With the passing of the late, great, Jimmy Buffet, I spent some time doing a deep dive on his Spotify playlists and discovering that there was way more to the guy than ‘Margaritaville’ and ‘It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere’— (‘Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die’ with Willie Nelson was awesome, the melancholy ‘Come Monday’ was amazing and who can beat the greatest song title I think I’ve come across in a while, ‘My Head Hurts, My Feet Stunk and I Don’t Love Jesus.’) But there is no other flag that I think is more fitting to talk about in the wake of his passing than that of the Conch Republic of Key West, Florida.
The Conch Republic was declared on April 23, 1982, to protest the US Border Patrol setting up a roadblock and inspection point on the only two roads that connect the Florida Keys with the mainland. The Key West City Council had been complaining for a while that it was an inconvenience for travelers getting to and from the Keys and hurting their tourism industry. When complaints and an attempt to get an injunction in court against the checkpoint went nowhere, the City Council staged a secession on the grounds that if the US Government had set up a border station and was treating them like a foreign nation, they might as well become one and thus, the Conch Republic was born.
What happened next is worth quoting in full from the Wiki page:
As part of the protest, Mayor Wardlow was proclaimed prime minister of the republic, which immediately declared war against the United States (symbolically breaking a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man dressed in a naval uniform), quickly surrendered after one minute (to the man in the uniform), and applied for one billion dollars in foreign aid.
Ultimately, all of this worked. That’s the best thing about this, because the border checkpoint was removed and Key West has been mining the Conch Republic for tourism gold ever since.
What does the flag mean though?
The blue of the background is a ‘rich blue’ for the blue skies of Key West. The center features a pink conch shell which represents the natives and it’s placed upon a yellow sun because ‘the sun always shines in Key West.’ 1828 represents the year that Key West and Monroe County were incorporated and on the left, you see the four stars of the constellation Cygnus, which is known as the Northern Cross, while on the right you see the five stars of the Southern Cross- which is actually visible at Key West at certain times of the year. (Which I totally didn’t know! That’s kind of cool, actually.)
It kind of gets lost in the news thanks to the much larger conflict in Ukraine nearby, but the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh hasn’t really simmered down or stopped- in fact, it may be on the verge of reigniting again. The power dynamics in the region have shifted, and with Russia (obviously) preoccupied with Ukraine, it seems that Armenia is on the back foot a little bit in this conflict- as Turkey seems to be the main regional supporter of Azerbaijan and Russia was the primary backer of Armenia.
Interestingly enough, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War featured the widespread use of drones in the conflict on the part of Azerbaijan- probably the first time we saw widespread deployment of drones in a military conflict and is generally thought to have contributed to Azerbaijan’s victory. Looking at the map featured on the Wiki Page, it was quite the victory upending the ceasefire put in place after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War seeing substantial territorial reversals for Armenia and leaving the Republic of Artsakh precariously connected to Armenia through the Lachin Corridor.
So what does the flag mean?
Adopted on June 2nd, 1992, by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic- (which was renamed the Republic of Artsakh in 2017 after a referendum and retained the flag) the flag is derived from the flag of Armenia with what the wiki page describes as a “white, five-toothed stepped carpet pattern is added, beginning at the two verges of the flag’s fly and meeting at a point equal to one-third of the distance from that side.”
The color symbolism listed on the Artsakh wiki page is pretty similar to that listed for the flag of Armenia. The red is for the ongoing struggle of the Armenian people for existence, Christian faith, independence, and freedom. Blue is for the will of the Armenian people to live under a peaceful sky, orange is for the solidarity and hard work of the Armenian people. The white on this flag stands for the mountains of Armenian Artsakh and forms a westward arrow to symbolize the aspiration for eventual union with Armenia. The triangular shape separated by the white represents the region’s geographical separation from Armenia. (The white pattern is also similar to the design used on rugs, which is a symbol of national identity.)
Gabon made the news by joining a growing list of countries in West and Central Africa to have a successful coup attempt since 2020. (Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Chad, and Sudan- both those latter two depending on your definition of what both ‘coup’ and ‘successful’ mean.) Gabon might wind up being one of those ‘good news/bad news’ types of situations. On the one hand, the coup managed to end the 56-year-old rule of the Bongo family (son Ali Bongo was overthrown, and Dad Omar Bongo was President from 1967 to 2009 ) which seems like it tentatively might be a good thing. On the other hand, it was still a military coup in a region where military coups don’t tend to have good long-term outcomes.
The Junta is promising elections by 2025 and there seems to be a little bit of what I might, maybe call optimism that they can kick start a new era for Gabon, but we’ll see what happens.
So what does the flag mean?
Well, for a start, I should point out that I actually really like this flag. West Africa is full of flags that default to the pan-African combination of red/yellow/green, which is fine- because I understand the cultural and historical import of those color choices but at the same time, it does make flag design in that region a little bit one-note. Gabon on the other hand, stands out. It uses blue which isn’t unheard of in African flags- but in that region, you’ve got dark blues for Cape Verde, the Gambia, Chad, and the Central African Republic. Lighter blues for Sierra Leone and Equatorial Guinea and I suppose we’ll have to throw in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as it’s just a hop over the Republic of Congo to get there.
So this particular blue stands out a wee bit in the general geographical area.
I also like the fact they went with a horizontal tricolor instead of a vertical one. A lot of former French colonies in the region and in general, I suppose, use the horizontal tricolor which is what the OG French tricolor uses, so I like that Gabon went with a tricolor as a nod to the historic connection, but went a little different and did a horizontal one instead.
The ratio of 3:4 (again, flag ratios are something I need to pay more attention to) also adds another distinctive feature to this flag.
The color symbolism is pretty clear-cut. The green is for the natural resources of Gabon and its extensive forests. The yellow is for the equator which cuts across the country as well as the sun and the blue is for the sea, specifically the South Atlantic which makes up the extensive coast of the country.
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That’s all I’ve got for this installment of Three Flags. If you like it, let me know in the comments and if you too, have someone who loves flags in your life, send them this post and tell ‘em to subscribe! I’m always looking for more readers.