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Flag waving

TheCatWoman

It seems that the English flag is being used again as a symbol of nationalism, being paraded around the streets by those wanting rid of asylum seekers and placed in gardens.

Do you feel comfortable with it? I don't, for me it's tainted by Neo Nazi's and other fascists, or for football.

In Britain we've never had a habit of flag use and worship like some other countries, mostly seen in America and I wouldn't like us to acquire the habit. 

Am I the only one to find it ironic that St George was a Turk? He supplanted St Edmund as Englands national saint on a whim of Richard the Lionheart, we have lots of native saints to choose from, St Alban, St Edward, St Thomas A'Becket, St Hilda, and so many more often more obscure ones like St Petroc or St Willibrord.

I also feel uncomfortable that as a non Christian the flag is a blatently Christian religious symbol, at least in Wales we have Ye Ddraig Goch, The Red Dragon, nice and mythological and non religious.

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  • The motivation of the people putting up these flags is obvious. Although they hide behind the concept of expressing patriotism, this does not wash. Displays of patriotic flag waving/flying are usually linked to an event of national importance, be it a memorial celebration or a major sporting occasion. No such is happening now. No, this incidence of flag flying is motivated purely by hate and is intended to intimidate. The hate is that felt by right wing extremists towards people who have done them no measurable harm: immigrants, the descendants of immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, gays, trans people and the disabled. Why they hate is not obvious to me, but it is so. The clumps of flags attached to lampposts are intended to intimidate any and all of the people in marginalised groups. It says that 'everyone around here hates you and you are not welcome'.

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  • The motivation of the people putting up these flags is obvious. Although they hide behind the concept of expressing patriotism, this does not wash. Displays of patriotic flag waving/flying are usually linked to an event of national importance, be it a memorial celebration or a major sporting occasion. No such is happening now. No, this incidence of flag flying is motivated purely by hate and is intended to intimidate. The hate is that felt by right wing extremists towards people who have done them no measurable harm: immigrants, the descendants of immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, gays, trans people and the disabled. Why they hate is not obvious to me, but it is so. The clumps of flags attached to lampposts are intended to intimidate any and all of the people in marginalised groups. It says that 'everyone around here hates you and you are not welcome'.

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