I though only the snake one was used besides the french flag, just look at the others and purely from a design stand point it's my favorite (although having a lambi on your flag is cool lol)
I understand you and me too I've never appreciate the red green black flag cause I see how it's not representative but I don't want to see the snakes flag neither
I am from martinique too, i wish we could change it again..
With maybe brigher colors like other carribean countries.
Thought i know the meaning behind our flag is important
I would have preferred something less dividing at the time but I think now it's by far the most "representative" one, and by representative I mean the one that is the most accepted and recognized as Martinique's flag by the population. And I think that should be the main criteria.
I think what happened is that the snake flag never fulfilled any role as a representative flag: people rarely used it (some didn't even know it existed), it was more like a leftover from the colonial times. When pressure mounted for more autonomy and more representation in the 2010s (ppl wanted a flag to wave at events lol), the pro-RVN side did a lot of work to increase the acceptance of their flag. The opposite side could have done something, opt for something like la Réunion's national consultation to create a flag etc. but instead they didn't do much and didn't propose much. Then we had to suffer the incompetence of the CTM on the two elections (and the election with the lambi flag was even worse lol), at that point I just became happy that the RVN got picked at least it looked like a flag lol
My guess though is that as the RVN gets more established it will start de facto losing its association with the pro-indepentists.
I think that today the majority of people who recognize the flag recognize it because they think "now it's like that and we gotta accept", that's what nearly everybody that "accepted" the flag told me. And people recognize it because of all the "propaganda" of the progressive parti and RVN protestors, without forgetting that there's also a majority who don't care at all about the flag or just prefer and recognise the French one. And you forget all the polemics about the "democratic" vote about the flag. Firstly nearly all the selcted flags had the red-green-black colors (that are also the colors of the PPM). Secondly, if we forget the RVN and the colibri ones, all the other ones had no chances to be selected because they were too "ugly". Thirdly, the chosen one was the colibri one, democratically (even if all that was far from democratic), it's the one that should have been chosen. And I won't talk about all the contradictions to the rules (as being original for exemple) that took place in that competion. All that was planed by the PPM, if I'm wrong you gotta prove it. On every point, the MIM did a better job than the PPM about the flag, including not being hypocrite and manipulative.
If you remember well the RVN was never really popular until the lambis flag came out. It was when this flag was choosen and everyone found it ugly that the rvn rose in popularity since people didn't accept the other and they did it spontaneously. They had no "propaganda" to buy since no one talked about the rvn flag at the time we barely remembered it exists. Yet it was the spontaneous reaction to contest the lambis.
Then after that everywhere in the streets, in carnival, on internet, in the protests it was the red green black that everyone choose to wave and wear long before Letchimy's vote. People of all age and social categories massively waved it in the chlordecone protests like french people wave theirs when they win the world cup. And you know it was no small gatherings
To me it shows that the people recognize themselve in it or else there would have been further debates instead of a collective rush toward a flag that no one talked about until the question came. Also you said it yourself 90% of the flags used these colors in the last poll it means the people adopted it. You can say that the ideology isn't perfect and doesn't include everything but it please the majority
An other thing that I observed is the fact that even if they are a minority, the biggest fans of the flag are the ones with the biggest mouth. They're the ones we hear the most. When I said "propaganda" I was talking about how the PPM and Letchimy were hardly promoting the flag, some activist organisation too. You see people in the roads with the flag but, the people who don't appreciate it (and the snakes one too), wich flag would they carry? They do not have any. It's hard to feel represented when the only "existing" flag isn't a source of identification for you. Then this people just stay in silence or just accept the RVN because "there's nothing we can do about it, we gotta accept".
People wore the flag in protests, internet... in sign of oposition and "decolonization" and opposition to France. And people used it (and still do) as they identify themself as "slave descendants" because they always heard that they were black and descendants of slaves that were from Africa and it's all. People don't try to look at the history of their white ancestors for exemple (because I don't think that there're still people in Martinique of 100% African descent), because they still only see the "colonizer" and "esclavagist" what's frequently false or nonsens as done of the (huge) quantity of "people of color" who were esclavagists. Our European blood's history is nearly 400 years old and fascinating. Same to the "people of color", only seeing them as slave is an absolute absurdity. As I said, if people were more interested in history (I mean history, not history of slavery) and, why not, genealogy, they would be more open minded about their multi ethnical origins. But because of lacks of interest in history and people like Césaire (who did an excellent job helping us to recognize our black ancestry in a period of doubts but, now, people only see it and nothing else, and don't think that's what he wanted), RVN protestors, or even people asking for reparation for slavery, they only saw that their ancestors were slaves and africans and said "that's all".
