This Week In Vexillology #163

This Week In Vexillology, we're sticking around the South Pacific and taking a look at the striking and kind of awesome looking flag of Vanuatu!

First discovered by Europeans in 1606, it nearly another two centuries and another two visits before the archipelago was finally given a name that stuck, courtesy of Captain James Cook, who named them the New Hebrides. Over the subsequent centuries both Britain and France claimed parts of the island chain, which lead to the establishment of a unique power sharing structure between the two powers which only came together in a joint court. Melanesians on the islands could not get citizenship of either power. (This is actually really unusually and unique- I can't say I've ever come across a joint-agreement between two powers like this before. Interesting.)

After World War II, nationalism grew with the arrival of- who else? The Americans! (And gave rise to a cargo cult named John Frum which is now a political party in the government.) The first political party was established in the 1970s, eventually becoming the Vanua'aku Pati after independence was won after...  the Coconut War.

(That's a pretty much a TL;DR of the interesting stuff I could glean about Vanuatu...)

But now, the FLAG! 

Adopted for national and civil usage on February 18th, 1980, the colors of the Vanua'aku Pati (the political party that lead the fight for independence) were chosen to be the basis of the new national flag and a parliamentary committee chose the final design based on submissions from local artists. The green in the flag represents the richness of the islands, the red is for the blood of wild boars and men, black is for the people. The Prime Minister of Vanuatu at the time, Father Walter Lini wanted the inclusion of yellow to make the black stand out more. The yellow 'Y' represents "the light of the gospel going through islands." (The overwhelming majority of residents are Christian.)

The tusk/laurel leaf emblem on the hoist is interesting. The tusk is for a boar- which is a symbol of prosperity on the islands. The leaves are from a local fern and represent a token of peace- if you look real, reaaaaal close you'd count 39 leaflets- which represent the 39 members of Parliament in Vanuatu.

Remember, until next time- keep your flags flying- FREAK or otherwise!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Didn't Watch The State of The Union

I didn't watch the State of the Union last night for the first time in what seems like a very long time indeed. I didn't watch it out of some form of virtue-signalling protest. I didn't watch it because it started at about eight o'clock at that is prime time for bedtime for the kids. And anyone with kids will tell you: you don't mess with bedtime. Also, I just didn't care. I know in some areas of the flaming dumpster fire that is our political discourse these days that's a hanging offense. "You didn't care? How dare you not care! Aren't you against [insert controversy of the week here]?" or my favorite, "Well, you have the privilege of not caring about this stuff." No, it's not about my privilege. (That's an entirely different conversation.) I just genuinely did not care, because it did not matter. Both ends of the political spectrum live in parallel universes, I decided. They're going to listen to the same speech
Read more

Tintin, Ranked

Image
What can you say about Tintin? He's been around for decades- was one of the most popular comics of the 20th Century. He's spawned a television cartoon ( which I remember watching on Nickelodeon ) and more recently a movie ( two more of which are apparently coming, though it's been awhile since the movie dropped .) He hasn't been free from controversy- Tintin In The Congo is hard to find these days for a reason, the least of which is (what I'm guessing) the somewhat 'problematic' portrayal of Africans in the Belgian Congo when the reality of that chapter of colonial history was dark indeed. For sure, if there's an aspect of these books that makes me cringe somewhat, it's his portrayal of Africans. Herge's portrayal of Latinx individuals and cultures tends to be a bit better, though his portrayal of indigenous folks and Asians is somewhat mixed. He's excellent in The Blue Lotus , somewhat less so with his portrayal indigenous people in Ti
Read more

Psephology Rocks: Holiday Grab Bag Edition

Well, there's lots to talk about post-Election Day, not only in America, but there's a few bits and bobs from around the world worth touching on as well.  We'll start local and work upwards: Local:  Well, I went three for three in my City Council Endorsements- Botchway, Salih took the At-Large Seats and Susan Mims took the District B Seat.  The District B race between incumbent Susan Mims and student Ryan Hall was less of a contest than I think people were anticipating, as Mims won handily 59% to 41%. I had nothing in particular against Hall, per say- but I feel like if Raj Patel who was another student who ran a few cycles back (I want to say 2010?) had serious money and a serious platform behind him and didn't win, then Hall was going to be a long shot. He checked all the right progressive boxes for Iowa City, but he was running against an incumbent who might not be uber-Progressive, but not say, Terry Dickens either. I think Hall would have had a better shot aga
Read more