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Out of Left Field |
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 Is the flag of GAMBIA really the world's best? |
An intrepid fellow gives
flags points for esthetics
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
I regard Josh Parsons as the king of flags. He is a
bloke who willy-nilly rated all the flags of the world. He did
it on his own website and it is a fascinating thing to look at
even if you are likely to disagree with many of his pronunciamentos.
Parsons is a post-doctoral fellow in philosophy at St. Andrews
College in Scotland. He works on metaphysics, “especially
the metaphysics of time,” he says “and I have also
been known to write on philosophy of science and on ethics.”
He is surely somethng more than a flag-waver.
You could say he rated
all the flags because they were there. There are more than 200.
He gave each a letter grade ( A to F) and a number rating based
on 100%. He rated Gambia first and the Northern Mariana Islands
last.
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the flag of St. Vincent & the Grenadines (above left), even though the St. Vincent flag sounds more like the name of a rock group. |
Gambia has three horizontal stripes--red, blue and green--each separated by a thin white stripe. He said he likes Gambia’s flag because it has beautiful colors and represents something of the history and geography of he country. The blue in the middle represents the River Gambia which is what most of Gambia is.
I think the Gambia flag is okay, maybe a B at best. There are many which I like better. It is fun to disagree with Parsons, but I am awed by the originality of the enterprise and that he could post it on an internet website for all to see.
He has standards. He likes simplicity. He doesn’t like too many stars on a flag. He is against putting representational pictures on flags and thereby lowballed a flag like Lesotho (C/55) because it has spears on it.
Along with the grades, he added symbols highlighting aspects of his opinion. Comments such as “good colors,” “simple,” “good shape” and “original.” On the down side he opined, “too many stars,” “too busy,” “bad colors,” and “plagiarism.” Mali (B/70), for example, was downgraded because it has the same three green, yellow and red vertical stripes as Romania (B/70). He said of multi-colored Uganda (D/40) ), “It makes me nauseous.”
I agree with his abhorrence of weapons on the flags of Saudi Arabia (C/60); Afghanistan (C/56); Kenya (C/55) and Swaziland (C/55) among others.
His comments are entertainingly cutting. He said, “Spain (D/65) had a civil war over whether to keep this flag. The wrong side won.” South Korea (D/60) “looks good on a T-shirt, not a flag.” Of Kyrgystan (D/57) he asked,”Is that a tennis ball on this flag?” He ridiculed Zimbabwe (D40) because “It features a hawk sitting on a toilet.”
He doesn’t like a map of the country on a flag so he rated Cyprus a D/40 because its flag has the shape of the island nation. I like Cyprus precisely because I do like maps on a flag. So we disagree, too, on Tuvalu, a set of islands in the South Pacific, whose flag consists of brown and blue sections with eight yellow stars. He said, “I didn’t realize the horrible truth about that flag. Those stars aren’t in a random arrangement. They’re in the shape of the country. It’s a map. On the other hand, much of Tuvalu will soon be under water owing to global warming-and they’re sure to remove some of those stars.”
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Canadian "maple leaf" design at left. |
His Top 10 are: 1. Gambia (A+/90) 2. Pakistan (A/88); 3. Japan (A/87 ); 4. Somalia (A/86 ); 5. South Africa (A/85 ); 6. Vietnam (A/85 ); 7. Switzerland (A/85 ); 8. Israel (A/85); 9. Turkey (A/85): and 10. Cuba (A/85).
I think he is a bit too much the minimalist, liking Japan, Somalia, Switzerland and Vietnam for having only a single circle or star on their flags. To me South Africa looks like a logo for a railroad, and is, to use Parson’s words, “too busy.”
Libya (B/70) is the only flag that consists of just one solid color--green. Parsons appreciates its originality. I agree. Libya is like the Cleveland Browns football team. The Browns are the only team with no logo on their helmets, which are a solid orange.
He applauded the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (B/65) as “a good effort for a country that sounds like a rock’n’ roll group.”
Parsons inspired my Top
10: 1. Canada, 2. France, 3. Brazil (because it is so distinctive
that it was the flag I recognized earliest as a child), 4. Turkey,
5. United Kingdom, 6. Denmark (representing all the similar-like
Scandinavian flags) 7. Maldives; 8. Palau; 9. Israel; 10. Botswana.
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flag of the Northern Mariana Islands (above right) the world's worst. |
His Bottom 10: 1. Northern
Mariana Islands (F/2) 2. U.S. Virgin Islands (F/6); 3. Guam (F/20);
4. Brazil (D-/35); 5. El Salvador(D-/36); 6.Mozambique (D-/37)
7 Turkmenistan (D-/37): 8.Falkland Islands (D/38); 9. Nive (D-/39);
10. American Samoa (D/39).
At a time when Americans are flying the flag as they never have
before in reaction to 9-11, Parsons dares award Old Glory only
a C+/60. “Too many stars,” he says. The flag-wavers
have let him have it by e-mail for sure. He responds, “I
think being able to laugh at the symbol of a country in a friendly
way is an important way of combatting the excesses of nationalism.”
© 2002 by Stan Isaacs.
The Stan Isaacs caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel.
The other illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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