For most of the 20th century, the buying, flying and waving of flags was not really a mainstream Australian “thing”.
Big crowds flocked to see and greet “Liz & Phil”, but most hands were empty, or waving streamers rather than national flags.
In photos, flag-wavers “stood out” precisely because they were the exception…and because flag-wavers liked to be at the front of the pack.
(click here for a raft of illustrative images)
In 2025-vintage Australia, “the royals” no longer loom large in our collective consciousness, but Australian flags – albeit, UK-accented ones, still – have never been “bigger”.
All photos were taken yesterday, as brightly-flat Australia Day sunshine illuminated a veritable “orgy” of flag-flying.
Flag-flying “orgies” make me nervous.
Generally, flags become ever-more-ubiquitous as a nation becomes more repressive, autocratic, jingoistic, intolerant.
Q: Invariably, what behaviour is shared by dictators and demagogues who seek to subvert or to overthrow democratic governance?
A: They “wrap themselves” in the national flag…or in a more disturbing, “alternative” national flag.
A perverted, xenophobic “patriotism” is such rogues’ first resort.
More than a handful of the enormous number of boats in Mandjar Bay on the afternoon of 26 January 2025 flew two kinds of flag.
With a single exception, all were of the same two kinds.
(the exception’s second flag was an Australian Red Ensign – as flown by Australian-registered merchant ships)
We saw just one vessel fly a different, single flag.
Immediately beside the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre was the only such evident example of three different flags fluttering, together,
My unease was quite possibly irrational, unwarranted.
Overwhelmingly, evident mood and behaviour were celebratory, friendly, relaxed.
We witnessed no displays of prejudice, jingoism or bullying.
No flyer of any flag exhibited ill-will to any non-flyer, nor to the flyer of a different flag.
On our way home to Perth, many of our fellow passengers were patriotically clad and/or “flagged”.
Not one of them expressed the slightest hostility to persons who were not likewise-clad or “flagged”.
”Happy Australia Day” was oft-uttered, but never aggressively, nor was it said only by or to persons of obviously “Caucasian” ancestry.
So, notwithstanding my unease with “flag-waving” (and my wish that Australians would/could agree on a different date for our national day, and that Australia had an Australian head of state and an actually-Australian, distinctive national flag) we had a very enjoyable afternoon.
We witnessed absolutely no nastiness, and even the “flaggiest” folks’ behaviour was consistently relaxed and genial.
…and as you’ll see in chapter two of this little diversion from the ongoing “Grand sands” series, much of what made “Oz Day in Mandurah” so generally-pleasurable had precisely nothing to do with flags or “political issues”.
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