David Dixon
What’s in a flag?
Are they just jingoistic symbols of an outdated concept of nationalism; or do they represent a fundamental belief about a people, race, or group?
Well the West Australian branch of the Returned Services League (RSL) are about to conduct a real-time social experiment on the question, having decided to ban the Aboriginal flag and the associated “Welcome to Country” at its Anzac Day and Remembrance Day ceremonies in the state.
The “Welcome to Country” is easy enough to dismiss; it’s basically an invented ceremony created by Ernie Dingo in 1976 after he was embarrassed that he had no response to the indigenous welcome from a group of Maori performers at an arts festival.
But the Australian Aboriginal flag — featuring a yellow circle for the Sun dissected by a black top half representing Aboriginal Australians and a bottom ochred-red half representing the earth — is one of the officially-proclaimed flags of Australia.
It was designed in 1971 by Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas originally for the nascent land rights movement but has since become a symbol of all the Aboriginal people of Australia.
The origins of flags as a symbol of a people or group is believed to date back to the military penants in the armies of ancient Egypt and Assyria. Many early flags were simply banners carried by a horseman to ensure that the men of a military group would be be able to follow their commanders into battle. The feared eagle standard of the Roman legions was an early example of a flag used more for symbolic representational purposes rather than simply as a visual cue.
Flags as recognised today and made from a piece of cloth representing a particular entity, were believed to have been invented in the Indian sub-continent and in the Chinese Zhou dynasty from before the Christian era.
Indian flags were often triangular and decorated with attachments such as a yak‘s tail and the state umbrella. These usages spread to south-east Asia as well, and were conveyed to Europe through the Muslim world where plainly-coloured flags, often green, were used due to Islamic proscriptions against ungodly symbols.
In Europe, during the High Middle Ages, flags came to be used primarily as a heraldic device in battle, allowing for easier identification of a knight other than from the heraldic devices on their shields.
Increasingly during the Late Middle Ages, city states and communities such as those of the Old Swiss Confederacy also began to use flags as field signs, as a visual code for military purposes. Regimental flags for individual units became commonplace during the Early Modern period.
During the age of sail up to the mid-19th century, it was customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to display flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals known as semaphores.
Use of flags outside of military or naval context began only with the rise of the nation-state by the end of the 18th century. The flags of countries such as Austria, Denmark or Turkey emerged from legendary nationalist tales while others including those of Poland and Switzerland grew out of the heraldic emblems of the Middle Ages.
The 17th century saw the birth of several national flags through revolutionary struggle. One of these was the flag of the Netherlands, which appeared during the 80-year Dutch rebellion which began in 1568 against Spanish domination. The “Betsy Ross” flag was designed to represent the 13 colonies opposed to Britain during the American War of Independence, and the French tri-colour came to represent Republican France.
In colonial times the flag was placed on the soil of a conquered or claimed territory, often already inhabited by indigenous people of course, to claim the land for a European power. This solemn process was enough for European powers at the time to be able to declare that area for themselves without any other form of legal authorisation.
Political change and social reform, allied to a growing sense of nationhood among ordinary people, led to the birth of new nations and flags all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Flags of course play a central role in wartime; representing a country’s supposed unification and a symbol against their enemy. If historical war movies are any indication, soldiers of one country would often risk, and lose, their lives attempting to ensure that their flag did not fall into the hands of their foes during battle. The flag in essence represented the country and its people for which the soldiers was fighting for, both good and bad.
In naval war, combatant ships were allowed to fly false flags up the point of engaging with their enemy but, by the rules of war, were required to run-up their nation’s flag before the first salvo was fired.
Pirates supposedly did the same, flying false flags of convenience at sea until ready to attack a target ship when they would then run-up one of the variations of the “Jolly Roger” skull-and-crossbones flag favoured by these supposedly one-eyed, parrot-shouldered, predators of the sea.
Flags though can be such powerful symbols, either good or evil, that their flying can be either prescribed or forbidden. The swastika flag of the German Nazis; for instance — though originally a Hindu symbol of spiritualism — is such a representation of oppression and tyranny that it is, in fact, banned in most countries.
One of the most enduring images of the Second World War then was the photograph of the Soviet troops after the fall of Berlin in April 1945 placing the sickle-and-hammer flag of the USSR atop the German Reichstag (parliament).
While Australians traditionally viewed attachment to the Australian flag with mixed feelings of pride and embarrassment; Americans have no such ambivalence. The flag represents the United States which to most Americans is without question the greatest nation on earth!
So, it is no surprise that the most famous image of America’s contribution to World War II is what is now believed to have been a staged shot of a group of Marines raising the “Stars and Stripes” after the battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima.
So familiar and predominant is the “Betsy Ross” flag, one wonders if the Americans ever feel a wearying sense of “flag-fatigue” at its ubiquitous use for all occasions.
First Lady Michelle Obama was criticized in 2011 after having been seen supposedly mouthing the words “All of This Over a Damned Flag” to her husband and President, Barack Obama during a solemn ceremony commemorating the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.Even amongst the undemonstrative British, the Union Jack (officially the Union Flag) became the symbol of Britain’s battle to leave the European Union. Pro-Brexit protestors featured the Union Flag heavily at all their protests with pro-European supporters invariably draping themselves in the Royal Blue Flag of the EU which features a circled group of stars to represent each nation on the organisation.
EU officials called the moment that the UK flag was lowered at the group’s headquarters in Brussels as “the saddest day” for the trading bloc, with many pro-Euro spectators openly-weeping at the moment. Showing perhaps that the power of a flag is exactly the amount of symbolism instilled in it by its opponents, supporters, or whom it represents.
Edit:
On the afternoon Friday 21st RSLWA withdrew the ban on the Indigenous flag and Welcome to Country
