The Power of Symbols
By CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN • October 24th, 2007Okay, kids. This is a pop quiz on current affairs. I’ll give you the basic facts and you tell me where it’s happening.
A culture war is rapidly heating up. Ordinary citizens have become increasingly concerned about the cost of illegal immigration, the rise of the welfare state, and multiculturalism enforced by liberal elites.
Things have gotten so hot that the Economist magazine (one of the world’s best-known journals of leftist opinion) published a recent article explaining “the culture war” in this place as a crude reaction to a laudable effort by liberals to “redraw national identity” and to “make amends for past wrongs to indigenous peoples.”
Rejecting the policies of the left and reconnecting with their ancestors, ordinary citizens are now displaying their traditional flag whenever they can: at political gatherings, public places, private homes and wherever people gather. Meanwhile, leftist policy makers are, of course, deeply concerned about such displays of militant nostalgia and have proposed that the old flag be redesigned to something more acceptable in the modern world. Sound familiar? Where do you think this is happening? Georgia? Mississippi? Alabama? South Carolina?
Well, yes. There too. But the set of facts outlined above describe what’s happening today in Australia.The good people Down Under are fed up with militant modernism and the Labor Party’s relentless drive to destroy all tradition. And the Australian flag has become a symbol of renewed pride for ordinary citizens and a link to their ancestors, whose lives and sacrifices they refuse to trivialize or to discredit in the false name of progress.
American Southerners understand. Consider for example recent events in Georgia. Herculean efforts were made by secular progressives to eradicate the 1956 Georgia flag which included the Confederate battle flag design. As you may recall, a committee of soulless boosters attempted to replace the flag with a horrendously bland banner—the Barnes flag— which was replaced with another design after Governor Roy Barnes was defeated.
Mississippi found a better way. The same leftist legions agitated for years to replace the state flag and to strip away its Confederate symbolism. But Mississippi politicians were clever enough to allow the issue to be decided by public referendum.
In South Carolina, the state flag has so far escaped attack because its traditional design is merely a lone palmetto tree with a crescent moon, and the heathens are not well enough informed to understand its Confederate roots. So, instead they attacked the easier target: the Confederate battle flag which flew atop the capitol dome.
In 1996, there was a public referendum on the GOP primary ballot in South Carolina asking voters whether the battle flag should continue flying atop the statehouse.
The flag won with a whopping 76%, attracting the largest primary voter turnout in state history. Still, four years later, the South Carolina legislature voted to move the flag from the dome to a Confederate soldiers’ monument on statehouse grounds, where it still flies and where the attack on its existence continues unabated.
In 2000, when the South Carolina Senate was debating removing the Confederate flag, Sen. Harvey Peeler warned his colleagues that if that one flag came down from the dome a thousand would go up across the state.
They didn’t care. After all, they claimed flags on private property were of no concern to them, as long as that particular one wasn’t in “a place of sovereignty.”
Sen. Peeler was right, of course, as the Confederate flag is more visible and displayed more frequently than ever by ordinary South Carolinians. My sense is that the same is true of the ’56 Flag in Georgia, and generally true throughout the South.
An interesting byproduct of the Confederate flag debate here in South Carolina is the prominence of the state emblem: the Palmetto Flag. Little more than a decade ago, it was rare to ever see the state flag outside an official setting. Now, however, the Palmetto emblem is everywhere: on cars, boats, clothing; and it seems that just about every third business has it in its logo.
One cannot help but conclude that this newfound affection for the symbol of South Carolina is a direct result of the attack on the state’s Southern heritage.
Flags and symbols have power, and ordinary folk everywhere are turning to traditional symbols as a way of resisting the Left’s relentless drive to eradicate or redefine history. There is a cultural war and it is being fought in spots all across America and around the world. It is a war waged by socalled progressives against those who honor the past and respect tradition.
Southerners, like our distant cousins Down Under, instinctively cling to their flags as symbols of their country and their heritage; as heraldic devices, resplendent with the symbols of a precious cultural inheritance.
