Check Republic

So Croatia has made it to the World Cup semi-finals. Good for them; I don’t have a connection to them, other than a Croatian community in KW, but it’s always good to see a country punch above their weight.

But watching them today, I found myself wondering: how did they come to own the checkerboard? They’ve kind of made it their thing. It’s on their uniforms — however subtly — and their flag, and their crest. They’ve decided that it is their symbol. Talk about punching above your weight: there are only so many patterns in the world, and they’ve decided to claim one of the basic ones.

I know, every country has its symbols. But a lot of the time, it’s something rare or unique. Here in Canada, we put the maple leaf on everything, but that’s something that you only get here or in the northern United States. There’s no one off in Burkina Faso who’s feeling cheated because they wanted to use it as their symbol.

It’s a wonder more countries don’t try this. Like why hasn’t anyone claimed polka dots? That might look weird, but you’d be distinctive. Surely that would be worth it to someone who doesn’t get a lot of the world’s attention. If you’re, say, Paraguay, you might figure it would be worth it to look a little ridiculous if it means that people think of you when they see polka dots.

I guess a few countries have just grabbed basic things as their symbol. Like Japan has taken the sun. Yes, there are lots of other countries that have the sun on their flag, but Japan just took it as their whole national identity. We’re the land of the rising sun. Yes, we know the sun rises everywhere, but we’re just going to put in on our flag and make it our nickname.

Now that I think about this, it could work. There are about 200 independent countries in the world, so I’m sure you could find 200 basic patterns and common elements that everyone could find one. Sure, Croatia acted first and grabbed checkerboards, but someone else can have lines. Okay, that’s too much like stripes, and everyone has stripes. How about wavy lines? Laos, do you want wavy lines? Papua New Guinea, you can have dotted-lines.

And someone could take clouds. They don’t have the life-giving worship-inspiring importance of the sun, but they are pretty universal. They could be like, we’re Estonia, and we’re the land of clouds. We re-drew the flag with a cloud on it, so now, when you look into the sky, you’ll think of us. Or Japan, depends what kind of day it is.