my (strange European) view on flags
In which I copypaste my thoughts regarding flag treatment from various comments that have now been deleted (due to the topic of the post I commented on, not the comments themselves)
So that post over at the main Hetalia comm that I originally commented on got deleted. Hmm.
I left a comment that said- amongst other things related to the deleted post- is that I found it quite annoying that some people were making such a big deal about others wearing a flag as a cape.
Someone very nice who I have actually been having a very interesting inbox conversation with about this whole thing, told me that in America, that was how they show respect to their country and it's akin to punching someone to let the flag trail on the ground or wear it as a cape. The following is my response:
Okay, first of all, what I was trying to get across is that I was annoyed that if there was, for example, a picture of me cosplaying my country whilst wearing the flag as a cape then that could have ended up on the site.
That would be an entirely acceptable thing to do in the country where I would be actually cosplaying and it wouldn't be a case of 'oh, nation X wouldn't do that because it would be disrespectful', because it isn't. I hope that makes sense.
We respect our flag to show respect for our country. OK. That's great, but you've got to realise not every country is the same, and respectful actions in one country may be seen differently in another. You'd never catch someone here who wasn't in the military saluting the flag and not many people display it outside their houses. There's a marina near my house that used to have the flag up until it disintegrated and now there's just a few bits of material hanging from a flagpole xD
I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me projecting my own opinions on this so I asked my family and some of my friends 'if someone was wearing the flag of this country, in this country, as a cape, and it trailed on the ground, would that be disrespectful?' and everyone said no.
There was also some google-fu done to try and find anything about disrespect of the flag in my country and I couldn't really find anything. I searched for flag capes and this came up- you can quite plainly see it's the actual flag they're wearing, for a public event as a display of patriotism.
I've been staying with my brother in France for the last couple of months (our family lived there for a while, and he's recently moved back) and I went to school in Germany for a while, and they don't treat their flags the same way America does either.
I asked my boyfriend, who hails from a different European country than the three previously mentioned about respect of his country's flag, and his response was 'I don't know and I don't really care.' I googled it and he was vaguely surprised to be told that his country does actually have a flag code (although I read the whole thing and there aren't actually any mentions of what's disrespectful; it focuses more on when it should be flown and that it should be painted on military helicopters etc.)
To sum up (and I'm going to copypaste from Wiki here), in my country there is no contemporary national concept of flag desecration. I really do hope that I got across what I was trying to say here, and of course I'd never do try to do anything to another country's flag that was deemed disrespectful in that country. (just curious, what IS it OK to put the American flag on? I have a duvet cover with my country's flag on, but reading your flag code it seems like this wouldn't be allowed if it were the American flag?)
Thank you for making me think about this, it was actually quite interesting :)
So that post over at the main Hetalia comm that I originally commented on got deleted. Hmm.
I left a comment that said- amongst other things related to the deleted post- is that I found it quite annoying that some people were making such a big deal about others wearing a flag as a cape.
Someone very nice who I have actually been having a very interesting inbox conversation with about this whole thing, told me that in America, that was how they show respect to their country and it's akin to punching someone to let the flag trail on the ground or wear it as a cape. The following is my response:
Okay, first of all, what I was trying to get across is that I was annoyed that if there was, for example, a picture of me cosplaying my country whilst wearing the flag as a cape then that could have ended up on the site.
That would be an entirely acceptable thing to do in the country where I would be actually cosplaying and it wouldn't be a case of 'oh, nation X wouldn't do that because it would be disrespectful', because it isn't. I hope that makes sense.
We respect our flag to show respect for our country. OK. That's great, but you've got to realise not every country is the same, and respectful actions in one country may be seen differently in another. You'd never catch someone here who wasn't in the military saluting the flag and not many people display it outside their houses. There's a marina near my house that used to have the flag up until it disintegrated and now there's just a few bits of material hanging from a flagpole xD
I wanted to make sure it wasn't just me projecting my own opinions on this so I asked my family and some of my friends 'if someone was wearing the flag of this country, in this country, as a cape, and it trailed on the ground, would that be disrespectful?' and everyone said no.
There was also some google-fu done to try and find anything about disrespect of the flag in my country and I couldn't really find anything. I searched for flag capes and this came up- you can quite plainly see it's the actual flag they're wearing, for a public event as a display of patriotism.
I've been staying with my brother in France for the last couple of months (our family lived there for a while, and he's recently moved back) and I went to school in Germany for a while, and they don't treat their flags the same way America does either.
I asked my boyfriend, who hails from a different European country than the three previously mentioned about respect of his country's flag, and his response was 'I don't know and I don't really care.' I googled it and he was vaguely surprised to be told that his country does actually have a flag code (although I read the whole thing and there aren't actually any mentions of what's disrespectful; it focuses more on when it should be flown and that it should be painted on military helicopters etc.)
To sum up (and I'm going to copypaste from Wiki here), in my country there is no contemporary national concept of flag desecration. I really do hope that I got across what I was trying to say here, and of course I'd never do try to do anything to another country's flag that was deemed disrespectful in that country. (just curious, what IS it OK to put the American flag on? I have a duvet cover with my country's flag on, but reading your flag code it seems like this wouldn't be allowed if it were the American flag?)
Thank you for making me think about this, it was actually quite interesting :)