{"id":223,"date":"2021-10-16T22:18:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-16T19:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fawwaztraboulsi.com\/?p=223"},"modified":"2025-03-03T10:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T08:11:17","slug":"the-new-iraqi-flag-an-exercise-in-identity-manipulation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/the-new-iraqi-flag-an-exercise-in-identity-manipulation-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Iraqi Flag:\u00a0an exercise in identity manipulation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The New Iraqi Flag: <\/strong><strong>an exercise in identity manipulation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Fawwaz Traboulsi<\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In preparation for the U.S. authorities handing over power to a new interim Iraqi government, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) launched an artistic competition to design a new flag. The winning design, adopted by the IGC in April 2004, was submitted by the Iraqi architect Rif`at al-Chadirji. Rather than command immediate respect and loyalty, as national symbols are supposed to do, the new flag evoked violent reactions and hot debates. Faced with such widespread dissatisfaction, the IGC, explaining that the flag was initially &#8216;transitional&#8217;, relegated the flag&#8217;s official sanctioning to the national assembly to be elected in 2005. The handing over of power and the rule of the new interim governments was carried under the old flag of Saddam Hussein\u2019s Baathi regime.<\/p>\n<p>After a brief introduction on flags in visual nationalism, this paper will trace the story of the design of that new flag, compare and contrast it with the different flags and emblems the Iraqi state since its inception in 1921. After a survey of the debate around the proposed flag, the paper will conclude with a critical analysis of the visual manipulation envolved in the new flag put in the wider context of the debate over Iraq\u2019s identity and future political system. Both issues, it will be seen, are closely related to the debate on the religious and the secular in the representation of Iraqi identity as well as in the imagining of Iraq\u2019s post-Saddam political system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1- On flags in general<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people\u2019s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to burry the dead\u201d (Arundhati Roy)<\/p>\n<p>Flags are national symbols <em>par excellence<\/em>. Far from being mere emblems of national identity, perhaps the most striking aspect of those \u2018bits of colored cloth\u2019 is the way they act as substitutes and fetishes for the nation itself. To them people divert or transfer an infinite number of meanings, virtues and feelings of respect, loyalty, devotion, pride, honor, etc. That is why Roy\u2019s brilliant formula could be complemented by saying: for people to deserve being wrapped up by flags for burial, they should first commit the ultimate act of devotion: they should die \u2018for their flag\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>To put it in a more dynamic way, flags play a cricial role both in constructing and propagating national identity. Concerning the latter, they constitute a formidable means of national mobilization. Seeing flags with the eyes of people in the electronic age, it is strange how much they evoke the computer chips. Strange how many codes and messages can be inscribed on the small surface of those \u2018bits of colored cloth\u2019! Graphically, flags can be said to perform at least three major unctions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>they represent and laud national charactersitics;<\/li>\n<li>they symbolically affirm the nation\u2019s unity;<\/li>\n<li>they record major changes in a nation\u2019s history.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whereas the first two functions emphasize permanence and continuity, the third records change.<\/p>\n<p>The flag of the United Kingdom is perhaps the best example of the graphic represention of the desire for continuity and permanence as regards national unity and nation\u2019s role in the world. The Union Flag\u2019s<sup><a id=\"post-223-footnote-ref-1\" href=\"#post-223-footnote-1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup> three red crosses on a white ground, are those of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick, respectively national saints of England, Scotland and Ireland. Their meeting seals the unity of the country\u2019s three national components (Wales had already united with England when the flag was adopted). The deep blue colour is there to glorify Britain\u2019s superiority as an imperial naval power, &#8216;ruling the waves&#8217;, as the famous hymn goes. As can be seen in many other cases, national unity here is represented as religious unity, as the union of the patron saints of the three main regional constituents of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cOld Glory\u2019 or \u2018Star sprangled Banner\u2019 are