On flag poles and being up the wrong pole
A reflection on the Federal Government's tying of educational funding to the flying of the national flag in schoolyards.
John Harrower, 14 August 2004
Bunting is the most exalted cloth on earth. Thousands have died for the material from which flags are made. Of course, flags are symbolic and it is the substance behind them that defines a people.
My family lived under a military dictatorship in Argentina for four years. A feature of the dictatorship was the constant appeal to be patriotic, and the inane yet burdensome penalties of failing to demonstrate daily patriotism. Men singing on street corners demanding that each passer-by jump in the air to demonstrate their love and dedication to their nation. Fear can motivate a most patriotic form of jumping.
National symbols played an especially important role in the dictatorship's rule of fear and intolerance. As the nation must be respected, so did its symbols. In practice the symbols were more respected that the nation, let alone its nationals! Torture and disappearance of nationals and foreigners alike, fed the daily demands of solemn submission to strutted symbols and hierarchical bullying.
National symbols were protected from disrespect and indignity. When a visiting national football team 'souvenired' a national flag late one alcoholic night there was patriotic outrage at this treacherous act. This was an act of aggression against the nation's sovereignty! The footballers were arrested and jailed amidst calls for the death penalty to be applied.
But surely this comment is an overreaction to flying flags in democratic Australia's school yards. Or is it? Is this Australia's movement from educating the values that nurture and inspire a nation to a jingoistic use of symbols? Patriotic symbols can be (mis)used to prove that 'my side is correct' because I am more of a nationalist, more Australian than those opposing my views. 'I can wrap myself in more of the flag, than you can ever lay claim to!'
As a Christian, certain criteria are helpful to my reflection -
- Firstly, Christians have learned a dual loyalty - to God and to the nation they belong to. Sometimes for conscience sake, they choose loyalty to God. This was the seed of the church opposition to Hitler in the 1940s, and to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and other national crises. Any loyalty to the nation that is above loyalty to God and to Christ is idolatry.
- Secondly, people must be permitted the freedom to choose - the exercise of the will is crucial to our community life.
- A third criterion insists that we are to seek and uphold the truth and promote attendant opportunities to seek and discuss life issues.
- The fourth criterion concerns the corruption of public and private life, a result of our rebellion against God. In relating this corruption to the use and abuse of the national flag, I note the tendency of the leaders of nation states to increase their authority and control over the populace.
- A fifth criterion concerns character, both individual and national. Character is a quality of inner conviction, of the 'heart'. A voluntary demonstration of national pride is distinct to an enforced observance that results in both a hollow soul and the fear of being seen to be unpatriotic. My love for my country may be crushed by an invasion of external symbols, fear driven compliance and outward conformity. My outward patriotism hides the inner silence of a shrivelled soul.
Christians like all Australians are proud of their nation, especially sporting victories, but we express it quite differently from Americans - we do it quietly. And we always reserve the right to be critical and even cynical about our national government at the same time as feeling proud.
The attachment to symbols is very real. But the true test of a symbol is the test of the values and character symbolized. Can the defacing of a flag, the trampling of a cross, so provoke us that we fail to live by the values and character of those symbols? Is the substance symbolized, in fact, real? Can those values be held without the symbols? Can the values stand on their own merit?
The danger of flag flying is the transfer of loyalty to the symbol while the community and its values lie neglected and dying. A failure to nurture the values of a community results in their slow death. Zealous flag waving mocks the exertion needed to grow a community and nurture the values for which previous generations have sacrificed.
Will the next (downward) step in our new national zealotry be the introduction of legislation setting out severe penalties for stealing the national flag?
There is a major difference between education and indoctrination: it has to do with the exercise of the mind and heart: the freedom to decide, and the freedom to change a decision. That we need to be encouraged to learn is not at issue. What is at issue is the denial of education unless you fly the national flag: no flag; no writing, reading and arithmetic.
Education has to do with learning life skills and values. A treasured value is that of discernment and the exercise of the will, the possibility to decide. At great peril we confuse the community with its flag.
Being up the wrong pole may not always matter. But the idea that patriotic flag poles are essential to educational funding leads us up a very dangerous wrong pole. In its essence 'flag-is-education-is-flag' is self-contradictory and in its effect it is destructive to building a healthy nation.
Australia's soul is more precious than bunting. Nurture with care.