Entry 2398, on 2025-05-31 at 18:45:40 (Rating 5, News)
What is worthy of respect and what isn't? I don't think there is a simple, objective answer to this question because what should be respected and what shouldn't depends very much on a person's individual preferences and values, but there are some things which are widely considered to demand respect.
So, does a country's national flag fall into this category?
This is the key question in a controversial issue we recently encountered here in New Zealand. An "art installation" in a Nelson art gallery (a city I am currently visiting) included a New Zealand flag lying on the floor with an invitation to step on it, presumably as a sign of disrespect to show opposition to colonialism the flag represents.
So is this OK? You might be surprised to hear I think it is. I think everything should be open to examination and criticism, and that includes subjects being covered by art, where difficult questions are often explored.
But (you knew there would be a "but" didn't you?) I think this standard should be applied universally. When this subject first appeared in social media, I added a comment where I said I was going to create a artwork with a Maori sovereignty flag and an invitation to spit on it to show disrespect to the more negative elements in Maori culture.
Of course, many people found this highly offensive, but they were the same people who thought standing on the New Zealand flag was OK. This does not appear to demonstrate a lot of consistency in their opinions. Surely if disrespecting one flag is OK, as a form of political art or for any other reason, it must be OK for any other flag as well.
Some people might say that the New Zealand flag, which supposedly represents all the people in the country but is more associated with the modern society introduced by British settlers, is more problematic because it symbolises the repression of Maori culture, but I could make a good case to say the Maori sovereignty flag is a lot worse.
As far as I am aware (I could be wrong, so correct me if I am) Maori had no flags before colonisation, because Maori lived in the stone age and had no fabrics suitable for making flags. So their flag isn't authentic in any way. But that's a minor issue because that flag also represents division of Maori from the rest of the people of the country. And in addition, even if you ignore those two issues, Maori culture was pretty horrendous and that makes the flag horrendous by association.
Why do I say that? Well Maori culture, pre-colonialism, featured the following: a lot of warfare between tribes, cannibalism, slavery, infanticide, and environmental destruction. I agree that British culture at the same time was far from perfect, but it was orders of magnitude better than that. So it seems that spitting on the Maori flag is perfectly justified.
But will that ever happen? No, of course not, because if it did I can imagine the protests and accusations of racism. I should be fair at this point and say that there was some criticism of the current flag artwork, and a person visited regularly and placed the flag in a more suitable place, and it has now been removed.
Maybe a better and more interesting idea might have been to have a "colonial" New Zealand flag and a Maori sovereignty flag and some indication of the pros and cons of the two cultures they represent, and a suggestion of how to indicate support or contempt for the two. It would be interesting to see what sort of responses that might elicit, and it would give people with different perspectives a chance to participate.
Respect is earned, and I think in general Western culture deserves some because it has given us democracy, science, and equality. Maori culture on the other hand, has given us very little of any value. Find me a Maori flag and I will burn it. That's my artistic portrayal of my sincerely held belief. Are we all OK with that?
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