National anthem of South Africa

The national anthem of South Africa was adopted in 1997 and is a hybrid song combining extracts of the 19th century Xhosa hymn "" (, ) and the Afrikaans song that was used as the South African national anthem during the apartheid era, "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (), with new English lyrics.

The anthem is often referred to by its incipit of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", but this has never been its official title, which is simply "National Anthem of South Africa".

The committee responsible for this new composition included Anna Bender, Elize Botha, Richard Cock, Dolf Havemann (Secretary), Mzilikazi Khumalo (chairman), Masizi Kunene, John Lenake, Fatima Meer, Khabi Mngoma, Wally Serote, Johan de Villiers, and Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph.

Structure

The lyrics employ the five most widely spoken of South Africa's twelve official languages – Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza), and English (final stanza). The lyrics are sung in these languages regardless of the native language of the singer. The first half was arranged by Mzilikazi Khumalo

History

Background

From the late 1940s to the early 1990s, South Africa was governed by a system known as apartheid, a widely condemned system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that was based on white supremacy and the repression of the black majority for the benefit of the politically and economically dominant Afrikaner minority and other whites. During this period, South Africa's national anthem was "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", also known as "Die Stem", an Afrikaans-language song that chronicled the Voortrekkers and the Great Trek. "Die Stem" is a poem written by C. J. Langenhoven in 1918 and was set to music by Marthinus Lourens de Villiers in 1921. "Die Stem" () was the co-national anthem with "God Save the King" between 1938 and 1957, when it became the sole national anthem until 1994. "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" was composed of eight stanzas: the original four in Afrikaans and four in English - a translation of the Afrikaans with a few modifications. It was seldom sung in its entirety; usually, the first stanza was the most widely known and sung sometimes followed by the last stanza.

When apartheid came to an end in the early 1990s, the future of "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" was called into question. It was ultimately retained as the national anthem, though "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", a Xhosa language song that was used by the anti-apartheid movement, was also introduced and adopted as a second national anthem of equal standing. "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" was composed by a Methodist school teacher named Enoch Sontonga in 1897. It was first sung as a church hymn but later became an act of political defiance against the apartheid regime.

The South African government adopted both songs as dual national anthems in 1994, when they were performed at Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

For the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Morné du Plessis suggested that the Springboks learn all the words of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika", and "they did so with great feeling", according to their instructor Anne Munnik.

Inception

The practice of having two national anthems proved to be a cumbersome arrangement as performing both of them took as much as five minutes. This was rectified when South Africa's dual national anthems were merged in abridged forms in early 1997 to form the current national anthem. The new national anthem was performed at an opening of the South African parliament in February 1997, and was published in the South African Government Gazette on 10 October 1997. with some such as the Economic Freedom Fighters calling for the verse to be removed, supposedly because of this connection. Others defend the inclusion of the verse, pointing out that it is included in large part due to the wishes of the first post-apartheid South African president, Nelson Mandela, who intended its inclusion as a reconciliatory measure for the post-apartheid future of South Africa.</poem>

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|<poem>God bless Africa

May her horn rise up high

Notes

References

External links

National Anthem Toolkit Wikipedia
The National Anthem
National Anthem of South Africa – Streaming audio, lyrics and information (archive link)
Audio recording of the National Anthem (instrumental only, MP3 file)
Brief introduction to the anthem and notation
The South African national anthem in MIDI format
The South African national anthem in MP3 format