The Red Cap of Liberty is the symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympics
To prove that a better sporting world is possible the Phrygian Cap is the symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympics. The design is seen as a feminist one- a welcome innovation- but the symbolism is a radical one. The Phrygian Cap is known in English as the Red Cap of Liberty
As James Epstein noted in his article Understanding the Cap of Liberty (Past and Present 122,1989) it was the great symbol of 1819 and was particularly the source of a struggle between protesters wearing it and the Yeomanry at Peterloo on 16th August 1819.
He notes ‘the ability to display the cap of liberty or to prevent its display became the measure of the shifting balance of power between the forces of authority and those of working class radicalism’.
The Cap of Liberty or Bonnet Rouge had its origins in the French Revolution and as Epstein notes after an absence it had first appeared again in Manchester in January 1819 when Henry Hunt marked his arrival on the scene of Manchester radical politics by addressing a smallish reform meeting at St Petersfield.
The Government financed paper New Times reported that Hunt was surrounded by an immense mob and preceded by the Jacobin red cap.
The paper went on to demand that Parliament pass a law to proscribe for ever.. those ensigns of massacre and rebellion the Bonnet Rouge..’
The Cap of Liberty was a symbol of freedom, democracy and change to a better society in 1819, why not 200 years on as well?
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