5 February 2020
I've a confession to make: I have bought a flagpole to sit on my own little "One Tree Hill" smack in front of my Wellington house.
I've no qualms about bowling the "tree" - it's not even a native but a fading yucca which has not been able to withstand the furious gales that buffet and shake my creaky house.
But I don't want to fly the New Zealand flag: too boring; uninspiring; redolent of colonialism - times spent locked inside a classroom in the searing Blenheim heat being taught British history and learning about the world from an atlas where Britain's domains (including us) were coloured pink.
Not our own full New Zealand history with its wars and conflicts and history of Maori grievances ...
Nor civics. Something which is still not taught in our schools with any degree of vigour and verve, binding our children into a shared sense of what it means to be a New Zealander.
Our flag, the Union flag with its stars of our Southern Cross, does not stir the blood.
It is not a potent emotional symbol like America's Stars and Stripes, instantly recognised within the United States and abroad.
That flag stirs the blood because it does represent the coming of nationhood through the rebellion of the original 13 American colonies against Britain, symbolised by 13 equal horizontal stripes of red and white, and 50 small white stars that represent the number of US states.
Who did not feel an emotional response in seeing televised images of the Stars and Stripes erected amidst the ruins of the Twin Towers after September 11? I certainly did and again when I travelled soon after within the US and saw flags flying outside ordinary folks' homes.
It symbolised patriotism and a confidence that the US would withstand Al Qaeda's terrorism.
Our flag is too much like Australia's.
But a national flag should represent a coming of age.
We have not even begun to debate our future. Our politicians - including a Prime Minister who has spent much of his working life "in the world" - are extraordinarily lacking in courage when it comes to setting a nation on an independent path.
I value British ideals. But today's New Zealand is more Maori, more Pacific and increasingly more Asian.
The new flag I want to fly should be bold, confident, with lots of red - the colour that sharpens the senses and inspires action.
Not simply black: We already have too much black. Men in black. All Blacks. Silver Ferns.
A curling frond does not speak of boldness.
In raising the tino rangatiratanga flag alongside the boring official New Zealand ensign in public places tomorrow, we're halfway to solving our flag problem.
All we then have to do, is fold up the old flag at the end of the day and send it back to the British admirals from whom we borrowed it all those years ago.
We'd be left with the classiest new flag in the world. I'm not fussed that it's not brand new. After all, the current one is an adaptation of a British naval flag, one which our Australian neighbours also nicked around the same time, adding a confusingly similar collection of stars in the process.
The tino rangatiratanga flag, in its brief life, has already blossomed from the flag of the Northland Te Kawariki protest group, to a de facto Maori flag which is embraced by all but a few. Having had one transmogrification it should have no problem being reborn yet again, becoming the banner, not just of the Maori nation, but of all New Zealanders.
I'll be honest, my affection for this flag is strictly on a feel-good basis. Whether it's fluttering on a the aerial of a clapped-out ute, or flowing over the heads of a parade of protesters, it's a stirring sight. As a looker, it knocks any other contender out of the ring.
The 1834 "independence" flag which some Northern Maori still cling too, has the same problems as the existing ensign. It's a cast-off from the British Navy with assorted local doodles.
As for the silver fern/feather on a black background that sports fans embrace, in my view, the sports field is the best place for it. Black is the colour of pirates, of war, of conflict.
The tino rangatiratanga flag on the other hand is uniquely of this land. It is not just eye-wateringly good, it also tells a riveting story, a stylised representation of the Maori creation myth, with earth and sky being pushed apart by the central white koru, the whole representing the unfolding of new life.
There's something there for both the big bang brigade and the creationists, and for every Kiwi schooled in this uniquely Pacific lore.
A CONFESSION: the first time I ever came to this country I found three things surprising: I was confounded that so many places had non-English names. I had never heard Maori, let alone associated the people with New Zealand.
Next, I imagined that the strange Union flag ensemble flying off the Harbour Bridge was some kind of naval version of a British flag. Even then, if anyone told me I had to stop to count the stars to tell it apart from its Aussie twin I would have asked what they were smoking. Has this country no consideration for dyslexics?
Finally, perhaps most tragically to some, I would have put money on an ``All-Black'' being a licorice. [Friends had already convinced me that Robert Muldoon was a brand of Scotch.] That is why this country decided to call me a citizen. Once they let me in, Statistics NZ knew there was no place to go but up.
