“Nkoso sikelel’ I Afrika, makube njalo.” The opening words of the great anthem of Africa, Nkoso sikelel’ ’I Afrika – God bless Africa, may it be so for ever. Written by a Zulu minister in the 1890s and set to an old hymn tune, variations of the song have become the anthems of Malawi, Zambia and of the modern republic of South Africa itself.
THE ORIGINAL poem was published in the Lovedale Mission Press. The Lovedale Seminary and Institution was yet another major Scottish contribution to education in Southern Africa. Named after Dr Love of the Glasgow Missionary Society, which had established a foothold in the Eastern Cape as early as 1821, Lovedale has been called the Iona of the Scottish Church in Africa. However, it is quite feasible that at least two of the men associated with the Glasgow Society also moonlighted as British government spies, sending back intelligence of tribal activity from the frontiers of white occupation. Because of this, we do not have the comparatively unsullied reputation that we enjoy in Malawi. Bishop Desmond Tutu uses humour to describe their arrival: “When the missionaries came to Africa,” he said, “they had the Bible and we had the land. “Let us pray”, they said. We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”