Map - Depictions Of Human Beings On Modern World Currency

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Author	Replies: 6 / Views: 5,806
nalaberong Pillar of the Community Canada 2805 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 2:09 pm "We need to get our politicians off of our currency and re-introduce images of Liberty!" A common refrain, but is it viable? Is it too much like a monarchy to include leaders on currency? (No) Whose example would this be following? To find out, I made a map showing whether or not countries put human beings on their circulating currency. Allegorical human beings (like Liberty) are quite rare - more common are "generic" people (seen most commonly in Africa). Anyway, here is the map. Republics and monarchies are coloured differently. Some cases are borderline - especially statues and ancient artworks. Russia has a few statues and memorials on its higher denominations. Are these statues people, or buildings? I marked Russia as "intermediate", because the statues are not classic portraits and aren't really the focus of the note... but it could go either way. Interesting observations - Being a monarchy does not mean that your currency will have images of a monarch on it. Euro-using countries obviously have no monarch on their notes (as all Euro notes are common to all Euro countries), but Denmark and some of the Gulf sheikhdoms also do not put their monarchs on their currency. Meanwhile, North Korea (the world's only communist monarchy!) used to put Kim Il-Sung on all denominations, but now prefers depictions of the working class. - Only one country in the whole world has an allegorical portrait on all of its notes. This country is Brazil, and the portrait is La República (who wears the same clothes as Liberty and is probably closely related). These notes might be worth checking out if you're a Liberty fan. - According to some interpretations of the Qu'ran, depictions of human beings are considered "false idols" and coins and notes from many hardline countries have no people on them. But many of these countries are also monarchies. So who wins - God, or the monarch? Saudi Arabia puts its king on notes, but not coins. Oman has a similar strategy. Qatar eschews human depiction entirely, as does Kuwait. Most of these countries can get away with this because they're rich. - While we're talking about the Qu'ran, in Iran, the coins feature no people (the former Shah put his portrait on all the coins just as he was increasing his program of state repression in the 70s, so portraits on coins probably have bad connotations for the Iranians), but all the modern notes feature the Ayatollah Khomeini. His reverence in Iran is comparable to the American reverence for George Washington, so it's understandable. Pakistan also features the founder of their nation (Muhammad Ali Jinnah) on all notes. - China and India have Chairman Mao and Mahatma Gandhi on all denominations, both very well-known. This kind of definitive "same leader on all denominations" approach seems to depend entirely on the history of the issuing country (we in Canada couldn't put John A. MacDonald on all denominations because the Quebecois would complain, and besides that would be boring). - Portraits are popular in former British and Portuguese colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, but the former French colonies seem to prefer depictions of generic humans. I think it's a great idea to put everyday people onto currency, but most former Eastern Bloc countries have almost deliberately avoided this after the fall of communism (the working class can be seen on almost every Communist-era note, so they probably got sick of that). - Almost every republic in the Americas has politicians or statesmen on their notes, including the most highly developed and democratic Latin American countries (Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica). Switzerland (which is maybe too democratic) also has portraits of people on its notes. So I don't think that depictions of real people and/or politicians on currency go against the republican idea. - However, it's not all presidents and leaders. Many, many countries depict famous artists or scientists on their notes. Maybe this is worth considering for Americans, too? It's no fun to be political all of the time. - Many republics without portraits of people on the notes are still dictatorships - check out Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan). Others are just a mess (Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, D.R.C.). I made this map to see if any connections really do exist between monarchies, republics, democracies, dictatorships, and what they choose to put on their money. If they do, they're definitely more complicated and interesting than "portraits of people = the Founding Fathers turning in their graves". Edited by nalaberong 04/12/2015 2:12 pm Report this Post to the Staff

DaSlayer Valued Member United States 204 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 2:19 pm That's a really interesting map! Report this Post to the Staff
Harmonica Pillar of the Community Canada 1118 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 3:46 pm On Rick Steven's Persia I remember him saying the natives would say to tourists "Apple 1 Khomoni" or something like that. Report this Post to the Staff
