New Flag design tries to keep historical resemblance

So what does the new flag look like? According to Encalada, it has been a tedious task to complete, but they laboured to make the new design and colour scheme closely resembling the flag that was presented at Independence in 1981. He described a few of the differences now visible between both flags.

Nigel Encalada, Director, Institute for Social & Cultural Research

“1981 and now other producers of the flag have been working on this with the blessing of Ministers of Government, with the purchasers of flags which were largely government agencies and so they have been making some of these tweaks. The men for example, we did not change that. That was something we inherited from the designs that were already in circulation. If you look at the axe on the left, on the upper left of the shield or the chevron as it is called. If you look at it that is now argent. An axe is silver looking when it’s new and so on. If you go back to the original slide, it’s blue, but there is not axe that’s blue. We even went back into the archival records to look at paddles that we have found. We found like 1880, some of the earliest photographs we found so we said okay, that is again like a caricature looking paddle. And so if you fast forward, you see the paddle more accurately resembles a paddle that is used in the river valley.”

There is still more work to be done to complete the process. Encalada says they are looking at a six month period to phase out flags that have been produced. Encalada will be giving a detailed lecture on the national flag and the current process on September seventeenth. The commission also handed out the new flags to mayors of the municipalities.