Are state
symbols sacrosanct, or is it okay to alter them to create art or to make a
political point? Is the flag that Rafa
designed a good way to help Roma assert their identity as both Roma and Czech? Do
you agree that the crackdown on Broz and others for displaying this flag is
motivated by racism? How would you react
to a Slovak-Romani flag?
Saturday, February 5, 2022
Flying his own flag
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I looked up the law that the article was referring to, it’s something along the lines “if someone misuses, grossly dishonors, destroys, damages or alienates the state symbol they’re committing an offense” (alienates is a weird translation, but there’s no exact translation of that word that would fit into that context) and it also claimed that a person can get fined up to 30,000 CZK for violating them, so miro got off quite easy with only 1,000 CZK fine.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite common knowledge that there are strict laws when it comes to the use of state symbols. So even if he had a good cause, he should have been more careful with drawing stuff over a state symbol. Just like you don’t just remix an anthem, even if it’s for the sake of art.
I fully support his cause but I believe that what happened to him is mostly his responsibility and if I were in his place I wouldn’t mess with state symbols. And this also draws more attention to him, which is usually a good thing if you’re an activist, so I guess that there is a silver lining.
I definitely would not call the Czech-Romani flag “inspired” by the Czech flag. It’s literally just the flag with the symbol slapped onto it. And also the Liberian example doesn’t really work here, because we are comparing a flag of a state to something that a guy flew from his balcony. You probably won’t achieve much by sending a SWAT team to arrest a country.
ReplyDeleteThey could have fined him much more than they did.
But it’s true that sometimes we are not equal under the law. Especially when the law is stated very vaguely like in this case. Racism could have been a factor in this, but he was taking a risk. It is never a good idea to mess with a state symbol, that much is common sense.