Flags from South Africa

The new flag of the Republic of South Africa was first hoisted on 27 April 1994, finally ending the years of colonialism, European conquest, subjugation of its native peoples and Apartheid. It combined the colours red, white and blue from both the former Boer republics and the British Union Jack with the black, green and gold of the African National Congress (ANC) and other black African organisations. The design, where two green bands converged into one, symbolised that black and white people would unite.

In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck arrived in Table Bay to establish a supply station for the VOC, the “Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie”, a Dutch trading company, the first European settlement in South Africa. He may have raised the Dutch orange-white-blue flag; anyhow, it became the basis for the South African flag of 1928. Before that, there had been flags raised by self-proclaimed republics, established by Boer “Voortrekkers”, farmers of Dutch extraction who wished to be free of the British, who had established Colonial power from 1806 and used the Union flag and the Blue and Red Ensigns with badges.

After 1948 the South African government was dominated by the descendants of those Boers, the Afrikaners, who established strict racial segregation: Apartheid, dressed up as “Separate Development”. They set up Bantu “Homelands” for the various ethnic groups, mostly on disjointed bits of land between “white” areas, given limited autonomy, leading up to “independence”. These got their flags and coats of arms; four of those, Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana and Ciskei, were declared independent, although no country apart from South Africa recognised this.

In 1994, upon majority rule, all those “Bantustans” were abolished and absorbed into the new provinces. The large Cape Province was split into the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape Provinces, and the Transvaal into Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West and Gauteng Provinces. The North West Province was extended to the west into Northern Cape, encompassing almost all of the former Republic of Bophuthatswana. Gauteng included Johannesburg and Pretoria, the legislative capital. Only Mpumalanga adopted a flag; the others only had coats of arms, although those could be placed upon a white flag.