As I pen these words my attention is drawn to my TV screen which portrays three different versions of the background of the Lucian flag. The responders on Constitution Park were commenting on the correctness of that background: which colour in part depicted the true flag. The baby blue, the sky blue or the sea blue?
Why the confusion in 2020, forty-one years after our national independence? This is a matter that should have been determined by the people of this country four decades earlier through the instrumentality of a national competition or popular affirmation. And that is in terms of the component parts of the flag of Saint Lucia. All I see at this time is sound and fury signifying nothing. A matter relegated to the babblement of the pavement. Baby blue, sky blue or sea blue: what is the difference? Hence the superficiality, the inanity of the various responses.
In relation to a flag anywhere, any place, one’s thinking has to be on a different and higher level. We seem to be preoccupied with the mundane, the fatuous when our focus should be on the sublime, the historical and on the experiential level of abstraction.The artistic and aesthetic presentation of a flag is of some importance; but what, in my opinion, is the core and determinative consideration, is the symbolism of the flag as it relates to a specific geographical expression.
The key words in the formulation or creation of a flag are: symbolism, abstraction, historicity and edification. Our flag should depict, on whatever the level, that which is best in us as a people. The grandest and magnificent version of our society. It should reflect our ideals, our aspirations and our achievements. And all this must creatively and imaginatively be encapsuled or rectangularised within the four corners of the flag. In all of its aspects a flag should evince or manifest a positive force that impacts on the people and children of the nation: cognitively, emotionally and visually. There should be nothing negative about a flag as it relates to the populace that it serves. And it is in this regard that the flag of Saint Lucia has failed us.
A flag is not merely a work of art: it transcends that and by so doing touches each and every one of us on levels that engage our patriotism and community solidarity. When I look at our flag I see and feel none of these. The feeling is really one of revulsion. What I physically see is a blue background and superimposed on that is a triangularised strip of white and beneath it a mass of black; and at the base a patch of yellow. But then when I look at our flag with my mind’s eye I see that strip of white that represents slavery, servitude, oppression, colonialism and neo-colonialism and our present demographic and social inferiority. I further see a mass of black agonisingly sandwiched between the two strips of white. And the grotesque and excruciating pathos that engulfs me is that which was given literary utterance by William Shakespeare in his play ‘Julius Caesar’:
Why man he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus/And we petty men walk under his huge legs/And peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves/The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars/But in ourselves that we are underlings.
When a global comparison is made there is no predominantly Caucasian community or society where on its flag one sees a strip of black triangulated over a mass of white. So what happened forty-one years ago? Sir Dunstan was a very talented artist: a consummate dabbler in paints and colours. His mural at the Roman Catholic Church in Jacmel has been internationally proclaimed as the apotheosis of his artistic genius.
But then we ask: Where did the thinking behind the flag come from? Why, at the time of its creation, our intellectuals, pseudo or otherwise, did not find the flag offensive? Why didn’t the bourgeois element in our society feel uncomfortable? Why didn’t the society as a whole, and at any one time, voice its concern? Perhaps there was no cause for concern and that is why the foreigners in our midst feel more comfortable than the natives.
I am not comfortable. And so the lone voice in the wilderness goes ponderingly along amidst the cactus-like trees of his disconcerting thoughts. That indeed is my truth. As I see it, in a world of hypocrisy and fake news,confronting and accepting the truth is an evolutionary process.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The St. Omer family last week published the following about the Saint Lucia flag:
The Saint Lucia National Flag was designed by internationally renowned Saint Lucian Artist, Hon, Sir Dunstan St Omer (SLC, KCMG, MBE, BM, D.Litt) and was first hoisted over our Island Home when Saint Lucia was granted Associated Statehood with Great Britain, on 1st March 1967. It was the beginning of Saint Lucia’s long journey to Independence, which was eventually achieved on 22nd February 1979.
The flag was approved by her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 3rd February 1967 and was formally entered into the College of Arms, United Kingdom. The colours of the Saint Lucian flag are Cerulean blue, white, black and gold. The flag is constructed of triangles, the golden triangle being central.
The Cerulean Blue background, which reflects the tropical sky and the surrounding waters, stands for fidelity. Gold represents the prevailing sunshine and prosperity. Black and white represent the cultural influences of the races living and working in unity. The black culture is represented as dominant. The triangles represent the pitons, including the island’s famous twin Pitons rising sheer out of the sea, a symbol of the hope and aspirations of the people.
The original colours were Aquamarine, Gold, Black and White. However, for Independence (1979), the designer changed the blue to better reflect our tropical sky and the surrounding waters to Cerulean blue # RGB 99, 207, 254. (International Pantone Code 2985C)
The International Pantone Codes for the Saint Lucia National Flag are:
Pantone 2985C (Cerulean Blue)
Pantone 114C (Gold)
Pantone Neutral Black
Pantone White.
