Britannia

In the US it’s race. In Spain it’s the Church. In the UK its class. Maybe in some way they are all the same. Maybe all revolve around identity and property – emotional and physical needs. One way or another, most societies are torn – cohesion barely exists. Perhaps it exists only when drawn together to loathe an external foe, when the focus becomes the patterned sheet held aloft in the breeze. Or maybe it lives also where destinies are truly felt to be shared.

Consider this when waving your Union Jack over the coming days and weeks. Who or what are you waving it for? What, precisely, ties it to your perception of yourself and those around you? Does kinship extend to all those who gaze lovingly at its geometric design, or just some of them? If so, whom?

Do you wave it for a nice old lady who has worked tirelessly from her privileged position to preserve… her position? Do you wave it for an elite who can reasonably claim to own the ground you walk on? What does that symbol mean to you? Are you cheering on a bull-fight, a lynching, or a column of young men walking off to die in gunfire and mud?

If we are celebrating pride in a common identity under a single banner, why, then, don’t we support our national companies, industries and economy as the Germans do? Working with pride to produce quality goods, buying them and investing in the companies. Why don’t we invest in the greater good and maintain the infrastructure and services needed for the long-term betterment of citizens, investor and taxpayer alike?

We wave the flag like a football or rugby scarf. We probably don’t even know why. We are not nationalistic like the Germans or the French who see themselves as single peoples – citizens of their own state – a bond of collective responsibility.

The Stars and Stripes fly proudly above a bastion of freedom in the world, but also above soil that daily soaks up blood from the Quiet War.

The flag we wave flies not for us, but for an institution. What you get out of that depends entirely on your proximity to the institution itself.

Can you imagine waving a flag that owes as much to you as you do to it?