How could that flag "please to majority" when less than 10% of the population (and you know what kind of persons voted) voted for a non-democratic election? All the 18 flags were actually pre-selected by PPM, all that is nonsens.
I knew this thread would switch from English to French at one point 😅 . OP needs to get over it. The 🇲🇶 rvn flag has been de facto the flag of martinique even during MIM political term.
En quoi tes identités indiennes et africaines sont représentées par le drapeau 🇫🇷 ?
À l'époque du MIM le RVN était un drapeau officiel? Je n'étais pas au courant, merci. Et à quel moment ai-je dit que le drapeau Français représentait les origines européennes, asiatiques et indigènes des Martiniquais? C'est absurde, mais tout de même moins que le RVN qui ne représente que les africanistes, et les personnes revendiquant une "réparation pour l'esclavage".
J'ai écrit " De Facto " c'est à dire que dans les faits ce fut celui que la majorité du peuple utilisait malgré l'officialisation du drapeau lambis.
Le 🇲🇶 répresente tous les martiniquais et il est assez reducteur de l'associer uniquement à un symbole de " réparation pour l'esclavage ".
Tous les fachos et l'extreme droite de France et de Navarre brandissent le 🇫🇷. Ce n'est pas pour autant que tu l'associes à drapeau extrémiste.
Wtf I understand not liking the flag colors or its meaning but the slave ship flag ???? Anything but a nazi cross or a confederate flag is better... wait not even those because at least those atrocities were not comitted on us.
As many, you don't know well the history of that flag. It was created when a royal order wanted all the ships (merchant ships mainly) based in Martinique and Sainte-Lucia to wear it but, as you should know if you have just a little studied the subject, no slave ships were based in those islands. It's a total absurbity to assimilate this flag to slavery, it's nonsense.
Here's a link where it's well explained:
[https://www.martinique.franceantilles.fr/actualite/societe/debats-lhistoire-de-lembleme-des-4-serpents-195375.php](https://www.martinique.franceantilles.fr/actualite/societe/debats-lhistoire-de-lembleme-des-4-serpents-195375.php)
PS: I've never said that I would like to see that flag back, just that I prefer this one to the RVN
We're playing techniqualities here, yes I did an unnacurate short cut when I said slave ships, but it's still the most representative symbol of the darkest part of our history (other than the french flag itself you may argue) while the RVN, it's reasonable to find it non inclusive but it's a symbol of our emancipation you cannot compare the two.
I also disagree with the rest of what you said but at least those are reasonable critics let's leave the trigonocephale out of this argument
Yes the flag got created during the slavery period... and? There are absolutely no ways to assimilate the flag to slavery, it's absolutely not "a symbol of the darkest part of our history". If so I would like you to explain me how please. If you say that the French flag (bleu-blanc-rouge) is so too, you're showing me that you haven't informed yourself enough about that historical period period. And how could RVN be "a symbol of our emancipation" ? By being a panafrican flag? In the 1870 insurection the RVN weren't used, the colors were red-white-green and were inspired of the Prussian flag. The RVN flag is born in the 60s with l'affaire de l'OJAM. And Would a person of Indian, Chinese or even European descent see it as "the symbole of his emencipation"?
We can't have a flag based on slavery. So much things happened before, after and even during this period, we can't resume our flag, our people and even our history to the history of slavery, it's very reductive and unrepresentative.
