Bagging the Flag

What a ridiculous, shrill, misinformed and ideological furore has broken out regarding the decision by organisers of the Big Day Out music festival to discourage the wearing of the Australian flag at their events. The only voice of reason amongst all others, scurrying for their safe positions and their Political-Correctness-Gone-Mads, has been the Democrats who, quite rightly, point out that those who really do care about the flag should be most upset about the fact that wearing it can now be interpreted as a potential act of racism or ultra-nationalism - `gang colours', as it was described by BDO organiser Ken West.

Firstly, let me point out that I spent the vast majority of my Australia Days at the Big Day Out during the 1990s, and never once did I see an Australian flag on obvious display. Not saying that's a good thing, not saying that's a bad thing. Just saying. I should add, however, that it was not until after the Cronulla riots that concert attendees found it so crucial to exhibit their patriotic fervour.

Flags have been misused and misappropriated many, many times. The ultra-nationalist skinhead movement adopted the Union Jack as their emblem, to the point that the wearing of clothing with the flag on it was banned in many British schools during the 1980s, at the height of the movement. Even the symbol of the swastika remains contentious. Before its use by the Nazis, it was primarily an Eastern symbol of good luck. Such was the power of the transformation of this symbol that debates continue today on what should be accepted as its `right' meaning; what it should or should not symbolise - even in the past few weeks.

One of the saddest misuses of a flag, as far as I'm concerned, is the appropriation of the Eureka Flag by Australian far-right white supremacists. Though some issues fought for in the Eureka stockade did involve race, they were small considerations amongsts a much nobler aim, and foregrounding the former at the expense of the latter is like suggesting the Bible is an anti-homosexual treatise with a few bits about social justice thrown in. It's also a little known fact that outrage following a case of racial and religious vilification - the wrongful arrest of two Armenian miners who worked with local members of the Catholic Church - was one of the incidents that helped spur the rebellion, whose importance in Australian democracy and the formation of the national principles of `mateship and a fair go' that are so often, and so somnambulently, mouthed by those who appear to know little about either trait, is almost without parallel. It is a flag, I should add, that was designed by a Canadian. Someone who `flew here, not grew here'.

Australian flags remain in the windows of many, many houses and apartments in Cronulla. These flags weren't there when I was growing up in the area. I don't think these people are simply exhibiting that they like being Australian. Do you?

Please don't mistake me for a flag nut - the sooner the whole thing's redesigned to reflect the fact that we're no longer an outpost of Old Blighty, the better. I am aware that people who fought in wars are passionate about the idea of `fighting under the Australian flag', and I respect that. What I can't stand is the hypocrisy. Those who do profess to taking flags extremely seriously - those who hold up flag burning as a genuine outrage - who, in America, send flags that are no longer in flying condition back to the White House where they are destroyed and buried in special military ceremonies - are also the ones quite happy to stick this symbol into the top of their hamburgers, fly them off their car's aerials, or wear them as capes to sporting matches.

Well, I'm Australian too, and I've never felt the need to advertise the fact to the world (sometimes, quite the opposite). I applaud the organisers of the Big Day Out for attempting to wrest back the flag from those who propose to misuse it. Maybe, if such people realised national character is not defined by who is or isn't let in the country and, once in, who is excluded from its life because of their race or religion, I wouldn't be so ashamed every time I saw one.