Garden Gnome Liberation Front
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The Garden Gnome Liberation Fronts (GGLF) are organizations that stand for the liberation of garden gnomes. The most famous is the French FLNJ (http://www.flnjfrance.com/) (Front de Libération des Nains de Jardins), the creator of the world movement. Another famous and important group is the Italian MALAG (http://www.malag.it) (Movimento Autonomo per la Liberazione delle Anime da Giardino), the most organized and impressive organization. There are several differences between the many groups in the world. Usually, though, the members of these groups (called Liberators) enter the gardens and take away the little statues. The FLNJ leave them in the woods with claim tickets, the MALAG smash the plastic body permitting the spirit of the gnome to fly away. They are sure that these little plastic statues have a spirit and rights. They claim a better place than a small garden for the garden gnomes, hoping a coming back to the Nature and the magic world of the wood.
It has been rumored that some of their members have "kidnapped" garden gnomes and sent them on trips around the world, being passed from person to person and photographed at different famous landmarks, with the photos being returned to the owner.
GGLF became popular in the United States and on the Internet after the hit movie Amélie and the Where is my Gnome? ads — a viral marketing technique used by Travelocity in 2004.
The Garden Gnome Liberation Front is largely an underground movement as their primary methods of liberation often subvert local trespass and property laws. A separate but related group, Free The Gnomes,is the legitimate political wing of the subversive Garden Gnome Liberation Front. As a political advocacy group, they seek to further the rights of gnomes around the world through legal, non-violent means. The fundamental premise of this and most Garden Grove Liberation groups is that Gnomes, like humans, have an inalienable right to freedom. Forcing Gnomes to stand in gardens without just compensation and against their free will, for the sake of ornamentation is, to these groups, immoral. The largest of these groups is the French MENJ (Mouvement d´Émancipation des Nains de Jardin).
External links
- MALAG (http://www.malag.it) - official site.
- Free The Gnomes - Garden Gnome Liberation (http://www.freethegnomes.com) - official site.
- Article: CNN: Garden Gnome Liberation Front strikes Paris show (http://www.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/04/12/france.gnomes.reut/)