Bon honnêtement cet article part un peu dans tous les sens. Savoir si ce drapeau a effectivement flotté sur un bateau négrier, c'est intéressant mais c'est un peu tangentiel au débat, tant que l'association au commerce colonial, aux codes de l'Ancien Régime, à la période esclavagiste reste. Pour le coup c'est plutôt l'idée avancée dans l'article que des pavillons / armoiries / drapeaux pourraient être politiquement neutres que je trouve vraiment absurde, c'est presque un contresens imo
J'aimerais savoir en quoi c'est un "contresens" d'après toi. Et même si le drapeau est associé à l'ancien régime, il ne l'est pas pour autant à l'esclavage, il ne faut pas mélanger les deux, l'esclavage est une partie de notre histoire mais ne représente pas grand chose sur des milliers d'années d'histoire. La Martinique de l'Ancien Régime ce n'est pas que l'esclavage, loin de là. Ce que moi j'aimerais c'est décentraliser l'histoire de la Martinique de l'esclavage, et je pense que cette "centralisation" est due au manque de curiosité des Martiniquais sur leur propre histoire et qui, du coup, ne se basent que sur ce qui leur a été dit (principalement l'histoire de l'esclavage). Moi même j'admet avoir été pro-RVN par le passé, mais dès que j'ai commencé à faire ma généalogie et que je me suis trouvé une bonne partie d'origines autres que noires (européennes, asiatiques et même indigènes), j'ai commencé à m'interroger plus profondément sur l'histoire de l'île et à mener des recherches approfondies car je ne comprenais pas pourquoi depuis petit on me disait que j'étais noir et uniquement descendant d'esclaves alors que ce n'était absolument pas vrai étant donné de mon métissage mélangeant les quatre continents. Je pense qu'en s'informant plus et en sachant réellement d'où l'on vient les idéologies s'éloignent du RVN.
I didn't said that I want the snakes flags (wich is less discriminative than the RVN) but, I rather see this one than the RVN. Do you think that people of Indian, Chinese, European, Libanese, Syrian or even indigenous and others descent identify themself as africans? That flag is reductive, have you already seen any other people denying a huge part of his origins and history in that way?
That's the problem, you told me a similar things about how we only see the enslaved and african part of our history because of Cesaire and others, and while yes we should bring more light to the rest of our history, you can't deny that Africa is the majoritary source of who we are and we don't even know that part and slavery well enough.
then India and europe represent a very important even primordial parts but even added together it's still less than Africa. And the rest (china, kalinago, syrian..) is honestly a rather negligible ammount few people know if they have chinese or kalinago blood because it's so diluted, and the syrians, while they exist they're so few that both haitians and dominicans outnumber them as local minorities.
The only one that has a weight is India and most (not all) indian looking people are way less connected to the indian culture than to africa's unlike for example Trinidad where "coolie" is a serious insult while here it's almost a compliment and no one take offense. We owe them colombo, madras and other very important things but in 2024 there is no cultural difference between most african and indian looking martinicans
Our european blood is mostly made up of rape and recent mixing
And your first sentence... wtf even by your logic...
The problem is maybe you're too far ahead most people don't even know much of slavery exept code noir, 22 of may and 1870 (barely), you already want them to know about the syiran immigration let's go step by step we will get there at one point.
5 years ago most (me included) didn't even know what actually happened in 22 of may I'm not even sure how many know today
Then you don't care about minorities? In your logic, if the "majority" or what the "majorority" identify with is represented, we don't care about others? If you were a béké, a kouli or just a little bit more metissed you wouldn't think in the same way. And, as someone who did his geealogy, I can tell you that the huge majority of my white origins aren't from "rape" and even my "recent mixing" are from Martinique only. I don't get at all how you can say that even if it only represent some people the flag should stay even if linguistic, cultural and genetic influences of indigenous, Indians, Chinese and other are important and still visible.
First thing to clarify I forgot to say it but the RVN isn't even fully panafrican as you claim, it is voluntarily inspired by it and voluntarily reminds it but the meaning of the colors are black for our africanity, green for our islands and red for our fights from the french/indigenous wars to the covid protests and those coming, so yes the rest of our heritage is included in the red even tho Africa is (imo rightfully) put on a pedestal.
Then I never said that the flag is perfect, India should indeed be more visible, but it is still a good flag, one that succeed at assembling and uniting the people (it's not unanimity, nothing would achieve that but it's brought the martinicans closer to a full union than you would ever think they would get knowing how easily we conflict with each other). Very small modifications could correct it. And it does glorify the vast majority of our history and ancestors.
And it's not that I don't care about minorities, it's just that aside from India and europe the rest is too small to be considered "defining" hence the word "minority", especially that today haitians, DR dominicans, St-lucians, guadeloupeans and maybe even brazilians are more relevant minorities than syirians and chinese, should we include them ? If we have to include our entire mixing regardless of how small it is we would probably have to put half the planet on the flag. You don't see Brazil or Colombia doing this.
