Are you fucking kidding me with this flag, Mozambique? So bold, so aggressive, so pugnacious, yet well composed with a pleasing color scheme. Are you trying to turn me on? I think that I might be too impressed to be intimidated. I give you big points for putting a Kalashnikov (AK-47) rifle right up there in the left hand corner. Even most of the girls that I know think that this is an awesome machine gun with a lot of stopping power. Remember that part in Jackie Brown when Ordell, Samuel L. Jackson’s character, says "Ah! The AK-47! When you absolutely have to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitute!"? That was awesome. And true. That’s a really good movie, by the way, Mozambique, if you haven’t seen it. I think that it is very underrated and deserved to do much better at the box office.
A lot of flags just mess around, coyly insinuating their supremacy, but never come right out and admit that they will calmly shoot you in the face without blinking if you try to mess with them. Not you, Mozambique. You don’t mince words, do you? And then you go and coup de grace it off with an amazing bayonet affixed to the rifle. A lot of people might say that this is overkill, but not me. This is by far the stabbiest flag that I have ever seen. I think that I just took a bayonet….to the heart. Seriously, Mozambique, do you think that I could get your phone number?
But you’re not all just banana clips and explosions, are you Mozambique? You also believe in hard work and the agrarian ideal, as illustrated by the farming implement. That’s a hoe, right? And just when I think I have you figured out, you show me yet another side of your complicated personality. Is that a book I see in the foreground? How many flags have books on them? How much have you ever learned from stupid stars or stripes? That’s right, nothing. Books are awesome. Hey Mozambique, I like reading too! I think that we might have a lot in common. Were you also freaked out when Oprah picked Cormac McCarthy’s The Road for her book club, like she’s suddenly all into violent, post apocalyptic dystopia novels, like she invented it or something? That’s weird. That was our thing.
Anyway Mozambique, unless I come across another flag in the next few weeks that’s emblazoned with the image of a shark riding a rampaging elephant, chomping and trampling it’s way to freedom, your flag is definitely my favorite flag of the year. Here’s to you in 2008.
1 comment:
Aesthetically, it's a bit busy for my taste, but I think they are unique in having a gun on their flag. Among the distinctive flags of the world, you've got to admire Nepal. There's something really self-confident about the only nation to have a non-rectangular flag. (Literally thinking out of the box.)
Some flags are just grossly ironic. Here's Zimbabwe, for example: "seven equal horizontal bands of green, yellow, red, black, red, yellow, and green with a white isosceles triangle edged in black with its base on the hoist side; a yellow Zimbabwe bird representing the long history of the country is superimposed on a red five-pointed star in the center of the triangle, which symbolizes peace; green symbolizes agriculture, yellow - mineral wealth, red - blood shed to achieve independence, and black stands for the native people." I couldn't read that without wincing.
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