I’m a little baffled by something I saw during a recent visit to New Zealand, and while there’s no way anyone here could have an answer, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Driving on the Otago Peninsula, we passed a bunch of trucks of road work crews, one of which had a very large American Confederate flag (battle flag) hanging in it.
Why?
There’s no “southern heritage” there - and I can’t imagine that it would be allowed to be displayed in a public works truck as a symbol of white supremacy.
It’s not uncommon to see flags across the back window of trucks. Most are local with the next most common being the US stars and stripes.
Most people here don’t know the history of the Confederate flag. Our only exposure to it is by watching “Dukes of Hazard”. It was only when I became a member here that I found out how reviled it’s considered.
Because we get American TV shows and someone thought the flag was cool?
We have American immigrants and some of them are proud of their heritage?
It was used in an ironic manner by Maori or Pacific Island persons on the team?
Road works are done by private companies on contract and have very few restrictions placed on their appearance (not a question, you saw a private road contractor).
I’d go for the first as most likely, with a dash of Siam Sam’s answer - it’s ‘south’ and it’s a highly visible flag (you want to be visible when working on the roads). There’d unlikely be much more thought in it than that. If there was more to it, I’d think The Dukes of Hazzard before white supremacy.
I used to live in Dunedin. My entire family heritage comes from the Otago Peninsula.
We don’t know anything about American civil wars. I learned most of what I know of US history in the last ten years, from exposure online. I don’t think I even know in which wars the COnfederate flag was represented.
Aside from that, we never got to see anything anywhere that explained it - and why would we, it has not even a tangential connection to our lives in NZ.
You see those flags here too in trucks. It’s considered by some part of being a trucker I think, general Americana without the political/historical context. Think punks wearing Union Jacks in California. Those flags are used on some beef burger packaging too I’m nearly certain.
It’s pretty context-neutral here, at least politically or racially: most people would simply associate it with a packaged “rebel” image a la bikers, rockers or bogans.
I grew up in Christchurch and my experience differs from yours, but I’ve always been interested in Military History so I wouldn’t call myself typical in that regard.
I will say that the Confederate Flag carries absolutely no baggage whatsoever in NZ- to most people it’s what was painted on the roof of the General Lee in The Dukes of Hazzard- so if someone was displaying it, it was likely a play on “South” (as in, South Island) combined with “Because it looks cool!”, and maybe a small element of “And we like to go hunting in our spare time” (it’s a popular activity in the South Island- there are so many bunnies in parts of the Mackenzie Country you can fire a shotgun into the side of any hill you can see, without aiming, and be guaranteed to hit at least one of the little buggers), with maybe an element of “And we like to fix up old beefy cars too”. All perfectly above board and inoffensive, at least in NZ.
There aren’t a huge number of non-white people in the South Island, either, and most of the minorites are Maori, Pacific Islander, or Asian- not African American (I don’t ever recall seeing an actual black person before I visited the US for the first time when I was about 13). So, in short, there’s no-one to be offended by the flag, which- as has been mentioned- is not a “White Pride” symbol in NZ (That’s what Swastikas and Nazi Flags are for) anyway.
So: Someone displaying Confederate Flag= Likes the Dukes of Hazzard/Hunting/Muscle Cars. Someone displaying Nazi Flag= Probably has nice things to say about Hitler (with the exception of the usual “Built the Autobahns” thing, of course).
We went to a very small gun range in Rotorua when we visited New Zealand 10 years ago. It was next to a luge track. The guy running it displayed all kinds of pro-gun signs of the “from my cold dead hands” variety. I thought to myself, “Wow, New Zealand has an NRA!”
The most unexpected thing I saw in NZ was the graffiti. I guess it was gang graffiti, I don’t know. But everywhere you turned, if there was a flat vertical surface, there was a decent chance there would be graffiti on it. Even on private property. Homeowners love to put wood fences in front of their houses (another odd thing about NZ). And sure enough, some of it’s covered in graffiti. I even saw it on garage doors. And it wasn’t just in the city. In fact, I believe it was more prevalent in the suburbs than in downtown Auckland.
FYI we only had one (give us a little bit of credit!)
The only Civil War we had, 1861-1865. North won, South (with the distinctive flag) lost, slaves were freed. President Abraham Lincoln was assasinated right at the end.
In our trip to NZ, I noticed many homes had a tall, wood fence installed around the perimeter. You couldn’t see the house from the street - just the fence. I thought this was peculiar. It is not common in the U.S.
