Last modified: 2001-11-30 by dov gutterman
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![[Flag of the MIM]](../images/m/mq-mim.gif)
by Jaume Ollé
There is also a flag for the independentists: it is
black-red-black with thin white stripes between the black and the
red.
On the red near the hoist appears a yellow Madyoumbe. The
independentist movement is called Mouvement Indépendantiste
Martiniquais.
Pascal Vagnat, 1 and 13 March1996
This flag is listed under number 196 at the chart "Flags
of Aspirant Peoples" [asp] as :
"Martinique (Martiniquan Independence Movement [MIM]) -
French Overseas Department, Caribbean."
Ivan Sache, 16 September 1999
by Ivan Sache, 29 September 2000
A flag very similar to Front National de
Libération de la Martinique flag was seen by L. Nyssen
during a recent trip in Martinique. The report he made in
Vexillacta #9, September 2000, gives several details about the
meaning and origin of this flag. Note that the flag seen in situ
has proportion 1:2 (evident from the photography on the cover of
the Vexillacta issue), whereas Front National de
Libération de la Martinique flag has proportion 2:3.
The flag was seen in several places in the south of the island,
on the territory of the municipality of Sainte-Anne. It flies at
the honour position on the balcony of the city hall of
Saint-Anne, by decision of the municipal council from 5 October
1995. According to the decision, the flag should "symbolize
the resistance of Martinique people to French and European
colonial oppression and be a rallying symbol to promote the
nation and helps to the construction and conception of a state
[independent] of Martinique." The mayor of Sainte-Anne,
Garcin Malsa, is president of the Modemas (Mouvement des
Democrates et des Ecologistes pour une Martinique independante /
Movement of Democrats and Ecologists for an independent
Martinique). The flag, or at least its colours, have a long
revendicative history. The three colours are said to have been
used on scarfs and headbands durign the 1870 insurrection against
the white (beke) landowners and the government which supported
them (remember that slavery had been abolished only in 1848). The
colours reappeared in 1965 and were used in a vertical pattern by
Ojam (Organisation de la Jeunesse anti-coloniale de la Martinique
/ Organization of the anti-colonial Youth of Martinique). Five
years later, an independentist groups created the current flag
design, shortly followed by the Parti progressiste martiniquais .
After the regionalization, the flag was more or less abandoned
until the mid-80's burst of nationalist-ecologist revendications.
The writer Guy Cabort Masson claims that the flag was designed by
Alex Ferdinand and himself during the May 1968 troubles in Paris,
was transfered secretly to Martinique in 1971 and adopted by the
first independentist movement of the island, the MIM . The first publication of the
flag appeared in two reviews directed by Cabort, "En
avant" and "La Voix du Peuple". In 1974, the flag
was used by all the movements which organized the strike of
banana plantation workers.
There are as usual several explanations for the colours:
1. Green for the country, its trees and fields
Black for the colour of skin
Red for the revolt against injustice.
2. Red and black for the fight
Green for revendication and appropriation of the
country
3. Red to glorify the sacrifice of the rebel Amerindians and
'marroon niggers' [the slaves who had escaped and refugeed in the
mountains], to exhort the legitimate struggle for existence and
liberation of the consciousness and the nation
Green to glorify the faith in the fecund country, to
honour the nourishing earth and sea, mould of the heritage and
bearing hope for the future generations of the Martinique people
Black to affirm the essentially black African
origin, so much denigrated by the European ethnocentrism, and
express the 'negritude'* of the creoles, i.e. the culture of
mostly nigger people born in the Americas, but without promoting
ethnonationalism and to acknowledge the amerindian, asiatic and
european heritages and legacy.
