It Is Necessary To Rescue National Symbols from the Extreme Right

In various democracies around the world, radicals have appropriated national flags so as to be able to call dissenting voices enemies of the homeland.

One recent weekend leaving the house to go running in Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo, my wife questioned the choice of my shirt — the shirt of the Brazilian national team. “They will think you are a Bolsominion,”* she warned, reminding me of the pro-government demonstrations predicted for the following day on the Avenida Paulista.

In fact, today one can see a growing tendency toward the appropriation of national symbols by movements of the extreme right as much in Brazil as in other countries. This is part of a sophisticated strategy, because it allows for a supposed division in the population between patriots on one side and enemies of the homeland on the other.

In Finland, for example, to use a shirt stamped with the national symbol, a lion and the cross, was common in the past, but if used today, it is strongly associated with xenophobic groups. Bothered by the extreme right’s control over the symbol, a Finnish design agency a few years ago called for suggestions for an alternative symbol that moderate citizens could use without being confused with radicals of the extreme right. “Extremist groups kidnapped national symbols, and made nationalism into a dirty word, basically robbing all of us of the right to be proud of our country,” explained Karri Knuuttila, one of the principal members of the initiative at that time.

In the United States, President Donald Trump has systematically tried to appropriate the national flag, alleging (incorrectly) that his adversaries avoid using it at events, and that, therefore, they are not patriotic.

In Germany the extreme right party, Alternative for Germany, usually ensures that all its demonstrators carry a German flag, and they accuse other parties of feeling ashamed of national symbols. A video in which Chancellor Angela Merkel takes a small German flag off the stage during the celebration of her victory at the ballots boxes in 2013 has gone viral among groups of the extreme right, and even up until today is mentioned by leaders of the extremist party as proof that Merkel is “anti-German.” The xenophobic and nationalistic German movement called Pegida, allied with AfD, adopts the slogan “patriotism is not a crime,” alleging that the cosmopolitan elites are embarrassed by any national symbol.

In response, however, moderates in many countries fell into the radicals’ trap and ceded the use of national symbols to the extremists — and, with that, they gave up the debate about patriotism. During the last men’s World Cup, the youth wing of the German Green Party came to ask that fans not use the German flag during the games, in large part in response to the AfD marches in Berlin and the Pegida movement. When thousands of Germans filled the streets of Berlin in 2018 to protest the ascension of the extreme right, the organizer of the demonstration, Theresa Hartmann, suggested to the participants that they use rainbow banners and posters with the words, “Refugees are welcome here,” but asked that the protesters not use the German flag, because it would have “a connotation of the right.” According to Hartmann, it was not a demonstration to show national pride. Without meaning to, she gave ammunition to the radicals’ narrative that progressives don’t like to use the flag because they don’t feel pride in their country.

What Hartmann did not understand is that there is no contradiction between, on one side, being in favor of tolerance and welcoming refugees (pillars of the German Constitution), and, on the other, feeling national pride. Episodes like this facilitate the work of the extreme right, and seek to establish a false dichotomy between “true” citizens and those less committed to the nation. In Finland, in place of investing in alternative symbols with little chance of being widely accepted, moderates should rescue national symbols from xenophobic groups.

It is not a question, clearly, of competing with the extremists over who most embraces symbols of the homeland, such as in the U.S., where the decision not to wear an American flag pin on his jacket raised criticism of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, and his loyalty to the nation was questioned. However, at a moment in which nationalistic movements rise with force around the world — in part owing to the fears about the impact of globalization — moderate segments of society must not separate themselves from symbols of patriotism nor pull away from the debate about the role of national identity and patriotism today. To deny any kind of retrograde patriotism and contrast it with modern cosmopolitan thinking is counterproductive because it does not recognize that the nationalist wave has come to stay. With the resulting turbulence of the commercial confrontation between Beijing and Washington, the technological advances which will make thousands of jobs superfluous, the environmental catastrophes and the flow of migration in unprecedented dimensions, appealing to nationalism will be an irresistible temptation to many opportunistic political leaders.

Instead of denying this reality and letting radical nationalists define what patriotism or national identity is, we should involve current moderates in the debates about the subject to help show that “reasonable patriotism,” to use a term coined by the philosopher William Galston, can be positive and perfectly compatible with cosmopolitan concepts, such as being in favor of international cooperation to deal with global challenges, supporting regional integration, combating xenophobia, being in favor of diversity and recognizing and respecting a plurality of opinions in the political process.

Although still a bit apprehensive, I ended up wearing my Brazilian national team shirt that Saturday in Ibirauera Park.

*Translator’s note: A “Bolsominion” is a fan of Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil.