Lesotho Gets a New Hat

How freaking awesome is this... Lesotho has given itself a new flag and they chose for their icon: a hat. It's set on a background of green, white and blue stripes to symbolize land, peace and rain. I also like that they removed red from the flag, which previously symbolised faith, but religious nuttiness is a topic for another day. On many African flags red symbolises the bloody and protracted civil wars that produced a new flag. Compare the relative ammounts of red and white - white is peace - on the Mozambiquan flag. Where Mozambique might have a hat they've a badza and an AK-47, succinctly and tragically summing up the last 30 years of Africa's history, peasants and warlords. But not Lesotho, I know they've had their troubles, and they've decided they're going to set them aside and be the nature loving, peaceful dude at the great brawling party that is Africa, chilling in the funny hat and talking about rain while everyone else is brandishing their machetes and AK-47s. Heck, two recent kings of Lesotho were called Moshoeshoe. What a cool name. Sweet, I'm happy now...

Created 2006-10-07 01:21:23 by 334 and filed under stuff