Last modified: 2008-07-05 by bruce berry
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In wandering around the National Gallery today, heading for Trafalgar
Square, where there was a demonstration taking place by supporters of
Somaliland
- the former British Somaliland that declared independence from the rest
of Somalia about 10 years ago. I think they were demanding that the UK
and other countries recognise it or something, and they were playing Somali
pop music which sounded ... odd.
Anyway, there were *lots* of Somaliland flags being waved, and I noticed
the following variations
Most of the flags did not have the shahada on them. Those that did
had it written in a line along almost the whole length of the green stripe,
rather than in a rectangle in the centre of the green stripe.
Most of the flags had the black star "upside-down" i.e. with two points
upwards.
What was interesting was that the flag being displayed by where the
speakers were, on the podium at the base of Nelson's Column had no shahada
and an "upside-down" star.
Roy Stilling, 15 October 2000
These are the variations of the Somaliland flag as described by Roy
Stilling. Each is the same ratio as the official Somaliland flag.
From what information that I have been able to find, the red is usually
has an orange tone, although there is the possibility that it may be slightly
exaggerated, there are many variations in color and I have seen the official
flag in both red and orange.
All of my information for these variations as well as my knowledge
of these self-declared countries and their flags come from books as well
as photos of various happenings relating to them. Unfortunately, I haven't
been able to recall any of the titles of the books and some of the photos
were given to me by some people I knew. I believed that these flags were
the result of problems with processing the pictures until I noticed that
they matched the description by Roy Stilling.
Michael Hanson, 19 Mar 2002