the most common names attributed to the US flag which underwent more changes than Britain\u2019s Union Flag. Those changes were necessitated by two major processes: i) the independence from England (graphically represented by the dropping of the Union Jack from the left-hand corner of the flag); and ii) the cumulative process by which new states came to join the Federation. Starting with 13 stripes (representing the initial 13 member states) in 1776 and 1777, it was only in 1912 that the flag\u2019s standards of design were set as stars replaced stripes to represent the federated states whose number had reached 48 (the 49th and 50th stars were added in 1959 and 1960 respectively). But the final configuration of the US flag was decreed by President Eisenhower in 1959. It was stipulated that the stripes should be horizontal, alternately seven red and six white, with the red stripes at the top and bottom. The navy blue fills the upper left quarter from the top to the lower edge of the fourth red stripe. The five-pointed stars have one point up and are deployed in nine horizontal rows. The odd-numbered rows have six stars and the even-numbered have five.<\/p>\n<p>George Washington resumed in a seminaly succint manner the flag\u2019s symbolisms in the following terms:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it with white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty\u201d. (\u201cCelebrating America\u2019s Freedoms: The United States Flag\u201d, <a href=\"http:\/\/www1.va.gov\/pubaff\/celebam\/flag.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www1.va.gov\/pubaff \/celebam\/flag.htm<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Washington leaves us with a very sophisticated interpretation of the flag\u2019s meanings and symbolisms. His words are highly evocative of the double dialectics of liberty\/unity and separation\/unification. It is worth noting that he does not attribute to the red color any special meaning, or feeling, in itself, but is satisfied to say that the color was retained from the United Kingdom flag (the \u2018mother country\u2019) as the Union Jack itself is removed from the left-hand corner of the US flag and replaced by white stars on a blue background. That admission is interesting in itself as Washington does not attribute to the American struggle for independence any bloody sacrificial character usually represented by the color red. In return, the mention that the stars on the flag are \u2018taken from heaven\u2019 as if to imply that the constituent states were federated by an act willed by God. Now, it is left to the white-colored stripes, that separate the red stripes, to symbolize the mere separation of the United States from Britain. Once again, as in the case of the British flag, the flag of the United States resorts to religious symbolism to represent and even sanctify national unity.<\/p>\n<p>A more recent event related to the role of flags in national unification \u2013 or in the representation thereof- is the Lebanese \u2018intifada of independence\u2019, which are the series of mass demonstrations that followed the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in mid February 2005. During the first demonstrations by the \u2018opposition\u2019, accusing the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services of the murder and calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the demonstrators flocked to downtown Beirut each group carrying their political or partisan flag. Later, it was decided that all unofficial flags should be withdrawn and only the Lebanese flag deployed. The order was respected and the result was impressive visually (and inspired the Western press to call the demonstration the \u2018cedar revolution\u2019) as well as symbolically. The unicity of the Lebanese flag raised and waived by all sects and by the factions and militias of the ex-Lebanese war was viewed as a formal declaration of the end of that war and of national reconciliation finally achieved, from the grassroots, more than a decade and a half after the official end of the war. The effect was so impressive that it imposed on the \u2018loyalist\u2019 march of Hizbullah and the pro-Syrian parties to adopt the same flag proving that they were no less concerned with the country\u2019s independence and freedom as their adversaries. But, of course, while the demonstrators of the \u2018opposition\u2019 meant by \u2018independence\u2019 independence from Syrian domination, the partisans of Hizbullah and their allies meant resistance agaisnt Israel and against U.S. interference in the internal Lebanese affairs.