Keep Our Flag Flying!

Keep Our Flag Flying! The Australian flag was born with the creation of Federation at the dawn of the century . A contest resulted in 32,822 entries, seven judges, representing the Army, Navy, Mercantile Marine, Pilot Services, and Parliament, unanimously choosing five equal winning designs . Thus was produced "the flag of stars." The Exhibition Building, Melbourne, was used to display the numerous flag entries, the exhibition being opened on September 3, 1901, by Lady Hopetoun, wife of Australia's first Governor-General, and Australia's first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton . On the building's dome a huge flag of the winning design flew gloriously in a strong south- westerly breeze. The Union Jack reflected the new Federation's historical background, the Southern Cross its place in space, and the large star the six States of the Federation . Here was a flag containing history, heraldry, distinctiveness and beauty . It has flown over 70 years of Australia's history as a nation. Why pull it down? SYMBOLISM, HISTORY AND TRADITION tern Coast of Australia . All the great Australian be asked to stop speaking English, as the use explorers used the Union Jack as the symbol of of this language must surely be as much a their endeavours . The tragic Edward John Eyre sign of their "subservience" as the use of a thought that the special Union Jack presented flag symbol! Rejecting the Union Jack not A flag is a symbol-it speaks for the Nation's This type of criticism is not a manifestation to him by Captain Sturt might bring him good only rejects the nation's history, but it rejects history and soul . The pattern which emerges of maturity, but that of immaturity and shallow- luck . The natives who befriended King, the sole the special symoblism of this flag . The when the flag is unfurled tells of the birth, the ness . It also lacks that logic which its authors survivor of the Burke and Wills disaster, were symbolism of the Union Jack is Christian in growth, the trials, the glories and the hopes of often stress . The famous Roman statesman, given a pound of sugar wrapped in a Union Jack origin . It was first formed in 1606 under James the people who fly it. What does the Australian Cicero observed that "Not to know what hap- the size of a handkerchief . The Australasian I of England by a combination of three Christian flag tell us, when it swells upon the hot wind pened before you were born is always to be a Anti-Transportation League who raised the ban crosses - that of St . George, patron saint of of an Australian summer, or hangs folded in the child." The great Edmund Burke warned that ner of opposition to the British Government's England, a red cross on a white background; stillness of a southern dawn? "People will not look forward to posterity, who policy of continuing to use Australia as a place to that of St . Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, a never look back to their ancestors." Tradition send convicts, kept the Union Jack in their flag, white diagonal cross on a blue background . In Civilisation is impossible without symbols. is not something which can be dismissed as a signifying that it was not a banner of rebellion. 1801 was added the red diagonal cross of St. Words are symbols . If their meaning is cor- "blind clinging to a past which no longer mat- The Australian Federation League, which played Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, a red diagonal rupted, this aids the forces of subversion and ters ." Tradition is the accumulated wisdom of such a vital role last century in working for Fed- cross on a white background . The red cross of social disintegration . Shaking hands is a sym- the past, learned in the long years of a people's eration. kept the Union Jack in their "Australian St. George is still the symbol of the International bolic gesture which originated when most men history . Those who will not learn from the mis- Ensign." Red Cross organisation, a respected symbol of carried swords or daggers ; the open hand was takes of history are doomed to keep on repeating mercy throughout the world . As has been stress- proffered to show it contained no weapon. those mistakes. The individual members of a family inevitably ed even by non-British writers, British constitu- Symbolism gives life a richness it would other- do grow up physically. But a young person of tional and legal developments reflected to a wise lack. An attack on a traditional symbol The Union Jack not only symbolises the truth eighteen does not demonstrate that he or she high degree the Christian concept concerning like a flag is not just an attack on the symbol that the overwhelming majority of the people who has really matured by stating, "Now that I am the uniqueness, and therefore the rights, and itself, but is an attack on what that symbol re- explored, pioneered and developed Australia grown up I must show my independence by tear- duties, of each individual . In the three hundred flects . It is a form of vandalism. were of English, Irish, Scots and Welsh back- ing up my birth certificate and changing my years following the creation of the Union Jack, ground, but that every aspect of social, cultural, name ." Does one demonstrate one's maturity from the British Islands grew the greatest Em- Critics of the Australian flag are all united constitutional, legal and religious life had its by disowning and dishonouring one's forebears? pire the world has ever seen, a new type of against the presence of the Union Jack . This is roots in the United Kingdom . In a geographical What is noble or elevating about this? It is a Empire in which, after the loss of the American the number one target . The following is the sense, it is true to say that Australia is near to manifestation of the intellectual and spiritual sick- colonies, power was progressively decentralised type of statement made by the critics : "We are Asia . But people not only live in space, but in ness afflicting so many who have been cut off wherever colonisation under the Union Jack took now a nation which has come of age. We must time . Asia did not give Australia the concept of from the roots of their own history. Just as a place . There were many blots on the history of stand on our own feet and show the rest of the iimited constitutional Government, the priceless family needs to cherish its antecedents and its this Empire, but its civilising mission was without world that we are truly independent . It is there- heritage of English Common Law, trial by jury, history, so too does that larger family called the parallel in the history of mankind . Law and fore essential that we free ourselves from our and Christian concepts of behaviour . Removing nation need to remember its origins. order was taken to primitive peoples . The Union colonial past. How can we expect other people the Union Jack from the Australian flag would be Those Australians who insist that they wish to Jack internationally was a symbol of that law and to respect us while we use the flag of a foreign about as sensible as tearing several chapters demonstrate their nation's independence by re- order, and justice. nation? Let us show the world a distinctive out of a history book. Cook was flying the Union moving a flag symbol which reminds them of the Australian image ." Jack when he discovered and explored the Eas- nation's roots and history should, of course, It was Lenin who said that the British family . the (Southern) Cross was not defined as a separate constellation until 1679, when French astronomer Augustine Royer published a small astronomical work, Cartes du Ciel. In this he named the Southern Cross, calling it, in Latin, Crux Australis . You may say it's an old piece of bunting, Five stars of varying brightness, make up the constellation, or so it seems to the eye. But the eye sees wrongly . Alpha Crucis, one of the nearest of the five stars, is in reality You may call it an old coloured rag , not one star but two enormous suns - 150 light years away . Some stars of the Southern Cross are even further away . Yet the blazing constellation seems quite close, But Freedom has made it majestic. especially when, away from the glare of city lights, it is part of Clancy's wondrous glory of the ever-lasting stars. And time has enobled the flag ." "And the Cross is close in the hearts of Austialians . Ours is the great South Land of ancient legend ; and the Crux Australis - the Southern Cross - is a glorious feature in our Flag of Stars ." -From old British poem. Frank Cayley in Flag of Stars . Page 2 Page 3 of nations was the great barrier to the establish- War. The first allied flag raised in Singapore ment of a World Communist State . It is not after the Japanese surrender in 1945 was an without significance that at the end of the Second Australian flag made in secret. In two World World War, a war in which the British nations Wars, in Malaya, in Korea and Vietnam, Austra- played a major role, the Union Jack started to lians have fought against totalitarianism under be taken down in many countries, particularly in the symbol of the Australian flag . It is this flag Africa. It was claimed that they wished to show which symbolises Australia's real heritage, which their independence by pulling down a British has been so closely associated with everything symbol .

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