Flying the Flag

Flags seem to elicit strong responses in some people.  In the US, for instance, a lot of people get very upset when they see the stars and stripes being burned.  Indeed, I believe it might even be illegal to burn the national flag in the States.  I recall that, during the first Gulf War, when the WWE was still called the WWF and the Iron Sheik was pretending to be some kind of pro-Saddam Iraqi general, he couldn't burn the American flag.  Instead, to show how evil and against decent American values he was, he burned pictures of all-American Hulk Hogan.  Which was almost as bad.   Personally, I've never really understood this sort of reaction to burning a flag.  After all, it is just a flag.  Nothing more.  Destroying it doesn't really change anything or kill anyone, nor does it actually harm the fabric of the country it represents, (for all these same reasons, I think that burning flags is utterly pointless).  But, of course, it is the 'represents' part which is so important to the people who get upset by flag abuse.  For them the flag - in this case the stars and stripes - represents everything they associate with being a US citizen.  It is part and parcel of their sense of identity.

Obviously, this phenomena isn't uniquely American.  Just lately people in Northern Ireland have been going crazy and rioting over the fact that the Union flag will no longer be flying permanently over the Northern Ireland Assembly.  On the face of it, this reaction seems extreme.  After all, it isn't as if the flag won't fly at all, it is just that Northern Ireland's Assembly has now been brought into line with the rest of the UK, where the flag only flies over public buildings on a limited number of days every year, usually denoting some kind of state occasion, such as the Queen's birthday.  I mean, if these people are such fans of the Union flag, there's nothing stopping them from putting up their own flagpoles in their own gardens and flying the flag whenever they want to, (except planning laws, perhaps).   But again, it is all about what the flag represents to the rioters.  Clearly, for Unionists (who want to Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK), the the fact that it is the Union flag is crucial.  Their entire national identity is tied up in symbols such as that flag.  Without it, they feel their identities as British citizens are diluted.  Part of their problem is that, to many in the mainland of the UK, they are viewed as being Northern Irish rather than British and, unlike the Scots or Welsh, this isn't perceived as being a nationality in itself, or as having a distinctive national culture.  Subsequently, they cling to that flag as their most potent symbol of national and cultural identity.  Personally, I've always felt myself lucky never to have felt the need to identify my own personal identity entirely in terms of nationality and culture.  Which is why I neither burn flags nor get unduly upset by the idiots who do burn them.