<\/p>\n<p>The third case &#8211; that of change &#8211; is best illustrated by France\u2019s tricolor flag, which supplanted the initial flag of the Abbey of Saint Denis, and, later, the Bourbon white flag sprinkled with the<em> fleurs-de-lys <\/em>(lily-flower or iris). The new flag was designed to confirm the break with the <em>ancien regime<\/em> and the radical transformation of the country from Royalty to Republic as a result of the Revolution of 1789. That led to the design of a new tricolored flag in 1793. But strangely enough, the tricolored flag was only partially a break with the past as it retained the white color as the \u2018national color\u2019, to use the terms of Lafayette who was the first to use the tricolor as an insignia for his National Guards in 1789. Lafayette goes on to remind us that the surrounding red and blue are the colors of the city of Paris. (re: \u201ctricolore\u201d and \u2018drapeaux\u2019, in <em>Grand<\/em> <em>Dictionnaire Encyclop\u00e9dique, <\/em>Larousse, Paris 1985). Of course, both colors will acquire different connotations and shades of meaning during and after the Revolution, as we shall soon see.<\/p>\n<p>But flags, as they seek to represent political and social change, are liable to become arenas for conflicts over identities, values and national and social constructions. In the period 1816-1830, the Restauration reverted to the royal emblem and colors: a white flag sprinkled with the <em>fleurs-de-lys<\/em>. On the other hand, the 1830 republican revolution brought back the tricolor flag. But during the 1848 revolution, which had a strong working class component, the conflict between republicans and socialists to control the revolution was projected on the revolutionay flag as the socialists atempted to impose the adoption of the red flag to emphasize the social content of the revolution and its revolutionary commitments. Those attempts were nevertheless thwarted by the poet Lamartine, an influential leader of the revolution, who imposed the retention of the French tricolor.<\/p>\n<p>In more than one way, flags are about color. But, strangely enough, peoples \u2013 or better, national cultures- may, in many cases, attribute different feelings and meanings to one and the same color. The red color of the socialist and working class \u2018red flag\u2019, for example, can be brought to mean blood\/sacrifice, revolt, or, what is not that close to neither: hope. The bloody association would be severely contested by a conservative British citizen as an interpretation of the red color on \u2018his\u2019 flag. Similarly, the white color in the American flag evokes \u2013in George Washington\u2019s interpretation, at least- both (national) independence and (individual) liberty. Whereas, the white in the Lebanese flag would be more closely associated with \u2018honor\u2019. For \u201cGreat honor can be saved from harm\/ only when blood is spilled on both its sides\u201d, according to a famous verse used to illustrate the reason why the white stripe of the Lebanese flag is located in between two red stripes. Of course, many interpretations will take white to imply Peace and so on.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2- The story of a flag<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The decision to adopt a new flag for Iraq was not reached without discussions and divisions inside the IGC. The Kurdish representatives had wisely suggested going back to the flag of the 1958 republican revolution. When that was rejected, they submitted ten variations inspired from that same flag (slide 3: 1958 flag). Those different projects were all rejected by other members of the IGC under the pretext that they do not include any reference to Islam.<\/p>\n<p>The way Rif`at Chadergy&#8217;s design was adopted remains ambiguous. One version holds that he had initially submitted his design to the competition and simply won (<em>The Times<\/em>, 29 April 2004) while another claims he was commissioned by his brother Nasseer Chadergi, a member of the ICG, when that body failed to decide upon a new flag, and Rif`at&#8217;s design was ultimately and hurriedly adopted by a majority vote (<em>The Guardian<\/em>, 28 April 2004).<\/p>\n<p>The most immediate reactions to the proposed flag were clearly negative, many quite hostile. The dominant impression was that the proposed flag strikingly evokes the Israeli flag. Thereupon, the IGC declared it had asked the designer to deepen the blue lines before deciding to drop the flag altogether (slide 1: new Iraqi flag, first version; slide 2: Iraqi new flag, second modified version). Another version of the story maintains that the blue was initially dark (indigo) but that newspapers had mistakngly printed it in light blue.<\/p>\n<p>The designer himself rebutted by claiming that he has no political preconceptions: &#8220;I did not think about Israel. Political opinions don&#8217;t concern me. I approached the design from a graphic point of view&#8221;. (<em>The Times<\/em>, April 29, 2004). The Israeli connection and Mr. Chaderji\u2019s denial put aside, it is quite obvious that Mr. Chaderji\u2019s \u2018political unconscious\u2019 had been quite active for him to conceive a flag which bears no resemblence whatsoever to any of his country\u2019s previous flags and which is quite pregnant with political messages as we shall soon demonstrate.