Swastikas, flags, and other symbols
Gwern Gwynfil
In the early 20th Century, the swastika became popular across the Western world as an ornamental symbol of hope, good fortune and, in the aftermath of the First World War, of peace.
Now utterly synonymous with the horrors of Nazi Germany, at least for the Western world, it is easy to forget that for millennia this has been a sacred and holy symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
It is also easy for us to forget that the symbol remains popular and prevalent in Hindu culture and across the Asian nations, where it remains a symbol of good fortune, well-being and prosperity. The weight of historic meaning obliterating any modern Western connotations.
However, there can be little chance of reclaiming this symbol in the Western world. The weight of history and the swastika’s association with antisemitism, racism, fascism, totalitarianism and all the horror of the Second World War will forever cloud our perceptions. When the swastika was misappropriated and made the logo of the Nazi party, although there were also peace campaigners making use of the same image in their promotional material across Europe well into the 1930s, its fate as a symbol of evil was sealed forever.
Symbols still matter
Unfortunately, right wing groups today continue to try and seize symbols to make their own. Whether this is a hand gesture, a logo, a flag, or some other popular iconography.
Some attempts are easily dismissed – attempts to co-opt the Welsh Dragon in support of the far right are destined for failure. We are far too attached to our national symbol and flag, far too proud of it as a symbol of all that we are in Wales.
Welsh people are privileged to be able to feel a surge of joy and pride wherever and whenever we see our flag flying. This is why there are so many flown on flagpoles and draped on buildings across Wales.
Right wing groups may drape themselves in the Welsh Dragon in Wales but we see through them – they can’t have our dragon and no amount of cosplay will change that reality.
Cross of St George
This is not so true of the English flag, the cross of St George. For many in England it inspires mixed feelings at best. Ever since the football hooligans and far right appropriated it in the 1970s and 1980s there have been unpleasant connotations surrounding this symbol of England.
A house draped in the England flag is currently more likely to inspire discomfort than joy and pride.
This is why the England flag campaign seems to have divided parts of the English establishment and many English communities.
An Opportunity to Reclaim and Own the Flag
This is the wrong approach. The flag campaign, wherever it originated, is a golden opportunity for all of England to reclaim its flag. I would urge and encourage everyone in England to grasp the opportunity to do so.
Fly the flag everywhere across England, take it back permanently from the right wingers, the racists and the hooligans. Make it the flag of Middle England, of diversity, of the progressive left. Make it the flag of your sporting heroes, make it a symbol of the things about which you are proud, not those of which you are ashamed.
Unlike the swastika for the Western world, the Cross of St George can be reclaimed and should be. Women’s sport in England is on a roll, first the football, a good chance in the rugby World Cup. Let England rediscover its identity and reclaim its flag as a wholesome representation of the best of England. What better way to reject the right wing, the racists, and the violence of hooligans?
Learn from the realism, hope and aspirations of artists like Rachel Chinouriri.
Be more Cymru, Be more Alba
I, for one, would love for my English peers and friends to be able to take the same pride in their flag as I do in our Welsh Dragon, and my Scottish peers and friends do in their Saltire. Strong and vibrant national identity does not need to be toxic, confrontational or destructive in the modern era.
This is not the nationalism of the 19th century. It is most definitely not the nationalism of the 20th century. It doesn’t need exceptionalism to thrive, it doesn’t need hatred, prejudice and fear of outside influences and the ‘other’ to be lively and powerful.
It is identity and ownership, culture and respect, in a world where how we identify and define ourselves, in real life and online, really matters. National flags are too important to be corrupted.
‘In England’s Green and Pleasant Land’
There is an England of which all the English can be proud – it is wholesome, decent and accepting, born of its own diverse origins as the global melting pot at the heart of an old, now extinct, Empire.
It is for the people of England to stand up and own this vision of their country, to reclaim its symbols. To ensure those symbols express who they are in ways that truly reflect the reality of their nation and the values they wish to convey.
What better way to resist the empty soundbites and meaningless noise and rhetoric of the right wing agitators, those seeking to disrupt the nation, than to reclaim the Cross of St George and make it the symbol of a vibrant, modern England?
A Message to England
Embrace the Cross as we embrace the Dragon. Make it a symbol of who you really are as a nation in the round. Understand and remember always that, even whilst we hold each other’s hands, have so much shared history, and enjoy our immense sporting rivalries, England, Scotland and Wales are also nations stood apart, having and needing their own identities.
Recapturing the English flag will be a huge step forward for England as a modern 21st century nation.
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An important article. Too often flags are used as a devisive symbol rather than one of unity. I fear though that many in England will find it hard to re-embrace what has become tainted by association.
We must all help the English reclaim their flag, make it possible for them to be comfortable with their own historical identity. It is what most of them yearn for – to be able to be proud of who they are – just as they see the Welsh, Scots, Irish, ‘allowed’ to be proud of who they are, whereas they are ‘not allowed’ this priviledge. They are effectively denied the right to be who they are by the ‘British Establishment’ which still needs the ‘British construct’ for outdated imperial purposes. Essentially the poor current day English are still made to… Read more »
Isn’t the real cause of the discomfort that England isn’t a real nation but a temporary military alliance established to beat the Danes that turned, as slippery slopes always do, into an unwanted political union that no-one asked for. Perhaps they just want their seven petty kingdoms back. After all, what have the Mercians really got in common with the Kents? Maybe that’s why they need to hijack the indigenous British identity.
Why must we? Their drama with their flag is their drama. Let them sort it out
This is much more complex than simply reclaiming the English flag. Part of the reason that the Cymru and Alba flags have such strong status, I think, is because they have been oppressed by the English in the past, and so the flag has become a symbol of fighting for their own culture – a fight they have arguably won, and continue to win. By contrast, the English (as the dominant nation in Great Britain) don’t really have the same reason to fly the St George, in fact it seems kinda petty when we have the Union flag (which embraces… Read more »
Good point other Pete.
