Previous | Next :: Georgian Flag Flying for Freedom and Against Occupation : DC : USA | September 2, 2008, 1:34 am

It was Labor Day a traditional holiday for organized Labor......... and supposedly a holiday for disorganized people who labor disorganizedly like me....... I was not going to shoot....... I was having lunch at my fave lunch time place in DC....... then I saw a man walking with a huge white flag crossed with red.......

I thought for a moment of the familiar flag of England with its cross of St George ........ then saw it properly and straight away knew that it was the flag of Georgia also obviously featuring the cross of St George........ The flag looked amazing crisp white and red in the sunlight........ suddenly I needed to have cameras......... run back to the car...... the man was joining a vigil outside the European Union HQ in DC........ he was going to join his countrymen and supporters in a live chain....... as they all held hands and chanted in a dignified way hoping to let their presence speak to the people inside the EU building in DC and beyond to the EU summit discussing the plight of Georgia today.

I have followed with sadness and outrage the events in Georgia......... I was there last time there was real fighting in South Osetia............ I heard this morning on the BBC many Georgian villages have been burnt down by South Osetian Militias ....... who operate freely inside the Russian occupied territory.......... Russia has not left even some undisputedly Georgian territory and has now recognized the disputed territories as independent states......... its been depressing to watch Russia turn back into the threatening authoritarian bear of old....... invading its neighbors as they struggle to try and create a free society and break free of old style rule from Moscow.

I was very late on the scene, the pictures I shot do not really capture the gathering or its importance for the people there....... as the event was all but ending by the time i arrived........... but this image above for me captures something of the flag that drew me to follow and find this event.........This flag familiar and different all at once..... The flag of a new nation struggling to be modern and free...... but also an old nation from well well before the time of the Soviets........ The flag..... symbolic for me of this small nations right to exist ......... and its right not be crushed by its giant and aggressive neighbor still being run by its old style KGB Leader.

Cheers Jez XX