There are two complaints about New Zealand’s present flag. One is that it is insufficiently distinctive and too easily mistaken for Australia’s. The other is that it fails to represent us. With the Union Jack taking a quarter of its space, the flag gives an inaccurate picture of New Zealand as it is today.
As we assess the forty long-listed designs for a new flag, solving the first problem should be easy. We just need a flag—any flag—that does not look like anyone else’s. Addressing the second complaint, however, forces us to confront the difficult question of what it would mean for a flag truly to represent New Zealand as it is now. What is New Zealand? What is New Zealand’s story?
The assumption behind these questions is that there is something informative to say about what New Zealanders have in common and what makes New Zealand special—but is there? When we try to say what we have in common, we tend to mention things that do not really distinguish us from people elsewhere. New Zealanders value togetherness and love nature, but who doesn’t? New Zealand has mountains and sea and forests, and from here you can see the Southern Cross, but several other countries can say the same.
Conversely, when we try to say what makes us special, we tend to mention things that not all New Zealanders share. Many New Zealanders love rugby and tramping, but many do not. Māori culture is unique to New Zealand, and it is a part of the lives of many of us—but by no means all of us. Many New Zealanders have never seen a kiwi and rarely see a sheep. It is difficult to say what separates us from the rest of the world without being exclusive.
This, of course, is a difficulty for all talk about national character and distinctiveness. Modern countries are home to millions of people living all kinds of lives, and countries have long and complicated histories, containing all the best and worst of humanity within them. The task of constructing a distinctive but accurate picture of a country—still less a picture that can be translated into a simple design on a piece of cloth—is truly, in the philosophical sense of the word, absurd.
Successful national flags look nice, and they look distinctive, and they do not need to go further than that. Their significance as national symbols can come after they are adopted, not before. The red maple leaf does not say anything about Canada, except that it has maple trees. There is no intrinsic reason why France should be represented by vertical stripes of red, white, and blue.
Which of the forty candidate designs best captures the essence of New Zealand? Which says who we really are? What version of our history, character, and landscape does each design promote? Whom does each design exclude, and whom does each design insult? A conversation built around questions like these will be both interminable and ugly, and there will be no acceptable solution to be found.
If instead, we make it a conversation about which design looks the nicest, then the process can have an ending, and disagreements need not be taken personally. The flag’s symbolic significance can develop slowly over time, and can be available to any New Zealander, now and in the future.
Be wary of flag designs that try to capture New Zealand’s “true” character. Be wary of designs that try to make one New Zealand story the official New Zealand story. When you make your choice about which design to support, I suggest that you avoid all thoughts about which flag offers the best picture of us, or of you. Choose the flag that looks the nicest while saying the least.