What's your favourite Luxembourg's flag?

Tik Tak · Post by **Tik Tak** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:17 am

I found out that recently in Luxembourg there's been some debate around their national flag, as many people use and prefer the official ensign for ships registered in Luxembourg, the Red Lion. You can read more about this on Wikipedia and on the official website of the Luxembourgian government.

Le Conseil est revenu à ses discussions du 27 avril concernant la proposition de loi N°5617 du député Michel Wolter (CSV) portant modification de la loi du 23 juin 1972 sur les emblèmes nationaux, telle qu’elle a été modifiée, pour confirmer la décision prise à cette occasion, à savoir qu’il estime que le drapeau tricolore doit garder son statut de drapeau national, mais que sur le territoire du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg l’emblème au Lion Rouge pourra être utilisé au même titre que le drapeau tricolore.

Perhaps if some day EBT gets a Luxembourgish translation it should be associated to the Red Lion flag, to avoid confusion with the Dutch flag. What do you think?

Finally the flags:

diogocanilho · Post by **diogocanilho** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 1:01 pm

Tik Tak wrote:Perhaps if some day EBT gets a Luxembourgish translation it should be associated to the Red Lion flag, to avoid confusion with the Dutch flag. What do you think?

Nice controversy!
I allways thought that was curious that NL and Luxembourgish Flag were so similar... Nowadays (for me) it's easier because the "blues" are different, but in the past was hard for me to find it out!
I think that this new Luxembourgish flag could be a good thing to make a difference in the two flags and improve Luxembourgish patriotic feeling.

Dakkus · Post by **Dakkus** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:34 pm

Why on Earth would someone want to /improve/ patriotic feeling? Isn't it the better the less patriotism there is?

knospe · Post by **knospe** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:10 pm

Why do some people want to make war?

I think you can name for either question 1000 answers.

diogocanilho · Post by **diogocanilho** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:32 pm

Dakkus wrote:Why on Earth would someone want to /improve/ patriotic feeling? Isn't it the better the less patriotism there is?

Reading the article that Tik Tak put in the first post, you can read: On October 5, 2006, MP Michel Wolter introduced a legislative proposition [1] to replace the current red-white-blue national flag with the red lion ensign. He argued that the current flag was commonly confused with that of the Netherlands and that the red lion on the other hand was more popular, more aesthetic and of greater historic value. Wolter also claimed he had personally discussed the matter with some three hundred people, most of whom expressed their support for his initiative..
Luxembourg as a litlle country needs to preserve it's own differences among his big neighbours. And a flag can be a symbol of national pride.
Now, there's nothing wrong with it (in my modest oppinion)...
A flag can be a symbol of national union. For example, I don't know if you noticed in the Euro 2004 that took place in Portugal, portuguese people enjoy our selection victories with the portuguese flag (we lost in the Finals, but the example was cool)

Tik Tak · Post by **Tik Tak** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:38 am

Dakkus wrote:Why on Earth would someone want to /improve/ patriotic feeling? Isn't it the better the less patriotism there is?

I've never been to Luxembourg, but as far as I know too much patriotism is far from being a problem there.. In fact I believe it's the EU country where more people feel more european then national (it's in some eurobarometer...).

Speaking in general terms, I also think that patriotism is more often a problem, then a virtue. But it all depends on what we regard as being patriotic or not..

Taking diogo's example, I tend to disagree a bit. Portuguese patriotism is in general too much superficial and non consequent, it's all about soccer... But in general we are always complaining about the country and doing little on our own to improve it...

So patriotism doesn't have to be something just symbolic, or worse, something xenophobic, it can even be ecological. Preserving the country's natural treasures or consuming mainly local products, it's both ecological and patriotic

Dakkus · Post by **Dakkus** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:15 pm

Well.. Protecting natural treasures at all is very important. Usually people are mostly interested in what they see around them, so they mostly protect what they see. Therefore, I wouldn't really call that patriotism.
And eating local food is indeed good for ecology. However, it is far too often that I see someone from Helsinki say: "I will not eat Estonian cheese, because I don't want food to be brought from far away". And then they go and by an alternative that is made some 800km away from Helsinki, although even the southernmost part of Estonia is only some 250km away from Helsinki...
In such case I officially consider the person an idiot in that matter.

Tik Tak · Post by **Tik Tak** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:44 pm

Dakkus wrote:I officially consider the person an idiot in that matter.

You're right of course.

What I was trying to say is that sometimes patriotism, the healthy kind, can work as fuel to make people do good things for their communities. Whenever patriotism starts to be a fuel for rejecting anything foreign it's just xenophobia.

On other words, patriotism doesn't have to be an exclusive flag for the far-right, in fact it's dangerous when that happens. It's possible to promote different kinds of patriotic messages, and on different levels. For instance, a bit of Europatriotism would do wonders to the EU, I believe...

eddydevries · Post by **eddydevries** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:18 am

Tik Tak wrote:Perhaps if some day EBT gets a Luxembourgish translation it should be associated to the Red Lion flag, to avoid confusion with the Dutch flag. What do you think?

Finally the flags:

I think, the "new" flag reminds me of the flag of the dutch province of Zeeland:

tabbs · Post by **tabbs** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:50 pm

Also, as the Wikipedia article points out, the Belgian province of Luxembourg already uses a similar CoA and flag.

Christian

nickzy · Post by **nickzy** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:01 pm

The actual one, red-white-blue

Tik Tak · Post by **Tik Tak** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:20 am

nickzy wrote:The actual one, red-white-blue

So I'm guessing people in the Netherlands don't mind the usual confusion between the 2 flags. Well, Luxembourg is the one that usually passes as being the Netherlands.. so it's probably more upsetting for them..

I liked the Red Lion flag for being so distinctive, I think it would be better for Luxembourg. The confusion with the regional flags it's much less likely, specially outside Benelux.

JP Simões · Post by **JP Simões** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:35 am

Tik Tak wrote:So I'm guessing people in the Netherlands don't mind the usual confusion between the 2 flags. Well, Luxembourg is the one that usually passes as being the Netherlands.. so it's probably more upsetting for them..

Somehow the flag of Bydgoszcz, among others, seems to be similar to those two.

ART · Post by **ART** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:02 am

The actual one.

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