England flags

I'm an Armstrong so my ancestral home straddles the Anglo-Scottish border (the area near Gretna), I don't know which flag I should worship

 

I just drove through a local village where there is a house that has had a trans flag tied to their fence for years. Now someone has draped a St George's flag over the top of it. I assume overnight.

Patriotism.

 

Guy just over the road from me has had a huge England flag flying outside his house for years. Seems a ‘normal’ guy from what I can tell, and it’s a decent street, not sure why he does it but I’ve got the impression it’s made one or two people looking around our house (been for sale) wonder what the street is like…

 

Thankfully absolutely none on display here.

 

It means home to me, very proud to be English. Would I die for the flag is a difficult one? If it’s guaranteed that if I lose my life my family and my country is ok then for sure but more often than not young lads/lasses who die don’t die for the greater good they die for the greed of people in suits.

 

I'm probably echoing the sentiments of others, as I haven't read every post in this thread. But I don't have a problem with people displaying flags at all. We have lost a sense of pride in our country which we need to recapture. But the motivation of most who are putting flags up now, aren't to show pride in their country; it's the antagonistic nature of Facebook comments that are a good indicator, where people are essentially saying 'it's our country and if you don't like it, **** off'. That isn't patriotism, it's tribalism. Both the St George's Cross and Union Jack have been adopted by both right wing political parties and far-right activist groups, and what really needs to happen is that the rest of us need to reclaim it, so it again becomes something we can all be proud of.

What I don't agree with is criminal damage. Spray painting mini roundabouts is frankly embarrassing.

 

Scottish Nationalists love a Saltire.

 

I've never really understood 'patriotism' even before it was hijacked by xenophobes. So a national flag has zero impact on my daily existence.

The world's problems have nothing to do with a bit of material patterned to symbolise a country. The people who use it to whip up division, hate and conflict however...

 

Can I ask... Why do you think it's important people should be proud of a country and it's flag?

 

I'll fly a flag when the nutjobs have stopped hijacking it. And when this country starts having pride in itself again, instead of prostituting itself and thinking the East India Company still rules the international trade route

 

I didn't articulate my post very well if I'm honest (I didn't sleep very well). I don't think it is important to feel pride in it, per say. What I think is important though is that it ceases to be a symbol of the far right and what they stand for. We are all represented by the flag, whether you feel pride in it or not, so I think it's important for the majority (I hope) of British and English people, who don't want to use it as something to beat 'foreigners' over the head with, to reclaim it.

 

I can certainly appreciate that sentiment more.

It's been a long time in the making though. My mum has three neighbours nearby who all have union or St Georges flags hoisted. All 3 represent the current stereotype of a flag flyer on our shores.

It would be really interesting to try and understand what they think they are 'fighting' for. I suspect if that question were ever answered truthfully, they'd realise what they hope 'to go back to' never actually existed anyway.

 

Its a fundamental human evolutionary trate. As a tribal animal we need to belong and identify with a group - certainly in pre-farming times being alone spelled death, so there is deeply engrained psychological drive to survive. Patriotism can foster social harmony, civic responsibility, protection through agreed social-norms from harm. Like any innate human condition it is vulnerable to mis-use, but that does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Unfortunately it is hijacked by people who would use it for nefarious reasons, and is also unnecessarily denigrated by people who would seek to isolate someone so they can be used for their own objectives.
We should distinguish between constructive Patriotism - which involves being willing to reflect on problems with our country and work to improve them, and uncritical Patriotism which is intolerant of criticism and where we see ourselves as superior to others.

In my view if you look at patriotism around the world, "we" are no different from most and infact as a nation do pretty well - try constructively criticising India to your average Indian person and see what happen, for example.

 

That makes me think about what the Ukrainian people feel about the Russian flags flying over Ukrainian land.

 

I agree with your last part. But I think it touches on the negatives of patriotism. It feels by definition patriotism towards a flag or country pits that nation against anyone else who has patriotism for their own country, another country. And that does lead to a tribalist path. One we see in football. Where one set of colours is pitted against another. Where criticism of one flag is rounded on.

Belonging is a key trait for around 80% of people. But you can belong to anything. You don't need to belong to a piece of land, or a notional identity that would never get 100% agreement of what that identity symbolises anyway and that has such diversity from one person to the next, one place to the next.

People can like, respect, belong in any way they wish. But pride... I've always felt that's something that leads to negative roads. It's not something I readily understand and certainly don't covet and I've certainly never understood on a country basis.

 

Doesn't that fall into the latter part of my statement, of people using such things to whip up hate, division and conflict?

 

I have never displayed an England flag, or any flag, at all, in the 43 years I’ve been breathing.

It’s only during certain sporting tournaments that I feel any sense of pride in the country. The Olympic Games, World Cups and the like.

For my History GCSE, I studied the Second World War and there’s a real element of pride when discovering the lengths that people went to during that period in this country. People of all faiths and ethnicities, fighting against the far right.

I think I’m very fortunate to have been born in Britain. One of the wealthiest nations on Earth. With its beautiful countryside and historical architecture. There’s so much to like about the UK, and Ireland for that matter.

But I feel no desire to display a piece of cloth, or to speak as though I own the place. That it’s my country, and if you don’t like it, you can leave. I hate such language and it’s that kind of talk that I associate with this current trend to ‘raise the colours’.

And it isn’t just the millionaire grifters such as Farage, or Yaxley-Lennon who are cheering on this jingoistic nonsense. The current PM and his “island of strangers” speech contributed also.

20 years or so ago, it was the ‘benefit scroungers’ who were painted as the villains. The right wing media and various politicians scapegoated poorer people, telling you they were taking your money. Now, it’s black and brown people. Immigrants. Asylum seekers. More poor people are to blame.

People need to wake the f*** up.

 

Ah yes. The Empire. Britain ruling the waves. The Industrial Revolution. Great Britain.

A great time for a few very rich people who became unimaginably richer.

Not so great for the vast majority (Including ancestors of the patriotic flag wavers) who were exploited, shoved down mines, into mills and steelworks, paid a pittance and left to eke out an existence living in squalor.