The rainbow

 

Another ancient and universal symbol for peace, the rainbow often represents the connection between humans and their gods. In Greek mythology it was associated with Iris, the goddess who brought messages from the gods on Mount Olympus and in Scandinavian mythology the rainbow was a bridge between the gods and the Earth. In the Bible a rainbow appeared to show Noah that the flood was over and that God had forgiven his people and in the Chinese tradition the rainbow is a common symbol for marriage because the colours represent the union of yin and yang. 

Nowadays the rainbow is used by many popular movements for peace and the environment. In 1923 a rainbow flag was designed by the International Co-operative movement in Basel, Switzerland to celebrate the movement’s ideas of international solidarity, economic efficiency, equality, and world peace. For a peace march in 1961, pacifist, social philosopher and activist Aldo Capitini had several coloured stripes of material sewn together by women in Perugia to make a flag which could be used for a march from Perugia to Assisi. The march has been repeated many times since and the flag used commonly has seven rainbow-coloured stripes with the word ‘Peace’ (Pace in Italian) in the centre. In the 1980s San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker designed a similar flag as a symbol for gay pride (usually with the red stripe at the top). Pace flags underwent a resurgence in 2002 during a campaign entitled ‘pace da tutti balconi’ (peace from every balcony) - a protest against the impending war in Iraq.




Comments

  1. Nice blog Yuneth.

    But I see no comments here.

    From Dineth
    To Yuneth

    ReplyDelete
  2. like the cat on the flag im going to share this just because of the cat :D

    ReplyDelete

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