The symbols used to represent something powerful or influential (person, sports team, religion) are often very vulnerable. It is not easy to destroy a country, but to destroy its symbol is not difficult, and first of all it refers to the national flag.
In the United States, the Supreme Court has clearly stated that desecration of a star-striped flag is a right enshrined in the First Amendment. Despite numerous attempts, it was not possible to change this, since the constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of the vote, followed by ratification by at least 38 states. In short, this is unlikely.
The attitude of countries towards the destruction of their national symbol is different. The US example is rather unusual. Most other countries considered progressive have flag desecration laws, which are an amazing mixture of arbitrariness and a desire to quell a legitimate protest.
State flag is a new phenomenon
The concept of a national flag and even a nation arose not so long ago. Nations in the modern sense until the 17-18 centuries did not exist. There were territories, kingdoms, empires, and various other states and geographical entities, but there was no universally accepted concept of statehood with specific borders, governments, and rules for communicating with each other.
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Flags, of course, exist for a very long time, but they were used to communicate or to designate smaller groups - noble families or military units. As state symbols, flags began to appear in the mid-1800s, and some time passed before they became necessary attributes of statehood.
Effective Protest
Since national flags appeared relatively recently, the concept of burning or desecrating them is also new. Earlier, a more common form of protest was burning scarecrows.
In the UK, there has been a tradition for hundreds of years of burning the image of the Pope or the Catholic conspirator-loser Guy Fawkes. The state was personified by its leaders, therefore, in the absence of other symbols, symbolic representations of specific people were burned.
Flags have several advantages over stuffed animals: they are cheaper, easier to purchase, and safer to burn. Flag burning gained popularity in the United States in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, but throughout the world it has long been a simple and effective form of protest against the authorities.
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Governments usually do not want anti-advertising and do not tolerate people who angrily point out their shortcomings. In this sense, the ban on burning the flag does not differ from the active dispersal of a protest rally using tear gas.
Flag Burning Countries
There are other reasons for such laws. Denmark, for example, prohibits the burning of any flag, with one exception - Danish, since the burning of a flag of a foreign state is a provocation that can undermine the status of Denmark in the world community.
Australia is one of the few countries (along with the United States, Canada, and Belgium) that allow flag burning. As in the United States, this did not prevent lawmakers from trying to ban such a protest.
During the riots of 2005, a teenager burned the Australian flag. He was charged and prosecuted, but not for setting fire to the flag, but for the theft and destruction of personal property. Using other laws to prosecute flag arson is common practice: charges include law enforcement, theft, destruction of property, arson, and other crimes.
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