South Africa National Anthem — National Anthem of South Africa

The anthem is a deliberate act of reconciliation. It opens as a prayer — "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" means "Lord, bless Africa" — carried through African languages, then shifts into a verse from the old Afrikaans anthem and ends with an English call to unity and freedom. By binding the liberation movement's hymn to the former state anthem in one song, post-apartheid South Africa turned its anthem itself into a symbol of a divided country choosing to become one.

For a few years after 1994, South Africa sang two anthems side by side; in 1997 they were shortened and merged into a single composite at Nelson Mandela's request, reportedly kept under a minute and fifty seconds. The result is one of the world's most distinctive anthems — the only one to change language as it goes and to weave a former oppressor's anthem together with the song of those who resisted it, as a statement of national healing.

The 1997 anthem fuses "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" — composed by Enoch Sontonga in 1897 and long a pan-African liberation hymn — with "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (Langenhoven, 1918; de Villiers, 1921), and adds a closing English verse written by Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph. It is sung in five of the country's languages: Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English.