On my early morning walk to the gym, I have to walk past my former employer, the University of Hull. This week I glanced over the road to see yet another virtue signal, literally, hoisted up the flagpole. The Ukrainian flag. I have previously written in these pages on another piece of flag-waving from the university when they were flying the rainbow colours of the LGBT+ movement. The other evening in nearby Beverley, a veritable hot bed of middle class indignation, the shopping centre was festooned for about 100 metres with Christmas style lights, except that they were in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Someone in the dangly light business spotted a gap in the market. Presumably they are hoping another war will come along soon and, with any luck, the flag will be a tricolour and none of the colours are blue and yellow.
Am I being cynical? Maybe, but I am most definitely being sceptical as I just cannot fathom what is behind this rash of Ukrainian flag waving. I have no idea, other than self-puffery and keeping up with the rest of the chattering classes, what this is meant to achieve. Frankly, I think we have taken leave of our senses. Since when have we been so partisan in a war in which we are not (at least not yet) directly involved? How many Yemeni or Tibetan flags do we fly? And did we fly the Afghan flag when the Russians invaded and took control there? What Putin has done is wrong, of course, but having the moral certainty that Ukraine is as white as the driven snow and Putin has no justifiable concerns regarding his neighbour (I have no idea, but I am sure my flag-waving neighbours don’t either) is facile. Consequently, flying a particular flag is vacuous.
Understanding Putin’s ultimate and even ulterior motives are beyond me. Likewise, I am neither convinced nor unconvinced whether Ukraine has biological weapons laboratories (I don’t take the BBC fact check to the contrary as conclusive evidence). However, it seems to be an anathema to suggest that they do but I seem to recall that we invaded Iraq on the pretence that they did, without a shred of evidence (sustained as it happens) and then proceeded to destroy that country. It has not yet recovered. By all accounts there are no war criminals in this country.
As we saw in the pandemic, it is so easy to start something but rarely easy to stop it. I see something similar with the Ukrainian flag waving. It is very doubtful that Ukraine will win this war unless, heaven forbid, we are willing to put boots and materiel combined on the ground there. If they are crushed, as is very likely the longer they are egged on by comedian turned military genius and soon to be martyred President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, then will we fly the Ukrainian flag forever in sympathy? If they win—which is very unlikely—will we fly the Ukrainian flag forever in triumph? In the remote event that they invade Russia, will we start flying Russian flags? And, on a similar note, what if someone in this country happens to support Russia, for example a Russian perhaps, and wants to show their support by flying a Russian flag now? I don’t wish to suggest that all Russians living in Britain support the invasion, but Russians of either persuasion must be feeling very uncomfortable here just now.
We seem to have turned, almost overnight and presumably as a result of mainstream media coverage, into an extremely Russophobic country with the government making no attempt to limit the excesses to which people who feel, unquestioningly, that they have virtue on their side will go. Thus a local school in Warrington was forced, at the behest of neighbours, to stop allowing the teaching of Russian culture to Russian children at weekends and a Russian tennis player may be forced to denounce Putin in order to be allowed to play at Wimbledon. For goodness’s sake, the first group are only children, do we want them to hate Britain forever? Surely, we should rise above this even if Russia bans the BBC. And what chances does the Russian tennis player have of retaining his grip on this mortal coil if he denounces Putin and then returns to a Russia led by Putin?
Perhaps I shouldn’t get so worked up about the Ukrainian flag flying. After all my sympathy for the ordinary people of Ukraine is profound. I hope we all do what we can at any level to lessen their suffering, and get the displaced Ukrainians back to Ukraine. On the other hand, I really would like to know what it is the flag fliers are doing it for, why they are doing this now, what they think it will achieve and whether they have considered any of the negative consequences. I should get out more, but that’s when I see those flags!
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
