Conventional logic has it that a flag with six bright colours is beyond the pale, writes Eddie Koch. So why is the new South African flag such a resounding success?
VIVA condom, viva! That was the cry of a volunteer who handed out leaflets decorated with pictures of a prophylactic draped in the flowing red, white, blue, green, black and gold colours of the our new flag on World Aids Day this year.
Kodak used the same emblem to market its product as the world’s best colour film for the most colourful country in the world. Volkswagen’s famous advertisement relied on a brilliant aerial view of its cars arranged in the pattern of the flag.
Its multiple colours flowered on bumper stickers in the streets of every city, spawning a vibrant market for hawkers and vendors in the informal sector. It has become fashionable to rejuvenate your old Beetle by painting a bright yellow Y down its length and then surrounding it with the five other tones in the flag.
Evita Bezuidenhout performed a cabaret at a dinner for the country’s foreign correspondents dressed in a full- length, lurex version of the flag. She did the same at last week’s ANC conference. An image of the emblem was also used — along with slogans like “Made in the New South Africa” — to promote the country’s first soft- porn film in Afrikaans, Lipstiek Dipstiek.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s book fused the sextet of colours — even though there is no exact fit — with the notion that South Africa is inhabited by God’s rainbow people. Since then it has become almost mandatory for publishers to release their latest publications dressed in sleeves that look like the flag.
The national pennant also made its mark abroad. An enduring cartoon by Steve Bell, England’s famous satirist who always depicts the prime minister wearing an old- fashioned pair of Y-front underpants, showed John Major on the phone to the president. “Nelson!” says the prime minister. “May I be the first to congratulate you on your brilliant new flag.”
These images attest to a truth contained in a recent article by Dr Whitney Smith of the Flag Research Center in Massachusetts. He notes that national flags usually have two or three colours. The use of four runs the risk of becoming gaudy. Five tends to fringe on poor taste and, according to this logic, six bright tints would place a flag beyond the pale.
Yet, says the author, the South African flag works. It does so for a spectrum of purposes that range from the sublime to the sordid, from that heart-stopping moment at Mandela’s inauguration when six air force helicopters flew the flag proudly past the president to the advert for a sexist film that, paradoxically, confuses soft porn with the non-sexist ethics inscribed in the national emblem.
More than anything else the flag of the new South Africa — among a handful in the world that have six colours in their design — has bonded the nation. Impromptu surveys show it far outnumbers the old flag at sports events, even rugby test matches. A market survey conducted by the Pretoria News in August found eight out of every 10 respondents appreciated the flag.
Nine local companies have been given contracts to manufacture the flag for official and private supply. “There has been a massive increase in demand for the flag, especially from private companies and the public,” says Tony Hampson-Tindale, director of a banner-making firm called Flagcraft.
“We found that local and overseas companies shied away from the old South African flag, but it has now become fashionable to buy one. There is a major increase in demand for flags from people who want to give them away.” Individuals can buy a full-size 120cm by 180cm flag as a Christmas present for R138 plus VAT.
The thousands of people who have stuck the multi-hued bumper stickers, some of them now appearing in the shape of a heart, all over their cars are, according to one observer, acting out a basic feeling of happiness at being members of South Africa’s new rainbow race.
That remarkable achievement is largely the work of Fred Brownell, director of heraldic services in the Department of Culture, Science and Technology. “It happened one day long before April 27 when I was at an international conference organised by the International Flag Federation in Switzerland,” Brownell told the Weekly Mail & Guardian.
“My mind wandered, as one’s mind tends to do when meetings get tedious, and I began doodling with ideas about how a new South African flag could look. I came up with a basic design and the more I looked at it the more I thought it could work. It was out of this idea that the flag grew.”
But it was not immediately destined to do this. The original plan was to select a flag from submissions made by members of the public to a national symbols commission that was set up by the transitional government in September 1993. Brownell, who had been involved in the selection of Namibia’s new national flag, was nominated to serve on a subcommittee charged with the design of a new coat of arms.
The commission received more than 4 000 designs from the public but failed to find a suitable flag among them. Graphic design studios were asked to throw in their suggestions.
“But they never realised the difference between designing a shopping centre and creating a national flag,” says Brownell.
“At that stage I felt, as a public servant on the commission, it was inappropriate to submit the design I had come up with during that boring moment in Switzerland.”
But the commission’s work went into abeyance and by February this year, weeks away from the election, the transitional government still had no flag. In desperation it set up another subcommittee, this time under the joint chairmanship of Roelf Meyer and Cyril Ramaphosa.
“I was at home on a Saturday night when the call came through,”says Brownell. “Basically they said, get down to Cape Town and bring all the designs you can lay your hands on. You are now in charge of the technical committee and this problem shall be solved by the end of the week.”
Because of the urgency, and because no other suitable image could be found, Brownell submitted his idea. “All the members of the committee really liked it. Originally the triangle next to the Y was completely yellow and they felt it had to have some black in it. That was the only change they made, and the design was then submitted by Meyer and Ramaphosa to the transitional executive committee.”
Brownell believes the audacious idea of using six bright colours in one flag worked for two technical reasons: the Y lying on its side allows the colours to flow smoothly alongside each other; and the thin white and yellow bands effectively separate the darker colours, preventing them from clashing.
Another trick was to ensure that there was no political symbolism attached to any of the colours: “It was a very technical exercise. I surveyed the colours of every flag and pennant used in South Africa from the time of Van Riebeek to the start of the elections. The six colours were chosen simply because they were the most commonly used in our history. Coincidentally they are also the six colours most often used in other nations’ flags.”
“Right from the start I felt these techniques would convey a feeling of congruence and unity. It is a major relief for me that it worked. There was a lot of criticism when it came out. People said it looked like a beach towel. Some (rightwing) jokers said the Y was a symbol of satanism …
“I didn’t get a bean for it. But it looks as though the flag has, more than anything else, united the nation. That for me is the greatest achievement.”