THE EDITOR, Sir:
I saw in The Sunday Gleaner of July 14, 2002, page 16, section D, a 'beautiful' full page advertisement placed by the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development with the words "Jamaica has so much to be proud of" and listing their achievements.
I agree 100 per cent that we do have a lot to be proud of, but how can a government agency place an ad with such a gross error in one of our national symbols?
The idea is a beautiful one trying to capture the sunrise and blend it into the flag. But Sir, the flag is as wrong as wrong can be. Even at the bottom of the page by the Jamaica 40, the flag is still done incorrectly. Can you tell me, how is it that no one on the committee (I am sure they had several) saw this gross error and had the guts to correct it? Or is it that they had other 'pressing' matters to deal with and decided to gloss over that one? Probably with the thought that no one will notice anyway? I don't want to imagine how much money was spent to get an 'artist' to do this.
I refuse to fall for the story of artistic interpretation; neither can they tell me that the flag was vertically hung (I know when something is vertically hung). I have carefully and critically examined the flag and the gold centre of the flag in the advertisement, represents a flag that is flown horizontally. The person who did no doubt must have been an overseas consultant, whom we often think we need to give us the right answers to what we need.
If the Ministry wanted to capture something of the land in the colour of the flag, it could have been captured just the same in the green of the mountains.
I must admit that many years ago I made the same error while drawing and colouring the flag for a child, I felt horrible afterwards when I discovered that I had disseminated wrong information. I made it my point of duty from then to know where the colours are in my flag.
If at 40 we cannot place the colours in our flag right, then something is seriously wrong with where we are heading.
I am, etc.,
NOEL A. PENNANT
Spanish Town
