Burning Patriotism

The Egyptian cabinet has passed interim president Adly Mansour's new law that states "ridiculing the Egyptian flag and not standing in respect when the national anthem is played in public is a crime punishable by a maximum of six months imprisonment and/or five thousand pounds fine." So if the Egyptian national anthem is playing around you by co-incidence, you can't just sort of sit there aloof, playing Candy Crush or the government will in fact crush you. Also, if you burn the Egyptian flag, you're going to jail for six months with a big fine.

We do wonder what happens if you ridicule the law about Egyptian flags itself, though. For example, if we said right now that international flag desecration laws show absolute hypocrisy against the democracy and freedom of speech most of these nations theorise about themselves. Or if we said laws like this further polarise nations from one another and the people from their government. IF we said all that, would we get fined?

It could be worse, we suppose. In France, outraging the French national anthem or the French flag is liable for a fine of 7,500 Euros and six months imprisonment if performed in a gathering. You know, because if there's people around, it's well embarrassing for the president. In protest of this ridiculous ultra-nationalism, and in honour of our great tradition of self-desecration, we are burning the CairoScene flag!