Arms And The Flag

Mozambique and a handful of other countries have chosen weapons as a symbol of their national identity

- Smita Pranav Kothari

ALEX TIVANE was angry. The Mozambican tourism professional opened the Paint application on his computer and erased an element from his national flag. That element was an AK-47. “I painted the best approximation of the background colour over the gun,” Tivane, who has been using the revised image as his profile picture on Facebook ever since 2013, recollects. According to vexillologists, Mozambique does not have a flag code (a law that lays down a description and specifications of the flag).