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Use | National flag ![]() ![]() |
---|---|
Proportion | 2:3 |
Adopted | April 4, 1959 |
Design | A vertical tricolour of green, gold and red. |
The national flag of Mali (French : drapeau du Mali) is a tricolour with three equal vertical stripes. From the hoist (the place where the flagpole meets the flag) the colours are green, gold, and red, the pan-African colours. The flag of Mali is almost identical to the flag of Guinea, with the exception that the colours are in reverse order.
The current flag was adopted on March 1, 1961. The original flag was adopted on April 4, 1959, when Mali joined the Mali Federation. This flag was the same, except the golden stripe had a black kanaga , a shape of a squatter man with arms raised to the sky. The figure was removed due to the opposition, in a country whose population is 90% Muslim (95% Sunni 5% Shia), of Islamic fundamentalists [1] (see Aniconism in Islam, the belief against making pictures of the human figure). [2]
The green stands for fertility of the land, gold stands for purity and mineral wealth, and the red symbolizes the blood shed for independence from the French. [3]
![]() | Green | Yellow | Red |
---|---|---|---|
Pantone | 2271c | 115c | 3546c |
CMYK | 91-0-100-0 | 0-9-100-0 | 0-86-63-0 |
RGB | 20-181-58 | 252-209-22 | 206-17-38 |
Hexadecimal | #14B53A | #FCD116 | #CE1126 |
Flag | Years of use | Ratio | Government | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | c. 1324 | Mali Empire (possible) | A reconstruction of the banner used by Musa I on the hajj, a possible historical flag of the Mali Empire. It consisted of a yellow rectangle centered on a red field. | |
![]() | 1880–1958 | 2:3 | French Sudan [lower-alpha 1] | The French tricolor was used as the official flag of French Sudan for most of its history. |
![]() | 1958–1959 | 2:3 | A new flag was adopted in 1958, when French Sudan gained autonomy within the French Community. It consisted of the French tricolor with a black Kanaga centered on the white band. | |
![]() | 1959–1960 | 2:3 | Mali Federation | The flag initially adopted on Malian independence consisted of a vertical tricolor of green, gold, and red with a black Kanaga centered on the gold band. |
1960-1961 | Republic of Mali | |||
![]() | 1961–present | 2:3 | The current flag of Mali was adopted on March 1, 1961, removing the Kanaga featured on the previous flag. | |
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Articles related to Mali include:
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Iyad Ag Ghaly, also known as Abū al-Faḍl, is a Tuareg Islamist militant from Mali's Kidal Region. He has been active in Tuareg rebellions against the Malian government since the 1980s – particularly in the early 1990s. In 1988, he founded the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. In the latest episode of the Tuareg upheavals in 2012, he featured as the founder and leader of the Islamist militant group Ansar Dine.
The flag of the State of Azawad, an unrecognized state that declared independence from Mali on 6 April 2012, was a horizontal green-red-black tricolour with a yellow triangle at the hoist. The symbolism behind colours to the Azawadi people are manifold as described by Moussa Ag Assarid: yellow representing the Sahara desert, black representing the arduous history of the Tuaregs connected to anti-colonial struggle in their many uprisings as well as their difficult way of life, red representing the blood of the Azawadi martyrs and green which represents the scant vegetation in its Saharan and Sahelian regions. It is the same as the flag of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. A popular variation of the flag includes a red "yaz" or "ⵣ" letter in Tifinagh that serves as a universal symbol of the Amazigh people within its yellow hoist. This version has a more specific reference to the Tuareg demographic in Azawad versus the Fulani, Songhai and Mauritanian ethnicities present.
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The Azawad conflict has been a conflict in Northern Mali between the MNLA, a Tuareg nationalist group, and a coalition of Islamist groups. The conflict began when Northern Mali declared itself independent from the government, creating the unrecognized state of Azawad. The Islamists and MNLA formed an alliance in combatting the Malian government. An internal conflict sprung up over the imposing of sharia law in the new state and the MNLA distancing itself from the coalition to a democratic state. Islamists gained popularity amongst anti-Tuareg tribes which helped them overthrow MNLA authority in Gao. Both sides clashed repeatedly leading to the Battle of Gao, where the MNLA were driven from the North's two main cities, Gao and Timbuktu. The MNLA soon lost all of its strongholds in the North in a matter of months. They went into hiding secretly gaining support and strength. The beginning of 2013 led to the start of the French intervention in Mali that ousted the Islamists from the North's cities and brought back Malian authority. The MNLA supported the French and Chadian forces in military operations against Islamists' sanctuaries in the mountains. The MNLA recaptured several important towns in the Kidal Region but refused to disarm or hand them over to the Malian government. A series of Islamist-sponsored terror attacks plagued MNLA forces for siding with the French. Checkpoints and bases were targeted with suicide bombings that targeted MNLA members. A peace deal was reached with the Malian army in June that let the army transverse freely in MNLA-occupied zones that were under Malian jurisdiction. Ethnic violence sprung over the murder of a Tuareg Government officer's family. The MNLA responded by harassing and murdering Fulani civilians, who constitute a majority of Islamist rebels. The Islamists stepped up their attacks in one such instance massacring 30 Tuareg merchants. The MNLA has since been battling Islamists.