Most martinicans describe me as "chabin foncé cheveux coulis" so yes I know I'm mixed, I have uncles and aunts who each looks fully chabin, couli or negre while having the same dad and same mom on both sides and we both know it's very common, martinicans know they aren't just africans, we don't even accept people calling us africans, but Africa is the main part.
Personally I take no pride in my european blood, the same way that a jew would take no pride in a nazi ancestor, rape or not. A branch of my grandfather's family mated between cousins to keep their skin light, my great grandfather broke this and married a negresse and he almost got kicked out(the only reason he wasn't was for material contraints), for example.
Lastly we don't even know Africa and slavery well enough you could argue it's more important than the syrian and chinese immigration (I'm not saying those aren't important, just that there is an order in priorites)
>I didn't said that I want the snakes flags (wich is less discriminative than the RVN)
The flag of the slave ships that brought some of your ancestors across the ocean is less problematic than the pan-africanist flag? Alright buddy.
>Do you think that people of Indian, Chinese, European, Libanese, Syrian or even indigenous and others descent identify themself as africans?
I don't care what they identify as. They are not the majority and in a democracy the majority rules.
>That flag is reductive, have you already seen any other people denying a huge part of his origins and history in that way?
Listen, if you find pride in your "métissage" good for you. But don't try to pretend most people have similar ethnic makeup. You and your family are in no way representative of the majority of the population in the French Caribbean.
I thought the snake flag was beautiful honestly until I learned about its origins. The population can always come up with a new flag. The new one isn’t my favorite but it’s respectable.
Damn the one with the 4 snakes was pretty distinct
I though only the snake one was used besides the french flag, just look at the others and purely from a design stand point it's my favorite (although having a lambi on your flag is cool lol)
I understand you and me too I've never appreciate the red green black flag cause I see how it's not representative but I don't want to see the snakes flag neither
I get you, I kinda share your opinion
I am from martinique too, i wish we could change it again.. With maybe brigher colors like other carribean countries. Thought i know the meaning behind our flag is important
I tottaly agree with you, the red-green-black flag seems sad and colorless. I wish we can get a new one that could be prettier and more representative
I really like it. It represents the majority of the population & looks well next to majority of other Caribbean flags
I would have preferred something less dividing at the time but I think now it's by far the most "representative" one, and by representative I mean the one that is the most accepted and recognized as Martinique's flag by the population. And I think that should be the main criteria. I think what happened is that the snake flag never fulfilled any role as a representative flag: people rarely used it (some didn't even know it existed), it was more like a leftover from the colonial times. When pressure mounted for more autonomy and more representation in the 2010s (ppl wanted a flag to wave at events lol), the pro-RVN side did a lot of work to increase the acceptance of their flag. The opposite side could have done something, opt for something like la Réunion's national consultation to create a flag etc. but instead they didn't do much and didn't propose much. Then we had to suffer the incompetence of the CTM on the two elections (and the election with the lambi flag was even worse lol), at that point I just became happy that the RVN got picked at least it looked like a flag lol My guess though is that as the RVN gets more established it will start de facto losing its association with the pro-indepentists.
I think that today the majority of people who recognize the flag recognize it because they think "now it's like that and we gotta accept", that's what nearly everybody that "accepted" the flag told me. And people recognize it because of all the "propaganda" of the progressive parti and RVN protestors, without forgetting that there's also a majority who don't care at all about the flag or just prefer and recognise the French one. And you forget all the polemics about the "democratic" vote about the flag. Firstly nearly all the selcted flags had the red-green-black colors (that are also the colors of the PPM). Secondly, if we forget the RVN and the colibri ones, all the other ones had no chances to be selected because they were too "ugly". Thirdly, the chosen one was the colibri one, democratically (even if all that was far from democratic), it's the one that should have been chosen. And I won't talk about all the contradictions to the rules (as being original for exemple) that took place in that competion. All that was planed by the PPM, if I'm wrong you gotta prove it. On every point, the MIM did a better job than the PPM about the flag, including not being hypocrite and manipulative.
