Postives of England going out.....

[pds]

I don't have to see that tosser Wayne Rooney on my tv screen for a few weeks!

 

[Lako42]

My street will no longer look like a BNP party conference.

What a sad state of affairs when people cannot display support for their nation during a World Cup without it being branded 'BNP' related.


No such problem over here in Oz, just celebration.

 

[Jeff]

What a sad state of affairs when people can't make a light hearted comment without it being taken out of context.

 

[spionfox]

What a sad state of affairs when people can't make a light hearted comment without it being taken out of context.

In that case it's Babylons own fault for not using a suitable emoticon :icon_lol:

 

[David Gwilliam]

What a sad state of affairs when people can't make a light hearted comment without it being taken out of context.

I cannot see anything lighthearted about it. There are people on the far left who sneer at the flag and associate it with the BNP. I hope this is not true of Babylon but there are extremists on both left and right who would enjoy his comment.

 

[SwedeFox]

This is actually quite sad.

Why is it that 'we' have such problems when our national flag is displayed. In other countries they have great pride in their flags - they certainly aren't thought of in any other way.

Time to reclaim the flag.

Not quite true. The Swedish flag is definitely a symbol adopted by the nationalistic movements (not too strange) and there has been some controversy. I remember one case in Malmö when a boy wanted to wear his Swedish national shirt on the school photo but the school wouldn't let him as it was considered offensive.

In the same manner but more extreme, Serbia has a famous slogan known as Samo sloga Srbina spasava, Only Unity Saves the Serbs. During the troubled years down there this was being used as a war cry by nationalists and thus many (understandebly) consider it offensive now, even though it initally wasn't thought of as such.

I think it is more down to how ethnically divided the society is, UK and Sweden are both countries with many ethnic groups - in those places there will always be nationalistic movements that will take advantage of national symbols.

I agree that it is sad that the English flag is associated with BNP etc, but it is not a problem exclusive to England.