National flags and the symbolism of accomodating minorities
Repost This ArticleThis is a reaction to Saman’s comment on the article The Needs of the Hour by Professor Michael Roberts. Saman says that Sri Lanka flag has accommodated minorities, and asks:
“looking at other world flags, interesting to see how many countries have been so inclusive… (oh yes.. british, india, malaysia…???)”
I will briefly explain about the British, Indian, and Malaysian flag issue he has raised to show that despite his implied criticism of these countries their national flags are more inclusive of minorities than Sri Lanka’s flag.
The British National Flag
The Union Flag, popularly known as the Union Jack, is the British national flag. The Union Flag symbolises the administrative union of the countries of the United Kingdom. It is made up of the individual Flags of three countries that are united under one Sovereign; i.e, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Wales was not a Kingdom at the time but a Principality. So it could not be included on the flag. However, there has been a debate to include a uniquely Welsh element in the Union Flag by combining it with the Welsh flag to reflect Wales’ status within the UK, and the Red Dragon to the Union Flag’s red, white and blue pattern. This debate is in progress.
The Indian National Flag
The Indian national flag made up of just ‘Khadi’, a special hand spun yarn made up of cotton, silk and wool, represents India’s long struggle for freedom, which Sri Lanka did not have. As an aside, actually it was not the Sri Lankan Sinhalese but Sri Lanka Tamils who first demanded SwaRaj for Sri Lanka from the British colonialists. The Indian flag, a horizontal tricolour, has three equal strips of deep saffron on the top, white in the middle and dark green at the bottom. In the centre of the white band, there is a wheel in navy blue representing the Ashoka (or Dharma) Chakra, the wheel of law in the Sarnath Lion Capital. This center symbol of the Dharma Chakra, is a Buddhist symbol dating back to 200th century BC. This is in a country where Hinduism and Islam are predominant. The Dharma Chakra has 24 spokes, which intends to reflect that there is life in movement and death in stagnation. The saffron stands for courage, sacrifice and the spirit of renunciation; the white for purity and truth; and the green for faith and fertility. The flag symbolizes freedom. The late Prime Minister Pandith Nehru called it a flag not only of freedom for Indians, but a symbol of freedom for all people.
The Malaysian National Flag
The Malaysian National Flag consists of fourteen red and white stripes (along the fly) of equal width, a union or canton of dark blue, a crescent and a star. The red and white stripes stand for equal status in the federation of the 14 member states and the federal government of Malaysia (Perlis, Kedah, Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan). The union or canton of dark blue represents the unity of the peoples of Malaysia. The union contains the crescent which is the symbol of Islam, and the star, the 14 points of which symbolise the unity of the 13 states of the federation with the federal government. The yellow of the crescent and the star is the royal colour of the Rulers.
As could be seen any of the flags of the United Kingdom, India or Malaysia do not have a major portion to represent a majority ethnic community of their countries. The UK has a Union, India Dharma Chakra and Malaysia a crescent and star. As everybody knows Malaysia is criticized by its minorities for its religious eccentricity and other existing deficiencies, but this is not reflected in it’s flag which is inclusive.
The Sri Lankan National Flag
The National Flag of Sri Lanka represents the country and her heritage, but is also a rallying device that integrates the races within a majority and minority design framework. In contrast the other three national flags do not refer to ethnicities based on race.
The civil standard of Sri Lanka’s last king, Sri Wickrama Rajasingha had a passant royal lion with a sword in it’s right fore paw at the center, and a bo-leaf on each of the four corners on a plain border. When the British colonised the island in 1815, the Union Jack was imposed on its people. The civil standard of the last king was hoisted once again in 1948. The new improved national flag was approved in 1950, where the lion represents the Sinhala race and the sword of the lion the country’s sovereignty. The handle of the sword highlights the elements of water, fire, air and earth. The lion’s body parts signifies diverse characteristics of Sinhala Buddhists: tail the noble eight fold path of Buddhism; the curly hair on the lion’s head religious observance, wisdom and meditation; the beard purity of words; the nose intelligence, and the two front paws purity in handling wealth. The orange vertical stripe represents the minority Tamil race, the green vertical stripe the minority Muslim race, and the yellow border the other minor races. The bo-leaves at the four corners represent Buddhism and its influence in terms of the four virtues: Kindness, Friendliness, Happiness and Equanimity, and the maroon coloured portion of the flag represents the other minor religions.
