I don't see why we need flags for sport, anyway..do any other countries have them?

Why fix something that isn't broken? The current flag is good anyways!

Did some googling: "Zedong became a Buddhist, venerating a bronze statue of the Buddha, but abandoned this faith in his mid-teenage years"

Dogmatic Marxists sought the end of religion and imperialism did they not? No doubt that a form of aggressive atheism exists though if that's what you're questioning.

All Marxists are atheists afro and so was Mao. When I went to Beijing quite a few of their ancient temples had been destroyed and I went to see one buddhist monastery which had been protected from Mao by Communist Party red tape apparently. I'm not sure how if I'm honest.

Really guys?
To me, this and the republican debate, are the most pointless posssible in Australian politics, neither have any real effect on anything.

All good, London is so populated lol.

Edited by aussie4ever4: 27/1/2013 07:15:34 PM

Yeah, you could probably interpret it that way. I guess my memory of the article was a bit hazy. This isn't the original article I read...I read something from The Observer, but it's a similar article.


Edited by afromanGT: 27/1/2013 07:15:51 PM

I thought that it was all other ethnic groups together now have a higher populace then white british in London.

=d> =d> =d>

I always thought Mao was raised a Buddhist. :?

Oh really? I thought he was driven by Atheism.

All British are slave driving imperialists and we should remove any trace of them from our history. - Notorganic

Funny, it's kind of what Chairman Mao was thinking when he obliterated his nation's historical artefacts. This was widely regarded as a bad move.

Yeah, those two things exclusively. Australia has been nothing but genocide and imperialism.


:-s

"Imperialism and genocide made our nation great" - AfromanGT

We're so determined to show the world how progressive and ready for 'change' we are, we're destroying what made our nation great in the first place.

Countries change, but that doesn't mean that everything that identifies them has to. For the first time ever, London has a higher populace that identifies themselves as "black british" rather than "white british", but you don't see them changing the Union Jack.

This would be the only new flag I'd support

Personally, I don't care in the slightest that Australia was colonised by convicts. Both sides of my family came here on their own accord a few generations back (Mum has done a shit load of research with her sister) so it doesn't even apply to me ;)

Straya kent leave it a'lon

Not entirely true. Cheap gin was huge in poorer areas of London and the result was a huge amount of petty crime. Having said that, yes, most crimes which warranted transportation were property offences. I'm pretty sure Irish convicts would have been most likely to be in the position you've described due to the Irish famine. There's a song about it I think, low lie the fields of athenry.

I still like seeing Australians tie themselves in knots when the subject is raised. "The clever ones got themselves sent to Australia" is one response I've heard. Hmmmm...

Honestly, as a pommie, you just don't bring it up because Australians (or at least Gold Coasters who are mainly thick as arseholes anyway), despite this apparent love of banter, get really offended by it. We get the flak for all the ills of the world, you lot get offended when people tell you that your great, great grandad was a convict.

Regardless, I don't see the point in a change of flag or the idea of republicanism. It's a waste of time, money and thinking which should be better used on the current crop of problems facing this country.

Rev is right, when we're talking about a nation's heritage: let history be history. Don't walk away from it.

=d> =d>

Terrible idea to change the flag, for sporting events or for good.

Can we please keep some traditional culture/values, not just change for the sake of change? Some (or most, depending what you believe) is still good, valid and worthwhile.

Like it or not, our country was founded by the British, yes the Aboriginals were here first but it was the British who made our continent into a recognised country, our political and legal systems are derived from the British, we speak English and much of our modern culture is derived in some way from British society.

Obviously our society has evolved significantly since we were first settled by the British, multiculturalism has come in and evolved our society as well, etc etc etc, but at the end of the day the republicans can never whitewash our history. The Union Jack is a nod to our past, which is what a country's flag is meant to be anyway, tens of thousands of diggers have died under that flag, it's a non-issue for the vast majority of the population, so just get on with it people!

How about we worry about the real issues for fuck sake!


Edited by RJL25: 27/1/2013 10:55:10 AM

Not to mention that most of them were convicted for the pettiest of the petty, such as stealing a bread roll to feed their kids :lol:

I like it.

that flag is hideous

Why would you change the flag because it "doesn't represent Australian values" to another flag which only represents a small cross-section of Australian society?

If we are going to ever change the flag, just make it the Aboriginal flag, it'd make sense, and it's logical.

I'm quite happy with our national flag and don't have any cultural cringe about the Union Jack being a significant part of it, and English is only a very small part of my heritage (I'd argue I'm about one sixteenth English, and that's a long way back - I'm also a mix of about three or four other very geographically and cultrally dispersed countries). I am happy our flag quite clearly represents a part of our history and without the English, and indeed other British heritage, we'd be an entirely different country, socially, economically, politically, legally etc. Maybe we'd be better, maybe we'd be worse, but the fact is our British history and many of the things we have inherited from that particular country is nothing to be ashamed of and indeed is something to celebrate. Sure, there are aspects of the British link that aren't the best, but that would have been the case if we had been brought into modernity by any other colonial power of the 18th century, whether that be the French, Dutch, Spanish or others.

:-k

I say we compromise, make the union jack green and gold and piss off all parties.