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Flying the Flag
The current blue-crossed design of the Finnish flag was first used in Finland by Nyländska Jaktklubben, a yacht club founded in Helsinki in 1861. It features a blue Nordic cross representing lakes and the sky on a white background representing snow and the white nights of the Finnish summer. The State flag has a coat of arms in the centre, but is otherwise identical to the civil flag. A quick glance in my diary revealed 18 Flag Days in Finland this year at which the flag will be flown with national pride.
Dating back to 1606, the Union Jack, or to give its correct name, the Union Flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a combination of the flags of Saint George (for England), Saint Andrew (for Scotland) and Saint Patrick (for Ireland). It is used as part of the citizenship ceremony, when immigrants take an oath of allegiance to the Queen and sing the national anthem standing by the Union flag. It is officially flown above Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Sandringham when the Queen is in residence and on thousands of public buildings. It is flown on the birthdays of members of the Royal Family and on state days, and at half-mast on the death of a royal. It was lowered for 9/11, the Bali bombing, the Boxing Day tsunami and 7/7. But, the British don't do flags on their front lawns – there are no official Flag Days.
The Union flag was carried at the Olympic Games' first opening ceremony, in London, in 1908. It was the flag that covered the bodies of the four unknown soldiers buried in Westminster Abbey in 1920 to symbolise the casualties of war.
But, since the 1960s, it has been ‘hijacked’ by modern culture. Carnaby Street loved it and Pete Townshend of the Who wore a Union flag jacket on the cover of the band's first album, My Generation. The Sex Pistols defined their image by bastardising the flag, while Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls wore it to the 1997 Brit Awards as a dress that was recently auctioned for 62,448 euros. She also wore matching Union flag knickers! Even Prince William had a Union flag prefect's waistcoat at Eton. It embraces Empire and Swinging London, Cool Britannia and football hooliganism. It belongs to the Right-wing politician and the Left-wing union. It is the proud symbol of both the patriot and the expat and is displayed with equal pride on our government buildings and our citizens' bodies.
However, worryingly, in politically correct Britain many people consider those who fly the Union flag to be racist - as if the national flag is the preserve of the extreme right wing. There was a famous case in 1987 in Rochdale, a town in the North West of England, where a taxi company was asked to remove the Union Jack from its vehicles in case it offended the local Asian immigrant population. Ironically, the taxi company owner was himself a first generation immigrant from Pakistan and was, in fact, proud to fly the flag of his new country, as were many of his drivers. The town council learned nothing from this and, in 2004, the same situation came up again when taxi drivers were told to stop flying the cross of St George during a major football tournament. In another incident in nearby Burnley in 2002 a policeman was reported by a colleague and disciplined for displaying a small flag inside his patrol vehicle.
London's Southwark council even outlawed it from council buildings during the last (football) World Cup because it feared "a display of Brutishness" would alienate ethnic minorities. That same year Billy Bragg sang the anti-Jubilee song Take Down the Union Jack.
Contrastingly, as mentioned above, in Finland (and even in America) citizens are proud to fly their national flag and do so with great pride.
A recent UK wide survey across a wide range of age groups found that the favourite symbol of the country was the Union flag (16 per cent) making it even more popular than fish and chips (13 per cent).
But, I can’t help wondering, how many other nations ban their citizens from displaying their national flag?
Mike Bangle is the owner of Talking English language consultancy and can be contacted at mike.bangle(at)phnet.fi
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