Have you hugged your flag today?

Growing up in Middle East, you will see pictures of M.E. presidents posted everywhere, on every building, every public or business office, every public square, thereby providing you with your daily patriotic fix.

Do you get the picture? A friend of mine told me that in Syria the picture of President Assad was so prominent that he grew up having never seen a picture of a bird or any form of arts.

The world experienced this phenomenon firsthand when the Americans invaded Iraq and saw Saddam Hussein's pictures posted everywhere. When the Iraqis felt secure enough, these pictures were quickly attacked and torn by the Iraqi people -- no longer to be seen.

In the west it is another story. As you travel around or walk down the streets, you hardly ever see any picture of a president, dead or alive; what you do see, however, is the flag waving everywhere, including in people's front yards, on their cars and in their own private places. Westerns show their patriotism through flag posting. They also seem to show their affection for the flag regardless of their political or religious affiliation.

This sense of flagrant public patriotism is nearly absent in the Arab and Muslim world.

Flags don't mean much to most Arabs if we compare them to the west -- they represent the past and serve as symbols of disgrace and disappointment. What brings most Arabs together now is their religion. The Qur'an is not just a holy book but the symbol of unity and pride. It is their Constitution.

The interrogators at Guantanamo Bay may have desecrated the Islamic holy book to force a confession; they would never have considered desecrating a national flag.

On the other hand, when Arabs are protesting against Americans or Israelis, they burn the flag and not the Constitution.

For Americans, the flag is the larger symbol of unity and of an overzealous belief that they are all Americans at least under the flag -- even in a society of moral relativism, where nothing is sacred, where most of what they use is disposable.

The American flag stands tall everywhere, and unlike the Qur'an, it is illegal to treat it with anything but absolute respect.

So, have you hugged your flag today? [partly source]

Here is where it all started; The Pan-Arab Flag:

Red: The Khawarij (756-1355),
were the first Islamic group to emerge after the assassination of Caliph Uthman III, forming the first republican party in the early days of Islam. Their symbol was the red flag. Arab tribes who participated in the conquest of North Africa and Andalusia carried the red flag, which became the symbol of the Islamic rulers of Andalusia .
In modern times, red symbolizes the Ashrafs [ie. Sharifians] of the Hijaz and the Hashemites, descendants of the Prophet.

Green: The Fatimid Dynasty (909-1171), North Africa
The Fatimid Dynasty was founded in Morocco by Abdullah Al-Mahdi, and went on rule all of North Africa. They took green as their color, to symbolize their allegiance to Ali, the Prophet's cousin, who was once wrapped in a green coverlet in place of the Prophet in order to thwart an assassination attempt.

White: The Umayyad Dynasty (661-750), Damascus
The Umayyads ruled for ninety years, taking white as their symbolic color as a reminder of the Prophet's first battle at Badr, and to distinguish themselves from the Abbasids, by using white, rather than black, as their color of mourning. Mu'awia Ibn Abi Sufian (661-750), founder of the Umayyad state, proclaimed himself Caliph of Jerusalem.

Black: The Prophet Mohammad (570-632)
In the seventh century, with the rise of Islam and subsequent liberation of Mecca, two flags - one white, one black - were carried. On the white flag was written, "There is no god but God (Allah) and Mohammad is the Prophet of God."
In pre-Islamic times, the black flag was a sign of revenge. It was the color of the headdress worn when leading troops into battle. Both black and white flags were placed in the mosque during Friday prayers.
The Abbasid Dynasty (750-1258), ruling from Baghdad, took black as a symbol of mourning for the assassination of relatives of the Prophet and in remembrance of the Battle of Karbala.