The many flags of this Bob Marley album

[u/naaaa_thaaaaan]

Hi everyone. I took this picture last year in a music shop in Manchester. Some flags I recognise, and are easily identifiable, and some I do not. I think its mostly African/Caribbean ones. Are some of these former national flags?

[u/DerJeweler]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_(Bob_Marley_and_the_Wailers_album)

You’ll find a table of all the flags on the albums wiki page

[u/naaaa_thaaaaan → u/DerJeweler]

Very cool, Thanks!

[u/SuperFaulty → u/DerJeweler]

Interesting how it features two Zimbabwe flags (I didn't know either)

[u/MarkWrenn74]

Yes, some of these flags are no longer used by their respective countries (but they would have been at the time the album was originally released)

[u/Effehezepe → u/MarkWrenn74]

Except for the Ethiopian flag, which by that point hadn't been used for five years. But it makes sense that Marley would use the old lion flag anyways, since he was a Rastafarian at the time.

[u/heilhortler420 → u/Effehezepe]

Don't think he would have been too fond of his messiah being overthrown by Communists

[u/Kooky_March_7289]

Interestingly Zimbabwe is represented twice here, not by the flag of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (which was seen by most African nationalists as illegitimate) but by the flags of ZANU and ZAPU, the insurgent political/guerilla paramilitary groups who were the primary opposition to the Rhodesian state security forces during the Bush War and who were excluded from the original peace negotiations. This album was released in the autumn of 1979, a few months prior to the Lancaster House Agreement which recognized ZANU and ZAPU and was accepted by the African and global community as a legitimate transition of power from Rhodesia's white minority rule.

Also Papua New Guinea is the only non-African flag on here which seems an odd addition. My only guess is that at this time they were a very newly independent and decolonized nation (having achieved independence from Australia just four years prior) and Marley or the cover artist wanted to give them a nod.

Other flags here are old flags of existing countries. The red communist-looking one is the old flag of The People's Republic of the Congo (now just the Republic of the Congo), Zaire is there instead of the DRC, the green one with the red star was the old flag of Benin, the red-white-green one with the squiggly line was the old flag of Seychelles, the one that sort of looks like modern Seychelles with the green, red, yellow, and black "starburst" effect was Mozambique, Lesotho's old old flag (there's been two redesigns since) that's mostly blue is there, Rwanda's old lazy "R" flag is there, Mauritania's old fully green flag is there, Burkina Faso's old Upper Volta flag is the German Empire-looking one, Cameroon's slightly different one with two little stars on the left instead of one big one in the middle......think that's it. The Ivorian one looks suspiciously like backwards Italy instead of backwards Ireland since they used a really deep shade of red/orange in the artwork. Oh, and Tanzania's is upside down.

[u/No_Gur_7422 → u/Kooky_March_7289]

Perhaps the New Guinea flag (🇵🇬) was a mistake, a result of confusion with old Guinea (🇬🇳)?

[u/FIFAstan → u/No_Gur_7422]

Nah, pan Africanism was more global then

[u/Ok-Imagination-494 → u/Kooky_March_7289]

The PNG flag is curious, it may be that he regarded them as a fellow “Black” nation, even though Melanesians are some of the most distant relatives to Black Africans. Probably the similar anti colonial struggle.

[u/rankaistu_ilmalaiva]

Recently bought this on vinyl at a flea market. Clssic cover (and a great album, too)

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[u/Opopanax_2024]

In 1979 Egypt was in the Federation of Arab Republics. I can't tell if this is the flag on the album.

[u/Frankie688]

There's the list of flags on Wikipedia

[u/Crazy_Tonight3525]

No Bahamas?...