In my travels around the world I have noticed that every country has it own way of raising their national flag, and I thought it might be fun to have a brief look at some of them here. Not to make any special points about the sense or nonsense of the idea of national flags or any such thing, merely because some of the ways it is done are downright funny to watch, and other boring, and a few, a very few, deeply impressive.
In order to show you these variations, I have plundered the vaults of Youtube (Oh I so love Youtube!!!) and found some superb examples of the differing approaches to this simply, but apparently very important ceremony.
So here goes.
First we have the extremely low key approach apparently adopted in the USA. March up to the flag pole, unfold the flag, tie it on, pull it up and go home for a cup of coffee….
Next we have a video showing how the Mexicans go about raising their national flag. This is a very impressive affair. To start with they seem to have probably the largest flag in the world, it is gigantic, and is brought on-stage rolled up so it looks like an enormous anaconda, carried by a number of military cops.
We are also treated to a range of demonstrations of how silly the world’s military is when it comes to ways of walking about. Makes the Monty Python Ministry of Silly walks seem tame and dull by comparison. Here we have “normal” marching, a sort of economy sized goose step and also a sort of jerky and happily syncopated slightly stiff legged marching. And all of this to the accompaniment of a death march beat on the snare drums.
OZTHOUGHTS 