag that is both so symmetrical and evocative.
However it is anachronistic in that the St Patrick’s Cross, added in 1801, should have been removed in either 1922 or 1949 when we relinquished control of Ireland..
Unfortunately due to the spread of the virus of wokeness, which has ripped through the Quislington Class like a Tornado, this flag has become despised and vilified.
The primary problem with wokedom of Quislington is that they are also smitten with the appalling disease of ‘Oikophobia , the Ancient Greek word for hatred of one’s home/homeland. In short they are the Oiks of our society.
However for most of our society the sight of the Union Jack immediately brings to mind such rousing songs as ‘ Land of Hope and Glory’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ and long may it be so.. God save the Queen.
Spot on Charles!
Well said.
I think you’ll find that Northern Ireland is still part of the UK
…and grant her government wisdom!
Shouldn’t nitpick; but it isn’t symmetrical; hence all the problems with flying it upside down!
Yes agreed, but It gives the deceptive appearance of symmetry , hence all the “bovver”! Thanks.
‘The cultural semiotics of the English flag, as Emily Thornberry famously showed, are a marker of the growing gulf between the Labour Party and the voter base it purports to represent…’
To be fair, I don’t think the Labour Party even purports to represent the working class anymore. It made its contempt quite clear during the New Labour years, although it took a plurality of the working class some time to wake up to the fact.
You might say the working class is now ‘woke’
This is going off at a tangent a bit, but who is giving the moral lecture? People called Ramirez and Mendoza.
It is so often the case – they are not, say, from a background like mine where on the limited information back as far as (some) great-grandparents, no-one was born outside the UK and Ireland.
Perhaps requisite studies do exist already, but clearly there is a promising field there for psychological studies on people who are not quite one thing and not another, and feel uncomfortable about it, and wish others to feel uncomfortable too.
This is such a odd discussion. It’s right to point out that
” It’s genuinely difficult to think of another country in the world, and certainly in Europe, where a government wishing to fly its own flag can inspire such howls of outrage.”
The trouble is, the author is coming from the same frankly weird bubble where this does matter. The overwhelming majority of the population will see a union jack on a government building and would honestly be surprised if you told them it wasn’t there a month ago.
“the sheer horror and repugnance inspired in the British middle classes by the national flag”
but is it the middle classes, as Alex says, that find the flag horrifying or is it the left? In the US it’s the left.
Or is this supposed repugnance a myth?
There is a big difference between repugnance at a flag, and repugnance at someone’s attempt to appropriate the flag in the way the fascist far right have done for years, and some government figures have recently started to do.
I mean to say, a year ago we’d have thought it crazy if a party had started competing to have the biggest flag on display during interviews.
hear hear!
IOW you know better than someone flying a flag why they’re doing it than they know themselves? See, you don’t and everyone knows you don’t and this is why it comes off as repugnance of the flag itself.
It’s almost like you know better than the “British middle classes” why they are uncomfortable with politicians draping themselves in the flag.
I agree. But we do notice the ubiquitous draping of the flag in people’s kitchens and studies and the edict that schools should fly a flag don’t we?
Is it not okay for people to drape a flag in their kitchen?
It’s not normal. Or it wasn’t until a couple of months ago.
You can do it if you like, but isn’t it also OK to be a little cynical when a politician (one of those most sincere and straightforward of folk) suddenly starts draping a flag in their kitchen when there is a TV interview on?
Isn’t this about a very English distaste for vulgar display, stemming from a deep-rooted sense that understatement is a form of good manners, since it allows the other person space?
Someone remembers 🙂
Yes it used to be that, and you’ve put it beautifully. Unfortunately that sentiment has now been hijacked by those who seek to make us ashamed of our country and history. This is as simple as turning the message “It’s good manners not to show off” into “It’s good manners not to show off, and there’s nothing to be proud of anyway” by adding some snark at the end. It’s been a remarkably successful strategy so far.
This is not unique to Britain. Try Spain, where the disintegrating forces-that-be, rampant in the world it seems, also find it necessary to destroy any and all unifying and civilizing symbols.Flags, monarchs, values (honesty, merit, rule of Law ) are all under attack.This is a Fight Back moment.
