I don’t understand this weird American obsession with flag. I was looking at some photos of Trump’s rallies. Flags everywhere - on shirts, hats, glasses etc. And this bizarre cult of the flag - “it cannot touch the ground” etc.
At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth. If you worship any flag or take offense to any flag, you need to get a life.
My vaugue understanding as a dumb American is that folk in other countries by and large aren’t about repping flags in the first place, flying them, wearing them, etc
Not in the same way. In the US I believe you swear to the flag or something? Which seems super strange to me.
In Denmark the flag is used in basically any celebration, especially birthdays. It’s common to have a cake with as many flags on as your age (usually for kids).
It’s common to have a cake with as many flags on as your age
Luckily that flag is easy to emulate. Imagine trying to frost 10 American flags onto a cake.
Oh usually it’s small paper flags stuck into the cake on small wooden sticks, not frosting :)
I can’t speak for other countries, but here in the UK the National flags tend to be flown for two reasons:
- Sporting events
There are shit loads of St George crosses being flown at the moment, because the England team has got through the Euro football finals. If we lose tonight, they’ll begin to disappear tomorrow.
- “Patrotism”
You’ll mostly see the Union flag being flown in areas of high racism. Deprived areas, where people have been made to believe that forrins took their jobs and welfare money. They display the flag to show that they’re “true Brits”, unlike all those brown folk.
Outside of this it’s quite unusual for regular people to display either of the national flags. I can’t say I’ve ever owned one, and I’m in my 40s. That said, I’m not terribly nationalistic. I’m proud of my country in terms of how it looks, and how we (now) preserve our long history, but I’m also painfully aware of the failings of the UK, and more specifically, England over the past few centuries.
