Today’s Topic Is About the Symbolism of Flags
Human beings, by instinct, like the sense of belongings. And in history, flags were often used as a way to unify some people who had the same interests as insiders, while people who didn’t belong to the group would be regarded as outsiders. There were always the effects of division as byproducts. And in many cases, outsiders were not simply regarded as outsiders but rather enemies and this led to some huge conflicts and war, for example, the Nazi German flags during the world war II. Besides, different flags have different degrees of restrictions on members within the group. Take national flags as an example. In China, if one expresses disrespect on the national flags, like scribbling on flags or burning flags in public, he/she would commit a crime regarding the national flag laws. And in India, if a flag is not manufactured officially, the producer would face a violation of laws. Let’s have a look at the other end of the spectrum. The United States, though, has laws on national flags, such laws are not feasible. The laws respect one’s freedom of mind and cannot force someone to be patriotic. Hence the law which forbids use of national flags as costumes and players in Major League Baseball having figures of national flags on their back.
How to use flags appropriately to represent a group of people and avoid regarding outsiders as enemies is an open question, and it is not limited to flags, anything which can represent one’s belongings also counts. Take me as an example, every day, I can see national flags, my university’s badge, student association’s badge and so on. Most of the time, members of a group, or some leaders, won’t arouse their hatred towards the outsiders. But in some extreme conditions, some leaders may utilize flags as weapons to declare and try to win a war. Under such circumstances, members need to be conscious about whether the war is what they want. A step back with thorough thinking can slow down the process of using flags as weapons. Also like post World War II, such behaviors should be punished and those flags need to be banned. Besides, teach later generations about the whole history in case such a tragedy happens again, at least within several generations.
Finally, I also agree with the idea that humans now need to look outside of the concept of nations. We need to unify and cooperate as human beings. We are the same species and we share the space on earth. Don’t be misled by some propagandas which declare that a nation’s interests are always in correspondence with citizens’. Just like members in any group, one needs to be clear about the facts that sometimes nations’ behalf are only the leaders’ behalf, maybe they want to do something great to satisfy their sense of achievements, maybe they want their names to last forever. We also need to be clear that sometimes what leaders say doesn’t mean they will actually do it.
 | | |
