"O country, my country,
When the refugees come we'll find out who the 'real' Canadians are... and it has nothing to do with when you or your ancestors got off the boat, eh?"
love Daisy
xxx
The American flag flies high over the university. In the wind the stripes make it look alive, like a fish swimming up a current. In the afternoon sun the colours are bold, vibrant, strong. As it flutters I stand almost hypnotized, taking in the brilliant white stars on the midnight blue. It takes me back to so many happy memories of ball games that I take a moment to drink in the sight. It's my flag, the symbol of my country - not a perfect place, but I'd never want to be anywhere else. Here we have a chance to make the country of our dreams, a country we want our children to live in. So as I watch it move in the brisk spring wind, I smile quietly. "One nation under God," in all our ethnicities, our cultures, our religions, we stand together.
In the wind above my free flowing hair flutters the flag, our flag. It fills my heart just to see the colours. In a strange kind of way I am in love with it, it is me, it is us. It belongs above our schools, our justice system, on foreign aid. It belongs on my home and often on the clothes I wear, jeans, t-shirts and jackets. I wear those clothes frequently, and to church too. So if our flag belongs in all of those places what is it doing on bombs, tanks, weaponry? How can it be in the same places as indiscriminate death? Slaughter? I want our flag to clothe the weak, feed the hungry, give shelter to the lost. I want a flag I can be proud of all the time, not just when I keep my eyes half closed.