To ask those who are not white brittish how they feel about the flags?

[PicaK]

Birmingham and Tower Hamlets are having St George England flags put up by privately funded groups.
I'm horrified by the implicit racism. I've seen a lot of white people applauding this and "time we took back the country" comments.
I haven't seen many non white people commenting. My feel is that they are too intimidated to do so. Am I right? Or is it indifference or is it that you're dealing with racism on a daily level and this is just one more thing.
Please don't post if you're white.whatever you feel about the flags. I want to hear on white viewd

Most people think that the Nazis invented the swastika. The "surely" there is a little patronising!

The only reason I know that the symbol has a heritage pre-Nazi is because I noticed that the Manx flag is Nazi-esque, and I did some research about it.

I’m white, but both my late parents were immigrants who came here decades ago, and my background is extremely mixed ( so I refer to myself as a Bertie Basset🤣) My daughter is half Arabic and my grandson is mixed race, but his DNA has more than 7 different types of nationality. I say this because I don’t want to be accused of racism, but how on earth can flying an English flag in any part of England be racist? You don’t seem to react that way to the Union Jack flying from Buckingham palace. However I do find the comments’ to take back our country racist ‘ and what really offends me is when ignorant White English football supporters throw stuff and shout nasty racist abuse at black or mixed race football players ( and the disgusting way 3 black football players were racially abused when they missed penalties in the last Euro final, but guess what. if they had scored those same penalties. I would have bet thousands on them having the opposite reaction.

Yanbu op, and the poll vote seems strangely out of kilter with the opinions posted on this thread so far. Can’t for the life of me imagine why an anonymous poll might reflect that but hey ho.

The sad fact is that the England flag (outside of football tournaments) HAS been hijacked by those intent on, essentially racism. I’m a white British guy in my 50s and we’ve never had this in the 90s, 2000’s or 2010s even. Something sinister is happening and I predict it will ultimately end in a lot of violence if this isn’t called out for what it is. Probably best if I just post this Twitter post, and remind you all that our high streets and communities got smashed up last summer, often by those brandishing England flags.

Im English. These aren’t my people. They’re thugs.

England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during "God Save the King" than of stealing from the poorbox.

George Orwell, A Life in Letters.

So sum up - I have only had a brief glance at this thread - the English flag is irredeemably racist because it is akin to :
the crusades
colonialism
the nazis/swastika
the BNP, EDL, Reform and other assorted racists
football hooligans
white supremacy - which is of course every single pale skinned person ever

To top it all, the flag is foreign anyway and crypto-muslim because Palestine/Turkey (historical nonsense but let's go with it).

Turkey didn’t exist when Saint George was born, Islam didn’t exist at the time either, arabs hadn’t invaded the Levantine at this time, and the romans were the occupying force in Judea, which they renamed Syria Palaestina to insult and punish the Jews. Saint George has nothing to do with Turkey, Islam, or Palestine. Stop being ahistorical.

I agree with others on this thread that the English flag has been hijacked by the far right and that the stigma is really strong. It's a great pity.

I would never put the English flag anywhere on my house. You might as well declare that you're a racist moron with a bully breed tied up on a chain in your back garden. It SHOULDN'T be that way, and of course it's the national flag, but the far right has co-opted it so thoroughly that in the social and cultural landscape of today, it does mean something other than what it technically is.

Ah, I see that my post is being held back because of a complaint. MN moderators - I simply summed up some views expressed here.

I am a non-white British person, born and bred in this country. I love seeing England flag at village fetes, church towers or when England are playing.

However when it's paraded wrongly at EDL, other protests by racists, reform etc I also instinctively think of it as belonging to the far right.

Intellectuals have always sneered at their own country. It's de rigueur for them. You should hear the liberal elites in America on the topic of their own country - which is justified since Trump first got elected, but they were like that before, too.

And the Swastika existed for thousands of years in multiple cultures as a very benign symbol and continues to used by billions of asians - buddhists, hindus and jains- as much as it ever was. It was never the Nazi's to start or end with. So too with the St George.

Damn, I left out the confederate flag.

I am fully entitled to reply as I see fit. You don’t get to choose.

The swastika is derived from the Sanskrit Svastika, meaning good fortune or well-being. It’s an ancient symbol with a rich history predating its use by the Nazi Party. It has been used as a sacred symbol in various cultures, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, where it represents prosperity and good luck. Thoroughly hijacked by the Nazis and will for ever stand as a symbol of pure evil. Makes the point that we should reclaim our St George flag before it’s permanently trashed by racist scum.

We can be proud of the many, many things that Britain has achieved in science, human rights, sport, culture and art etc, while being aware that as a nation we have done many, many brutal things we can be ashamed of. Similarly, we can be proud of the fact that much of Orwell's insight is still valid today, whilst recognising that perhaps swearing allegiance to the King is a little outdated?

The St George's cross has multiple associations, both positive and negative. To try and pretend it's just an innocent symbol is disingenuous.

Absolutely right. Just like you don't get to choose how I see my country's flag.

I agree.

Who is doing the dividing, that's the question.

News flash, we never stopped using it.

Hindu swastika has a horizontal cross at its centre.

The nazi one is at 45 degrees.

Firstly, I said modern day Turkey.

St George’s father was from Cappadocia (a Roman province in what is now central Turkey), and his mother was from the region the Romans called Syria Palaestina. The Romans gave it that name after 135 AD, well before St George’s birth in around 270 AD. So it’s historically accurate to describe his heritage as Cappadocian and Palestinian in today’s terms. He was Christian and while Jews inhibited these lands at the time as many other faiths did, happily I may add, he was certainly not Jewish.

Non white here.

I am glad people are putting up the flags of Britain and UK I came to. Not the bloody ones that are there from other countries!! I have never put my home country flag. I would happily do it in my own country. Not here. Here I am British (well DH is) and I’m partly.

Oh and to add - I am from an ex British colony. I don’t mind some white people putting up their own flag. FGS.

@Lonelycrab So would a solution be for people to hijack the flag back? If lots of people flew it, it would lose those connotations.

I admit that I’m looking at it from an American perspective where loads of people fly flags, sometimes multiple flags to honor their cultural heritage. Several people in my neighborhood have a couple of national flags flying!

Agreed. And don't fly the flag of your country either. It offends me.

Unbelievable! The uproar there would be if this was the other way around.

No, the swastika is still a symbol of goodness to billions of people who draw it on their floors, door steps and temples. To say that it has been permanently corrupted by the nazis is to be euro-centric in the extreme. It is being as fatuous and ahistoric as the people who hate the English flag because some skinheads carry it.