Don't take this the wrong way but massed flags make me shudder. Whether they were Islamic State pennants fluttering from battered old Toyotas, Trump flags on the backs of bloated American pick-up trucks, Palestinian or Israeli flags on Australian streets or our own ensigns co-opted for anti-immigration rallies, en masse I've always found them aggressive and unsettling, with more than a hint of militarism about them.

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In the grand sweep of human history, flags are relatively new. While the oldest known approximation of a flag, the bronze Derafsh of Shahdad dating from 2400 BCE Iran, is believed to have been a religious standard addressed to the goddess of rain, flags since then have always had military overtones.

The Zhou Dynasty Chinese used them to rally their troops in battle under symbols of dragons and tigers. Likewise, the Romans with their cloth vexillum, which were reprised as standards by the Nazis in the 1930s. Seeing the silk pennants of their Muslim foe, the crusaders adopted similar banners for their own fighters to rally under.

National flags are even newer concepts. Denmark's Dannebrog flag is thought to be the oldest, dating from 1370. The UK only adopted the Union Jack - the combined St George's Cross (England), St Andrew's Cross (Scotland) and St Patrick's Cross (Ireland) in 1801. But it wasn't until an act of parliament in 1908 that the Union Jack was officially declared the national flag. Australia adopted our flag in 1908 but it wasn't until the 1953 Flags Act that it became official.

Until Pauline Hanson's arrival on the political scene, I hadn't really taken much notice of our flag, certainly hadn't bought into debates over whether it should be changed. But something shifted when the flag, meant to unify us, was employed to divide.

After the Cronulla riot erupted in 2005, led by drunken thugs draped in the national flag, our symbol of unity morphed into one of menace. If ever there was a desecration it was on that booze-fuelled December day.

I wonder if newly minted One Nation mouthpiece Barnaby Joyce would include the Cronulla rioters in his push for tough laws banning desecration of our flag. Or if........

© Canberra Times