In praise of ... Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
Leader, Saturday November 3, 2007
The Guardian, UK

On Desert Island Discs this week Joel Joffe, who as a young solicitor in South Africa defended Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress activists at the Rivonia trial, chose as his first piece of music the song that embodied the spirit of the struggle against apartheid. It was a reminder that Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is the most lyrical and moving of all anthems. Sung in close harmony, in Xhosa - the language spoken by its composer, Enoch Sontonga - Zulu and Sesotho, the song has accompanied the ANC since its foundation. Written 110 years ago as a hymn for pupils in a Methodist mission school, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was performed at the first meeting of the South African Native National Congress, the forerunner of the ANC. It was recorded for the first time in 1923 by the writer and political activist Solomon Plaatje. Its power and fame grew as political repression in South Africa became intense, a defiant and beautiful cry for freedom. As Lord Joffe recalled this week, it was sung in 1994 at the ceremony marking Nelson Mandela's inauguration as South Africa's first democratic president. It is now part of the country's national anthem, which also brings in verses from the apartheid-era Die Stem. Enoch Sontonga died in 1905, aged 33, unaware of the fame his song would bring him and before its final verses had been added. He wrote one of the greatest of all political songs, a call for hope and liberation that has gone beyond national boundaries, across Africa and the world.