The New Zealand Flag Debate

Flags don’t often make for headline news, but when they do it is usually an emotive and controversial issue.  Acknowledging the necessity for change, and subsequently adapting to such change is challenging enough for individuals, but when this situation is extended to a collective (such as a nation / culture) and it affects that most intimate of human facets, namely identity, the possibility of achieving consensus vanishes entirely.

In March 2014, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key, announced that a referendum will be held on whether to change the national flag.  The current flag of New Zealand is a British blue ensign defaced with four red stars, fimbriated in white, in the fly (symbolising the Southern Cross constellation):

Flags are unparalleled as media of identity.  No other object or concept can more concisely and effectively convey the complex and loaded message that is carried by a flag.  Of course, this message becomes more loaded and meaningful as time progresses.  New Zealand’s current flag has been in use since 1869 and was officially adopted in 1902, meaning it has served as a symbol of identity for 145 years.  Given this supercentennial age, the flag saw service in the numerous foreign conflicts of the 20th century where New Zealand’s soldiers served as part of the British Empire –  including the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of April 1915, where 2,721 New Zealanders were killed in action.  As Don McIver, president of the Returned and Services Association (RSA) of military veterans, notes:

“Thirty-two thousand New Zealanders have given their lives under the flag and many more thousands have served under it in a combat environment.”

In a speech regarding the flag issue, Prime Minister Key remarked that:

” … it’s my belief, and I think one increasingly shared by many New Zealanders, that the design of the New Zealand flag symbolises a colonial and post-colonial era whose time has passed.  The flag remains dominated by the Union Jack in a way that we ourselves are no longer dominated by the United Kingdom.”

The Prime Minister is, indeed, correct.  New Zealand’s flag, like any flag to a greater or lesser extent, belongs to an era past.  However, whereas many states have adopted new flags in order to purge a nation of racial or authoritarian legacies, New Zealand’s colonial relationship with Britain is not one that deserves to be relegated to obscurity for the sake of political expediency.  Many of New Zealand’s most enduring contributions in the international arena (which resulted in freedoms that are today taken for granted) occurred under the auspices of the Empire.  This is a legacy to be proud of – one that is eminently worthy of being commemorated and enshrined as part of a national identity.

Prime Minister Key himself has put forward an alternative design for New Zealand’s proposed new black flag that is dominated by a stylised silver fern.  The fern itself is a version of Cyathea dealbata, a plant that is endemic to the island and is officially represented on the state’s coat of arms.  More popularly, it has become the de facto national symbol of New Zealand through its adoption by national sports teams.

The Coat of Arms of New Zealand. 1956 – present

All Black rugby legend, Colin Meads

 

 

 

 

 

 

The current debate surrounding New Zealand’s flag is in fact only the most recent.  During the course of the last three decades, numerous other designs have been forwarded as possible replacements for the blue ensign, most of which have been chronicled here.  However, the simplistic white on black design appears to represent the closest approximation to consensus at this point.  Below are two interpretations of what such a flag could entail:

The ‘traditional’ silver fern associated with national teams

A highly stylised version of the silver fern

 

Whilst these designs are not heraldrically offensive or otherwise unsuitable, one must wonder whether it is appropriate for a national identity to be so intimately and exclusively associated with sport.  My plea to those proponents of changing the flag would be to consider the entire (that is, past and future) implication of that such a move would entail.  People, even those opposed to the change, will inevitably grow accustomed to a new flag – it takes but one generation this to occur.  But, just as New Zealand has endured and developed to become a preeminent and permanent fixture of the global political order of states, so too its premier national symbol must (above all else) attest to the achievement of that stability, success and steadfast permanency.