Kuala Lampur, Sept. 8 -- There's a smell to fear when it stalks a neighbourhood. It isn't always gunpowder or petrol bombs. Sometimes it's vinegar-soaked chips from the corner chippy, gone cold in a greasy paper bag carried by men who march with the St George's Cross. A flag that, to some, means football and cheap lager; to others, a symbol that says: you don't belong here.

The red cross on white cloth has always carried more than patriotic cheer. Its origins lie in the Crusades of the twelfth century, when European armies painted it on their shields as they laid siege to Jerusalem. Richard the Lionheart carried it. By the fourteenth century, it had become England's national banner. From the very start, it symbolised conquest and exclusi...