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Syria - The meaning of the flag

1:2 image by Eugene Ipavec, 09 May 2007

The meaning of the flag

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The meaning of the flag

On January 15th 2025, prior to a U-20 friendly soccer match in Doha between Syria and Yemen, Syria´s Soccer Federation not only presented its new logo, but also a new playing kit, displayed the three red-stars flag and played a new national anthem (on a temporal basis).
Víctor García, 22 February 2025

Meanings of the new Syrian flag
Last update December 13, 2024

Today, Syria raises its new flag, the independence flag, which has been the same flag of the Syrian opposition since 2011. Let us call it the “independence flag,” but the correct name, for the sake of historical accuracy, is the “republican flag,” because it was approved at the beginning of the republic. This flag was recently raised in squares, some government departments, and embassies, but it has not been issued by decree yet, and it was originally approved in 1932.

This flag remained in use until the Baath Party came to power, when its supporters lowered the flag from 1963 until the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024. At the beginning of the Syrian revolution, state media invented a fabricated narrative that this flag – the independence flag or the opposition flag – was the “High Commissioner’s flag” during the French mandate. They unjustly called it the “Mandate Flag” and said that its three stars symbolized three sectarian states established during the mandate, which the opposition wanted to revive again: the Alawite state, the Druze state, and the Sunni state. Note that there were no states designated for Sunnis during the French era. They described it as the flag of “colonialism” because it was established during the mandate.
Our answer was: "The Syrian anthem was also written during the mandate period. It has not changed since then. Should we call it the mandate anthem?" None of them answered, given their complete ignorance of Syria's history before 1970, but all Syrians today must know the story of their new flag and its historical significance.

Independence flag

This flag was approved on the day of the election of Muhammad Ali Bey al-Abid as President of the Republic in 1932. It has three parallel sections: green, white, and black, with "three red planets with five rays" in the middle, according to Article 4 of the 1928 Constitution. The three planets symbolized - according to interpretation and not the text - three revolutions against the French mandate: the Northern Revolution led by Ibrahim Hanano, the Great Syrian Revolution led by Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, with a difference in the third star between those who say it is in reference to the Antioch Revolution led by Subhi Barakat, or the Coastal Revolution led by Sheikh Saleh al-Ali. In all cases, the three stars, or planets, symbolized national unity and not division, as the Syrian media said in 2011. As for the colors of the flag, they were taken from the colors of the flag of the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans: green in reference to the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, white to the Umayyad state, and black to the Abbasid state.

President Shukri Bey al-Quwatli raised the independence flag in the sky of Syria on the day of its liberation from the French mandate on April 17, 1946, and the soldiers of the Syrian army raised it in their first war against Israel in 1948. Despite the repeated coups in the years 1949-1951, none of the military leaders thought of changing this flag, and the Syrian flag remained fixed until President Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in 1958. The Unity Republic first abolished the Syrian national anthem and the celebrations of Evacuation Day and replaced it with the July 23 Revolution Day led by the Free Officers against King Farouk. The flag was then replaced by a flag inspired by the same colors, with two green stars symbolizing Syria and Egypt.

When the Unity Republic collapsed in 1961, the Syrians restored their old flag, and it remained in use until the first months of the Baath era, and was not changed until May 1, 1963. The Revolutionary Command Council returned to the flag of the Syrian-Egyptian unity, after adding a third green star in the middle, as a symbol of Iraq.

Whoever attacked the opposition flag in 2011, or the independence flag, did not know that this was the flag that Hafez al-Assad saluted in front of on the day he graduated from the Military College in Homs in 1955, and then saluted it again after his appointment as commander of the Air Force on March 8, 1963, and on Evacuation Day on April 17, 1963. If Bashar al-Assad’s audience knew this simple information, they would not have despised their country’s flag in 2011. During Hafez al-Assad’s era, the independence flag appeared continuously, in books and television series, and on commemorative postage stamps at the annual Evacuation Day celebrations, before even approaching it became a crime punishable by law after 2011.

Syrian flag and Baath changes

Among the mistakes made by the former regime was belittling the opposition flag and exaggerating loyalty to the flag that has been in place since 1980 (the former flag of unity with Egypt). They forced shop owners to paint it on the doors of their stores, and they raised it in disturbing numbers in the streets, reflecting a state of exploitation more than a sound national state.
All these methods came after decades of placing the Syrian flag in a lower rank than the image of the President of the Republic and the flag of the Baath Party. The “Baath State” did not think of legislating how and when the flag should be raised, and it did not punish its exploitation or raising it torn, worn out and dirty in government departments, or those who painted it on walls, in alleys, on cars and soldiers’ guards in a manner unbecoming of the Syrian flag.

There is no law that prevents the flag from being raised alongside any other flag, and this is exactly what happened in recent years when the Syrian flag became equal to the flags of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.

Generations grew up belittling it because the state itself belittled it, and tried to impose it on people without any emotion, explanation, or sincere national principles. With the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, Bashar al-Assad wanted to find a national symbol to unify the loyalist street, and he found it in the national flag. We must not belittle that flag as the Baathists belittled the independence flag, and we must realize that the new flag is not the flag of the French mandate, and the previous flag is not the flag of Bashar al-Assad.

Source: https://www.majalla.com/node/323456/وثائق-ومذكرات/معاني-علم-سوريا-الجديد

located by Víctor García, 22 February 2025