Just as instinctive, however, is the spirit that motivates those who see the South’s unique culture as something to be feared and fought against, who see the Confederate flag and her vexillological offspring as obstacles to a society uniform in thought and action.
These enemies of our heritage do not want the Confederate flag—or any of these state flags, for that matter—in any place of prominence or honor. Nor do they want them on bumpers, doorframes, t-shirts or anywhere else.
Their goal is simple: they want them gone. But the more they try to rub out Southern identity, the more tenaciously people display the symbol of their revered ancestors, the symbol of which those very ancestors were so justifiably proud.
Confederate Sergeant Barry Benson described it thusly:
“Oh how it thrilled the heart of a soldier, when he had long been away from the army, to catch sight again of his red battle flag, upheld on its staff of pine, its tatters snapping in the wind.
“‘A red rag,’ there will be those who will say. ‘A red rag tied to a stick, and that is all!’
“And yet that red rag, crossed with blue, white stars sprinkling the cross within, tied to a slim, barked sapling with leather
thongs cut from a soldier’s shoe.
“This red rag my soul loved with a lover’s love.”
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Chris,
Love the article! Great points and I too have seen an increase in state pride in Florida (my home) as well. Folks are flying the state flag more and folks have been flying the southern cross more and more as well. Were not beaten yet. Keep up the good writing!
Mr Sullivan
Good article with nice points and parallels down under. It isn’t just the Aussies who suffer from flag attacks, it is all across the globe.
The SC referendum was in 94 FYI not 96 as you stated.
http://www.usca.edu/aasc/Flag.htm
Thanx & God Bless
Billy Bearden
Kind of strange that all of these flags dealing with cultural heritage were not on any states’ flag until the Civil Rights movement. Hmmmm….
To the learned and astute Bill Bowers: Kind of strange that these flags dealing with cultural heritage were not any states’ flag until the Centennial of the War for Southern Independence. Hmmmm…
So, which supposition do you reckon is correct? You do have proof to back your claims, don’t you? In your mind is anyone who wishes to remember that massive sacrifice that was invasion, war and reconstruction simply to be brushed away because of your own bigotry? Is it impossible for you to conceive that a person could reverie their ancestors and not be a racist? Open your mind. You might find that you actually like Southerners. But then again, who cares what you think.
South Carolina’s flag dates from the Revolution and Mississippi’s was adopted in 1894. Sorry to confront and confuse you with the facts Billy Yank….not that they matter to you and your PC ilk!
With regard to the prominence of the state emblem, the Palmetto Flag:
How is it that this old symbol, which is also part of the state’s heritage, is used as well as an “attack on the state’s Southern heritage”??
Mr. Garrett:
I think a person could reverie their ancestors and not be a racist, but that doesn’t mean their ancestors weren’t racists whose symbol is the Rebel Flag.
JM
Just trying to find someone who can tell me if my subscription is still valid. I very much want your magazine but am unable to track expiration dates, etc. It has been a while since I received a copy. Thanks.
P.O. Box 59
or
2733 Southern Hills Court
North Garden, VA 22959
White people in every one of the western countries are under stress from The New World Order, multi culturalism and diversity.
Emma Lazuraus, a Jewish woman, wrote the poem that is on the Statue of Liberty about welcoming everyone to our shores. Our forefathers never believed in diversity and since they owned slaves they never considered that this nation would be anything but Anglo Saxon.
Then Jacob Javits, a Jew, along with Jewish groups changed our immigration laws so that we get immigrants from places other than Western Europe.
Javits did this not because it was good for America but because it was good for Jews so that they didn’t stand out as a minority.
Symbols and remembering history hold us together and allow us to have patriotism and be a country. naturally those who run the government with their money don’t want us to be one nation which considers our own interests.
A more diabolical way then diversity to destroy Anglo Saxon religion and culture could not be devised.
We don’t have a nation any longer and that makes it easy to force Globalization upon us. The Brits are already leaving Great Britian because of immigrants.
“But then again, who cares what you think.”
Amen! Who Cares!!!!!
