London 2012: South Africa receive apology over apartheid anthem gaffe

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/06/london-2012-south-africa-anthem
<snip>
South Africa have received an official apology from Great Britain Hockey after the apartheid anthem Die Stem was played by mistake before the match at the London Cup on Tuesday.

In a letter to the tournament organisers, Marissa Langeni, the chief executive of the South African Hockey Association, said the country "watched with disbelief as our team stood through what clearly was a most embarrassing and uncomfortable experience".

South Africa's women went on to beat the hosts 3-1 in their opening game of the last tournament before London 2012, and GB Hockey moved swiftly to apologise for the administrative mistake.

"Great Britain Hockey, the organiser of the Investec London Cup, offers a full and unreserved apology to the South African women's hockey team and their supporters for mistakenly playing the wrong national anthem before South Africa's match with Great Britain on Tuesday afternoon," the chief executive, Sally Munday, said.
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This is disgraceful - who are these ignorant people who do not know the post-apartheid RSA anthem. I'm betting they are checking all anthems before the Olympics begin

[virgogal]

1. It was a mistake-no more,no less.

[tabatha]

2. The current South African anthem is a mix of the new and the old.

Nkosi Nkosi sikelel'i Afrika followed by the Call of South Africa.

(It gives me goose bumps to hear Nkosi sikelel'i Afrika and then the old sung in both English and Afrikaans.)

[malaise]

3. I know it very well

They played the apartheid anthem

[tabatha]

5. Here are some details about it:

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

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le 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.

Since 1997, the South African national anthem has been a hybrid song combining new English lyrics with extracts of the hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" and the former anthem "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (The Call of South Africa). The fact that it shifts and ends in a different key makes it compositionally unique. The lyrics employ the five most widely spoken of South Africa's eleven official languages - Xhosa (first stanza, first two lines), Zulu (first stanza, last two lines), Sesotho (second stanza), Afrikaans (third stanza) and English (final stanza).

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Methodist school teacher. It was originally sung as a church hymn but later became an act of political defiance against the apartheid government. Die Stem van Suid-Afrika is a poem written by C.J. Langenhoven in 1918 and was set to music by the Reverend Marthinus Lourens de Villiers in 1921.Die Stem was the co-national anthem with God Save the King/Queen from 1936 to 1957, when it became the sole national anthem until 1995. The South African government under Nelson Mandela adopted both songs as national anthems from 1995 until they were merged in 1997 to form the current anthem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Ironically, the sponsor is a South African bank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investec_Bank

That's going to be embarrassing for someone.

[tabatha]

6. Yes, because the old song should be in the archives

After all it is over 18 years ago. Probably a novice who did not know any better.

[malaise]

7. There was an opening ceremony for the refurbished cricket stadium in Grenada

before the 2007 World Cup - the Chinese had refurbished the ground and at the Opening Ceremony some idiot played the Taiwanese anthem - embarrassed is an understatement.

At least the Brits get to test run anthems for the Olympics because if this had happened there, it would have been a much bigger disaster.

[jberryhill]

8. Borat parody mistakenly played for Kazakh gold medalist

http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-25/middleeast/world_meast_kuwait-kazakhstan-anthem_1_national-anthem-wrong-anthem-cultural-learnings?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST

Kazakhstan sharpshooter Mariya Dmitrienko stood with her hand on her heart and a gold medal around her neck expecting to hear her country's national anthem at an international shooting championship in Kuwait Friday.

Instead, the sound system blared the insulting parody anthem from the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

"Kazakhstan's prostitutes cleanest in the region, except of course Turkmenistan's," the lyrics said.