And that the designer of South Africa’s iconic flag – said to be the world’s third-best known – attributes his success in heraldry to the nurturing of the Eastern Cape when he was a student at Rhodes University.

Sontonga’s descendants still live in Uitenhage and Frederick Brownell, now in his 70s, lives in Pretoria. Brownell also designed the Eastern Cape coat of arms.

“The powerful impact the Eastern Cape has on people is evident in the immense contributions of Enoch Sontonga and Frederick Brownell,” said Nomfundo wakwa Luphondwana, general manager of provincial communication in the Eastern Cape Office of the Premier.

“Today we celebrate 16 years of freedom and democracy. It marks a milestone in the history of our nation – and a time to reflect and celebrate the journey that we travelled to achieve our freedom and democracy.

“These two national heroes must be commended for the massive role they have played in shaping the symbolic backdrop of South African freedom.”

Sontonga’s beautiful hymn brought comfort and joy to millions of people during the struggle years.

“It reminds us of God’s blessing over our land and people, as we celebrate our unity and ability to forgive and overcome. We are also humbled when we are reminded of Enoch Sontonga’s modest, obscure and short life (he died aged 32) – and the incredible gift which he left us with,” said Luphondwana.

Sontonga – a teacher, choirmaster and lay preacher – wrote the hymn for his school choir in 1897 as a prayer for God’s blessing over South Africa and its people, and also composed the music.

The famous song was reworked after 1994, symbolising the union of South Africa’s people.

He trained as a teacher at Lovedale Training College in the Eastern Cape before going to Johannesburg, where he taught at the Methodist Mission School.

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika was first recorded in 1923, thanks to famous South African writer Sol Plaatje’s efforts. Seven verses were added by the Xhosa poet Samuel Mqhayi.

Brownell – who was born and raised on a farm in the former Orange Free State – came to the Eastern Cape in 1959 to study at Rhodes University.

“If it wasn’t for history and my inspiring lecturer Winifred Maxwell, I would not have ended up in the heraldry,” said Brownell of his Eastern Cape education.

Brownell was State herald from 1982 to 2002. He started sketching the flag when the crumbling apartheid government released Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990.

“I had just finished the national flag of Namibia in 1990 when it became quite clear to me that the South African flag would have to change. I started soon afterward,” Brownell recalled.

“I couldn’t get there for a couple of years, then one day in about August 1993 it was as though a light bulb had gone off and I came up with the themes of convergence and unification.

“In many ways, the whole process we were going through was around those two ideas and a convergence of the history of flag colours was in order.”

His design, however, remained under cover as a nationwide public competition was under way, drawing in more than 7 000 designs from citizens. Six were presented, but none received support.

Brownell submitted his design only as an interim flag, given the short deadline for the April 27 elections and Nelson Mandela’s May 10 inauguration.

“The challenge was to find something that would be acceptable to (the whole population) – it’s like you have 40 million pairs of eyes on you, a scary process.

“When it came to the crunch, by 1995/96 the people at large had spoken and the interim flag was accepted. All I can say is I heaved an enormous sigh of relief that it had worked.”

Today the South African flag has been adopted as the logo of Brand South Africa, South African Tourism, the Proudly South African campaign and, more recently, it will be rolled out in the Eastern Cape as the Brand Eastern Cape version.

Asked how he felt knowing his design was the third most-recognised flag in the world, he humbly replied that he had had no real sense of the enormity until 1995, when he was awarded the world’s premier award for flag science in Poland. “I realised the enormity of things only after they had happened. I must stress there is no meaning to individual colours. It was a natural phenomenon – but with symbols, you know, they start to achieve a life of their own,” said Brownell.

He also designed the Eastern Cape coat of arms – another legacy he has left the province.

His trips by train to Alicedale and Grahamstown en route to university affected his imagery of the Eastern Cape.

“Hence the iconic use of aloes, an Nguni shield, the rising sun and many rivers of the province, but it’s only a small contribution,” he maintained. — By AMY SHELVER, The Herald, Avusa Group News

source: Daily Dispatch Online

“Yes!!! I did it.” I, Yusuf Moses, pulled it off…

I overcame my fear of speaking on a stage. When I got on that stage I felt that I had the power to change the world just with the words that I conveyed and that was frightening. That’s the one thing that made me tremble with fear and made me stutter; however, I knew if I didn’t get onto that stage at that moment I would disappoint all the people and most of all I would disappoint my mother, Halimah Moses, and Mrs Elizabeth Muller. Moreover, I would surely not want to disappoint  Ramon Thomas and make him lose  trust and confidence that he had in me. I believed I had a message, and it was an important one: I wanted to inspire Uitenhage, I wanted to educate them.