In Sri Lanka, the Lion is a historical symbol of the Sinhala people. In the flag it represents Sinhalese community and as Saman has stated the two stripes represent minorities and the bo leaves Buddhism.
History tells us that the unitary constitution and its traditions were introduced to Sri Lanka by the British colonial rulers. Nevertheless, the British themselves have been moving away from this tradition as indicated by the developments of the last two decades to become more inclusive. However, many nationalist Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and in the diaspora, wax eloquently against colonialism, yet ironically defend a colonial construct and a colonial tradition.
His last comment ‘lets not go rushing to be too accommodative’ shows his arrogant disregard for the other, and lack of respect for the other’s dignity. Shame on him, I would add. It is this lack of accommodation of the language of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka that led to the “Tamils dream of a statehood” that Sri Lankan ruling elite and Sinhala nationalists have been trying to shatter and crush since the seventies, and that was said to be “shattered and crushed once and for all” many times before in the history of Sri Lanka.
As far back as 1958 by the then commander of the Sri Lankan Army Major General Richard Udugama and later in 1978 under a government that placed Jaffna District under Emergency Regulations (ER), and gave the armed forces led by General Tissa (Bull) Weeratunga the power to shoot and kill any suspected persons and to dispose dead bodies without an inquest.
oh dear.. tunnel vision? why bash the sri lankan flag when there is so much blood tainted on the three other flags?
so bopage, in your opinion , do you think the 3 nations would ever consider/allow if the wales, tamil ndau and tamils in malysia wanted to create their own nation?
wel said MR BOPAGE
Some additional points of Indias inclusiveness
The National anthem is in Bengali composed by Rabindranath Tagore
The most publicised monument is Taj mahal – An Islamic inspired monument
A Sikh Prime minister – Manmohan Singh – extremely small minority
when shall we learn
We can debate on the virtues and vices of these countries and their flags forever. Should we ignore the bitter violence that erupts between (if not against) Muslims and Christians mostly by Hindus in India… or the Muslim majority dominance of Malaysia that sidelines minority religions and so on.. in our efforts to praise or criticize our own flag or what it stands for?
Perhaps there is no ideal example that we could follow (the dutch seem a particularly liberal and tolerant society than most others, but can we practically adopt their culture?).
Why not channel our own creative ideas to solve our own problems. The history of humanity is destitute of meaningful precedence where diverse peoples have lived in harmony and peaceful engagement with each other for a significant amount of time. yet, given the extent to which we have armed ourselves and with our present capacity for destruction, the very survival of humanity may well depend on our abiluty – not just as Sri Lankans, but as citizens of the world to learn to live with and be enriched by diversity and our ability to pass this age of war (with ourselves and with our environment) at which the process of human civilization has all but come to a standstill.
the writers of GV articles need to respond more to any comments rather than trying to post more articles… GV please make sure people who write articles also take time to reply as this needed to create discussion…. more two sided.. rarther than 1 side biased…
The Lion in SL national flag should be replaced with a Sinhalese soldier shooting a Tamil civilian to reflect appropriately the country !!!
I cannot understand where in my response I have bashed the Sri Lankan national flag. I have only been factual. If any factual discussion is taken as ‘bashing’, then any critical evaluation will not be warranted. Isn’t this tendency touching upon fundamental characteristics of supremacism and authoritarianism? It would have been helpful if ‘the observer’ explained the reasons for his/her conclusion.
‘Lakmali’ seems to have got the wrong end of the argument. Except for Malaysia, both the United Kingdom and India have been conscious of and have also experienced separatist tendencies. The leaders of these countries were able to weaken those tendencies by providing more decentralized forms of decision making powers and more equitable opportunities to the constituent communities. One of the best examples for this would be to consider the case of Quebec in Canada.
