"The Peace Flag" is an initiative that aims to unify all nations underneath one common symbol on International Peace Day. While there are various icons of peace – the olive branch, the dove – there is no official world flag of peace adopted by the United Nations. That’s why this initiative has proposed that, for one day a year on 21 September, every country raises an all-white version of their national flag to represent that we are all one. In 2013, embassies of Colombia, Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador in London officially agreed to support The Peace Flag initiative by raising a colorless version of their respective flags on September 21. The initiative was nominated for a White Pencil in 2012 at D&AD for its contribution towards peace, in support of Peace One Day.
In the 1890s, expatriate American Cora Slocomb di Brazza Savorgnan, the Countess Di Brazza, invented a universal peace flag with three upright bands: yellow, purple, and white, which became the peace flag of the International Peace Bureau. Originally, there was a complicated symbol on the middle band: "a shield... surmounted by a man's and a woman's clasped hands, sustained by a pair of dove wings with a white star aloft; on the shield can appear any device chosen by the association adopting the flag, or simply the number of enrollment among the users of the flag, or the motto Pro Concordia Labor, or this motto may be placed upon a ribbon on the flag beneath the shield, or on a streamer from the flag staff surmounted by a star with the motto of the association or individual using the flag upon the other white streamer". This flag was adopted by the International Council of Women in 1896. In 1904, it lost the complicated design and became a simple tricolor.
James William van Kirk, a Methodist minister from Youngstown, Ohio designed the first world peace flag of the Earth, using rainbow stripes, stars and a globe. In 1913 and 1929, he made a peace tour through Europe with his flag. He traveled around the world arguing for "the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God". The Universal Peace Congress eventually came to adopt Kirk's flag as its official World Peace Flag, and it was subsequently adopted by the American Peace Society as well as other groups. It consisted of "the earth on a blue field covered with white stars; a white band crossed the globe and to the left was broken up into a spectrum representing the variations of the human race—different, but united in peace". The flag also shows 46 stars surrounding the globe and the spectrum. In 1938, Kirk authored an autobiography, Stranger than fiction : four times around the world, designer of world flag, a world builder, at 80 years makes a new start in life.
The banner of peace is a symbol of the Roerich Pact. This pact was the first international treaty dedicated to the protection of artistic and scientific institutions and historical monuments. It was signed on April 15, 1935. The banner of peace was proposed by Nicholas Roerich for an international pact for the protection of culture values.
The Rainbow flag
The most common recent design is a rainbow flag representing peace, first used in Italy at a peace march in 1961. The flag was inspired by similar multi-coloured flags used in demonstrations against nuclear weapons. A previous version had featured a dove drawn by Pablo Picasso. The most common variety has seven colours—purple, blue, azure, green, yellow, orange, and red—and is emblazoned in bold with the Italian word PACE, meaning "peace". It became popular with the Pace da tutti i balconi campaign in 2002, started as a protest against the impending war in the world. The flag was flown from balconies in all Italian cities by citizens against the war. Its use spread to other countries too, and the Italian Pace was sometimes, but not everywhere, replaced with the corresponding translation in the local languages. According to Amnesty International, producer Franco Belsito had produced about 1,000 flags per year for 18 years, and suddenly had to cope with a demand in the range of the millions. Common variations include moving the purple stripe down below the azure one, and adding a white stripe on top. The seven-color peace flag is not to be confused with the similar six-color gay pride flag, which does not have azure and the colors are in opposite order: with red at the top. Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1947 short story The Green Hills of Earth, referred to "Terra's rainbow banner".
The largest peace flag
The first large peace flag was made in Lecce, Salento, Italy by the association "GPace - Youth for peace" on Saturday, 14 November 2009. It was 21 m wide and 40 m long. Three years later this record was broken. On September the 21st 2012 the Belgian Peace Organisation , Vredeshuis Ghent and five city schools unfolded the in the historic center of Ghent. The action aimed to reinforce the demand to disarm in order to make room for sustainable development.
