Just over a week ago a story broke out that Malawian authorities were planing to change the features of the national flag. I exchanged messages on Twitter with few friends on the topic; and the common questions were: why? and does Malawi got resources for the exercise, given the current economic crisis (lack of fuel, foreign currency etc...).Many Malawians have since added their opinions on the issue. To my surprise, there is even a Facebook group currently with 1,542 fans dedicated to "save our beautiful flag of Malawi!!!". This is first time in recent years that I have seen the youth of Malawi engaging themselves into issues of national interest; it may be for fun but it shows some interest nonetheless.
So far it would appear that the question: why rearrange the features of the flag? features prominently. If one looks at the flag, it is easy to denote the meaning of the colours and perhaps the symbol as well; it is black, red and green, with a rising sun on the black stripe.
The colour black represents the people, the red, their struggles to independence and the blood that they shed; the green represents nature. The rising sun symbolises a new dawn - a free and independent Malawi. What is not seen here however, is the fact that these features also correlates with Malawi's currency - Kwacha, which translates as a new day/dawn. And the currency unit is Tambala (rooster), which traditionally signifies a new day/dawn when it crows in the early hours of a day.
Taking all these connotations into perspective, one realises that the symbols were carefully thought of and they do have deeper meaning than what meets the eye. Given that the authorities have not come up with their version of the case, these are my assumption behind the said proposals: The authorities believe that Malawi is no longer at dawn, therefore the rising sun must be replaced with a fully risen sun. I can hardly see any logic beyond this.
And it is a very logical proposal but only if Malawi was a developed country and not a "developing" one. I do not know how much life I still have but I do not think I will see a developed Malawi during my life time. Interestingly, the logic behind the changing of features may suggest that Malawi has an evolving flag; and one day the colour black will be at the bottom with a setting sun embedded on it. Evolution is always inevitable.
What we can not afford to ignore however, is that the colours and features on the flag are easy to move around, we only need resources, but the current meaning is not easy to recreate. What will remain of the currency - Kwacha and its units - Tambala, which was adopted to correlate with the flag? If this issue is not taken into account these symbolic names (Kwacha and Tambala) will be rendered meaningless. I can only hope that someone has been creative enough!