Published Date: January 23, 2008 BAGHDAD: The Iraqi flag will no longer boast Saddam Hussein's handwritten praise to God nor its distinctive three stars, parliament decided yesterday. The house passed a new flag law by 110 votes to 50 which will change the appearance of the standard but keep its horizontal red, white and black stripes. Instead of the executed dictator's handwritten "Allahu Akhbar" (God is Greater), the phrase will be printed in green on the central white stripe in the Kufi form of Arabic script, parliament ruled. The thre
e green stars, which symbolized unity, freedom and socialism-the slogan of Saddam's Baath party-will also be dropped. Under an earlier proposal, the stars were to be kept but the symbolism changed to represent peace, tolerance and justice. Before being given new meaning by the Baath party, the stars had represented Arab unity between Iraq, Syria and Egypt. Ethnic Kurds in particular had wanted the flag changed as it symbolized the Saddam-era regime which launched campaigns of persecution in which thousands
were killed with poison gas.
The parliament adopted a new, temporary national flag in a move long demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner is a reminder of the cruelty of his rule. There was rare unity among members of parliament over the emotional issue, which represents a symbolic break with the past. A previous attempt to change the flag, by the interim government in 2004, was universally rejected by Iraqis. The debate over a post-Saddam flag was given urgency by a planned pan-Arab meeting of
politicians in Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the current flag, which is banned in Kurdistan. The new flag will fly for only one year, while debate will continue on what the final flag should look like. There was no serious opposition from the Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs in parliament to the new flag - 110 of the 165 members present voted for the change-because it is almost identical to the old one. Lawmakers loyal to fiery Shiite cler
ic Moqtada Al-Sadr, who have 30 seats in parliament, voted against the proposal for that reason, saying they would prefer to keep the existing flag until a permanent one was chosen.
Other MPs, though, said the vote by parliament was symbolically important, changing a flag that was first flown after the coup by Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in 1963. "The new flag has no signs of Saddam's regime and is a sign that change has been achieved in the country, said Humam Hamoudi, a prominent Shiite politician and member of the powerful Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) party. It is still red, white and black, but the three green stars in the centre representing unity, freedom and socialism,
the motto of Saddam's now outlawed Baath party, have been removed. The phrase Allahu akbar (God is Greatest), added in green Arabic script on Saddam's orders during the 1991 Gulf War, remains. The script was originally in Saddam's handwriting but was changed unofficially in 2004 to Kufic, a prestigious early form of Arabic calligraphy that originated in Iraq. The Kurds had wanted the color of the script changed to yellow to symbolize the Kurdish nation, but it was decided this would be too difficult to r
ead on a white background.
Emotional debate
We are not trying to create a new flag, but we are moving quickly to create a temporary flag that can be flown at the parliamentary conference in Arbil. Since the Kurds reject the current Iraqi flag we needed to find a new one," said Mofeed Al-Jazarie, head of the parliament's culture committee. Kurdistan banned the use of the Iraqi flag on public buildings in 2006, causing a bitter row with the Shi'ite Islamist-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who said the flag should be raised "over any
square inch of Iraq". Kurds associate the flag with Saddam's genocidal Anfal campaign against them in the late 1980s in which tens of thousands of people were bombed, shot and gassed. Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani wrote to the Iraqi parliament last year calling for the flag to be changed. He said then that any new flag would fly alongside Kurdistan's. "It is unacceptable that this flag, which reflects the acts of the former regime in spreading hatred and death inside Iraq and between people of the reg
ion, is still adopted," he wrote. The new flag will fly at the March 10 meeting of the Arab parliament in Arbil, capital of Kurdistan, believed to be the first major pan-Arab gathering in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. The parliament comprises representatives of Arab League members. - Agencies
Well, ‘duh’ @ me then, thanks for the correction...see what happens when you work between 3-4 different articles :-)
The version posted in a South African paper last night said that both the script and the stars would be removed.
Apparently the original scrawl was in Saddam’s actual handwriting and so they wanted to get rid of that legacy while keeping the message “God is Great”.
Thanks again :-)
