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Dear John, please don't change the flag

This column was originally published on the 16th of August, 2013, following the National Party Conference where the Prime Minister raised the issue of changing the national flag.

Asked to change one thing in this country overnight, Our Dear Leader didn’t elect to reverse the growing disparity between rich and poor, or the woeful lack of power granted to the parole boards of our justice system, or the criminal underfunding of our state schools, or a parliamentary rule that allows unelected MPs to hold office.

No, if there’s one thing he could change in this ‘50% Pure’ nation of ours, it would be the damn flag.

Let’s look at our current banner. One half is the Southern Cross: a nod to our geographic location as the “arsehole of the world” (as Keith Richards once put it). The other is a nod to our colonial past and monarchical present – a symbol of the Union we begrudgingly hold on to.

The PM’s alternative is no better – that infamous silver fern motif on an imposing black background famously worn by the All Blacks and other teams – and I’d like to explain why:

Aside from the obvious objection to mimicking the pitch-black canvas of the Jolly Roger, Islamic Jihad, Nazi surrender, and international anarchist movements, we have a serious issue with patriotism.

It doesn’t come easily to our small island nation, and there’s something quite sinister in our apathy towards this place in the world. The opening stanzas of Steve Braunias’ book Civilisation: Twenty Places at the Edge of the World notes this with incredible insight, juxtaposing desperate solidarity with an almighty shrug of the collective shoulder.

‘The country was broke,” he writes. “It drank at home and read Dan Brown. Its bum looked big. McDonald’s registered record sales…It bought Christmas presents at the $2 Shop…There was a change of government and nothing changed. Ordinary people living in ordinary homes bringing up the kids and bringing in the washing, getting on with the uncelebrated business of being New Zealanders in an economic slump…In limbo, it stuck its head in, passed the Home Brand salt and watched Fair Go. It said, ‘Whatevs.’”

Unless, of course, it relates to sport, hence Our Dear Leader’s apparent desire to burn the black-and-silver on to our foreheads at birth.

We scream and we cheer. We create demigods from the raw materials of reasonably competent athletes, and lay the praise – supposedly from a nation united under the banner of international sport – at their feet. And to what end? A sponsorship deal? So we can say that they’re world champions over and over again?

It’s troubling for those of us who consider most sport, particularly the Herculean activities that we’re so prolific in, to be a barbaric waste of time and effort. Believe it or not, there’s a decent swathe of the population who barely register the occurrence of a test match, or an international tour.

Our lives simply trundle on without such obstructions and distractions.

Let’s not forget for one moment that sportsmen are there to entertain us, and nothing more.

To transform a symbol of sport into a symbol for a nation is ham-handed and ignorant of a culture that exists far outside arenas, stadiums, sports bars, and philistine-ish popular culture.

Yes, the fern has become a symbol for New Zealanders over the last few decades, but it has no defined place in our history, and certainly isn’t an all-encompassing tribute to achievement or accomplishment.

In the same breath, the fern isn’t representative of this nation’s Maori heritage either. The infamous koru that adorns the tail of every Air New Zealand aircraft is tasteful and decent – but the airline is getting rid of that too.

A change of flag is pointless pending our transformation into a republic. Until then, we’re going to have to make do with the old red-white-and-blue. It looks too similar to the Australian flag, references a bloody and desperate colonial past, and contains no Maori symbolism whatsoever.

But it’s ours, after all. And it will do just fine for the time being.

Follow James on Twitter: @James_ARobins