Actually I am not so sure this is a bad idea.
Once we have stopped involving ourselves in Wars Crimes and have put the last few shameful years of toadying to the USA in its Wars of Aggression for profit and politics, behind us; we should maybe think about turning our back on what we were and try and regain some sort of self respect again. This Hubris, which is substituted for Self Respect in the USA, doesn’t sit well with Aussies. There was a time we were liked, trusted and respected throughout the world. This is no more and traveling on an Australian passport is not as fun as it once was even if with our strong dollar it is cheaper.
By the way. A flag is a piece of cloth. A symbol and like all symbols if it is given too much prominence then it tends to overshadow the thing for which it symbolizes, often to the detriment of that thing.
Look at what runaway nationalism and hubris does to a country, see Germany in 1939, or America in 2008. The insanity that derives from worshiping a piece of cloth and substituting loyalty to a concept, which is what the Australian way, or spirit is,, soon loses sight of the concept.
It isn’t a country or a political system or a piece of cloth we respect and desire to protect people, it is the Australian way. That of honesty, fairness, good humor, acceptance. Most of all I think we like to think of our attitude to fairness. The Australian belief in a fair go, is what makes us such awesome fighters as well as such easy to live with, world citizens. Just as the Americans have forgotten what made them great, The Constitution, and have now begun to devolve into a nation of beasts, we too will do the same if we lose sight of what makes us Aussies, a commitment to a fair go for everybody.
God knows people, it was the one and only real message of One Nation and only a few of us got it then. Where the hell are we going with this? We are making enemies by default, all through Asia. We have just been locked out of the South East Asian economic forum which is being formed, due to our behaviour alongside the USA. What good does that do us? we don’t rely on trade with the USA.
SE Asia is OUR backyard. The day we need US military assistance, THEY WON’T EVEN BE ABLE TO AFFORD THE FUEL TO GET HERE!
These days as we take on the mantle of “deputy” to the land of hubris and greed, we have begun to put up flags all over the place, like never before. We have begun to spout of with the same sort of manifest destiny comments that are common to yanks and we have begun to do anything but allow a fair go for the peoples we are helping to subjugate. This country sucks, it has become a shithole of arrogance and flag humping stupidity the last few years.
Frankly I think it is about time Labour came along and started dismantling some of this right wing flag humping aggressive bigoted fervor for conflict. we need to pull our heads in. Stand up and stop cow towing to this farcical War on Terror. It is a big joke. MORE people die from BEE STINGS every year, in the world than die from terrorism, apart from the US and Israeli terror, which does get up in the hundreds of thousands of victims.
This is the sort of common sense which was once endemic to Aussies. Most of you, those who cannot see these self evident truths are less Australian than me and those who can see it anyway, so frankly our views on flags mean more anyway, than a bunch of pseudo yanks, with Aussie accents..
I just realised this is an American site. I guess my comments probably won’t see the light of day then? Here’s hoping anyway, because you mob needed to hear that anyway.
My apologies for the lack of faitht, well done for posting. Cheers.
Are you dead or just gutless? I see after all they are all still awaiting moderation.
hmm. Chicken livers?
Of course Mississippi adopted their state flag in 1894. it seemed only right after they had instituted poll taxes and literacy test (1890) to disenfranchise black voters. Why not show their true colors ?
I beg to differ with Bill Bowers. Being from Leesburg Ga. as a Life long resident, I can tell you that prior to 1956 Georgia’s Flag incorperated the First National flag of the CSA. As a matter of fact that is the flag they reverted back to after that hideious looking banner (Barnes Flag) that they developed to appease the NAACP.
I find it funny that those idiots can”t or don’t realize that this to is a Confederate symbol.I guess you would have to read a History book to figure that out. by supporting the real reasons for the war and our realatives that fought it, does not make you a racist.
I am currently living in Wisconsin and I fly ALL of the confederate banners in order.Most people don’t even reconize any flag other than the battle flag. I was once asked if I was from texas!!! We were flying the bonnie blue in the front yard. You gotta love these Yankees.Must be the cheese