Flag in Graduation ceremony - what would you think?

[whiteroseredrose]

My DD graduated on Saturday. The ceremony is in two parts, first they 'graduate' in groups of the same subject and go outside. They then come back in in larger groups wearing their new hoods attached to the robes. All very pretty with lots of proud parents taking photos.

DD came back in with her friends, lots of clapping and cheers and I took my photos.

In the cohort immediately behind her one graduate came in carrying a full sized Palestinian flag which covered her from head to toe. So the attention switched from the 30 or so new graduates all in black and white to this huge multicoloured flag. There were some cheers and some boos.

Here's my AIBU. I think it was highly inappropriate to steal the moment from all of your classmates. It is everyone's moment of glory and shouldn't be about just one person and their beliefs. I don't think that the University staff should have let her in with it.

Am I being unreasonable?

There is a time and place...if I'd worked my arse off for 3 or 4 years and someone turned the 30 minutes of celebration into a meaningless political statement I'd be a little miffed

Palestinian flag waving at a graduation ceremony is pathetic.
It's just so bloody easy. Wave a flag, get a limp cheer, big man.
If Palestine is your cause, do something useful. Really engaged your mind and do something useful. Waving a Temu flag is not it.
Or why not just turn graduation ceremonies into a parade of pointless flags? Lets go Yemen, Man City, Pride, Star of David, a few Che Guevara's and a Sea Scouts.

Except what I was commenting on was not "Let more food aid in immediately! End the hunger!"

It was "Free Palestine. Ceasefire now. End the illegal occupation!" That's politics.

And, sorry to jump into your nice little argument, do you think Israel is going to do fuck all different because some twat waved a flag at a graduation in Exeter, Leeds, or even London...

😆 🤣

No. Just one student. IMO stealing her classmates’ limelight and making it all about herself.

You really didn’t, and you still don’t.

It’s silly but also to be expected from a student.

Graduation is not about one students attempt at changing the world by waving a flag.

IMO student caused negativity & did NOT inspire change. No one watching the ceremony came to see the toddler tantrum.

Tens of thousands of babies and children are starving to death in what has officially been declared a famine by the UN. Meaning that even if all the food gets in, it's already too late to save many.
It is a genocide according to Amnesty, the UN, Human Rights Watch, MSF, B'Tselem (Israeli NGO), Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Prof. Omer Bartov, Prof. Amos Goldstein (Israeli professors of Holocaust and Genocide studies), Dame Helena Kennedy... I mean who else are you waiting for, Moses or the Angel Gabriel to declare it?
And it is a genocide that our govt is giving arms, money and political support to.
I am furious that university students and young people are having to take on the burden of making politicians behave morally. Just as before, when the UK public outcry forced the British government to stop supporting apartheid South Africa, or when the British public undertook a sugar boycott to bring about the end to slavery.
Blessed be those of moral courage.

When she's asked in an interview, where she ever made a difference, she can use this stunt. Unless it's a public sector interview, I doubt she will find herself employable.

But why they are in their 20s not 16 in sixth form...I was working, driving a car, buying a house etc at that age not being a childish "oooo look at me the revolutionary poet of the kids....let's all get down and smash the fascists by waving our flags....and I've not even told my parents what time I'm coming home ' in a Rik from the young ones voice*

• Ask someone in their fifties... that did shake up Thatcher.

Actually, if your country is supporting genocide then every time and every place is important to speak up about it.
It's my tax money, and yours, being used to bomb and starve babies and children. It's my armed forces, and yours, being put at risk doing air drops of aid which the UN has called insufficient and potentially dangerous (they have landed on and killed civilians). The govt could instead be imposing sanctions and arms embargo on the wanted war criminal (as per the ICC) leading the genocidal state, like it did to Russia for far less.

People have made banal comments like this about every protest movement ever - look at the Suffragettes, the civil rights movement in the US ("why didn't she just go to the back of the bus?? She just wanted attention! I mean there is a time and a place...just never my time nor my place..."), gay rights, etc etc. The point is to disrupt. The point is not to let genocidaires or their accomplices in office here get away with it.

I was invited as a guest to a graduation a few weeks ago. I was representing my employer - works closely with the Uni and offers industry placements and graduate roles. There was one person who decided to wave a Palestine flag. There was a small mixture of boo’s and cheers. I just rolled my eyes.

My son graduates next year and he has worked his backside off for his degree and I can’t say I will be very impressed if some entitled, attention seeking student decides to try and take the limelight away from other students.

I would feel like this about any flag being waved in support of any country, political group or ideology. There is a time and a place for it and a graduation isn’t it.

Have you been on a university campus?

They have always been hotbeds of protest.

And there is no point protesting where nobody will notice.

Well obviously not because there's a difference of support between being an invaded nation that's being starved and bombed and a nation that is doing the invading, starving and bombing. 😅

I do believe you can fly whichever flags you like (as long as they're not pure hate symbols like a Nazi swastika) but you can't force a crowd to cheer or stop them from booing. The crowd also has freedom of expression.

It's a university, and students tend to be pretty politically aware and always have been, peaceful protest (or "virtue signalling" you may sneer) shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody.

Disrupt like PAG? Immobilising military aircraft- way to go 👏

Too many words

It may have been inappropriate, but I am glad that young people have strong feelings about injustice and starvation, even if they don't quite know what they can usefully do about it. We were all so hopeful in the 60s and 70s and we were sure when it was our age group's time to lead, that things would change. Sadly not.

It’s not complicated at all.

genocide of Jewish people- unacceptable

genocide of Palestinians- unacceptable

no excuses

Did the region appear out of thin air?

But all the virtue signallers safe over here can happily do the... 'oh but freedom fighting' shit...

No time to read 5 pages of responses but I think it is completely unnecessary for someone to do that at a graduation and take over from what the kids have achieved. Also this business of 'raising awareness' unless you have been in a coma for the past two years we are all bloody aware at this point. Absolutely everything currently is about Gaza and in a lot of cases rightfully so but let other people have their moments also. It is very frustrating that nobody can have any celebration right now without it becoming political. I am Irish and of course just as against genocide as everyone else all things considered but ffs let people have their personal moments too.

Will end this with Free Free Palestine as i am in support of ending genocide I just dont think it needs highlighting on other peoples big day. Tiocfaidh ár lá.

DD's graduation at LSE a few weeks ago had a student unfurling a pro Palestinian flag when going up to shake hands wit the Vice Chancellor. I expect that it was quite common in graduations this year.
I didn't feel that it detracted from the graduation ceremony or undermined any of the students' achievements.

I've spent way too much time on here, today. X