Deep-lomacy #2

The first-ever World Cup of Flags

In light of the International Flag Day, we asked Yonatan Herskowitz, a researcher in the Simone Veil Research Centre who researches nationalism and identity through the prism of national flags to tell us about the role of flags in the new era of diplomacy. He came back to us with this lovely story:

Two months ago, when the world was quarantined, a Twitter account called World Cup of Flags started an online competition. The structure of the competition was similar to the one of the football World Cup, except that the audience vote was for the Emoji's of, well, national flags. The competition gained momentum and after the first stage where 2 flags qualified from each division, the knockout stage became more dramatic than expected. At this point, organizers have noticed that there is massive mobilization behind certain flags, particularly the ones of Zimbabwe and Trinidad and Tobago. The Zimbabwean flag has systematically received a number of votes significantly higher than its rivals and it was suspected that Zimbabwean citizens voted solely for their flag and did not participate fairly in the competition. As it happens, in the later stages of the competition, the Zimbabwe flag competed against the Trinidad and Tobago flag. In each poll up to that stage of the contest, the number of votes was around 3,000 per poll, where in the specific poll between Zimbabwe and Trinidad and Tobago, close to 40,000 people voted. If that wasn't enough, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago tweeted from his personal account urging the citizens of the small state to vote for their national flag.

The competition drew tens of thousands of people from small and large states, who saw an opportunity to demonstrate a different form of patriotism than usual. They transformed a competition of design, or shapes and colors of trivial emoji's, into a competition between nations and an intense demonstration of nationalism and national identity. This story teaches us that while the flag, for many people, may be just a colorful piece of cloth (Hi there, flag of Libya pre 2011), it has a huge and important meaning. The flag is an ubiquitous visual symbol that aims to project the history, aspirations, beliefs, and collective values of the nation-state. One of the flag's main functions is to stimulate the citizens sense of identity and belonging, therefore the flag is seen as a sacred symbol. It is thus not surprising, that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago took the stage, calling on the citizens of the state to unite around the flag in order to bring respect to the country in the shape of victory in the flag competition. The flag symbolizes the unique identity of the state, so the tiny flag emoji is not the true winner of the flag competition, but rather the citizens of the state itself who are so significantly represented by it.

For those interested in the results of the competition, in the final, Jamaica's special flag beat South Africa's colorful flag and won the 2020 World Cup.

Did you know? The flag of Jamaica is the only national flag in the world that does not contain one of the colors blue, red or white!