Redesign of Coat of Arms Overdue

Seriously Mauritius. A dead and lazy bird on the left. An imported animal on the right. Both dressed in colonial tailcoats. A dead industry in the middle. A boat that we haven't used to go to work for at least a week. Hopefully it's not one of those boats that was involved in large-scale human trafficking. 3 palm trees. A key that will now be appropriate only when our independent country turns 52. And a star (mullet argent). Plus the 200-plus-year old reason why the British seized the island: Star and Key of the Indian Ocean. That was before the birth of the Wright brothers and Santos Dumont.

This beauty was apparently designed in 1906 by Johann Van Der Puf, the Mayor of Johannesburg. Might have been relevant then. But is definitely not now. We should organise a design competition. To get rid of this embarrassment.

Public Sector Has No Monopoly of Common Sense

Neither does our private sector. For example the 60,000 hectares of land under sugar cane will produce barely 1% of our GDP this year. That's roughly the size of Singapore which has the world's 36th largest economy. Which means that they generate 2,458X more value for every acre of land that we have under sugar cane. Hey, but don't worry they're not the gateway to Africa. Plus their national animal is not a lazy bird which died in the same year as Pascal. Probably of diabetes. We just need to make it clear to the world where in the open seas does that gateway start. And where it ends.