<\/p>\n<p>Effectively, the state of Iraq changed a number of flags since its creation in 1920. Before that date, and until 30 October 1918, the three Ottoman Wilayas of Moussol, Baghdad and Basra &#8211; that will be later united to constitute modern Iraq &#8211; were still living under the Ottoman flag (slide 4: the Ottoman flag). After the collapse of the Ottoman empire, Iraq had temporarily the British flag from 30 October 1918-10 Janauary 1919 (slide 5: the British flag) but as of 10 January 1919 and until 1924, the new Iraqi kingdom with King Faisal I at its head adopted the flag of the Arab revolt of 1917. That revolt was originally led by then prince Faisal himself who established his capital in Damascus but was deposed by the French troops moving in from Lebanon in August 1920. (Slide 6: the flag ot the Arab revolt).<\/p>\n<p>There are at least two versions that interpert the Arab flag&#8217;s visual symbolism. One claims that its colors are inspired by a famous verse by the poet Safiyiddin al-Hilli:<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;White, our deeds; black our wars;<\/p>\n<p>green our pastures; red our past&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Another interpretation maintains that those colors are rather those of the different sects and dynasties of Islam: black for the Abbasids; white for the Umayyads; green for the `Alawis and red for the Andalusian dynasties.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, the flag of the Arab revolt served as a blueprint for practically all the other Arab flags which became as many variations to it. The Palestinian flag is a replica of it; the same for Jordan which simply embedded on it the Royal Jordanian Arms; the majority of the other flags either use the main four colors in a different configuration (Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Koweit, Sudan, United Arab Emirates) or chose to use some of those colors, alone or added to other colors: Oman (red, white, green); Tunisia (white and red) Morocco (red and green) Saudi Arabis (green and white) Lybia (all green flag) Lebanon (red, white, green). The only notable exceptions to the color patterns of the initial Arab flag are Qatar (white and brown) and Somalia (blue and white).<\/p>\n<p>To go back to Iraq, in 1924 the design inspired by the original flag of the Arab Revolt was slightly modified to become more representative of the Iraqi Kingdom. The ordering of the colors was changed: white in the middle and green at the bottom and the red triangle slightly transformed and imbedded with two septagonal stars representing the country&#8217;s 14 administrative governates. (Slide 7: the flag under the monarchy).<\/p>\n<p>That flag remained Iraq&#8217;s official emblem until the 14<sup>th<\/sup> of July 1958 revolution. As of 1959, to mark the break with the &#8216;old system&#8217;, a new flag of the republic was designed by the great Iraqi artist Jawad Salim. ). (Slide 3: the flag under the Repubic). The flag marked at least two major novelties. First, it reordered the colored stripes from horizontal ones to vertical ones, most probably to emphasize the republican nature of the regime in the style of the tricolored flag of the French Revolution: black to the left, white in the middle and a green stripe on the right. The second novelty was a sun inspired by the emblem of the nascent Iraqi Republic (also designed by Jawad Salim) imbedded in the white stripe. That design was a genial contraction of meanings and symbols. Its outer rays forming a hectagonal Arab star and inside it, a yellow circle to represent the Kurds; the yellow color having initially been the colour of the flag of Salah al-din al-Ayyubi (but also that of the flag of the Akadian state) the Kurdish Muslim leader who liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders and established the Ayyoubi dynasty<sup><a id=\"post-223-footnote-ref-2\" href=\"#post-223-footnote-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup>. Jawad Salim brilliantly fused into that Akadian\/Sumerian sun the main three components of Iraq&#8217;s identity, culture and civilisation: Ancient, Arab and Kurdish. Thus the flag of the Republic was a happy marriage of the older Iraqi civilizations and the dual nationality of its population: Arabs and Kurds.<\/p>\n<p>The republican flag was dropped with the advent of the Baath to power. The flag officially adopted on 31 July 1963 (slide 8: the Baathi flag\/ version one) reverted to the horizontal striping: red on top white in the middle and black in the bottom. Inside the white stripe were embedded three stars to represent the Tripartite Unity between Baathi Iraq and Syria with Egypt under Jamal `Abd al-Nassir, a union which never saw the light practically, but existed theoretically for a year between 17 April 1963 and 28 April 1964.<\/p>\n<p>Until that time, Iraqi flags, as well as those of most Arab countries (with the exception of Saudi Arabia) were mainly secular, nationalistic flags, with no direct reference to Islam. In 13 January 1991, on the eve of the first Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein broke that rule. He modified the Baathi flag by adding the Takbir (the words &#8216;Allah Akbar&#8217;) in an attempt to enlist the support of the Islamist movements and Islamic public opinion for his Mother Of All Battles (slide 9: the Baathi flag, version two).