The Iraqi Governing Council has changed the interim flag:
Iraqi leaders presented a new national flag Wednesday after protests that a version unveiled earlier this week resembled the flag of Israel.
The new design was more or less the same as the one announced earlier this week: two blue stripes along the bottom with a yellow stripe between them, and a crescent above them in a white field.
But the stripes and crescent were a considerably darker shade of blue than the original version published in an Iraqi newspaper, which showed the stripes as being light blue.
Many said the light blue stripes were reminiscent of the light blue bands on the Israeli flag. Hundreds of university students in Mosul demonstrated against that version Wednesday.
Those rascally Jews- not only do they own all the money, but they own colors, too!.
Kimmitt
It is traditional for Arab countries to have red, black, and green flags; unveiling a flag which did not conform to this tradition was stupid. Making it physically resemble the Israeli flag (which it does in both composition and color) was particularly idiotic.
Rhesa
“It is traditional for Arab countries to have red, black, and green flags…”
Why is it traditional? Do the red, black and green have any particular meaning?
Slartibartfast
I think you meant OR, Kimmit. Just as a sampling:
Saudi Arabia (all green)
Oman (red, green, no black)
Yemen (black, red, no green)
Qatar (red, no green or black)
Bahrain (red, no green or black)
Tunisia (red, no green or black)
I guess I’ve gone on long enough.
Wait, here’s an Arab nation flag with blue in it:
Djibouti
And here’s one that’s all blue.
Here‘s a list of nations in the League of Arab states. I believe you’ll find a few more that don’t adhere to your “standard”.
Slartibartfast
Sorry, “standard” should read “tradition”.
JKC
The CPA would have been smarter leaving flag design to whatever government follows the IGC. The Iraqi flag does NOT need to have “Made in USA” stamped on it.
BTW, anyone but me find it ironic that with all the fuss over the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance here that we expunged a similar motto from the Iraqi flag?
JohnO
As a Cincy Bearcat grad, I’m partial to Red, Black and White. The new Iraqi flag colors give it an “expansion team” look to it. But then again, that may be appropriate.
Slartibartfast
“Expunged”? The whole flag got tossed and redone from scratch. But I agree that focusing on the flag redesign right now is distracting. Maybe that’s the intent, though.
Do I have to close the tinfoil tag? Just asking.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Green is a traditional color of Islam but I don’t know why, as white and light blue are the colors of Judaism. I think John was joking about this, but he shouldn’t have. The commandment for white and light blue prayers shawls is, IIRC, in Exodus, but I’m too lazy to Google for it. Look under “techelet”, the Hebrew word for light blue, if genuinely curious.
How black, white, and red got added to green as the colors of pan-Arab nationalism, I don’t know, but that’s why the flags of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the PA are so similar. What Slart failed to point out is that Djibouti and Somalia, on the geographic periphery of the Arab world, are the only such countries to use a color other than black, white, red, or green.
CadillaqJaq
With the flag of our southern neighbor, Mexico, being equal vertical stripes of Green, White and Red, do they qualify as being only 2/3 Arab?
Slartibartfast
Tell that to the Jewish Republic of Somalia, Andrew. I wonder what they’ll have to say about it.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Slart, the flag of the breakaway state of Somaliland is in green, red, white, and black; the Arabic confession of faith is written on the green part just like the Saudi flag.
Most of the flags of the renegade Western Somali rebels in Ethiopia also use the pan-Arab colors.
According to this site, the Somali flag’s colors derive from the United Nations’, Somalia having been a UN Protectorate after being taken from Italy in WW2. The UN flag predates the Israeli flag, so its colors are much less significant.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s reasonable to see a white and light blue flag with horizontal stripes and a religious symbol as derivative of the Israeli flag. I suspect you know that, too, Slart, but the temptation to be snarky is too strong.
Slartibartfast
This is relevant how?
You made the claims that green is the color of Islam, and that blue is the color of Judaism, both sans any sort of evidence. I show you the blue flag of a country that’s nearly all Sunni Muslim, and you respond with yet another green, red and black flag of a nearly invisible country.
So, is Somalia just pretending to be Muslim? Is Djibouti half Muslim, half Jewish? This is not snark, it’s a challenge to the notion that the flag of an Arab nation must have green, red, and black in it, and that no Arab nation in its right mind would select blue.
And that whole blue=Israel bit is sheer silliness. Unless you’d like to advance the notion that Israel controls the UN. Better write those Uzbeks, too, and let them know that the crescent of Islam on a blue stripe may get them killed.
Kimmitt
Red, green, and/or black should have been the statement; generally, green and black are seen as the colors of Islam, while red is the color of pan-Arab nationalism. Of course, there are some countries which do not adhere to this standard; there are also some former Commonwealth countries that do not have red, white, and/or blue flags. The pattern, however, is consistent and stupid to violate.
It’s not just the colors — it’s the layout.
Slartibartfast
Well, I think we can agree that focusing on the flag design at this point is an unnecessary distraction, no? And if Iraqis don’t like it, is it really all that important why you and Andrew think they don’t?
Kimmitt
What a deliberately stupid statement. The point is to figure out why the Iraqis don’t like it.
Slartibartfast
No, the point is to quit dwelling on the whole Iraq-needs-a-new-flag business and get on with the formation of the new government. Once they get the government in place, they can wrangle on for decades on the appearance of the bit of cloth flying over Baghdad.
“What a deliberately stupid statement.”
Well, I’ve already shown you how useless and…well, inaccurate your theories regarding why the Iraqis don’t like it are. Does the commencement of insults indicate you’re out of intellectual ammo in this discussion?
Kimmitt
“Well, I’ve already shown you how useless and…well, inaccurate your theories regarding why the Iraqis don’t like it are.”
Your statement boils down to, “The generally accepted consensus is totally and utterly wrong, because there’s, like, one mostly Arab country that has a different set of flag colors.”
Slartibartfast
Take the Ritalin, Kimmitt, then read again. There are several 90+% Muslim countries that have blue in their flags, several that don’t have any green at all, and at least one that has an entirely blue flag. If you’ve missed that, you haven’t been paying attention.
Which pretty much indicates that “the general consensus” (which I’ll believe exists when you show me an example or two) is wrong. I haven’t disputed that the countried formed from the remains of the Ottoman Empire tend to have black, red and green in their flags. Because that would be stupid. It’d be just as stupid to insist that blue is a color that means anything at all about Israel, or that Muslim countries by any sort of rule or consensus have to have any of those other colors in their flags. It’s a nice notion, but one that’s simply unsupported by fact.
Kimmitt
I was talking about Arab Muslim countries, Slartibartfast.
Also, it really doesn’t matter whether or not most Arab countries have similar flags — what matters is the Iraqi response to this, which is based around the idea that most Arab countries have similar flags and that the new Iraqi flag is similar to Israel’s in layout and in color scheme.
Slartibartfast
Ah, so it’s not _your_ opinion you’re presenting. Well, you ought to have said so in the first place. Now would be a good time.
Slartibartfast
Oh, BTW when the flag of _Saudi Arabia_ doesn’t fit the norm of “most Arab nations”, your point is in serious peril.
And, once again, your reasons for them not liking the flag are irrelevant. Either you made them up, or they made them up, because they’re not reflective of reality. It’s been my contention that regardless of whether Iraqis like this new flag or not, this entire exercise is a complete waste of time at this point in the game.