That is why I had to get onto that stage. The morning of Saturday, 9th August 2008, I was nervous and in a moment of near panic I felt like running away but deep down inside of me I knew that it would haunt me for the rest of my life. Running would become much easier next time … I would never achieve my dream of standing in front on people and changing their lives.

I am happy that I went through with it because I learned some valuable lessons:

Lesson 1

It is possible for an individual to change the world like Thomas Edison, Mother Teresa and Florence Nightingale. I read and heard such stories about these great people in history, changing the world, but that was “history” to me. It seemed unreal; even Nelson Mandela too far fetched because I had never before experienced that power of speaking to the world. I did not realize that when I stepped onto that stage but…. when I got down after my last words I realized that one person can change the world.

Lesson 2

People want to help you succeed. There were people that I met not long before my big women’s inspirational day who went out of their way to help me succeed. Every time that I had to ask someone something, I reflected on whether I would be willing to do that for someone else? Then I would answer, “Yes, but that is not me.” That’s when I started to doubt them. Yet that’s when I learned to put my trust in what people say and to believe that they would follow through. (I learned to trust people again.)

Lesson 3

I learned to appreciate everyone I knew. For the first time I really appreciated the people that came and I could help them to help themselves even more. But the greatest reward was seeing the faces in the crowd wanting to hear more of what I had to say. It was people like Mr Antony Larter, telling Ramon, “It will help Yusuf if we clapped a bit.” It was Mrs Muller nodding her head when I said, “Never let anyone take away your dignity”.  Women are dream builders.

It was Mrs Olwen Carson running around at the very last minute for me, Yusuf Moses, whom she had met just a few days ago; she had known nothing about me, yet there she was helping me find a “tea pot” for the event. I can still feel the lump in my throat and tears welling up in my eyes but I kept them back because I felt that I would still need to approach a thousand more people and I had to be strong when I met them.

There was Mrs Gretal Olivier who came all the way from Alexandria telling me that it was not my fault that this public speaking was a fear to me; at her school it was part of the curriculum and if it had been a part of my curriculum a few years back it would not have been a fear. It was people like Mrs Karen telling me, ”You did a great job organizing this much needed yet so neglected event”. I could see the pride in my mother’s eyes. Only a few days earlier I had told her that I was resigning and I could see her dream of me working at a factory for 10,20 or even 40 years being shattered.

Now she proudly told me, “Yusuf, my son, you are now an adult and I can no longer choose for you. But remember I will stand behind you in whatever you choose to do with your life, because you have never let me down before”. I will never ever forget these timeless words that she said. It was for Mrs Lizy of the friends of the Uitenhage Library just smiling with appreciation. It was for Gareth whom I work with for telling me, “Hey, bro, just relax”

“You won’t believe that the majority of Uitenhage’s current residents don’t know about the concentration camp – and it’s in their backyard,” Calitz said.

Situated on the outskirts of the upmarket suburb of Vanes Estate, you will find one lone house with a memorial statue in front of it, which was declared a national monument in 1972. There is another monument made out of high cement walls in memory of the eight children and adults who died in the camp. Calitz said the concentration camp was established because a large number of women and children were dying in a Bloemfontein camp because of extreme temperatures. The new one had to be somewhere near water and a train line.

“Uitenhage was the ideal place because it had an established rail system and there were natural springs,” Calitz said.

The camp was built for 2000 people, but only 1800 stayed there. Although today the site is only four hectares in size, Calitz said they estimate it was about 10 hectares originally. When the concentration camp was built, the town was already 100 years old.

“At first the residents looked down on the people from the camp, but then they realised that these are our people and they started to accept them,” Calitz said.

“For entertainment people went to the camp and played records for the women and children. When the people were given permits to come to town to buy goods, the residents would pick guavas from one of the trees and give them to the children,” Calitz said.

All the houses were made of zinc and wood as opposed to the tents of the other camps. Today, only the house that is believed to have been the commander’s, stands on the site. The rest of the houses were broken down and rebuilt in Port Elizabeth’s Red Location. Peace came in May 1902, but the people stayed in the camp until October. “W here were they supposed to go back to? Their farms (in the Free State) were taken away, their houses had been burned and their husbands shot,” Calitz said.

“Some people moved to town, got married and their descendants are probably still here today.” – By NICOLETTE SCROOBY, source: Daily Dispatch