300. Why Flags are Complicated

Some of you might recognize the clip art I placed above these words, but I'm guessing not everyone reading this has the same reaction to seeing the American flag. In some locations, this symbol stands for one set of values where in other situations, people use it to support the exactly opposite ideals. In my time working at Hotchkiss, the school has had two major flag kerfuffles. I'm guessing there might have been other knock-downs about the American flag, but the flag incidents in my time have not concerned our own national flag.

I won't talk about the incident that happened years ago involving the Tibetan flag except to say that the resolution, both a student-made documentary movie and a new division of flag placements in the dining hall, was interesting to everyone involved.

It is the most recent flag-driven moment that got me thinking about the multiple meanings of flags. Last spring, a tenth-grade photo project required students to create a propaganda poster. Students studied a topic of their choosing and had to create an image that pushed an agenda through a combination of strong images and words. Two children decided to make anti-war images connected to the current crisis in the Middle East. One of the students put Israeli and Palestinian flags side-by-side and added the words, "This is not freedom" to the center. Another student used only a Palestinian flag and a man calling for a ceasefire to portray this message. A Jewish student who didn't like the one-flag image taped an Israeli flag on the wall next to the poster. Within twenty-four hours, someone had ripped the Israeli flag from the wall and taken it away.

Rather than delineate all of the big feelings that ensued, I'm going to skip to my realization about flags in general and the Israeli flag in particular. I believe that the Israeli flag means support of three distinct things (in no particular order).

• The idea that Jewish people have a right to a homeland
• The Israeli government's actions
• Judaism in general

What I realized after the pandemonium that ensued after the putting up and taking down of the Israeli flag next to the poster with the Palestinian flag is that people who think of the flag in one of the ways above can fail to see how it could mean either of the other ideas.

We all get so stuck in our own ways of seeing the world that we sometimes have a hard time understanding that other perspectives are possible. Have you ever caught yourself seeing only one point of view in an instance when multiple beliefs make sense? Please share your thoughts in the comments.