Eastern Cape artist challenges government over flag design ownership

IOL News

29-04-2025

Eastern Cape artist, Thembani Hastings Mqhayi, wants the government to resolve the ongoing dispute over the national flag.
Image: Leon Muller / Independent Newspapers Archives
Eastern Cape artist, Thembani Hastings Mqhayi, has expressed his disappointment against the government's failure to resolve the ongoing dispute over the national flag.
Mqhayi, who claimed that the flag had his design, said the country flew a questionable flag to celebrate Freedom Day.
He claimed that his work was erroneously credited to Fredericks Brownell, who served at the National Archives of South Africa as State Herald between 1982 and 2002.
Mqhayi, who is the manager for Cultural Affairs in Amathole District, East London, claimed that the flag is one of the five different original designs he submitted in early 1994 to the office of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.
This was after the late former president Nelson Mandela, in 1993, made a call that artists and citizens submit designs for the flag of the new and democratic South Africa.
Mqhayi said Brownell, who was credited for the design of the flag, had stolen the designs and submitted them as his own.
The matter is currently at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, after Mqhayi filed papers against former Sport, Arts and Culture minister, Nathi Mthethwa, as well as the State Herald in 2022.
In a statement issued on Freedom Day, Mqhayi said it has been 30 years since the country gained political independence from the apartheid regime in 1994, but that only levelled the political landscape while the arts and creative heritage suffered a great historical loss.
He said the intellectual genius, property, heritage, and culture embedded within the democratic flag of the country remained an elusive historical account that has gained minimal to no political urgency in restoring the identity and history of the country's national symbol.
'Yet on the 27th of April, the country celebrates Freedom Day, flew a questionable symbol (flag) that was erroneously credited to the then State Herald, Fredericks Brownell, a man who was employed by the state to chair and convene (conflict of interest), the submission process of design proposals (in 1993/1994) from artists across South Africa,' read the statement.
Mqhayi, in 2019, requested the Presidency, the Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture, as well as the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, for intervention, but nothing has been done.
He said Bandile Magibili, the researcher of the flag, delivered another submission to Minister Gayton McKenzie, but he had not responded or acknowledged it.
Magibili also called on the media to interrogate and force the government to bring answers to the matter, adding that this is their quest to spark the much-needed transformation and change regarding the hidden truth about the flag.
He said this was a fair call to correct and uphold the historical relevance of Mqhayi's contribution to South African history and discourse.
'The livelihood of a country lies in its pride in nurturing the creative output of the nation, and in this case, it is the democratic flag of South Africa. A great tragedy in the hands of an academically, legally, politically, and media-sound country whose purpose is to secure and protect its citizens from exploitation, which is an omission of South African history.
'With time, a revolution demands creative strategies to defeat and overcome inequality, oppression, discrimination, and subjugation by ushering unpolluted forces of change emanating from the soul mandate as the media to resonate stories of black Africans. Untold stories remain myths, undocumented history becomes a legend, and the media has the power to shed light on marginalised black intellectuals such as Mqhayi,' he said.
Asked for a comment, McKenzi's spokesperson, Stacy-Lee Khojane, on Monday said she would check with officials, adding that she would only be able to give feedback from Tuesday.
Presidency spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, did to respond to calls and messages.