Yes, the New Zealand flag is so far overdue for change I would argue that outside of Australians, the truth is 98 per cent of the world wouldn't have a clue that our current flag represents New Zealand. They'd have to mentally eliminate old British colonies in their head.
Give them a Koru or a Southern Cross of Pineapple Lumps and they'd have a fighting chance.
People often point to the pervasive pride of the US flag in American society but the truth is today's incarnation is one of 27 times that flag has been changed. The earliest American flag designs also had a Union flag in the upper left corner. The current US flag you see only came into existence in 1959, a mere 51 years old today. At age 17, Robert G. Heft submitted it as a school project and got a B-. The point is that the flag grew and evolved as America did. Why shouldn't we, too, honour our continuing national evolution to better reflect not just who we were but who we have become? You don't disparage history by venerating it anew.
Today, this little exercise is asking the wrong question. An argument for modern branding doesn't cut it. This should be a discussion about waking up national apathy. The question should be; what will it take to shake this country into seeing itself anew? If we have to start with a piece of cloth to begin the conversation about moving past our 170-year adolescence into fully expressed independence, bring it on.
THE CANADIANS nailed it, if you ask me. Red leaf on a white square on a red background.
Simple, stylised, effective. As flags go, it's a cracker.
In terms of symbols, the maple is a smart pick; doing double duty invoking landscape and history, as well as having the added attraction of being inclusive and non-controversial.
After all, who'd pick a fight with a leaf? With the maple leaf, the Canadians came up with a simple, visual means of branding their country instantly. A neat and portable way of carrying Canada with them wherever they go. I've seen that flag on a thousand back packs, from Auckland airport, to the beaches of Koh Phangan and I've admired it and recognised it every time.
Contrast that with the New Zealand flag, last seen being confused with its Australian counterpart by everybody from high commissioners to the surfers I saw at Piha last week. There's nothing actually wrong with the national ensign. The only problem is it's so easy to get it mixed up with the one flown by the crowd across the way.
For all the talk of the Anzac spirit, Kiwis and Aussies have very little in common really, beyond the odd upwards inflection, and a shared tendency to tan. So, why fly such a similar flag?
History, not cultural similarity, is the reason you can't tell the two apart. But self definition should be a longer process than the fleeting public spasms that overtake us from time to time over here, and any conversation about changing the flag needs to acknowledge the history invested in the one we have.
Flags aren't simply a branding tool, their symbolism is far more powerful. As a teenager in Ireland, drowning in emotional histories of 1916, my nascent republicanism reached its apogee when I decided I wanted to be buried in the tricolour. Whether or not Pearse, Connelly McDonagh et al would have appreciated my gesture, I'm not sure. I live here now, a long way away from the Dublin GPO, but the sight of my tricolour on a backpack or a uniform or a T-shirt is a powerful reminder of who I am and where I'm from. Kiwis abroad deserve to enjoy that same throb of recognition and pride in their flag, as mine inspires in me, and its history that gives you that, as much as the attractiveness or otherwise of the thing itself.
If a national flag is the symbol of a country, New Zealand is a land of superstars floating in blue soup like wayward bohemians, and that country on the other side of the blue soup, the one with the very straight and regimented ways of doing things, is what keeps us from out-shining them.
Well, we know that's nonsense. We've stopped listening to the Mother Country. Many of our stars are brown. We're emancipated. We're big enough to look after ourselves.
Before we go throwing a big teenage tanty, we have a lot to consider. Who do we think we are to go messing with tradition? Seriously, who do we actually think we are?
Well it's clear we're not Britons-lite, as the Union Jack suggests. When Prince William was here it felt more like a visit from a foreign pop star than a close brush with our heartland.
We are a multi-cultural nation with a proud Maori heritage and the flag doesn't recognise that fact.
We are definitely a nation of stars. Our nine Oscar nominations came about without any help from Britain.
So I suggest that if they want our flag to retain the Union Jack, maybe they should let us through customs without going through all that full-on visa hoopla.
New Zealand has outgrown its flag. We deserve a new one.
But we should proceed with caution. Changing the flag altogether would be a shame.
A flag represents our cultural identity. Our cultural identity comes from acknowledging the past as much as it does the present.
