Monday, May 18, 2009

Freedom Day Celebration


The South African Embassy in Jakarta hosts a Freedom Day Celebration annually and we had the privilege to attend this years celebration on Wednesday, 29 April. The event, held at The Ritz carlton Hotel in Mega Kuningan was well attended by many of our fellow South Africans as well as other diplomat's from around the world.

I felt a sense of pride when the evening kicked off to the tune of our national anthem "Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika....But, at the same time I felt a sense of embarrassment as I realised that I didn't know all the words to the first two verses of our anthem.

The embassy must have figured that there might be many people, like me, that don't know the words. They obviously wanted to avoid the embarrassment where people end up humming along and rather opted to play an instrumental version instead of letting us sing.

I've actually thought about this a couple of times before, when I hear the anthem. But, I just haven't made the effort; and it's sad! I realised again that it's only two verses that I need to learn "it can't be that difficult". I want to really try and learn and remember the anthem for next time.
Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned this...I hope it is not just me. Am I a terrible South African? I'm wondering; How many of my South African friends can sing the anthem?

So here goes:

South Africa's national anthem
Pulls together two anthems, five languages - and over 47-million people.

Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo.

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa South Afrika-South Afrika.
Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,

Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Translation
The isiXhosa and isiZulu of the first stanza, the Sesotho of the second stanza and the Afrikaans of the third stanza translate into English as follows:

Lord, bless Africa
May her spirit rise high up
Hear thou our prayers
Lord bless us.

Lord, bless Africa
Banish wars and strife
Lord, bless our nation
Of South Africa.

Ringing out from our blue heavens
From our deep seas breaking round
Over everlasting mountains
Where the echoing crags resound ...


We enjoyed a fabulous evening with our South African friends, particularly enjoyed drinking South African wine and eating some traditional South Africa food incl. bobotie, boerewors, biltong salad and milk tart.

About Freedom Day: (I did know this ;-)

South African Freedom Day is celebrated on 27 April. It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on 27 April, 1994. The '94 elections were the first non-racial national elections where everyone over 18 from any race group was allowed to vote. Previously, under the apartheid regime, non-whites had only limited rights to vote.

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