Not just sports teams. Paraded from windows in parts of London had nothing to do with football. Designed to intimidate the local, fairly harmonious mixed race culture, where music was the glue.
Unfortunately I think it’s already too late for the English flag. The negative connotations are already too strong.
Yet in a facebook post shown to me, someone connected to the usual suspects wants to drape the union flag up all the light poles in a part of Bridgend. Post cropped up on an indy councillors run page and interacted favourable by councillor. We don’t need flag bothering like this when it is used to push racism. This is all it is at the moment, it is a drive to get people not white intimidated. Flying the flag now in the atmosphere of hate created by the usual suspects is more of an IQ test. The Union flag has… Read more »
The Union Flag has always been toxic worldwide Jeff – but not of course in the Anglosphere settler colonial countries – Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. Toxic too in Ireland, Scottish Highlands, within these islands.
I know what it is, I know many nations saw it as oppression. Now it is being used to drive race hate in the UK. This has one aim in the recent flag bothering. Make people not white afraid.
Have posted above on Britishness and the Ethnic minorities.
Perhaps if Starmer’s flags were not quite so big and omnipresent – maybe that would help stop inflamming xenophobic nationalism…
Starmer is stuck in this with no idea how to get out, I am not even sure he understand the situation. his advisors need sacking, his MP’s need to grow some but the advisors probably control access.
TBH the Welsh one has just started to become toxic too. Deform fans have started using it to join in the “flag protest” too
If you take a long hard look at these flag waving there are far far more ENGLISH FLAGS than the flag of the union they call the English flag for freedom its very closely associated with the ENGLISH far right its ENGLISH NATIONALISM emerging something we in Wales should be very very wary off England call it flag of freedom TO US IN WALES OUR ANCESTORS AND EVEN NOW IN THE PRESENT ITS A FLAG OF ENGLISH OPPRESSION AND TOTAL DOMINANCE OF ANOTHER COUNTRY
England and the English should be able to fly their Flag of St.George with pride. Englishness is no problem, or at least it shouldn’t be. Creating spaces for healthy expressions of Englishness is one of the crying needs of our age – reclaiming it from the clutches of the far right, enabling our neighbours to be what they’ve always wanted to be the whole time – to be themselves. It is assimilationist British nationalism which is problematic for us – an ideology which legitimizes still claiming other peoples countries- still seeking to displace and subsume the already existing authentic historical… Read more »
The strategy of the far right is to split the working/lower middle class. By pretending that all their economic woes stem from immigration, but not it seems from corporate exploitation. That fossil fuel companies are paying so much to lobby MP’s with dire warnings of job losses, segues nicely into their false narrative that net zero will result in economic collapse. Not just flags, but the subtext.
The Union Flag, Britishness, Ethnic Minorities, and the Celtic nations. Despite being considered benign by the majority, for many of us in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Union flag still represents an aggressive, expansionist, appropriating, British nationalism. This is a nationalism which then places itself in direct competition with our own countries’ historical claims to nationhood – one which seeks to subsume and displace the already existing bona fide authentic national communities of these islands. But there is now of course a paradox here. Because for the newer ethnic minority communities Britishness ostensibly provides a safe tolerant umbrella under which they… Read more »
The English may be trying to reclaim their flag but with Reform using it and the Union Jack it’s going to be difficult to wrench it away from the far right. It’s highly likely that the party will try and use the Y Ddraig Goch in the same way the closer we get to next May. Trying to make itself a Welsh nationalist party. We must fight this, Reform is everything we are not in Cymru. Cymru is a proud liberal and socialist country, welcoming and open, not hate filled, xenophobic and racist.
You are right Steve. Reform will undoubtedly seek to appropriate the Welsh flag to serve its own racist purposes. Just as has happened with the Tricolour in Ireland.
The union flag just represents theft, torture, abuse, arrogance and bloodshed.
Worth mentioning that the, England women’s football and rugby teams do fly the flag in a very positive and inclusive way. Even the fans of the respective men’s team have improved massively over the years.
Makes me laugh how the far right racists comment on the appearance of the anti fascist patriots.Do any of these people own a mirror?
The far right call themselves patriots too. Horrible word.
“Patriotism, the last refuge of a scoundrel.”, Samuel Johnson.
Running flags up every available lamppost and other edifice just makes the country look just like !930’s Nazi Germany.
Driving past County Hall in Carmarthen on Friday, I saw a vacant flagpole. Still no sign of the missing Union flag. Are the police investigating. What aren’t we being told?
There is no shame in being proud of your national flag. Those in England have every right to fly the flag of Saint George if they wish. But those who are adorning lampposts throughout England are not doing it out of pride but prejudice. The same mindset fly Union Flags in Northern Ireland in eyeshot of Irish Republican communities. This done to antagonise and intimidate. They also march through Catholic areas with the Orange Order waving Union Flags and thumping drums celebrating a Dutch King, William of Orange. Enough said. Just look at those present at these protests. Britain First,… Read more »
Well said. Considering this enthusiasm for Christian iconography by the far right, you’d think that they’d take Christ’s teaching to love thy neighbour a bit more seriously.
Yes indeed. Of course the other thing that we ought to do is to remind these flag waving anti-immigrant types that England is actually an immigrant country. Thus to be truly English one ought to have ancestors from Europe and elsewhere. The Angles were a big ‘heathen’ immigrant group who actually operated the Great Replacement by driving out the Christian population that lived in the eastern part of what is now England. It was their presence that led to the are to the east being known as Angleland. Of course the Angles were Europeans coming from southern Denmark and northern… Read more »