How's this for 'Democracy': US backed Gov picks new flag for Iraq
HERE
Without any sort of puplic referendum, the US chosen and supported 'interim' Government in Iraq has decided that the people and country of Iraq would be better off with a new flag, despite the fact that the old flag predates Saddam.
Copuld you imagine Congress deciding that our flag should be changed without any public say in the matter?!?!?
Not off to a good start, not very democratic.
Without any sort of puplic referendum, the US chosen and supported 'interim' Government in Iraq has decided that the people and country of Iraq would be better off with a new flag, despite the fact that the old flag predates Saddam.
Copuld you imagine Congress deciding that our flag should be changed without any public say in the matter?!?!?
Not off to a good start, not very democratic.
Comments
Because they want Iraq to be a secular, multi-religious democracy . . .
remember that next time a debate about Governmental Raligious pronouncements takes place!!
The answer is that they are an occupied country and not really free to choose.
This was a joke but funnily enough it's not a million miles from the one they actually did choose.
He cites the ap quote:
The new design not only abandons the symbols of Saddam's regime. It also avoids the colors used in other Arab flags: green and black for Islam and red for Arab nationalism.
also
Washington post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Apr26.html
It seems that a big complaint is its similarity to the israeli flag.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
The Baghdad Blogger on the new flag.
The story linked was from almost a year ago, and it describes a completely different flag.
(they're not terrorists mind you, they just want to make the world safe for Theocracy)
(Again, trying to add levity though surely everyone will get pissed off about it anyway.)
Originally posted by dmz
Yes the new flag sucks but it beats the "insurgents'" pick:
(they're not terrorists mind you, they just want to make the world safe for Theocracy)
how exactly are they terrorists?
Originally posted by BuonRotto
Come to think of it, we Americans never really got to vote on our flag either.
(Again, trying to add levity though surely everyone will get pissed off about it anyway.)
Damn you to hell, BuonRotto, this is no laughing matter! Unless it is! In which case, I undamn thee!
Originally posted by torifile
how exactly are they terrorists?
Bush says so. Duh.
NO QUESTIONING OF ZE FUHRER errr president.
Originally posted by BR
NO QUESTIONING OF ZE FUHRER
Vexillologically speaking, this flag screams "Zion". This is arguably the single worst flag Iraq could possibly be talked into using. What worse connotation than using colors and stripes similar to the favored scapegoat/enemy of all of the Muslim nations? The new leadership is already cynically doomed to be called a puppet regime of the U.S. This will cinch the deal.
From the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
The Blue Stripes
The blue stripes on the Zionist flag were inspired by the stripes on the tallit (prayer shawl). The tallit has two separate symbolic aspects: the light blue hue and the stripes. Some say that the stripes are meant to recall the one dyed strand of the ritual fringes (tzitzit). This leads to the significance of the hue itself.
According to the Torah, one strand in the tzitzit should be light blue. To judge from references in the Talmud, it was a shade between green and blue. Many symbolic meanings were attributed to it. Rabbi Meir said that it recalls the color of the sky; Rabbi Judah ben Illai maintained that the color of Aaron's staff was light blue, as were the Tablets of the Law, and this is why God commanded the Jews to include it on their prayer shawls: "As long as the people of Israel are looking at this tehelet, they are reminded of {the words} written on the tablets and observe them." In other words, the sight of the color tehelet leads to observance of the commandments.
White and tehelet, along with gold and purple, were the colors of the High Priest's raiment (Exodus 28: 4,43) and of the curtains of the Tabernacle (Exodus 26). They were considered to be the colors of purity symbolizing the spirituality of the Jewish people.
The first person in modern times who voiced the idea that blue and white are the national colors of the Jewish people, was the Austrian Jewish poet Ludwig August Frankl (1810-1894). More than three decades before the First Zionist Congress, Frankl published a poem entitled "Judah's Colors":
When sublime feelings his heart fill,
He is mantled in the colors of his country
He stands in prayer, wrapped
In a sparkling robe of white.
The hems of the white robe
Are crowned with broad stripes of blue;
Like the robe of the High Priest,
Adorned with bands of blue threads.
These are the colors of the beloved country,
Blue and white are the borders of Judah;
White is the radiance of the priesthood,
And blue, the splendors of the firmament.
A. L. Frankl, "Juda's Farben," in Ahnenbilder (Leipzig, 1864), p. 127
I just don't see how this flag will at all be a success considering the hatred of all things Israel.
This would be a much better flag for Iraq:
1. Keep "Allah is Great" (I like In God We Trust, let 'em have their phrase. To each his own.).
2. Keep the Pan-Arab colors (Nothing bad about Arab unity per se)
3. Honor Texas
(I love flags and especially alternate universe flags)