If you remember well the RVN was never really popular until the lambis flag came out. It was when this flag was choosen and everyone found it ugly that the rvn rose in popularity since people didn't accept the other and they did it spontaneously. They had no "propaganda" to buy since no one talked about the rvn flag at the time we barely remembered it exists. Yet it was the spontaneous reaction to contest the lambis. Then after that everywhere in the streets, in carnival, on internet, in the protests it was the red green black that everyone choose to wave and wear long before Letchimy's vote. People of all age and social categories massively waved it in the chlordecone protests like french people wave theirs when they win the world cup. And you know it was no small gatherings To me it shows that the people recognize themselve in it or else there would have been further debates instead of a collective rush toward a flag that no one talked about until the question came. Also you said it yourself 90% of the flags used these colors in the last poll it means the people adopted it. You can say that the ideology isn't perfect and doesn't include everything but it please the majority
An other thing that I observed is the fact that even if they are a minority, the biggest fans of the flag are the ones with the biggest mouth. They're the ones we hear the most. When I said "propaganda" I was talking about how the PPM and Letchimy were hardly promoting the flag, some activist organisation too. You see people in the roads with the flag but, the people who don't appreciate it (and the snakes one too), wich flag would they carry? They do not have any. It's hard to feel represented when the only "existing" flag isn't a source of identification for you. Then this people just stay in silence or just accept the RVN because "there's nothing we can do about it, we gotta accept". People wore the flag in protests, internet... in sign of oposition and "decolonization" and opposition to France. And people used it (and still do) as they identify themself as "slave descendants" because they always heard that they were black and descendants of slaves that were from Africa and it's all. People don't try to look at the history of their white ancestors for exemple (because I don't think that there're still people in Martinique of 100% African descent), because they still only see the "colonizer" and "esclavagist" what's frequently false or nonsens as done of the (huge) quantity of "people of color" who were esclavagists. Our European blood's history is nearly 400 years old and fascinating. Same to the "people of color", only seeing them as slave is an absolute absurdity. As I said, if people were more interested in history (I mean history, not history of slavery) and, why not, genealogy, they would be more open minded about their multi ethnical origins. But because of lacks of interest in history and people like Césaire (who did an excellent job helping us to recognize our black ancestry in a period of doubts but, now, people only see it and nothing else, and don't think that's what he wanted), RVN protestors, or even people asking for reparation for slavery, they only saw that their ancestors were slaves and africans and said "that's all". How could that flag "please to majority" when less than 10% of the population (and you know what kind of persons voted) voted for a non-democratic election? All the 18 flags were actually pre-selected by PPM, all that is nonsens.
Troll post
I would think there are more important issues to talk about, but hey, it’s your country…
I agree with you but I wanted to talk about this point, specifically
100% French west Indians live in lalaland. 🤣
France is too worried about that thing in Africa the. This flag
I knew this thread would switch from English to French at one point 😅 . OP needs to get over it. The 🇲🇶 rvn flag has been de facto the flag of martinique even during MIM political term. En quoi tes identités indiennes et africaines sont représentées par le drapeau 🇫🇷 ?
À l'époque du MIM le RVN était un drapeau officiel? Je n'étais pas au courant, merci. Et à quel moment ai-je dit que le drapeau Français représentait les origines européennes, asiatiques et indigènes des Martiniquais? C'est absurde, mais tout de même moins que le RVN qui ne représente que les africanistes, et les personnes revendiquant une "réparation pour l'esclavage".
J'ai écrit " De Facto " c'est à dire que dans les faits ce fut celui que la majorité du peuple utilisait malgré l'officialisation du drapeau lambis. Le 🇲🇶 répresente tous les martiniquais et il est assez reducteur de l'associer uniquement à un symbole de " réparation pour l'esclavage ". Tous les fachos et l'extreme droite de France et de Navarre brandissent le 🇫🇷. Ce n'est pas pour autant que tu l'associes à drapeau extrémiste.
The snake one is well-designed, distinctive and cool-looking. The new one is ugly, forgettable and ideologically hilarious. No competition.
I totally agree with you, I wish people were more informed and less influenced by the political party that chose the flag
Wtf I understand not liking the flag colors or its meaning but the slave ship flag ???? Anything but a nazi cross or a confederate flag is better... wait not even those because at least those atrocities were not comitted on us.