For example, the leaders of the Indian independence movement were conscious of the diverse ethno-linguistic nature of the Indian society. They united this diversity into one single national force through their anti-colonial struggle and secular government. Hindi was made the official language of India while each state had its own official language. They continued to teach English as a link language and provided the same emphasis as given during the pre-colonial days. Because of the positive vision of the Indian political leadership, a person from India would respond as an Indian first. Her/His nationality will come second. I invite Lakmali to compare this situation with what our political leadership did in Sri Lanka
In Malaysia, with the recent change in the UMNO leadership and increasing pressures for equitable opportunities to all the communities including Malays, Chinese and Tamils exerted by the growing strength of the opposition, such changes may occur sooner rather than later, and if so happens, it will be for the betterment of Malaysia. In Sri Lanka this is yet to occur.
The political moral at the end of the day is, instead of looking inwards, we Sri Lankans should be looking outwards for models and lessons we can learn from and use to heal our fractured social relationships.
Regarding the comment by ‘citizen’ I am basically in agreement, except to say, that mine was a response to a comment on Prof Michael Robert’s article ‘The needs of the Hour‘. I did not initiate this discussion on the national flags.
what people like you have to realise (in praticallity) non of LTTE or tamil statehood actors have ever said they want to saty within a single country.. notice past comments such as tamil nation… also last week Karunanidi’s eelam state comment? so in your view i am asking again , do you think eelam and tmails should be given their own nation?
to start talks shouldnt every one agree none of these countries have been broken into 2 countries?
lakmali :
Can you answer why the peace talks failed in 2004 / 2005?
When the GOSL had to decide to give more power to provincial govt, more over to introduce self governing states like India. BTW, LTTE came down a step to accept this, so it would have been a single country as GOSL wanted. The reason I say “would have been” is its a failed state now ( if anyone wants to define failed sate, look at SL).
If you can answer this, it will be easier to answer (explain) you question.
I think it is valid to propose a new flag. The dominace (on the SL flag) of Sinhalese and Buddhists at the expense of the “minor” races and religion is evident. The use of “minor” in one’s writing is ironic, don’t you think? It stares at us on a daily basis! Do the white stripes on the American or UK flags stand for white people? Of course not! It is fine to have some historical perspective (i.e. the 13 original colonies on the American flag (13 stripes) or the incorporation of the 3 original countries on the UK Union Jack) but not through the utilization of a majority race or religion! Let’s go beyond this simple thinking!
The flag issue, however, is just a symptom. The real issue is the inherent and cultural dicrimination throughout our society. How can we move forward if we can’t accomodate learning in a “different” language? Or how can we become inclusive if we try to put laws in our constitution making conversion to a “different” religion (i.e Christianity)? Let’s lose our shackles and not FORCE people to speak/learn in a certain language or follow a specific religion. No freedom-loving person will EVER condone and/or embrace a majority-forced way of thinking/living. The yearning for freedom is much too great.
There is a reason why even after beginning at the same point, Singapore developed into prosperous and thriving global country and our beloved Serendip is slightly above a banana republic. Wake up people- let us take our rightful place in the world. We’ve wasted so many financial resources. We’ve also lost a couple generations of time. How sad! In order to emerge in the 21st century, we need all 20 million of us on the same page and moving forward to the same goal- that of the Sri Lanka nation first before each of our separate interests!!!!
Forget the flag, just say “my man” to anyone you meet, whether Singhalese, Tamil or Muslim. The concept of “Numba Uda Aal” (My man) when a Tamil addresses a Tamil is more damaging than the Lion Flag. The Tamils should join the UNP or SLFP and work together as brotheren rather than forming all sorts of communal parties with a “T” in it.
Just think about it.
Lionel Bopage.
I enjoy reading your articles. Flags are symbols. It reflects the mind of those who create them and those who approve and adopt the flag tht ideas and basic tenets the flag signifies.
If we leave the legends out, the National Flag of Sri Lanka was the flag of Sri Wickrema Rajasingha, the last King of Lanka. I have not found any earlier reference to the Lion Flag. Is there any evidence that Devanambiya Tissa or Parakramabahu the Great or any other Sinhala or Tamil Kings of Sri Lanka, before King Rajasinghe, use a lion flag? May be a historian can give us the information with scholarly evidence and source.
