Three Flags: Niger, Tibet & the Crimean Tatars
A new (occasionally reoccurring) feature on flags
So, I became an amateur vexillologist/flag collector mainly because my Aunt gave me a pocket guide to the world’s flags that I still have on a shelf somewhere. I read that thing cover to cover and back again and that, combined with the local military surplus store selling all kinds of flags for something like 10, 20 bucks a pop (could be less than that, actually, I can’t quite remember) meant that I could collect them pretty easily as well.
(I don’t know if Military Surplus stores are common everywhere, but although our local one has moved to shinier, newer quarters, back in the day it was stuffed to the brim will all kinds of things, had dark-colored carpet, a tiny black and white television the cashier watched behind the counter and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.)
When I started to blog with a certain degree of consistency, I started the longest-running feature on multiple iterations of my blog: This Week In Vexillology. It posted every Saturday and I made it all the way up to #300 and that doesn’t include random special posts and detours I took along the way.
So you can understand that I was a little bit hesitant to go back to territory that I have covered pretty extensively. After all, what is there to say about many of these flags that I haven’t already said before? But it also occurs to me that I started this Substack to figure out how to write about flags again, so I’ve got to do something.
Thus, Three Flags was born. I don’t know if I’m going to do this every month, but I’ll certainly be writing about flags more than I am now. I want to look at flags in the news, flag controversies, and random flags that I just think are really cool.
Without further ado then, let’s get to it:
I’ve always liked this flag because of its use of the color orange. Don’t get me wrong: I understand the historical importance of the Pan-African colors for Africa, but you can only use red-yellow-green so many times before it gets a bit repetitive so I always appreciate African flags that stand out from the pack. (Botswana is the other one that springs to mind, but you can always play ‘Is it Ireland or the Ivory Coast?’ and ‘Is it Chad or Romania?’ if you want to as well.)
Adopted on November 23rd, 1959 by the Territorial Assembly of the Niger Colony and it was retained upon independence from French West Africa and has remained unchanged all the way through to the current constitution adopted in 2010. There’s no official definition of the symbolism, but Wikipedia says this:
Common interpretations are that the upper orange band represents the northern regions of the Sahara Desert, or the Sahel, the center white band represents purity or the Niger River, and the lower green band represents both hope and the fertile regions of southern Niger. The orange disc in the center band is through to stand for the sun or independence.
It’s not a traditional vertical tricolor, so you can quite draw a parallel to the French flag, but the national motto, ‘Fraternite, Travail, Progres’ would suggest a three-pronged parallel to the three bands of the flag, but again, there’s no official definition laid down anywhere, so make of that what you will. Additionally, the ratio of 6:7 (and aspect ratios are another aspect of flags that I need to learn more about) is what you see the flag most commonly shown/flown as, but it’s not consistent and there’s no official rule on that one way or the other.
So, why Niger? Well, there was a coup d’etat there in late July, and the regional security organization, ECOWAS had threatened a military intervention but so far has yet to make good on that. (Niger’s Junta is being backed by Juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, so there’s an interesting north-south divide going on in the region.) Former colonial power France will undoubtedly have some fingers in various pies. Russia and its proxies the Wagner Group have been vaguely connected to some of this. Just the sheer size of the potential conflict is going to get the United States’ attention at least- but so far, nothing. I’m hoping it stays that way.
I have this flag! And I flew it for the Dalai Lama’s birthday in early July:
Here’s the thing though: I can’t remember why I purchased the flag or if there was a specific reason behind it, other than general disapproval of China’s occupation of Tibet, but I also don’t really mind, because it’s a cool-looking flag with a lot of symbolism backed into this flag. Let’s check out a slightly better picture of it:
Not so fun fact: this flag is illegal in Tibet itself today as the Chinese government views it (probably rightfully so) as a symbol of separatism. It’s used by the Central Tibetan Administration which is based in Dharamshala, India. Per Wikipedia, the Dalai Lama has said the following:
…he hoped Tibet would achieve true autonomy and not ask for independence. He believes that the symbolism of the flag is similar to that of the Hong Kong regional flag and does not represent the Tibetan independence movement, but the concept of pursuing religious freedom and pursuing national equality and mutual respect.