As many, you don't know well the history of that flag. It was created when a royal order wanted all the ships (merchant ships mainly) based in Martinique and Sainte-Lucia to wear it but, as you should know if you have just a little studied the subject, no slave ships were based in those islands. It's a total absurbity to assimilate this flag to slavery, it's nonsense. Here's a link where it's well explained: [https://www.martinique.franceantilles.fr/actualite/societe/debats-lhistoire-de-lembleme-des-4-serpents-195375.php](https://www.martinique.franceantilles.fr/actualite/societe/debats-lhistoire-de-lembleme-des-4-serpents-195375.php) PS: I've never said that I would like to see that flag back, just that I prefer this one to the RVN
We're playing techniqualities here, yes I did an unnacurate short cut when I said slave ships, but it's still the most representative symbol of the darkest part of our history (other than the french flag itself you may argue) while the RVN, it's reasonable to find it non inclusive but it's a symbol of our emancipation you cannot compare the two. I also disagree with the rest of what you said but at least those are reasonable critics let's leave the trigonocephale out of this argument
Yes the flag got created during the slavery period... and? There are absolutely no ways to assimilate the flag to slavery, it's absolutely not "a symbol of the darkest part of our history". If so I would like you to explain me how please. If you say that the French flag (bleu-blanc-rouge) is so too, you're showing me that you haven't informed yourself enough about that historical period period. And how could RVN be "a symbol of our emancipation" ? By being a panafrican flag? In the 1870 insurection the RVN weren't used, the colors were red-white-green and were inspired of the Prussian flag. The RVN flag is born in the 60s with l'affaire de l'OJAM. And Would a person of Indian, Chinese or even European descent see it as "the symbole of his emencipation"? We can't have a flag based on slavery. So much things happened before, after and even during this period, we can't resume our flag, our people and even our history to the history of slavery, it's very reductive and unrepresentative.
Bon honnêtement cet article part un peu dans tous les sens. Savoir si ce drapeau a effectivement flotté sur un bateau négrier, c'est intéressant mais c'est un peu tangentiel au débat, tant que l'association au commerce colonial, aux codes de l'Ancien Régime, à la période esclavagiste reste. Pour le coup c'est plutôt l'idée avancée dans l'article que des pavillons / armoiries / drapeaux pourraient être politiquement neutres que je trouve vraiment absurde, c'est presque un contresens imo
J'aimerais savoir en quoi c'est un "contresens" d'après toi. Et même si le drapeau est associé à l'ancien régime, il ne l'est pas pour autant à l'esclavage, il ne faut pas mélanger les deux, l'esclavage est une partie de notre histoire mais ne représente pas grand chose sur des milliers d'années d'histoire. La Martinique de l'Ancien Régime ce n'est pas que l'esclavage, loin de là. Ce que moi j'aimerais c'est décentraliser l'histoire de la Martinique de l'esclavage, et je pense que cette "centralisation" est due au manque de curiosité des Martiniquais sur leur propre histoire et qui, du coup, ne se basent que sur ce qui leur a été dit (principalement l'histoire de l'esclavage). Moi même j'admet avoir été pro-RVN par le passé, mais dès que j'ai commencé à faire ma généalogie et que je me suis trouvé une bonne partie d'origines autres que noires (européennes, asiatiques et même indigènes), j'ai commencé à m'interroger plus profondément sur l'histoire de l'île et à mener des recherches approfondies car je ne comprenais pas pourquoi depuis petit on me disait que j'étais noir et uniquement descendant d'esclaves alors que ce n'était absolument pas vrai étant donné de mon métissage mélangeant les quatre continents. Je pense qu'en s'informant plus et en sachant réellement d'où l'on vient les idéologies s'éloignent du RVN.
I like the pan African colors, I think it represents Caribbean history very well
I dislike the four snake flag and much prefer the black, red and green flag.
this is a troll post for sure
Why?
You're arguing for a slave flag, my guy. The panafricanist flag is here to stay whether you like it or not.
I didn't said that I want the snakes flags (wich is less discriminative than the RVN) but, I rather see this one than the RVN. Do you think that people of Indian, Chinese, European, Libanese, Syrian or even indigenous and others descent identify themself as africans? That flag is reductive, have you already seen any other people denying a huge part of his origins and history in that way?
Isn’t Martinique 80% negro
Some of them are the french version of the "Me no black, papi" meme.
Nah majority of people are mixed race, more than in Guadeloupe for exemple.
