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by elemenopy 3925 days ago
That's ridiculous and not at all analogous. The British Empire is not without its faults, but countries such as New Zealand were enthusiastic British subjects for decades. The Third Reich enjoyed few French supporters and only for a few years at that. (Having said that, I don't entirely agree with the 'melting pot' comparison either.)
2 comments
vacri 3925 days ago
Ah. We're moving the goalposts from "a quarter of the earth's surface" back down to "the country of New Zealand". Gotcha. And if length of time spent is the deciding factor, why isn't a Maori design used, given that the Maori have been there since the 13th century? Given that the Maori managed to fight the world's superpower to a standstill over that land, I'd count that as 'enthusiastic' as well.

I'm not shitting on the UK and it's age of empire. I'm saying that the Union Jack is no longer relevant for (most of) the countries that have it in their canton. The argument of "Hey, the UK used to own a lot of places a long time ago, NZ included!" is a pretty weak reason to keep the jack on the flag. Kiwis should have a flag that represents them - all of them - without a section that refers to an obsolete political structure from the literal other side of the planet.

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elemenopy 3925 days ago
Look, I agree that the union jack is a poor representation of NZ, and that it should probably be changed, and that it's unfair to represent a colonial legacy and little else, including Maori culture.

But the analogy to the Third Reich just doesn't work. Some countries didn't hesitate to throw off British imperialism - but the white majority of Canada, Australia, NZ and other Commonwealth countries valued their British identity. That never occurred under Nazism, because German colonists never really existed, and certainly never formed a majority.

Including the union jack on the NZ flag is bad, but it's utterly incomparable to including the swastika flag on the French Tricolore.

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lern_too_spel 3925 days ago
Bringing up countries formed by British descendants as examples of how the British Empire was harmless is like saying that countries such as Austria and Czechoslovakia were enthusiastic German subjects. What does that have to do with the majority that weren't?
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