<\/p>\n<p><strong>3- \u2018A sign for a Turkish Hotel\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As has been clearly been shown in the above, the different designs of the Iraqi flag were always laden with messages and meanings. New flags were designed to mark changes in the country&#8217;s status and in its political systems or regimes, not to forget the emphasis on priorities, goals and aspirations. Explicit or implicit in them were references to identity, ethnicity, culture, political entity and political regime. Whereas the reference to the Arab identity of Iraq was a constant one, it nevertheless disregarded, in its first instances, both the historical continuity with the old Iraqi civiliation (Akkadian, Sumerian and Assyrian) and the Kurdish ethnicity. The afore-mentioned Republican flag of 1959-63 was the only exception to that rule as it comprised both references. Conversely, the Baathi flag was no more than a return to the old Arab flag to which was added the reference to the failed tripartite union with Syria and Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>The new post-Baathi flag does not divert in any way from that rule concerning the role of flag as symbol of structural change on the four levels of identity, culture, ethnicity and political syatem. It is designed to effect a net break with the previous regime, (re)define Iraq&#8217;s identity and send the necessary basic messages and meanings concerning the aspirations and goals of the new regime.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned above, a lot of the popular critique of the proposed flag centered mainly on it for its resemblence to the Israeli flag. Said Muthana Khalil, a supermarket owner in Saadoun Street in the commercial center of Baghdad:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I saw it in the newspaper, I felt very sad, The flags of other Arab countries are red and green and black. Why did they put in these colors that are the same as Israel? Why was the public opinion not consulted?\u201d (Constable, April 27, 2004)<\/p>\n<p>In defending the proposed flag, the IGC spokesman confered on it connotations which could with great difficulty be said to be implied by it: \u201cThis flag represents democracy and freedom of the new Iraq\u201d, Hamid Kafaie said, \u201cwhere the old one represented killing and oppression and dictatorship\u201d (Constable, <em>ibid.<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Among those who proposed a serious visual politico-esthetic critique of the flag is the Iraqi journalist and writer Suheil Sami Nader (&#8220;A Flag Without a State&#8221;, <em>Al-Mada<\/em>: May 12, 2004). Nader saw in the flag &#8220;a sign for a Turkish hotel in Istanbul. What does a hotel in Istanbul mean to me? Nothing!&#8221;. But why Istanbul? &#8220;They have the sea there, and there have tourist hotels which preserve the Islamic tradition, that is why they deploy a blue crescent\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The author goes on to enquire sarcastically about the declared &#8216;provisional&#8217; character of the flag, wondering: who has ever heard of a provisionsl flag?! especially when it is issued by a body which is self-declared as &#8216;provisional&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>So much for the political side. Nader also provides a serious and intelligent semiological critique of the flag. He accuses the designer of having rashly purged the new flag of all the symbolic colors of the previous flag in a way not dissimilar from the way the Baathis purged the flag of the 1958 republican revolution.<\/p>\n<p>He goes on to talk of the poverty of the flag\u2019s colors and taxes the crescent as a relic of the Ottoman tradition devoid of any iconic value. From the artistic point of view, Nadir accuses the flag and the designer of lacking in symbolism. He finds a disproportionate relationship between the three horizontal stripes which close the base of the flag, the openness of the white and the curved aspect of the crescent. The latter also appears suspended in the open white space. He compares that ambivalent status of the crescent with the structured and simple Japanese flag: all white with a red circle (sun) in the middle in which the roundness of the red block balances the white open space while providing the flag with a strong signifying focus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4- A \u2018Non-Arab\u2019 flag<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I do not wish to reproduce here the whole debate that the proposed flag gave rise to. But rather to conclude with a number of observations.<\/p>\n<p>The first striking thing about the flag is how little relation its colours entertain with the physical colours of the country. Apart from the blue color of the two rivers, which can quite easily evoke the sea also, the two most obvious colors of Iraq &#8211; a mainly desertic country (sand yellow) with northern fertile mountains in Kurdestan (green)- are abandoned in favor of white which is supposed to be a symbolic rather than a physically-inspired color- representing Peace, as many interpreters have maintained. Yellow too has to be taken as a symbolic color since it refers to the Kurdish people. But it is derived from the color of Salah ed-Din\u2019s flag more than from the physical attributes of the Kurdish region.