Rowde Parish Council Takes on The Kremlin!

What in the wonderful world of fudge cake is going on here? Aside the appalling attention to primary school grammar, have you ever read such a bizarre Facebook post from a Wiltshire parish council?! Seems like either Rowde Parish Council’s Facebook page has been highjacked by a lone Councillor eager to battle ze Ruskies, Rocky Balboa-style, or the entire council are out to lunch!

It stems from one villager, questioning why the Ukraine flag is flying from their village flagpost, when other invaded country’s flags have not been given the same honour. The opinion comes across rather wonky, I agree this much, only so much space on a flagpole, and in this era where everything sensationised hinges on this one conflict, and refugees of other nations are being shown the door to make way for Ukraine ones instead. When, of course we support the Ukraine refugees and of course we sympathise with their predicament, as we should anyone from any country which has faced such atrocities.

But, this is a tiny Wiltshire village, why has its parish council gone all Tony Blair on us, and taken on the world’s problems when it exists to deliver on local issues, and local issues only?

Would it not have surfficed to just explain to the disgrunted villager the flag is there to show support for the Ukraine refugees, as it should be, and get on with processing farmer Barleymow’s application for a new barn roof, rather than start flaffing on about international politics and picking a side in a conflict which is clearly not as cut and dry as it’s made out to be?

Suggesting the Ukraine was invaded “without provocation” is not only questionable, but is unnecessarily stating which side of the fence a supposedly impartial parish council is on the issue, when there’s no valid reason to cast assertions or get involved at all; that’s the lunacy of the shebang, without regards to the consequences.

Did Putin not threaten to act if we waged retaliation for his invasion? Admittedly he might not be sauntering down Marsh Lane,
browsing Rowde All About It Facebook page, and Russians wouldn’t attack our county anywa….hold on, just got to sneeze… ahhhh-skripallll!…sorry about that, where was I?

Ah yes, it’s a concerning bandwagon to enforce an entire village to jump on, what with a prime minister who willingly handed top secret Nato documents to ex-KGB lieutenant-colonel, Alexander Lebedev, without his security detail or Foreign Office officials, at the height of the Skripal poisoning crisis, hand his son a lifetime peerage in the House of Lords, and still deny Russian money laundering through Londongrad funded Brexit and the Conservative election campaigns despite the Pandora Papers revealling irrefutable evidence it did, because, take a breather…. none of it has anything to do with the day-to-day runnings of a Wiltshire village!

So, a poll is added to the local Facebook group in which 86% said they’re happy to keep the flag flying. All’s fair in love and democracy, I agree with the outcome, but comments flare in a witch hunt for the person who questioned it, calling them a “bully” and the poll even has the option to vote that they’re “unpleasant trouble,” of which a remarkable 1% voted for; could that be our Rocky?! Cue, Eye of the Tiger….

It’s all gone a bit pitchforks at dawn in a sleepy village, in a country of free speech, like a poor man’s reenactment of a Simpsons cartoon.

Forgive me for suggesting it’s neither here nor there for a parish council to involve themselves with international politics, but it does raise a valid point. Rather like Christians wearing a symbolic cross when it’s likely to be the worst symbol Jesus would wish to see if he returned, if I’d been lucky enough to have claimed asylum from escaping a war-torn country, I’d favour facing my new life with a clean sheet, archiving the bad memories, and wouldn’t wish to see the flag of the troubled nation I’d just come from, not in favour for honesty and respect from those around me. But that’s subjective and ill-conceived, thankfully never having to have been in that situation.

In order to fully assess whether flying the Ukraine flag is welcomed by the refugees parhaps actually asking the refugees themselves might be a solution; just a thought. Otherwise, this is isn’t Rowde at all, but Bizarro World!

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