Blogpost by Mick Hall
AN elderly lady who I have known for many years said to me at the weekend: “Why are all those flags flying in Grays, this is not good, the last time I saw something like that was when I was a young child.” I told her not to worry it was just a political party flexing its muscles. She looked at me in that quizzical way which people often do when they have experienced much in their long lives.
After I left her I thought about what she said and went down to Grays to take a look, I was shocked to see approximately 16 England and Union Jack flags flying from almost every lamp post in the heart of the town, and I immediately understood her fears.
She came to Britain on the Kindertransport, her parents were both German and lived in the Free City of Danzig. (now Gdańsk in Poland) In 1933, the City’s government was taken over by the local Nazi Party who expressed their patriotism to a greater Reich by hanging flags and pasting up offensive posters all over the city.
Eventually fearing the worst her father sent her to stay with an aunt in Aachen near the German-Dutch border, after Kristallnacht it was decided to send her and a cousin to Great Britain. She was lucky to be on one of the last ships to leave a Dutch port before the country was occupied, she never saw her parents or Aunt again, they perished in the Holocaust.
She loves this country greatly, why wouldn’t she it helped save her young life, she is far more patriotic than I, and when I was younger and more naive she used to tell me off when I turned up my nose at the Union Jack because of its association with British imperialism.
She understands better than most the damage patriotics displays can do when they get in the wrong hands. Thurrock is a multi racial society, like it or not we have people living here who have come from throughout the UK and the four corners of the world. I cannot help thinking those who put those flags up in Grays and elsewhere in the borough were sticking a finger up at those people.
This was basically what the Nazi party in Danzig were doing in the 1930s, the only real difference being their flags were aimed at the city’s Jewish population and we all know where that led…
Of course the Union flag should be displayed on Armistice day and on other ceremonial occasions, and I well understand why England supporters may wish to hoist their flag when their national team is playing, but do we really want these emblems being used as a political weapon. I hope not.
If it had been the BNP putting these flags up across the borough Thurrock Council would have ordered them to be taken down. I do not believe for a moment the overwhelming majority of Thurrock residents who voted for Ukip’s are bigots or racists, but with the election of Paul Nuttall the party does seem to be moving to the far right. I ask how would they feel if every time they turned a corner in one of Thurrock’s towns they saw a flag flying which was clearly aimed at them, and not in a nice way. Let us learn from history and leave such patriotic mockery where it belongs, in the past. I am not on principle against flying national flags, but if we do let them reflect the true diversity of the people who have made their homes in our borough.
Mick Hall
Please stop this rubbish insinuating flying our national flag is somehow linked to racism. How dare you insult all those men and women who have died for that flag!! Being patriotic is not racist. Yes we are a country who has many nationalities living here, they chose to come here because we are not the dictatership a lot of them have left behind. So please stop dictating to us residents about flying our national flag and trying to make us feel it’s wrong it isn’t and we are free to fly our flags wherever and whenever we want!!!!
I’m a foreigner and honestly I don’t see the problem with these flags. I surely don’t feel offended or excluded. In my own country, and many others I’ve visited in Europe, every public office displays the national flag outside the building. Comparing the display of the Union Jack to the Nazi invasions is utterly ridiculous!
Mick Hall, writing a column for an item as a journalist, my first thoughts were to expect an apolitical stance, you don’t seem to realize our country (UK) has these flags to represent us all in the Union Jack or the St George’s flag of England, howerver, you refer it as being a British National Party flag.. they may also use it but so does our Queen and Country, get over it, had you found a problem with the fascist EU flag on your car number plate I may have endorsed that with a ‘Like’
we should fly the flag more often,then it would be a everyday thing and no one would really notice it or think about it very much.
Enough already. There is nothing remotely racist or even nationalist about put up Union & St George’s Flags. You’re embarrassing yourself Mick. Fly the flags with pride.
The Union flag is our flag and one that we should be proud of. It is a symbol of national pride except in the twisted minds of those who can only see racism. Tell an American not to fly the Stars and Stripes and watch the reaction. Nearly every home in USA flys the flag and we should to.
I had to laugh (if it wasn’t so bad) when I recently found out that Tim Aker’s alledged nickname at Nottingham University among his friends in 2005 was “Nazi Tim”.
http://thenakedlunch.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=%22nazi+tim%22
The flags in question are OUR flags. They help show our pride and love of our countries. Only people with very twisted and limited brain power could even think anything else shouldn’t be free to walk around in public. When people from other countries come to live here, they accept them as being their flags too. If they don’t, they are not genuine and should not stay where they don’t wish to integrate.