Love for the Flag

I love the colours red, navy blue and white that make up the Australian flag. Red and blue favour every complexion. But I would never paint them on my face as we see during football matches. Love for the flag is intensified during football matches, and then it is not worn to materialize one’s patriotism for one’s country, but a uniform to attach yourself to your team. Here’s hoping you’re barracking for the winning team, because after the game, tears will smear the paint off your face, and the flag around your shoulders will droop sulkily. Nor let’s forget the unfortunate non-breathing qualities of polyester. A polyester flag wrapped around your shoulders on a hot day will end up sticky and stinky.
I look not to our flag as national identity, but as an fashion statement. Unfortunately, it is out of vogue outside the footy car park.
Threaded with the first British fleet claiming territory, what’s it to younger Australian generations who aren’t going to lie back and think of the mother country when seeing the union jack in the corner of our flag? Many want the Australian flag changed to something more “Australian”. Already it holds little resonance with young generations.
Though the Union Jack helps touristy knick-knacks bring back the flag as an accessory. Tourists can lie back and sun bake in a flag bikini with appropriately placed stars. Miniature flags have also been seen painted on the talon-like nails of women who pay too much for acrylic nails, and they aren’t even retractable. There are also miniature paper flags on toothpicks clasped between the clip on hands of plush koala key rings that take up several shelves in “bargain” tourist shops.
The flag is most commonly seen in abundance at football matches, and this is often when the worst comes out in people. An over excited crowd screaming at one another in the crowd and to those on the field. Sure, you can privately regard these flag-wearers as fools as you watch them on your TV screen or when you pass them in the street, but remember that this is also what is reflected to the rest of the world. And this is when the flag is recognised. Oh, those fools must be Australian, American, French, Irish, British, you say.
I rarely notice the flag unless it’s at half-mast if someone of importance has passed away, or if someone’s trying to say sorry, or if it’s made into dubious clothing for the tourist market or mouth-breathing sport watchers.
What love can there be for something that is often seen as a must-have commodity in a football crowd, or as a cheap souvenir. It’s a uniform for your team. And I think mine’s lost.



Alice Trout