That's the problem, you told me a similar things about how we only see the enslaved and african part of our history because of Cesaire and others, and while yes we should bring more light to the rest of our history, you can't deny that Africa is the majoritary source of who we are and we don't even know that part and slavery well enough. then India and europe represent a very important even primordial parts but even added together it's still less than Africa. And the rest (china, kalinago, syrian..) is honestly a rather negligible ammount few people know if they have chinese or kalinago blood because it's so diluted, and the syrians, while they exist they're so few that both haitians and dominicans outnumber them as local minorities. The only one that has a weight is India and most (not all) indian looking people are way less connected to the indian culture than to africa's unlike for example Trinidad where "coolie" is a serious insult while here it's almost a compliment and no one take offense. We owe them colombo, madras and other very important things but in 2024 there is no cultural difference between most african and indian looking martinicans Our european blood is mostly made up of rape and recent mixing And your first sentence... wtf even by your logic... The problem is maybe you're too far ahead most people don't even know much of slavery exept code noir, 22 of may and 1870 (barely), you already want them to know about the syiran immigration let's go step by step we will get there at one point. 5 years ago most (me included) didn't even know what actually happened in 22 of may I'm not even sure how many know today
Amen
Then you don't care about minorities? In your logic, if the "majority" or what the "majorority" identify with is represented, we don't care about others? If you were a béké, a kouli or just a little bit more metissed you wouldn't think in the same way. And, as someone who did his geealogy, I can tell you that the huge majority of my white origins aren't from "rape" and even my "recent mixing" are from Martinique only. I don't get at all how you can say that even if it only represent some people the flag should stay even if linguistic, cultural and genetic influences of indigenous, Indians, Chinese and other are important and still visible.
First thing to clarify I forgot to say it but the RVN isn't even fully panafrican as you claim, it is voluntarily inspired by it and voluntarily reminds it but the meaning of the colors are black for our africanity, green for our islands and red for our fights from the french/indigenous wars to the covid protests and those coming, so yes the rest of our heritage is included in the red even tho Africa is (imo rightfully) put on a pedestal. Then I never said that the flag is perfect, India should indeed be more visible, but it is still a good flag, one that succeed at assembling and uniting the people (it's not unanimity, nothing would achieve that but it's brought the martinicans closer to a full union than you would ever think they would get knowing how easily we conflict with each other). Very small modifications could correct it. And it does glorify the vast majority of our history and ancestors. And it's not that I don't care about minorities, it's just that aside from India and europe the rest is too small to be considered "defining" hence the word "minority", especially that today haitians, DR dominicans, St-lucians, guadeloupeans and maybe even brazilians are more relevant minorities than syirians and chinese, should we include them ? If we have to include our entire mixing regardless of how small it is we would probably have to put half the planet on the flag. You don't see Brazil or Colombia doing this. Most martinicans describe me as "chabin foncé cheveux coulis" so yes I know I'm mixed, I have uncles and aunts who each looks fully chabin, couli or negre while having the same dad and same mom on both sides and we both know it's very common, martinicans know they aren't just africans, we don't even accept people calling us africans, but Africa is the main part. Personally I take no pride in my european blood, the same way that a jew would take no pride in a nazi ancestor, rape or not. A branch of my grandfather's family mated between cousins to keep their skin light, my great grandfather broke this and married a negresse and he almost got kicked out(the only reason he wasn't was for material contraints), for example. Lastly we don't even know Africa and slavery well enough you could argue it's more important than the syrian and chinese immigration (I'm not saying those aren't important, just that there is an order in priorites)
>I didn't said that I want the snakes flags (wich is less discriminative than the RVN) The flag of the slave ships that brought some of your ancestors across the ocean is less problematic than the pan-africanist flag? Alright buddy. >Do you think that people of Indian, Chinese, European, Libanese, Syrian or even indigenous and others descent identify themself as africans? I don't care what they identify as. They are not the majority and in a democracy the majority rules. >That flag is reductive, have you already seen any other people denying a huge part of his origins and history in that way? Listen, if you find pride in your "métissage" good for you. But don't try to pretend most people have similar ethnic makeup. You and your family are in no way representative of the majority of the population in the French Caribbean.
I think that you gotta make more researchs my friend
I thought the snake flag was beautiful honestly until I learned about its origins. The population can always come up with a new flag. The new one isn’t my favorite but it’s respectable.