Alright I'm aware this is a whole wall of text but for those interested in the issue, here's my final thoughts and we don't agree it's fine to disagree
@rizzo
- There's a fairly significant difference between a flag that symbolizes equality and respect and a flag that was flown over a country in a time where roughly
millions of people were systematically killed.
How is that in any way comparable? Just because it causes controversy? Nah.
This has nothing to do with personal politics.
I just gave my reasons why i think they were comparable. Both are flags, both are political symbols. Both do draw controversy and are associated with negative things in the eyes of some. That's a fact. To add to that point: you can't just wave the pride flag in the country Dan and Phil are in because it is considered propaganda for homosexuality and it has been used to silence and oppress lgbt activists in Russia.
So, it's all about (personal) politics. Have you seen a lot of evangelical voters waving lgbt flags? Ask them about their opinion about the lgbt flag, and i'll bet some will see it a personal political statement to wave it. Just because a lot of people in the fandom support lgbt rights and are happy to wave the lgbt flag doesn't mean it's political and symbolic nature is not there. I have never said the message is the same.
- Re: The bolded bit. We can go in circles about this, because it appears you're having your own selective moral outcry about people being offended by this flag.
I do, the people raising a point about the flag are not the only persons who can be offended or have moral objections. I don't know if it's that selective though because so far I haven't really ever seen an issue come up relating to Dan and Phil that I feel the fandom at large hasn't blown out of proportion. Let me put in bold where i disagree.
The point is that the flag represents a moment in history people don't want to celebrate.
Well, that's not true as a general statement, as has been raised by someone on this page of the thread before. Many vets and older people in Russia celebrate the flag as a positive symbol. So do others outside Russia, be it that they are minorities. I personally don't celebrate the soviet flag at all, and I don't like to celebrate flags in general. But put as a general truth that is just false.
This isn't about the communist symbol. They're different things.
Again you want to state this as fact to arrive at the point that this flags needs to be some evil, insensitive symbol very different from the symbols you like but that statement just isn't true. As said before, the soviet flag often gets used to defend certain political thought systems too, by people who see it as a symbol of communism first or who like or defend certain aspects of the flag without the atrocities of the Soviet leadership
which it also represents
And this isn't an internet thing. There are older people who don't want to see that flag. People living today whose relatives were murdered under that flag. Are you going to tell them they're not allowed to be offended by it just because you don't think it's worth being offended over?
Anybody is free to get offended about anything and i'm going to tell nobody what they are(n't) allowed to do. When I say the soviet flag is part of "internet culture" i'm not saying there aren't older people or people who have been murdered under that flag who don't like to see it. I was talking about how the soviet flag and many other symbols of communism often pop up in memes. Most of the times, the underlying message is quite critical of the assumptions made in communism or is used nonsensical as absurd humor, as is typical for a lot of memes.
Frankly, I think it's perfectly reasonable to want Dan and Phil to maybe avoid posing with something so representative of genocide. And I came into this thinking the opposite and having a personal connection to it.
Well, that's your perfectly reasonable right of course. I just put the flag on the same footing as many other flags.
You know some other flags that remind me of genocide? The US flag, which they drape around their bodies in a pinof video and didn't seem to draw the same ire. Why is that?
The genocide of the
Native Americans is only one of
many genocides you can link to that flag, death count many millions. Or here's an interesting one: the intervention of US troops in the Russian civil war featuring the Red armies against the reactionary whites and ... US troops fighting under the good ol' stars and stripes. Besides cutting off the grain supply in Murmansk, aiding in the starvation of many million Russians, historians agree it did little except cost thousands of additional lives and prolong a bloody civil war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War
If we want to limit ourselves to D&P tour destinations, we shouldn't forget to be offended by the genocide of more than 3 million people in the Philippine–American War. Not that the flag of the Philippines can't be associated with atrocities: a list of the killing of civilians and burning down of muslim villages is just a google search away.
