Maimane admits to having problems with Die Stem

Vrotappel said:
The only thing that can be wrong with this is the language. I bet the language most painfully reminds of apartheid. We are going to be scratching that too?
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Let's ask @Knyro what's racist about it, he seems to think he's the local expert on all things racist.
 
The Voice said:
Die Stem, while the anthem of apartheid South Africa had nothing to do with apartheid, having been written 30 years before it started.

It's a beautiful anthem and the words filled me with pride.
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Agree - however it is not relevant in South Africa today. Per my previous post, the Anglo Boer war ended more than a hundred years ago. The formation of our republic too. Right or wrong the association with the apartheid era stuck. It is a reality.
 
Let's take 'World in union', away from the IRB, cut out a few verses and change it to SA in union.
 
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Scrap it and write a new one. It should not be about a continent or specific languages because there will always be discontent about which languages come first or are more prominent. Create an anthem that we can all get behind and be proud of, with a full matching version in each official language, not a round robin of all of them in one. Let people sing the same thing in whatever their home language is.
 
garp said:
Scrap it and write a new one. It should not be about a continent or specific languages because there will always be discontent about which languages come first or are more prominent. Create an anthem that we can all get behind and be proud of, with a full matching version in each official language, not a round robin of all of them in one. Let people sing the same thing in whatever their home language is.
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Nee, ***. Never again should South Africa foist such a cacophony on the world, the vuvuzela was enough.

Having 11 bloody official languages is objectively even more silly than having a mishmash anthem. It's an anachronism of freshly post-apartheid South Africa, where every fool and his dog was mortified at the thought of offending another's sensibilities. I know it's likely a pipe dream, but we should have one official language. No, not Mandarin.
 
I must be honest - the current national anthem is a mournful piece of music. It's overly-solemn and the lyrics are soooo dramatic, it's cheesy.

I'd much rather have something joyous and upbeat that makes people happy to hear it - I am never happy hearing the current anthem.

Hell, I'd take an orchestral arrangement of a Johnny Clegg, Hugh Masekela, Mango Groove or AN OTHER song rather than the dirge we have now - no lyrics required.
 
HapticSimian said:
Nee, ***. Never again should South Africa foist such a cacophony on the world, the vuvuzela was enough.

Having 11 bloody official languages is objectively even more silly than having a mishmash anthem. It's an anachronism of freshly post-apartheid South Africa, where every fool and his dog was mortified at the thought of offending another's sensibilities. I know it's likely a pipe dream, but we should have one official language. No, not Mandarin.
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So which one? Afrikaans is the most spoken language in South Africa. Everyone often forgets it's not just a "white" language. If not Mandarin, which is the most spoken language in the world, what? Spanish? Why settle for English which is at number 3? For a country hung up on "colonialism" why settle for the queens English?

Why do we need one official language? We certainly aren't the only multilingual country in the world.
 
Great topic, really. Interesting reading for a change.

The anthem was cobbled together in an honest, if misguided, effort to hold everybody together during a very dangerous time in SA history. But IMHO the effort was misguided, as I said. It tried to include everybody, make everybody feel comfortable by dragging the differences together.

Like the names of streets and towns etc. it now divides. And like the anthem, changing those names to 'heroes' of both sides will continue to divide.

We have to acknowledge that in SA there is a side that feels pain at being reminded of the past. But at the same time there is also a side that feels pride in the things achieved - including a peaceful transition - outside of the racial oppression of apartheid. The agreement in transition was that all sides should have an equal future in this country.

Names and the anthem that highlight seperate groups' pain and pride will tear this country further apart. All political names should be changed to neutral names and the anthem should be neutral, focussed on a united future and not a divided past.

I'd rather live in an improving country looking to the future than live in a country spiralling down into oblivion looking at a past they cannot change. Those that want to constantly cry about the past, on all sides, should be marginalised.

It is time to change the anthem. All of it.


Re the 1976 uprisings. I as an Afrikaans speaking person I can not for one moment criticise anyone for rioting on that issue. It is widely understood as a reaction to being taught in the 'language of the oppressor'. My understanding of it is slightly different. Beyond the aforementioned, and much more importantly, if I was say a Zulu speaker and had to learn in another language, I'd certainly not want to learn in Afrikaans. What an utter waste of my years of education to study in another language that is only a local language. If I could not study in Zulu it certainly had to be English, a near universal language.

Insisting on Afrikaans was at best utter stupidity in an already volatile situation.
 
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HapticSimian said:
Nee, ***. Never again should South Africa foist such a cacophony on the world, the vuvuzela was enough.

Having 11 bloody official languages is objectively even more silly than having a mishmash anthem. It's an anachronism of freshly post-apartheid South Africa, where every fool and his dog was mortified at the thought of offending another's sensibilities. I know it's likely a pipe dream, but we should have one official language. No, not Mandarin.
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I say Federalise the **** out of South Africa and let each state come up with its own anthem.
 
unskinnybob said:
So which one? Afrikaans is the most spoken language in South Africa. Everyone often forgets it's not just a "white" language. If not Mandarin, which is the most spoken language in the world, what? Spanish? Why settle for English which is at number 3? For a country hung up on "colonialism" why settle for the queens English?

Why do we need one official language? We certainly aren't the only multilingual country in the world.
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No. 2011 concensus,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_Africa

Languages of South Africa

IsiZulu - 22.7%
IsiXhosa - 16%
Afrikaans - 13.5%
English - 9.6%
Sepedi - 9.1%
Setswana - 8%
Sesotho - 7.6%
Xitsonga - 4.5%
siSwati - 2.5%
Tshivenda - 2.4%
isiNdebele - 2.1%
Sign language - 0.5%
Other - 1.6%
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