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Flagging a symbolic burning

By Stephen Hagan - posted Thursday, 23 February 2006


Curry and rice on January 26 sure beats the shrimp-on-the-barbie any day.

After taking advantage of some quality time alone with the children watching videos on yet another uninspiring Australia Day public holiday I waited patiently, after the main cooking preparations were over, for the rice cooker to click and signal the imminence of meal time. If the children had their way they’d open the lid within seconds of that delightfully sounding click but they have been well-versed, in the same manner as my mother-in-law earnestly reminded me when I courted her only daughter, never to release the lid for a good five minutes after the light changes colour.

Sometimes I wonder what the neighbours’ think of the fusion of the delights of Sri Lankan spices (my wife’s mother is Aboriginal and her father is Sri Lankan) and the exotic, if not aromatically challenging, fragrance of blachang (fermented krill). Whatever their reaction, or that of the passing foot traffic of high stepping power-walkers in our quiet suburban street, the predictable curry smell remains a recurring scent on every alternate night.

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With yet another meal consumed in record time and the dishes washed and dried I decided to check out the news headlines on Channel 7 to see if anything exciting had presented itself as a newsworthy story over the past 24 hours. In particular I was hoping that the news flash would place some priority on the “invasion day” protest in Brisbane. My good friend Sam Watson, co-ordinator of the rally and march from Roma Street to Musgrave Park, invited me to speak at the assembly but I unfortunately had to decline as Rhonda (my wife) was away up north on family business.

Not only was the rally in the news bulletin, but it was given top billing. Wayne “Coco” Wharton, a cousin on my mother’s Kooma lineage, was at his media savvy finest, waving his arms about causing a spectacular tossing of his well preserved dreadlocks, while standing over a burning Australian flag. I recognised many prominent Indigenous advocates, including Sam Watson, congregating around the smoking flag as Wayne, as only Wayne could, stared directly into the TV camera lens while articulating his contempt for their flag.

Wayne, like his brother Toffy before him, avoided the piecemeal approach to conflict resolution and told it as it is: that the Australian flag stands for the continued oppression of Indigenous Australians and represents all that is ugly about a Coalition Government committed to minimising expenditure on Indigenous specific programs. The rest - well white Australia and their black sympathisers could decipher it themselves.

Wayne’s inflammatory remarks and spectacular action sparked an instantaneous public outcry, precisely the response a seasoned activist, like him, desires.

Within hours Bill Mason, Queensland President of the RSL, said he would write to politicians to urge them to make it a criminal offence to deface the Australian flag.

John Howard, speaking the following day, said he was offended by the burning of the Australian flag but added it should not be made a criminal offence.

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So what is all the fuss about a burning flag? And how would I react if a non-Indigenous person burnt the Aboriginal flag? To answer these questions I needed to take a journey back in time to look at the origin and significance of the flags.

It is generally accepted that the origin of the humble flag goes back hundreds if not thousands of years, but the exact origin of flags is a matter of dispute. During the Middle Ages, flags were used mainly during battles to identify individual leaders: in Europe the knights; in Japan the samurai; and in China the generals under the imperial army.

From the time of Christopher Columbus onwards, it has been customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to carry flags designating their nationality: these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime of today.

On the home front the Aboriginal flag, designed by Harold Thomas - a Luritja man from Central Australia, consists of a tricoloured rectangle divided in half horizontally, the upper half black and the lower red, with a yellow circle at the centre. The black represents the Aboriginal people, the red - the earth and the people’s spiritual relationship to the land, and the yellow - the sun, the giver of life. The flag was first flown in Adelaide’s Victoria Square in 1971. It was picked from among several others as the symbol of the Tent Embassy in Canberra the next year, and other Aboriginal groups subsequently adopted it.

To the far north in 1992 a Torres Strait Island flag was designed by Bernard Namok, a 15-year-old school student on Thursday Island. It features three horizontal coloured stripes, with green at the top and bottom and blue in between - divided by thin black lines. A white deri (headdress) sits in the centre, with a five-pointed white star underneath it. The green represents the land and the deri is a symbol of all Torres Strait Islanders. The black represents the people and the five-pointed star symbolises the island groups. The white of the star represents peace. The star, used in navigation, is also an important symbol for a seafaring people. The flag stands for the unity and identity of all Torres Strait Islanders.

The Austalian flag was born with the creation of federation at the dawn of the 20th century. An international contest resulted in 32,822 entries - seven judges representing Army, Navy, Mercantile Marine, Pilot Services and Parliament unanimously choosing five identical winning designs. So was produced “the flag of stars”.

The Union Jack reflected the new federation’s historical background, the Southern Cross its place in space, and the large star the six states making up the federation. Here was a flag containing history, heraldry, distinctiveness and beauty. (In 1908 the government decided that a seven-pointed star, symbolic of the six States and the Territories, should replace the large six-pointed star shown in the original design of the flag - to represent the territories and to conform with the Star in the Crest of the Coat of Arms granted that year.)

Would I burn any of these three flags?

Although mindful that the Union Jack, on the national flag, is a constant reminder of the British Empire that was characterised by greed, arrogance and hypocrisy, I feel it would be rather contradictory of me to condone the burning of the Australian flag while I recoil in utter disgust at the very thought of non-Indigenous people torching the Aboriginal flag.

Do I condemn the actions of my cousin Wayne “Coco” Wharton?

No I don’t, because I understand the passion of his ways and its effect in bringing attention to the plight of our people.

And my wish for next year?

I hope the government adopts a more conciliatory approach in addressing Indigenous disadvantage throughout the year so my cousin won’t have a compulsion to repeat his dramatic flag burning effort again. Besides I’d love to host my cousin Wayne for a firey celebration of a curried variety on “invasion day” 2007.

Curry and rice on January 26 sure beats the shrimp-on-the-barbie any day.

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About the Author

Stephen Hagan is Editor of the National Indigenous Times, award winning author, film maker and 2006 NAIDOC Person of the Year.

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