Or here's another interesting flag: the flag of the republic of Liberia. Styled very much after the US flag - it also has a blue star and the red-white stripes. That shouldn't be to surprising given that Liberia was basically established by the US government, as a way to -depending on your views- get free blacks out of the South if you supported slavery or give them a better chance to build a future on the shores of Africa, if you were an abolitionist. That's some colorful history, so pick your evil: is the Liberian flag a symbol of slavery or would you rather associate it with the many genocides that were happening in the modern Liberia of the nineties?
"In the United States, there was a movement to resettle free-born blacks and freed slaves who faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement, and the denial of civil, religious and social privileges in the United States.[17] Most whites and later a small cadre of black nationalists believed that blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S.[8] The American Colonization Society was founded in 1816 in Washington, DC for this purpose, by a group of prominent politicians and slaveholders. But its membership grew to include mostly people who supported abolition of slavery. Slaveholders wanted to get free people of color out of the South, where they were thought to threaten the stability of the slave societies. Some abolitionists collaborated on relocation of free blacks, as they were discouraged by racial discrimination against them in the North and believed they would never be accepted in the larger society.[18] Most blacks, who were native-born by this time, wanted to work toward justice in the United States rather than emigrate.[8] Leading activists in the North strongly opposed the ACS, but some free blacks were ready to try a different environment."
Before you think i'm just out to get the US flag, here's some of the many other flags that represent terrible genocides.
If we're going to play the number game, we probably should condemn the Spanish flag first, since they are pretty much responsible for bringing the whole population in Central America to the brink of extinction. The Chinese have a rich national history of starving their own population or eradicating 'unwanted' populations. Mao is well known for the atrocities during his "cultural revolution", but really Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists were just as barbaric, butchering strikers in Shanghai and mercilessly flooding hundreds of thousands of their own population. And they have their own flag, the flag of Taiwan - or is that the flag of China? Depends on who you ask. Symbol of oppression to mainland China, symbol of freedom to Taiwan.
I could go on for a whole while but really,
it's hard to find a flag that isn't representing genocide in the eyes of some All flags are drenched in blood. However, they tend to represent more positive things to. Ideals, a sense of community, a political ideology. What's crystal clear to me though - and what any historian will say- is that the meaning we attach to flags is
wholy dependent on personal politics and perspective.
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This could all be resolved if Dan and Phil just avoided posing with any symbolism they aren't educated on or are unfamiliar with. it's as simple as that. LGBTQ flag? They probably know plenty and are happy to take a pic. Soviet flag? Not... not so much. Nobody here is denouncing Dan and Phil or assuming they mean anything by this. It's also been noted that the girl did this to cause a bit of controversy (mission accomplished).
So, what this comes down to is a suggestion to reconsider how they approach certain props.
I don't know why you think Dan and Phil are not knowledgeable of the Soviet flag but it's unlikely. They normally would have been taught about the flag and the USSR in school. Probably more objectively so than in US schools i might add, since school books don't get censored and politicized in the UK they way they get in the US. School boards vetting content about the civil war or evolution? Not something that's a common practice in the UK to my knowledge.
Dan is fairly interested in politics and well versed in (communist themed- memes) so really why do we insist that they must have not understood what this symbol meant? They posed with it and they didn't really seem get offended much so seems to me they just didn't find it objectionable the way some do.
Rather than assume their ignorance to protect their innocence, I find it perfectly reasonable to put this in perspective, take into account their intent and see the picture for what it is : a fan wanting to make a joke with them.
The atrocities of the USSR are many and their victims deserving of consideration, but that's not done by elevating the USSR flag to so special category of 'evil'. If Dan and Phil were waving the USSR flag with the intent to minimize the crimes of the soviet regime, i'd be shocked and outraged. This has nothing to do with that though, so I'd like to reserve my offense for the ongoing crimes of the current regime, regardless of flags.
Quiff 