* I use intentionnally 'negritude' and 'nigger' although I am
aware of the pejorative connotation associated with these terms
in English. The term of 'negritude' (litt. 'niggerness',
constructed on 'negre'/nigger' and 'solitude'/'loneliness') was
coined in 1939 by Aime Cesaire, writer and politician from
Martinique, in his poem 'Cahier d'un retour au pays natal'
(Notebook of a return to the motherland) to restore the dignity
of those "who never invented anything" and had became
mute because of slavery and colonization. The concept was
extended to Africa by Leopold Senghor, writer and former
president of Senegal. The concept of 'negritude' is not
unanimously accepted by the black community, and several writers
of English expression such as Richard Wright from USA and Derek
Walcott from St. Lucia have rejected this 'particularization' of
the black people. Since Modemas has some origin in Aime Cesaire's
Parti Progressiste Martiniquais, the use of 'negritude' in the
proposed explanation of the flag colours is not coincidental. The
use of Marcus Garvey's flag colours is also not coincidental.
Ivan Sache, 29 September 2000
Vexillacta #12, June 2001, relates the nullification of the
municipal elections in Sainte-Anne (Martinique, French Oversea
Department). The 'tribunal administratif' (tribunal dealing with
internal disputes in the French civil service), upon request of
the Government Commissioner, nullified the local elections of 11
and 18 March 2001 in Sainte-Anne. The election of Garcin Malsa as
mayor and general councillor is therefore nullified. One of the
reasons for the nullification was the hoisting of the
red-green-black flag on the city hall. This is the MODEMAS flag,
therefore the flag of Malsa's political movement. The city hall
is cnsidered as a neutral building, and hoisting a political flag
on it is prohibited. Moreover, hoisting the flag on an election
day was considered by the tribunal as a means of pressure on the
electors.
Ivan Sache, 3 July 2001
I was lucky enough to have a honeymoon in september in
Martinique. I saw th independantist flag of MODEMAS once in
Fort-de-France, between the "Place de la Savane" and
the sea, as far as I could guess by someone who was renting boats
or something like that. I saw it too on stickers which were pasted
mainly on electrical poles. You can see on it two creole
sentences : "Pe'yi -a se' ta nou" : This land is ours,
and "Nasyon Matinik" : "Martinique nation".
It displays an independantist flag , ratio indeed 1:2, with a
bright red triangle a green upper part and black lower part. As
far as the triangle is concerned, its point reaches the 3/7 of
the length (4,8 cm out of 11,2) These dimensions looked to me
rather faithful to the real flags I saw.
The other place where I saw it, and more than one time, was
Sainte-Anne, the commune who is famous because it had decided to
put this flag on its city hall.
I can say too that :
1) the city hall is not the only place where it is flown : I saw
it on every roundabout I saw on the territory of the commune. But
on the city hall, as I realize now, looking more precisely at the
picture I took, it is flown upside down (voluntarly or not : I
don't know).
2) the independantist flag is not the only one flown on the city
hall of Sainte-Anne : you can see too : the flags of France, of
Corsica, and of Palestine... I think this is the only city hall
in France where these flags are tolerated near the French
tricolore.
Olivier Touzeau, 20 November 2001
These are Creole forms of "Ce pays est ŕ nous" and
"Nation Martinique". Note that the two flags are not
really hosted but hang on the balcony columns. I don't think
there is any provision regarding hoisting flags on a city hall
except during an election. MODEMAS flag caused a lot of trouble
only when it was hoisted during the last election in Martinique.
I won't be surprised to see the Corsican flag on several Corsican
city halls. In Sainte-Anne, of course, the meaning of this flag
hoisting is a solidarity among supposedly oppressed people.
Ivan Sache, 27 November 2001
![[Flag of the FNLM]](../images/m/mq-ind.gif)
by Pierre Gay
The Front National de Libération de la Martinique
(National Front for Liberation of Martinique) that was active in
the years 60s and 70s. The colors were taken from the Parti
Progressiste de la Martinique (Progressive Party of
Martinique) of Aimé Césaire (used in vertical 1957-1962)
After 1975 the colors in the same arrangement as above were used
by the Revolutionary Workers' Party, but with emblem in the
triangle.
Same colors are also used by the Front de Lutte
Révolutionnaire de Martinique (Front for Revolutionary Fight
of Martinique) but with a different disposition.
Jaume Ollé, 08 December 1998
![[Flag of the PTM]](../images/m/mq-ptm.gif)
by Jaume Ollé
![[Flag of the CNCP]](../images/m/mq-cncp.gif)
by Jaume Ollé
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