<\/p>\n<p>The blue crescent is a double anomaly in shape and color. Whereas the traditional way of representing the crescent of Islam was as a segment of a full circle, the crescent of the proposed Iraqi flag does not form part of a circle, for some obscure reason! As for its color, we have been acquainted with white crescents (in the Pakistani flag), red crescents (in the Tunisian and Algerian flags) green crescents, even yellow crescents (the Mauritanian flag) very few blue crescents exist on flags; one exception being flag of the Turcoman ethnicity in Iraq<\/p>\n<p>The second observation concerns symbolism. The symbolism of the new flag is both ethnic and religious. Herein lie the manipulation of the new Iraqi flag as a national symbol. The striking matter here is that ethnicity is recognized for the Kurds and not the Arabs, the latter only defined by the religious-sectarian identities: as Moslems into sunnis and shiites. One does not need much effort to discover that the logic of the new flag strongly resembles that of the safe-fly zones of 1991 by virtue of which Iraq was divided into an ethnic zone- the northern Kurdish region, the predominately Sunni zone of the middle and the predominately shiite zone of the south. Thus, despite the fact that the Kurds are Moslems and could have been easily represented by the crescent, they are represented on the flag as an ethnic-national community, wioth theior national color, whereas the non-Kurds, i.e. the Arab majority, were deprived of the right to the claim of constituting an ethnic-national group and are exclusively defined by their religious-sectarian identity<sup><a id=\"post-223-footnote-ref-3\" href=\"#post-223-footnote-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup>. Paradoxically, most commentators, when refering to flag colors representing the Arabs, they talk of Arab nationalism, whereas their reference to flag colors representing Kurds does not include the nationalist qualification to the Kurds. The amalgam is complete: Arab-Arab Nationalist-Saddam Hussein\u2019s Baathi regime.<\/p>\n<p>It should be added that there is no symbolic references on the flag to the Christians of Iraq (3% of the population) who cannot find themselves in the Muslim symbolism nor are they allowed to be represented as Arabs or as Assyrians as some of them claim to be ethnically. Neither will we find reference to the Turkmen of Iraq as an ethnic-national community (who have to content themselves with being represented by the blue crescent)<\/p>\n<p>The logic of purging the flag from any reference to Arab identity strongly resembles that previously praticed by Saddam Hussein&#8217;s Baathist regime. In order to reject Kurdish rights, Kurds were symbolically banned from the main symbol of the country&#8217;s identity- its flag. That semiological omission is the symbolic equivalent of the Halabja massacre or the Anfal campaign. All this was done in the name of an organic, exclusivist and totalitarian form of Arab nationalism. To rectify this, in the post-Baathi regime, the logic was reversed: an amalgam was created between Arab identity and Arab nationalism and the flag purged of any reference to Iraq&#8217;s Arab identity or even to the fact that the country harbors at least an Arab ethnicity-cum-nationality among its population, not to speak of the fact that that ethnicity-nationality constitutes the majority of the population. In that sense, the new proposed flag becomes the artistic embodiement of the motto of a &#8216;non-Arab Iraq&#8217;, raised by some members of the ex-Iraqi opposition in exile, notably the Iraqi neo-con intellectual, Kenan Makia, intellectual <em>eminence grise<\/em> behind the now-discarded man of the Pentagon, Ahmad al-Chalaby, previous IGC member. Makia had coined the motto of a \u2018non-Arab\u2019 Iraq to be constructed after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein\u2019s Baathi regime.<\/p>\n<p>The same could be said of the relationship of post-Baathi Iraq to its pre-Arab past. Now that that pre-Arab civilisation is given its proper status in Iraq&#8217;s historical and cultural continuity, one wonders why that legitimate rectification necessitated the negation of its Arab civilisation!<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the different transformations of the Iraqi flag from its creation in 1920 to the present can be read as so many ways to grapple not only with the question of the country\u2019s problematic identity, but also as a record of the country and its political system moving slowly away from a relatively secular-based political system. Saddam Hussein\u2019s regime played the role of an intermediary phase in that transformation from the secular to the religious with the post-Saddam regime making the big move in the direction of a religiously-inspired political system. Is that transition irreversible and with what consequences (especially that the Kurdish representatives are opposed to the official and integral application of the <em>shari`ah<\/em>)? The