The Cross of St. George

[poliphilo]

The streets are full of the Cross of St George (the English flag- red cross on a white ground.) It's plastered up in windows and it's flying from cars. I'm told this is because of some football thingy that's happening in Europe.  craftyailz  and I were saying how it made us feel uncomfortable because up until a few years back the Cross of St George was only flown by churches and far-right  groups like the National Front and The British National Party.  

I guess it's good that footie fans have wrenched the English  flag from the hands of the fascists. But to tell the truth any flag waving makes me nervous.  It's infantile;  it's divisive; it has no place in civilian life.  Flags belong on battlefields.

Comments

[archyena.livejournal.com]

I'm desperately elitist and I like flags simply because I like them. Your flag, my flag, someone else's. Flags to no point or purpose, with or without a history, I like them all. I don't get a surge of patriotism or national pride out the American flag, though I get a desire to travel and see places out of the flags of others. Perhaps I am just obsessed with so much cloth dancing in the wind, or like so many things, have brought them to the level of a logo that readily identifies a brand.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Flags can be beautiful. The American flag at the beginning of Private Ryan with the sun shining through it. Wonderful.

See I'm contradicting myself.

So what?

As Walt said, "I contain multitudes."

[archyena.livejournal.com]

You mentioned the two world wars and what that makes me think about really is the difference in why each country fought in them. Both France and the UK fought in them because they failed to do anything about fascism and abetted Hitler too long, not to mention ignored Wilson and crafted the devastating Versailles Treaty. The narrative here is "arsenal of democracy" becomes "cavalry that saves the innocent at the last moment."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're currently in the grip of a media wallow aboy "D" Day. It's not as popular as the footie match, but it plays to a similar constituency. I hate the way that this national myth of the plucky little island keeps us handcuffed to the past and in a perpetually churlish frame of mind about "Europe".

As you point out, we went to war only because we'd so royally cocked up our relationship with Germany. And when I say "royally" I am explicitly glancing at the role played by the British establishment (including the royal family) in the appeasement of Hitler.

Put out less flags!

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's reminiscent of how the strange American myth of cowboys continuously gets us a foreign policy of Dodge at high noon on crack.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In Britain a "cowboy" is a workman who doesn't know his job or who deliberately sets out to cheat his customers (ie a "cowboy builder".) I don't suppose you have that usage.

I grew up in the 50s in the heyday of the TV westerns- and I love cowboys. Just adore them. Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickock, Doc Holliday. Oh yeah, Mama!

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Around here "cowboy" denotes a rough and ready but also flawed individual who comes down on the right side of things and saves the day when it really matters, pardner.