I don’t know whether he feels that way now after what’s happened to Hong Kong, but it is a position that acknowledges the reality of the political situation, however much he might wish it otherwise, so I give him props for that- it also underlines the complicated issue of his succession as undoubtedly China will have its own candidates to succeed him as well.
But all of that is TBD. Let’s talk about this awesome flag, It’s absolutely packed with symbolism but manages not to be too busy in its overall design, which is a neat trick they manage to pull off. Let’s break it down, per the flag’s Wiki page:
The white triangle at the center of the flag symbolizes a snow-clad mountain
The six red stripes exist atop a blue sky representing the original ancestors of the Tibetan people: the six tribes called Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Dru, and Ra
The yellow sun represents the equal enjoyment of freedom, spiritual and material happiness, and prosperity by all beings in Tibet.
The pair of snow lions represent Tibet’s victorious accomplishment of a unified spiritual and secular life.
The three colored jewels held by the snow lions represent the three ‘supreme gems,’ the objects of refuge: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
The two colored swirling jewels held between the two lions represent the people’s guarding and cherishing of the self-discipline of correct ethical behavior.
The flag’s yellow border symbolizes that the teachings of the Buddha are flourishing and spreading.
I love this flag. The design is packed with symbolism- but it’s coherent and tells a story. It’s not all over the map and with everything centering around the sun as the central element of the flag, it draws the eye to the center of the design, which is what you want at the end of the day. If there’s one little nit to pick, I would say it’s pretty off to be that the border doesn’t go around all four sides of the flag and I would have thought the non-bordered side would have made more sense along the hoist, but it’s also not a deal breaker to me from a design perspective.
Love good design. Love lots of symbolism. Absolutely 10/10 flag.
The Crimean Tatars
This flag is in the news for all the wrong reasons, unfortunately, due to Russia’s ongoing invasion and occupation of large chunks of Ukraine, including Crimea. The flag has been banned in Crimea and if for some reason you want to see a comments section talking all about it, here’s the Reddit post I stumbled across announcing the same thing. (I don’t know why you would, but occasionally you can get some interesting and mildly informative comment threads on Reddit- plus, the post is what gave me the idea, so I will give credit where it’s due.)
Naturally, if you’re going to talk about the flag of the Crimean Tartars, the next obvious question is- just who the heck are they?
If you want to do a deep dive into them, this seems like a good place to start. But basically, they were the majority of Crimea’s population from sometime between the 13th and 17th centuries until the end of the 19th century, when Russia, being the charming neighbor that it is, attempted to purge them through a combination of physical violence, intimidation, and forced resettlement and they continued that right through the Soviet era— in fact, as soon as they retook Crimea in May of 1944, which is crazy to me- they started forced deportations again including families of Crimean Tartars who had served in the Soviet Army. As an ethnic group, they lost between twenty and fifty percent of their population because of these practices.
Today, they make up about 15% of the population and there’s a diaspora population in both Turkey and Uzbekistan.
The flag is taken from the short-lived Crimean People’s Republic that sprung ever-so-briefly into existence after the Russian Revolution caused the collapse of the Russian Empire. It lasted from December 1917 to January 1918, so about a month or so— but, the cool thing to note here: it was the first Turkic and Muslim democratic republic in the world.
I can’t find a lot about the symbolism of the flag. I found a reference that the sky-blue is the color of the eternal sky of the Turkic god Tengri and the golden symbol in the upper left quadrant is a tamga, which is described as “an abstract seal or stamp used by Eurasian nomads and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the emblem of a particular tribe, clan, or family.” Based on that description, I’m going to assume that the tamga seen on the flag is specific to the Crimean Tartar people somehow.
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That’s all I’ve got for this first installment of Three Flags. If you like, let me know in the comments and if 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.