Zebras of Anxiety
With thanks to the ever readable Matt M and this post of his, I am reminded that I meant to do a post on the article by Joseph Harker in the Guardian:
"Flutters of anxiety - flag waving patriotism before the World Cup is fair enough, but is the BNP secretly smirking?"
"I've been looking at the drivers of these flag-waving vehicles, and - OK, I admit this isn't exactly scientific - half of them are in white vans, and the rest are white, male, tattooed, pot-bellied 35 to 55-years-olds: exactly the type I've been seeing on TV for the past month complaining about "our houses going to the asylum seekers", or that "we're losing control of our country". I can't tell if these drivers come from Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP gained 11 seats, but that borough is just a short drive from where I live, so who knows?"
After first reading this article Scribbles did concur that there were lots of flags for sale well before the England team got within sight of a pumpernickel. Since then I've been doing my own unscientific test and made a point of noticing who was flying the flags on the cars in my area. What I have invariably found is that most of them are flown on private cars, a lot are on vans, most drivers are Asian, a fair few are white, a handful have been black. Age, i'd say 25-45.
From this extensive research I conclude thus:
One. I think those people who make flags are canny so-and-sos. They must have realised there was a World Cup on this summer and deliberately went out to make as much money as possible by getting their flags in the shops as soon as they thought they could get away with it.
Two. People might be flying the flag of England because they too realised there was a World Cup this summer, and have sort to get into the spirit of the thing by flying it in support of the England team. Just like everyone else, in every single other country that's taking part, is flying their own flag.
"I've been looking at the drivers of these flag-waving vehicles, and - OK, I admit this isn't exactly scientific - half of them are in white vans, and the rest are white, male, tattooed, pot-bellied 35 to 55-years-olds: exactly the type I've been seeing on TV for the past month complaining about "our houses going to the asylum seekers", or that "we're losing control of our country". I can't tell if these drivers come from Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP gained 11 seats, but that borough is just a short drive from where I live, so who knows?"
After first reading this article Scribbles did concur that there were lots of flags for sale well before the England team got within sight of a pumpernickel. Since then I've been doing my own unscientific test and made a point of noticing who was flying the flags on the cars in my area. What I have invariably found is that most of them are flown on private cars, a lot are on vans, most drivers are Asian, a fair few are white, a handful have been black. Age, i'd say 25-45.
From this extensive research I conclude thus:
One. I think those people who make flags are canny so-and-sos. They must have realised there was a World Cup on this summer and deliberately went out to make as much money as possible by getting their flags in the shops as soon as they thought they could get away with it.
Two. People might be flying the flag of England because they too realised there was a World Cup this summer, and have sort to get into the spirit of the thing by flying it in support of the England team. Just like everyone else, in every single other country that's taking part, is flying their own flag.
So there you go. I can hear hoofbeats, but i'm thinking horses, not zebras. Radical.
2 comments:
Thanks for the mention.
There's been an incredible amount of rubbish written about the sudden appearance of England flags everywhere. Harker’s article says a lot more about his view of the English than about the English view of others.
To me it's just another example of the Crazy-frog phenomenon, where strange ideas catch-on and spread like wildfire for little or no apparent reason. Based on my own, also unscientific, research it looks like most people are putting flags out because, well... everyone else is doing it.
(There's also the small matter of the World Cup as you point out)
Most of the people I know flying the flag are about a million miles away from your typical BNP-supporter. A lot voted for either Labour or the Lib Dems.
It's one of those white liberal things of taking a grain of truth and trying to bake a whole cake with it (I just made that metaphor up, I'm quite pleased with it).
Those neighbours I have to say so much about. They've got England flags all over the front of their house, which as a white family some white liberal with his "half-baked" ideas (wahooo, I'm flying) might see as a provocation to our mostly Sikh neighbours. All but that I happen to know the lad of the house is an absolute football nut. And they are the type of family to string all sorts of shit on their house. You ought to see it at Christmas.
I do wonder Joseph Harker and his ilk ever think of the law of unintended consequences when they spout this stuff. Or whether they consider that they might not actually be being offensive.
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