It would make sense to update the flag, adapt it, downsize the Union Jack.
We could do away with the blue soup because everyone knows we're surrounded by it.
I like the idea of a slick black flag although an American punk band and a fly spray brand do spring to mind.
Either way, the old Union Jack is part of our story, the roots of our tree.
It's a shame it's not easily incorporated into the swirls of the koru or the curves of the silver fern.
It is rigid, concerned with regulations and aristocracy. Those aren't things we associate with in wild, arty Aotearoa, with its mountainous landscape and beaches, volcanoes and glaciers.
If only Jack would yield, a suitable flag could fly.
SOME OF you might ask why this matters when there are more important questions facing us. Will it create more jobs? Will it stop the violence in our homes? What difference will a new flag make?
I know I did.
It's not that I like that flag. There's not much to like, unless you have the kind of deep emotional attachment that's often ascribed to our ageing servicemen. (Though, as some have pointed out, those men didn't fight for a flag; they fought for their country, and for each other.) Frankly, I've never had trouble being a proud New Zealander and being utterly indifferent to the flag. But maybe that's the problem.
Mark Twain once quipped that America's ``one true and honest symbol'' was ``the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen''.
If a flag symbolises the spirit and identity of a country, our flag would say this: that we Kiwis still see ourselves as an outpost of Britain, that we're unoriginal and boring, and that we're too apathetic to get rid of our colonial hangovers. (Like God Save The Queen, which is still one of our two official national anthems.)
It might also say that we're Australian, since most of the world can't tell our flags apart. Recall the time the Canadian Government raised the New Zealand flag in honour of Aussie PM Bob Hawke's 1985 visit.
So our flag isn't even fit for purpose: it fails to do the very least that a flag should, which is to clearly and instantly distinguish us from the rest of the pack.
It's time we took a leaf out of the Canadians' book. In 1964, the Canadians ditched their boring red ensign with the Union Jack for the stunningly simple, instantly recognisable (and much loved) Maple Leaf flag. There was, of course, heated debate and a fair bit of indifference and hostility at the time, but 45 years later, no one can remember what all the fuss was about.
As a former Canadian consul writes, the Canadian flag debate was ``an inevitable stage in our national maturation and as an early step in a more fundamental re-definition of our national identity''.
It's time we grew up, too. A new flag is inevitable, a necessary step towards adulthood. It won't necessarily make us more united, but it ought to reflect the best of what we are: a young, dynamic, proudly independent nation in the Pacific, with a distinct identity.
It's never been a question of ``should we change?'', but ``when?'' So what are we waiting for?
There are just two ways, I think, to change a flag. One requires a constitutional catastrophe on the scale of war or popular revolt, in which event more than the flag would change. Another way is simply to design a better one.
Unfortunately, there is nothing simple about it. A design out of the blue would have to be so right, so obviously, sublimely emblematic of us, that just about everybody would say, yes, that's it. Contention would kill it.
It would need to be stunning to supplant the present flag which isn't bad. It niggles me that the Union flag leads Americans to believe we are not quite independent but British colonisation is our founding fact of life, a heritage we share with Australia.
If the flag is confused with Australia's overseas I don't care. We are much the same people, increasingly so. We ought to retain a sovereign state and currency in my view but I like the open border and the mateship.
The only problem with our flags - and it is a fatal one - is that they don't look permanent. They look like insignia of states in transition, which they are. Both countries have been adrift since Britain gave its priority to Europe nearly 40 years ago.
Forty years is a long time to be drifting. We call ourselves a young country but we are not. We will be 170 years old tomorrow, older than most states of the world.
We are the lucky offspring of wise parents who learned from their mistakes in North America and readily gave us independence - more independence than we wanted for a while, but we are well over that now.
They also gave their last antipodean colony a Treaty with native chiefs whose descendants will not allow it to be ignored in any constitutionally symbolic steps the country takes.
A new flag would need to express two national identities. Maori are now well expressed in the banner that will fly alongside the national flag for the first time tomorrow. Its design has everything a flag needs: beauty, simplicity, distinction. But we cannot appropriate it.
We could borrow its koru, unfurl it and put a white fern, not too large, in the middle of a deep blue background. It could look like a lovely sprig of life alone in an ocean.
Run it up your mind's flagpole and see if it works.
The New Zealand Herald
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