“That the Union flag so effectively symbolises the country’s disunity may be a cultural meaning entirely unique to Britain, but it’s nothing to celebrate.”
Perhaps Aris could visit Australia – a country with a flag that includes the Union Jack! He could visit on our national day, Australia Day, Jan 26 .. but it’s now often referred to as Invasion Day, and definitely shouldn’t be celebrated by any right thinking person. Times are a changin’ – I can still sing God Save the Queen, which used to be our national anthem, but I never learned the words to Advance Australia Fair (which were recently changed to make them more PC).
What is it about journalists that makes a gratuitous swipe at the ‘middle class’ in articles about the UK’s attitudes as obligatory as a sideswipe at Richard Dawkins when talking about religion? Is it a tick-box exercise you all have to go through to validate your clan credentials?
Why does any questioning of the less ideal aspects of our society, or even a reluctance to drape oneself ostentatiously in the flag, get translated into “self abnegation” or “hating the UK”?
The now ubiquitous display of large union jack flags in ministers’ kitchens, draped behind the covid podium press conferences and adorning twitter feeds feels mildly silly. We didn’t used to flaunt ourselves like this. Flags had a place to rally us to the standard in battle not to shout about our worthiness in general. And sady the semiology of the English flag (AKA St George) has been firmly appropriated by the football hooligan. The union jack should – quietly – belong to all of us but this noisy display of something ( patriotism?) just encourages further divisions. I confidently expect the Scots and the Welsh to see the union jack and raise theirs. And what about county flags? Evidently Gavin Williamson wants schools to fly the union jack, so can they also/instead fly the flag of their local county or commune? Can we all commission flags to fly in our front gardens? Groucho Marx come back all is forgiven in the new Freedonia.
Sad to see so many English churches aligning themselves with said hooligans…
Nearly everywhere I go I see churches flying St George’s cross
Yeah! Some of the hymns they sing even share tunes with football supporters’ songs heard in the terraces (before Covid). I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Down with that sort of thing!
Mr. Roussinos, have you ever written about the Greek Military Junta? I vaguely remember reading articles in the N Y Times at the time (I was born in 1950). I recently found a movie that debuted in 1966, a produced-in-Greece movie, called THE FEAR and don’t find any information about the movie in English. Have you ever heard of that movie? I wrote about it at my blog at Tumblr…
As an immigrant myself, the Union Jack always represented aspiration, freedom and opportunity. To many like me, these are exactly what it represents. Isn’t it telling that most of those who oppose it are young middle class spoilt kids who haven’t suffered a single days hardship in their lives?
Isn’t it also ironic that those who oppose the Union or St George’s flags have no problem with the red communist flag, Cuban, Palestinian or even the Hizbollah flags? You can see them at every Labour rally where one of their hard-left idols is to speak.
My white van needs to go into the shop (to use an Americanism) to have some of the graphics fixed after an incident with a gatepost. I’m planning to have an extra line of text applied: ‘This van was made in England’ with a Union Jack appended. I have to make a trip into Scotland soon, so I may wait until I get back to get the work done, which until recently would not have been the case.
“This van was made in Britain” would enable you to drive round the UK without hostility
Unless you take the ferry to Northern Ireland, of course 🙁
Flag waving is for those insecure or confused about their identity. The most enthusiastic Union Jack wavers are the Ulster-Scotch Protestants, followed by the English Brexiteers. Exactly.
“Wrap the green flag round me boys”?
Both sides in Ireland are keen to proclaim their allegiance by flags and otherwise. Not quite sure that this “ulsterization” of British politics is a positive development.
Ulster-Scots
chProtestants are not confused about our identity than you very muchUlster-Scots
chProtestants are not confused about our identity thank you very muchNot confused. But not entirely secure – partly due to the government standing by the door, holding it open, and repeatedly saying you can leave whenever you like! Unlike Scotland, interestingly enough.
Scotch is a drink, the people who live north of Northumberland are known as Scots.