Flag

A flag is a customarily square piece of cloth that uses distinct colors and symbols to represent a country, military, or other organization. Flags developed in ancient times in civilizations such as Egypt and Babylonia. Early flags were not cloth, but rather objects such as carved animals or animal parts mounted on staffs. The flags represented a people's spiritual power and inspired soldiers to continue fighting in warfare. The development of silk and other fabrics in later millennia transitioned flags to cloth banners hung on poles. After this, many civilizations around the world started using decorated flags as emblems of their militaries, royal families, kingdoms, and countries. Flags eventually came to symbolize the culture and values of a specific group of people. Every country in the world has a national flag in the twenty-first century.

Background

Flags have been associated with militaries and war since their inception thousands of years ago. The armies of ancient Egypt, Persia, and Babylonia all carried flag-like emblems into battle. These early standards were not cloth flags, but rather were vexilloids, as they later became known. A vexilloid is any kind of standard or banner that functions as a flag but is not one. The vexilloids of some of these ancient armies may have been staffs with animal carvings on top. Such symbols were connected to spiritualism, as people often felt mystical connections to certain animals. The vexilloids also served a practical purpose, which was to inspire troops in battle to rally around the symbol of their people. In later centuries, the legions of ancient Rome carried lance-mounted metal eagles into battle, while the Mongols of Central Asia raised vexilloids of horse and yak tails.

The eventual proliferation of Chinese silk in East Asia allowed armies and other groups of people to begin producing actual flags from cloth. The Silk Road, the ancient trade route connecting East Asia to West Asia and Europe, brought Chinese silk to people in the West. Cloth flags became especially popular in the Muslim lands of the Middle East in the seventh century. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, flew white and black flags while he was spreading his new religion. The black flag was reportedly once a door curtain of Mohammad's wife Aisha. Mohammad's early Muslim followers later carried the black flag into war. It was flown at the front of the army so all troops could see it. Centuries later, Mohammad's flag was adopted into the red flags of the Ottoman Empire, an Islamic entity that decorated its banners with Muslim symbols and writing.

Cloth flags also became popular among armies and kingdoms in medieval Europe. Armored knights all appeared identical in combat, so armies flew decorated flags and wore designs on their helmets and shields to distinguish themselves. Flags and other such emblems came to indicate social status in these highly stratified societies. European nobles, for instance, flew flags that advertised their rank and hereditary titles, while royal families and entire kingdoms displayed flags with crests or coats of arms. As with Islamic flags before them, many European flags also featured religious imagery; as Christianity was the predominant religion across the continent, crosses became common on the flags of Europe. However, it was not until the revolutionary period of the late 1700s and early 1800s in the United States and Europe that flags began to assume a nationalistic quality.

Overview

Historians identify the red, white, and blue flags produced by the United States and France in each of their democratic revolutions in the late 1700s as the first to break from the historical tradition of flags representing nobility and monarchy. The American flag, with its red and white stripes and field of solid blue with white stars, symbolized American values rather than social rank. On the original flag, the thirteen stripes and thirteen stars represented the thirteen original American colonies of Great Britain. The color red denoted strength and courage, white embodied purity and innocence, and blue symbolized justice and perseverance. With this design, the American flag was meant to epitomize the American identity. The same was true of the red, white, and blue flag of France, which represented the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity that had given rise to the French Revolution (1789–1799).

The next several centuries witnessed the rise of scores of other sovereign nations around the world, each of which eventually devised its own national flag as a symbol of its cultural identity. The United Kingdom adopted its flag, the Union Jack, in 1801, but the flag's basic design predates this by about two centuries. The Union Flag of 1606 symbolized the recent union of England and Scotland by combining the two kingdoms' flags. The new flag featured England's red cross on a white background superimposed on Scotland's white X on a blue background. The Union Flag closely resembled the eventual Union Jack, but it was not until 1801, when Ireland was assumed into the newly named nation of Great Britain, that the Irish flag of a red X on a white background was added to the British flag to create the Union Jack that still exists in the twenty-first century.

Argentina's flag, adopted in 1812, features a horizontal white bar in the middle of two horizontal light blue bars. The blue represents Argentina's mostly clear skies, while the white symbolizes the snow of the Andes Mountains. In the center of the white bar is the Sun of May, a sun with a human face, which denotes Argentina's independence. The flag of Malaysia resembles the American flag. Its fourteen red and white stripes, however, represent the country's thirteen states and the federal district of Kuala Lumpur. The crescent and star in the flag's field of blue signify Islam, the primary religion of Malaysia. Bangladesh adopted its flag in 1972. It displays a red circle on a green background, with the red representing the country's fight for independence and the green recalling Bangladesh's lush vegetation.

In all these ways, flags have come to symbolize the identity and spirit of entire nations and peoples. In the twenty-first century, all 196 countries in the world have a national flag.

However, in some instances flags have become symbols of hate, discrimination, or a painful past. The Nazi flag, for example, which was the symbol of Hitler's Germany and the Holocaust, contains a swastika, which means “good fortune” in Sanskrit. The swastika is a holy symbol in many ancient cultures throughout the world, but its appropriation by Nazi Germany during World War II changed its meaning to one of the Aryan race, antisemitism, and racial purity. Post World War II, the flag's appropriated meaning remained, and it has been used in demonstrations and protests around the world as a call for racial purity or to signal hate. Due to the protections of the First Amendment in the United States, and based on the Supreme Court case of National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, the display of the Nazi flag is protected under the Constitution.

Similarly, the Confederate flag, the symbol of America's Confederate South during the American Civil War, also came to be known as a symbol of hate and, in this case, racism. The flag's stars represent the eleven Southern states that seceded between 1860 and 1861 and many see the white as a representation of purity or White supremacy. While some Southern historians and sympathizers claim that the flag is a representation of heritage, not hate, opponents of the flag argue that it indeed represents a hatred of African Americans. The flag, which was originally the battle flag of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (ANV), was adopted by the Confederate Congress in 1863. Though following the Civil War it continued to fly as a symbol of remembrance, it was later used to symbolize the desire for continued segregation. Specifically, the Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 led many Southern states to display the flag in opposition to the court's ruling and desegregation. While the display of the flag is protected under the First Amendment, it has come to connote White supremacy and racism.

Bibliography

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