Politics
Change is unlikely but debate won’t flag
Imagine if the Brits ditched the Union Jack and we kept it. How quaint and curious would we look then?
IN 1901, The Bulletin magazine, employing its customary strong language, wrote of the newly unfurled Australian flag: ”That bastard flag is a true symbol of the bastard state of Australian opinion.” It still is.
I once had a lively exchange with an Australian writer over whether Bob Brown or John Howard would be the most enduring historical figure. I said Brown because his constituency included the as-yet-unborn and that Howard would disappear into the mists of time like Billy Hughes and Sir George Reid. My adversary said, no, that John Howard had shaped this country more than we liked to admit. Around Australia Day each year I must admit I wonder if my opponent was right. So, too, with the issue of the flag.
Australia Day is like the loud party that ignores the feelings of the people in the house next door – or, in this case, the nation’s first inhabitants.
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If it were known by its original name, Anniversary Day, there wouldn’t be a problem. Then it would be a case of each to his own.
But in addition to snookering the republican movement, Howard managed to take the most contentious date on the Australian calendar – the date of white arrival – and embed it in Australian popular culture as Australia Day. He made the Australian flag a fashion accessory to the nation’s young. He ramped up Anzac Day, totally ignoring the issue of who was actually responsible for the slaughter, and made it a monument to military and nationalist virtue.
The Australian flag is a symbol of colonial deference and imperial primacy. Ironically, when I was in England during the 2006 soccer World Cup, the BBC ran a documentary about growing dissatisfaction with the Union Jack – in Britain! At the time, the English were seriously peeved by the Scottish habit of barracking for anyone but England in the World Cup.
The customary adornment of English sports fans, as you may have noticed, is not the Union Jack but the flag of St George. Scottish fans carry the flag of St Andrew. The Welsh have no symbolic representation in the Union Jack. Ireland fought a war to get its own flag. Nationalist sentiment in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales is not simpatico with the Union Jack. Imagine if the Brits ditched the Union Jack and we kept it. How quaint and curious would we look then?