As South Africa reckons with history, court restricts its ‘Old Flag’
The flag meant cultural pride. Or it meant hate, pure and simple. It was the icon of a proud history, or a shameful one. It symbolized heritage. It symbolized racism.
Thousands of miles from the American South, the debate that has played out in recent months over whether to restrict the use of South Africa’s apartheid-era national flag has a familiar ring to it.
For the small group supporting the right to display the flag – once the banner of South Africa’s white minority state – the case was about freedom of speech, no matter how offensive. Ban the flag, they argued, and the country’s young democracy would risk limiting
