Quote:
Originally posted by PeterGustafsson
South Africa: went from a flag with a pale orange (bleh) with three small flags inside it to a combination of several strong colors, contrasting in a bad way. From bad to bad, in another way. |
Agreed!
We have a pair of giant Y fronts for a national flag and the colours are gross (though not as gross as the last one imho)...
I have a theory about our (new) flag:
The original SA flag was a combination of the OLD Dutch flag (orange, white and blue stripes), signifying the Dutch colonial past of SA; with the Union Flag (its only a Union Jack if flying from the jack mast of a ship), signifying the British colonial past; and the flags of the two boer republics (Orange Free State and Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek).
With the fall of apartheid, we got a new, far more pleasant (but far from attractive) flag. My theory on this flag is that they superimposed the colours of the flag of the Afrcan National Congress (the liberation organisation largely responsible for the fall of apartheid) over the flag of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (signifying the new order replacing the old, but allowing the people to coexist in a 'rainbow nation')
This has bnever been confirmed or denied, but the colours and shapes used are very similar and I think bares my theory out!
Whats cool is, that fencers fencing for SA get to have their flag made into a styilised sword (epee or foil) and we wear this on our leg on our non-sword arm side. Its colourful, striking and kinda cool...