A Blueprint for a New Nation
by Tarty Teh

We need a new flag. The flag-making shouldn’t be all that difficult. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to come up with something that will not remind us of something foreign to Africa. So we take a black Gedeh elephant and profile it on a green piece of cloth, and that’s our flag. Then we ban the old America-inspired flag.

Anyone harboring or displaying the old flag will be charged with something called sedition. I’m sure everyone has heard about that one before. That’s what Henry B. Fahnbulleh Sr. was charged with for not displaying a miniature Liberian flag on his desk when he was ambassador to Kenya during the Tubman administration.

Now we’ve got the flag. We need an anthem. How about a Gio harvest song? Just the tune, we’ll write the words later in English and all the other African languages that we speak in Liberia. On national occasions, we take turns to sing it. In Bassa this year, Vai next, Grebo, etc.

We need a name for the country. Let’s get a name from the east. A Kru name. Dahkorbloh. Dahkor means nation, and bloh means land. We can say Dahkorbloh or Dahkorland. This way we will have shown some Americo-Liberian influence since they are hopelessly hooked on English.

So we’ve got the flag, an anthem, and a name for the country. We need a motto. "We Are Africans." That’s it.  If we don’t, we may forget -- again. We are almost finished.

All we need now are a seal and a name (or location) for a capital city. In fact, let’s get out of Monrovia. Capital city is Yekapa. No, Saniquallie. This way we won’t struggle for an adjective. Saniquallians is easy. Yekepans or Yekepians doesn’t sound quite right. So Saniquallie it is.

Now we need an official seal. I don’t care if I am not on the committee to create the seal. But one thing I don’t want to see on the seal is some indication of who came from where. It is a safe assumption that we were here before there was a need for a nation-state. We’re done.

Oh, I forgot one thing. We need a name for our legislature. We won’t change the form of government--it will remain republican--but our deliberative chambers should have proper and local names. The Senate will be Kafueh (big house in Grebo); and the House of Representatives will be Kasu (simply house, again Grebo--I am Grebo, you see?).

Let’s see what we have:

We are finished. If you have any comments or suggestions, send them to: TartyTeh@aol.com -- Tarty Teh