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Change Union Jack Flag To Reflect Multiracial Society
Edited
Britain's national flag - the union jack - has been given the makeover treatment, in the hope of reflecting a more modern society. Now moves are afoot to redesign that most sacred of British hallmarks - the union flag. A campaign is being launched to modernise the red, white and blue flag by adding a touch of black to reflect multicultural Britain in the 21st Century.
And how about brown to represent Indians and Pakistanis and yellow to represent ... well to represent George Galloway!
The proposed new flag is the work of Nigel Turner, an enthusiastic fan of the UK's transformation into a multiracial society over the past 50 years. Mr Turner has contacted MPs about his new design and has already received the backing of Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, who called it a "fantastic idea [for] celebrating diversity of the modern United Kingdom".
How about a white banner with a brown splotch in the middle to represent shitheads like Lord Ahmed?
Mr Turner, who has called his campaign Reflag, believes his plan would reclaim the union jack from its negative associations, and silence that old skinhead chant: "There ain't no black in the union jack."
Would it make them literate, too?
"If I flew the union jack from a flagpole in my garden, many people would see it as a racist statement," he says.
Well then Mr. Turner, I would suggest you move so that you are not surrounded by such ignorant and intolerant people.
Says a lot more about the goobers who're so easily offended than it does about the flag. Makes me think of Nelson and Wellington and Churchill, not what color I am or the people down the block are. On the other hand, if the people down the block were wearing turbans and waving guns, it might remind me that people didn't used to do that sort of nonsense.
"I'm a glass half-full, rather than half-empty sort of person. It's time we made a positive statement about the progression of a multicultural and multiracial society."
Evidently, Mr. Turner is also a head half-full kind of guy, as well.
Mr Turner, 46, who is white, hopes to spark a debate on the flag. He would like to see a new design replace the current union jack for the flag's 400th anniversary in 2006. "The proposed design does not mean throwing out all that has gone before, and it is clearly recognisable as the flag of the UK without saying something new." But as makeovers go, even a designer as thick-skinned as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would think twice about treading into such perilous territory. The so-called "union black" has already raised the ire of the Scottish. Tuesday's Scotsman newspaper said Mr Turner had "missed the point".
Is that the way Scots call someone a nut?
"The United Kingdom is not a firm which changes its corporate branding each time the management alters. The flag is an enduring symbol of unity which transcends politics and absorbs cultural change."
Well said.
MSP Phil Gallie told the Scottish Parliament: "The suggestion that our flag should be redesigned is ridiculous tokenism and would do nothing to stamp out racism."
Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-06-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=15337