In quite a few countries in the world, particularly in Northern Europe and the USA, flying the national flag in front of your house is very popular. Romanians on the other hand are not flag enthusiasts. Last year the Romanian president asked Romanians to display the flag on balconies on the day of the national holiday but even with that occasion I didn’t see many of them. I believe that there are Romanians which own a flag because I see them surfacing every time our national football team wins some important game and people gather in the University Square to party. But we are probably very far from countries like Norway where, as I read on the web, according to a recent survey only 6 percent of the people sampled reported that they do not posses a national flag. For these reasons I was very surprised to see a few flags being flown in downtown Bucharest in what looked like private apartments. And they seem to be there permanently because I passed them quite a few times in the last month.
Sep 192009
You perfectly described the situation here, flags are usually out only for football match. Anyone showing the flag everyday could pass for a fanatic nationalist. I do not own an Italian flag, but don't like this way of thinking anyway.
I am torn when it comes to national flag enthusiasm. Flags usually stand for patriotism, mostly nonreflective. The smartest commentary regarding patriotism and flags I can think of right now is a quote by Albert Einstein: "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism–how passionately I hate them!"