chequer Pillar of the Community Canada 4227 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 3:51 pm Your posts want me to start thinking of a map to make. What program do you use? Keep up the thoughtful work. Report this Post to the Staff
nalaberong Pillar of the Community Canada 2805 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 4:44 pm I use GIMP image editor. It's like Photoshop, but much better because it's completely free. GIMP is also a good program to use to crop, rotate, and fix coin images. But for this purpose, MS Paint is also useable. What really matters when making these maps is finding a good, easily colourable blank world map image to work from, with no anti-aliasing (fuzziness). Online alternate history hobbyists usually have some really good ones: I think they call them "QBAM maps". Wikipedia also has some nice templates. Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16806 Posts	Posted 04/12/2015 9:31 pm Quote: According to some interpretations of the Qu'ran, depictions of human beings are considered "false idols" and coins and notes from many hardline countries have no people on them. But many of these countries are also monarchies. So who wins - God, or the monarch? Saudi Arabia puts its king on notes, but not coins. Oman has a similar strategy. Qatar eschews human depiction entirely, as does Kuwait. Most of these countries can get away with this because they're rich. The Qu'ran itself does not ban the making of images, only idolatry (or the making and worship of images of other gods). More general prohibitions against human imagery of any kind can be found in the Hadith, the sayings of Mohammed, which are more open to re-interpretation than the Qu'ran. This flexibility explains why the treatment of human imagery has been inconsistent throughout Islamic history. Some of the rationalizations allowing imagery in certain circumstances may seem pedantic, but we coin collectors should not complain as the Islamic series has been made more interesting because of it. For example, we would not have the spectacular series of Ayyubid "figural bronzes" if the Ayyubids had not rationalized that it was actually "graven images" that were prohibited; coins were struck, not graven, so they were OK. The dies used to strike the coins were graven, however, so Muslims were not allowed to make them; the Ayyubids imported non-Muslim artisans for this purpose. It's possible that similar logic allows modern representations of human figures on banknotes. Quote: I made this map to see if any connections really do exist between monarchies, republics, democracies, dictatorships, and what they choose to put on their money. If they do, they're definitely more complicated and interesting than "portraits of people = the Founding Fathers turning in their graves". I suspect you may have seen more of a correlation if you'd separated the "real people" category into "living" and "deceased" sub-categories. Only monarchies and dictatorships routinely use pictures of the actual monarch/dictator alive and in power at the time the note was issued and few countries besides monarchies and dictatorships use images of living people at all on their notes. Honouring the esteemed dead on the money is an ancient tradition, going right back to the old Roman Republic, when magistrates holding the office of Moneyer would use images of their own illustrious ancestors to demonstrate their pedigree (and therefore their own worthiness of attaining even higher office). One of the reasons Julius Caesar was assassinated was that he dared to use his own portrait on his own coins, rather than images of his ancestors. If I recall correctly, George Washington and your other founding fathers were against using their portraiture on coins and notes while they were still alive, as they wished to be neither monarchial nor dictatorial. I'm not aware of any of them expressing the sentiment that honouring them on the money should continue to be refused after their death. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
january1may Pillar of the Community Russian Federation 5172 Posts	Posted 04/15/2015 09:44 am Quote: What really matters when making these maps is finding a good, easily colourable blank world map image to work from, with no anti-aliasing (fuzziness). Online alternate history hobbyists usually have some really good ones: I think they call them "QBAM maps". Well, if you're talking about AH.com, they/we just call them "blank maps", maybe with some adjective like "colourable". Having no fuzziness is very important for a good AH blank map (because not only do you need to color it in, you also need to be able to edit the borders themselves occasionally), so while fuzzy blank maps do exist, they only appear very rarely. As for QBAM, it's a specific variety, named for their original author (the name QBAM is an acronym - I won't decipher it directly, but it's something along the lines of "that one guy's very large map"). It's actually a bit too large for many practical applications, so it's used much less often than the smaller Worlda map (sadly, I don't recall exactly what does that name mean). It's still one of the most common blank maps, however. Report this Post to the Staff
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