A new Iraqi flag is born … at least for the next year. On the new

'temporary' flag, Saddam's handwriting of 'God is Great'  and

the stars that surrounded Saddam's writing have been expunged.

Azzaman, Iraq

Iraqis Look to the Flag …

the American and Iranian,

but Certainly Not the Iraqi!

"Raise up the American flag, that overshadows your existence and flutters above you, young and old … and which covers your flaws and grants you security. … Politicians have turned our cherished national flag into a rag, just like the political positions with which they adorn themselves."

By Fatih Abdulsalam

Translated By Nicolas Dagher and James Jacobson

January 22, 2008

Iraq - Azzaman - Original Article (Arabic)

Raise up the American flag, that overshadows your existence and flutters above you, young and old … and which covers your flaws and grants you security. Or raise the Iranian flag, if you find in it a protector, a supporter and something that makes the heart flutter and revives the dead ...

But in either case, the slaughtered, displaced and starving people of Iraq are beyond blaming you [Iraqi politicians] for your irresponsibility. The door of blame has been closed for some time, and will only be opened when a camel can enter through the eye of a needle [in other words, never].

[Editor's Note: The author means that Iraqis are so fed up that they are beyond talking about whom to blame for their difficulties].

Lift up the flag of any country that you feel provides a safe way to cross into the Green Zone, as ships of all nations do when they adopt the flags of nearby countries to pass through dangerous sea lanes.

But on the basis of weak voting which amounted to less than a third [of Parliament], you have no right to choose a temporary one year flag for Iraq, for Iraq is no consumer, charitable society or political party organ. To be diminished to such an extent is an insult and a mockery.

[Editor's Note: On Jan. 29, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law to change the Saddam-era flag, meeting demands of Iraqi Kurds who threatened not to fly it at a pan-Arab meeting in the Kurdish-run north next month. The law, which expires in one year, was approved by show of hands, with 110 of the Parliament's 275 lawmakers voting in favor. The measure removed the three stars and changed the calligraphy of the words "Allahu Akbar." A law to establish a completely new flag must be passed within a year].

You [politicians] fear that you won't be able to sit in your chairs long enough to warm your butts [meaning to make more money. Butt in this instance refers to the fatty tissue of a sheep's butt: in Arabic, this refers to the wealthy]. You wallow in the temporary: the temporariness of your positions, the titles you give yourselves and those you inherited from your fathers and the slogans that you use. Or as when an industry fears its product will go bad before its reaches the market or when farmers dread that their land will go fallow ...

You are wallowing in all that is temporary, worrisome and fragile ... but Iraq is a strong country, even when it's bleeding; Iraqis don't accept your weakness, your personal shame, or anyone with such childish characteristics that they would accept a temporary flag, the only advantage of which is that it describes your state. This is a government that pretends to be elected, but which has no control over the national flag that flutters above it ... This is a Parliament that blows the trumpet of struggle in the name of sovereignty, but fears to stand under the everlasting flag of Iraq, with all its division and confusion, and which oscillates between this word or that emblem ... eastern or western.

The idea if having a temporary one-year flag without the three stars took hold because of a misinterpretation. As I like to see it, those three stars represent the tri-partite division of Iraq's political system [Shiite-Sunni-Kurd] with which you [politicians] keep struggling.

“God is Great" [Allah Akhbar, which was written in Saddam's handwriting amid the three stars], is not required on this temporary banner ... since Allah doesn’t need you to raise his name ... And Allah, honored be his name, has no need for your generosity to keep his glorified name on a cherished national emblem - one which you have turned into a rag just like the political positions with which you adorn yourselves. 

[Editor's Note: According to Al-Jazeera, the three green stars in the center of the old flag, which represented Saddam's Baath Party motto of unity, freedom and socialism, have been removed. ... The script was originally in Saddam's handwriting but was changed unofficially in 2004 to Kufic, an early form of Arabic calligraphy that originated in Southern Iraq].

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