On Calendar dates and Flags. . .

 Yesterday was Canada Day and it rained all day, which seemed appropriate enough. No decent person should have been in the mood for celebrating. 

Oh don't get me wrong: in a world where oligarchs seem more popular than ever, arbitrary detention more arbitrary than ever, due process less due, press freedom less free. . .where race hatred and ethnic conflict and religious wars and civil wars go on and on and on. . . In such a world, there are worse places to be born. 

But that is a matter of sheer dumb luck, and going on like it's one's own personal achievement strikes me as more than a bit pathetic. And as mass graves are being uncovered each day, the unidentified remains of more than a thousand (and counting) children slaughtered by our beloved Fathers of Confederation. . . it would seem not quite the right time to wave flags and blow whistles (to say nothing of setting off bombs). 

To commemorate this much more solemn-than-usual occasion, the Toronto Star published this cartoon 

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorial_cartoon/2021/07/01/theo-moudakis-canada-day-2021.html

 which prompted this idiotic letter to the editor: 

"The Star does not have the right to deface and disrespect Canada's flag" 

Au contraire mon ami! It does. As do you and I. There are no laws in Canada against the desecration of the flag. 

Is it Crime to Burn the Canadian Flag? - Pyzer Criminal Lawyers (torontodefencelawyers.com) 

And thank god for that I say. Freedom of expression becomes pretty meaningless when exceptions are made for arbitrary symbols. I think the health a democracy can be measured inversely to the importance it places on things like flags, songs, and statues. As soon as things are held to be more important that people, or an image more sacred than a person's ability to question, critique, reinterpret, repurpose or think about it, then we have the start of authoritarianism. 

Nor will invoking the war-dead particularly impress me: read any veteran's account of war, and you'll find most of them were fighting to stay alive. Precious few mention flags (which for most of Canada's history wasn't even the Maple Leaf). I'm much more impressed by the idea of fighting for a system that doesn't include subservience to symbols. 

At its best, a flag represents an idea. Do not ever forget that it's the idea that's important, not the cloth. . .