It’s not going to be over, is it? Keep the flag, change the flag. As if there are no other important issues in the country other than the flag now. Didn’t the Iraqi people say their opinion when the interim government tried to change the flag in 2004?
What is really irritating about it is how the American news outlets changed the facts about the former flag. They attributed the flag to Saddam Hussein by the time the flag was basically chosen before Saddam came to power as a president. The other thing is that all American newspapers and websites insisted that the three stars symbolized the three Baath Party goals: Unity, Freedom, and Sociality, by the time they did not. In 1985, Syria and Egypt announced their United Arab Republic whose flag was like the Iraqi flag but with two stars representing the two countries. In hope of joining the UAR, Iraq added the third star to the UAR flag and considered the Iraqi flag, and that’s how the third star represented Iraq. Unsurprisingly, the US media did not have the guts to mention that fact. Instead, they insisted on misinforming their audience by saying these three flags represented Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party goals.
So the Iraqi people woke up today to find out their flag has been changed! But what a horrible change! The new flag is dull. Just red, white, black and dark green. They should have either changed the whole thing, or kept the original. They removed the stars and left what Saddam has already put! The “Allahu Akbar” inscription. The only thing they did is they changed the handwriting of Saddam into the Kufi calligraphy. The main idea of having “Allahu Akbar” is still there! And who put it? Saddam!! So have they really removed Saddam’s imprint from it?
OK. They changed it! But oh, for one year. So, they’ll have to gather again and change it AGAIN in a year from now. They changed it temporarily to please Kaka Masoud because the Kurds suffered under that flag! All Iraqis suffered under that flag, kaka Masoud. But the flag was our country’s, not our president’s. It was the flag which we fought against our enemies with. The flag which we grew up saluting. The flag that we grew our love to our beloved country.
This is just absurd. Don’t the parliament and the government have more important issues to resolve right now? Go look at the refugees sleeping in tents in this freezing weather which Iraq didn’t experience since the 1960s. Go find a solution to the kerosene and fuel problems to make people stay warm. Try to find a solution to the garbage hills surrounding every neighborhood in Baghdad. Rebuild what the Americans destroyed during the invasion. Protect the schools from the increasing number of infiltrated militiamen and insurgents. Go south and see what is happening in Basra and why it was not safe after the British occupying troops left. Do all these things and then change the flag. There is an Arabic saying “Do the most important things and then do the important.” But in Iraq, nothing seems important for the parliament and the government. Their priorities are to satisfy their parties, not the country and the people.