Some years ago when reading the life of Pompey (106 – 48 BCE ), in Plutarch’s Lives, the last paragraph shed light on the earliest mention of the symbol, a lion holding a sword in its right paw. Pompey, who was being chased by Julius Caesar, reached the shores of Egypt to get help from King Ptolemy. King Ptolemy’s Council decided to kill Pompey. The assassins also cut his head off. Plutarch wrote,
“Not long after, Caesar arrived in the country that was polluted with this foul act, and when one of the Egyptians was sent to present him with Pompey’s head, he turned away from him with abhorrence as from a murderer; and on receiving his seal, ON WHICH WAS ENGRAVED A LION HOLDING A SWORD IN HIS PAW, he burst into tears.” (Emphasis mine.)
I am not in any way casting doubt that the Lion flag was not an original creation of a Sinhala or Tamil designers in the court of Sri Rajasinghe. May be Pompey got the idea from traders or ambassadors from whatever the Island was called during Pompey’s era or vice versa. I do not question the symbolism that Mr. Bopage gives to the sword and the body parts of the Lion. The flag is a symbol and the three communities interpret the current Lion Flag based on what it signifies to them. I like that animal, not because my father named his five sons with names ending in “Singam”. I wished the lion was holding a Chakra or Olive branch (I almost said, “Dove!”) in his right forepaw.
To Mr. Bopage and probably to many Sinhalese, the strip signifies that the Tamil and the Muslim communities are integral part of Sri Lanka. I am not sure what the Strips signify to the Muslims. But to many Tamils, the flag with the lion holding a sword, the bow tree leaves in the corner and the maroon background bounded by the Yellow Border is the Sinhala Sri Lanka. Outside the yellow border and within a peripheral yellow border are the coloured strips for Tamil and Muslim communities, symbolizing the status of a class of citizens inside a state but outside of Sinhala Sri Lanka.
The question arises why the two strips symbolizing the Tamil and Muslim communities were not placed inside One Border, without the vertical yellow border separating them from the share of the Lion? The rectangular border symbolizes that the Tamil speaking communities are within the territorial borders of Sri Lanka, but outside the Sinhala state of Sri Lanka. One wonders whether the mind-set of the Sinhala leaders got symbolised in the flag. When there was a clamour for inclusion, the best the Sinhala leaders could do was to show the two communities as part of Ceylon but not an integral and equal part of the whole. Therein lies the cause of the armed conflict.
May be, reconciliation should start with the redesigning of the flag to symbolize the equality of citizens and communities, before one starts to amend the words or even create a new constitution. Not that it would solve the problem, but it would be a start. I doubt that we are capable of redesigning a “Flag” that will be acceptable to all communities. Any Sinhala poilitical party that advocate a redesigning of the flag or the easier task of redesigning the state would be out of power before you can say, “Nagalingam Ethirveerasingam.”
When we think of flags,go to the past 7 years,in Afganistan when
United Nations tried to help the Afgan population,The Thaliban
cut the dow’s head in the un’s flag,saying only allah can have the head.Let this Sri Lankan flag given to the Muslims in Sri Lanka
sometimes will cut the lion’s head to make it an Islamic joke.
Secondly if go to put the tiger flag for Sri Lanka,all the contries that
outlaw LTTE will retaliate & boycott Sri Lanka.It better to have the Lion Flag with the minority stripes & reintroducing the 4 beetle leafs
in the 4 corners. KURUSILVA
DUE RESPECT TO NATIONAL FLAG
Each country has its own national flag
Specially designed that it can safely ‘brag’
Its own unique style without being a drag
Hoping it will flutter properly without a sag
(C) Samuel Goh Kim Eng – 040409
http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
Sat. 4th Apr. 2009.
the lion represents the bravery of ALL SRI LANKANS!! not just sinhalese. the crimson represents sinhalese. The fact is we are all represented on the flag, no matter how much or how small our ethnicity, religion or race is represented on the lankan flag it wouldnt be the same without one or the other. We make it a beautiful flag. Similarly, Sri Lankans make Sri Lanka beautiful not just tamils or sinhalese or muslims and we can take it even further. We should all be proud of our flag.
n btw what about the south asian and black minorities in England?
n non malay malaysians? where are the aborigines represented on the australian flag?
Stop complaining, if u r sri lankan,then no one can take that away from you, whether ur crimson, orange, green or yellow.