answers to those and many other questions will be found in the coming months when the newly elected parliament will draft a new constitution and face the task of designing a new flag for Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><strong>References:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Berger, John (1972) <em>Ways of Seeing,<\/em> London: BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Bierut, Michael, &#8220;Better Nation Building Through Design&#8221;, <em>Design Observer<\/em>, April 28, 2004, in www. designobserver.com\/archives\/000140. Retrieved 12 June 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Constable, Pamela \u201cIraqis Say Council-Approved National Flag Won\u2019t Fly\u2019, <em>Washington Post Service<\/em>, April 27, 2004. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wshington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.washington post.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A43438-2004Apr26<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Hill, Michael, \u201cA new flag, an old story\u201d, <em>The Baltimore Sun<\/em>, June 27, 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8220;Iraq&#8221;, in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdiest.nl\/Asia\/iraq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.vdiest.nl\/Asia\/iraq<\/a>. Retrieved 12 June 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Keats, Lee, \u201cIraq drops God reference from flag\u201d, <em>Associated Press<\/em>, 23 August, 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Nader, Suheil Sami, &#8220;`Alam bila Dawlah&#8221;, <em>Al-Mada<\/em>, Baghdad, no. 110, 12 May 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Traboulsi, Fawwaz, &#8220;La Tahiyyah Li-Haza al-`Alam!&#8221;, <em>Al-Safir<\/em>, 30 April 2004.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li id=\"post-223-footnote-1\">The term Union Jack, more widely used than Union Flag, should theoretically only be used when the flag is flown by ships of the Royal Navy. <a href=\"#post-223-footnote-ref-1\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-223-footnote-2\">Salah al-din was originally from Tikrit, the region in which Saddam Hussein&#8217;s was born ; the <em>muhafazah<\/em> of Tikrit was rebaptised Salah al-Din by Saddam. <a href=\"#post-223-footnote-ref-2\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"post-223-footnote-3\">Strangely enough, the designer &#8211; keen to redeem the presence of the Kurdish ethnicity- did not even bother to take into consideration, or be inspired by, the design of the Kurdish flag itself. As of 19 March 1992, the Kurdish autonomous region adopted a flag which retained the three colors of the Iraqi flag (red, white and green) and added to them a yellow sun. <a href=\"#post-223-footnote-ref-3\">\u2191<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Iraqi Flag: an exercise in identity manipulation Fawwaz Traboulsi Introduction In preparation for the U.S. authorities handing over power to a new interim Iraqi government, the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) launched an artistic competition to design a new flag. The winning design, adopted by the IGC in April 2004, was submitted by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[],"content_type":[531],"themes":[408,314],"country":[340],"language":[66],"archive_type":[113],"archive_author":[246],"media_type":[],"keywords":[628,643,699,875,968,992,995,1003,1190,1193,1670,1300,1369,1396,1583,1517],"ft_dossier":[],"ft_categories":[],"published_in":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","content_type-papers-en","themes-art-literature-en","themes-politics-en","country-iraq-en","language-english","archive_type-by-ft-en","archive_author-fawwaz-traboulsi-en","keywords-arab-identity-en","keywords-arab-nationalism-en","keywords-baathism-en","keywords-flag-design-en","keywords-identity-politics-en","keywords-iraq-kw-en","keywords-iraq-war-en","keywords-iraqi-politics-en","keywords-nation-state-en","keywords-national-identity-en","keywords-personal-tribute-en","keywords-political-symbolism-en","keywords-rifat-al-chadirji-en","keywords-sectarianism-en","keywords-secularism-en","keywords-visual-culture-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"themes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themes?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"archive_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive_type?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"archive_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive_author?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keywords?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"ft_dossier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ft_dossier?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"ft_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ft_categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"published_in","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fawwaztraboulsi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/published_in?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}