A few weeks ago The Common Sense delved into the history of the South African flag and showed that the country’s national banner could have easily been something else.

But this was also the case with the flag that the current flag replaced. It was not inevitable that the “oranje-blanje-blou,” with the three smaller flags in the centre, would have been the pre-1994 flag.

The familiar orange, white, and blue flag only entered service on 31 May 1928, exactly 18 years to the day after South Africa became a Union in 1910. Its adoption followed one of the most bitter symbolic arguments in the country’s early political history.

When the Union was established in 1910, the Union Jack was regarded as the appropriate national flag because South Africa remained a dominion within the British Empire. South Africa was largely self-governing, but the British monarch remained its head of state and ultimate constitutional authority still rested in London.

South Africa also had its own distinctive Red Ensign. This consisted of a red field, the Union Jack in the upper corner, and the shield from the then South African coat of arms on the opposite side.

The original 1910 version placed the shield directly against the red background. In 1912 it was changed so that the shield appeared inside a white circle, making it easier to distinguish. Although intended primarily for maritime use, the Red Ensign was also flown on land and came to be regarded by many people as South Africa’s de facto national flag.

However, neither of these flags was particularly popular and in the 1920s the government asked the public for proposals for a new flag.

Reportedly more than 3 000 designs were submitted.

One of the most popular was the “Walker Flag,” designed by a history professor, Eric Walker, and it is shown below.

Some of the other designs which were considered by the government were the following:

None of these flags found favour and the government set up a commission in 1927 to determine what South Africa’s new flag should be.

The six designs put forward are shown below.

This was not the end of it, however, and a number of organisations proposed other designs.

This was the flag suggested by the South African Party (SAP) in 1927.

This was another flag proposed by the government.

The Senate proposed a similar flag to that of the SAP’s proposal.

However, the oranje-blanje-blou was formally adopted as South Africa’s national flag in 1928 as a compromise between English-speakers and Afrikaners, with elements representing both groups (the old Dutch Prinsenvlag and the two flags of the Boer republics for the Afrikaners, and the Union Jack for the English-speakers).

However, there were still some Afrikaner nationalists who opposed the flag, primarily because it contained the Union Jack. It was even called the bloedvlek (bloodstain) by some Afrikaners.

This led to another proposal being put forward by Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in the 1960s. However, the idea died with him when he was assassinated in 1966.

South Africa’s flag history was therefore never inevitable.

The country could easily have been represented by the Red Ensign, adopted the Walker flag, selected one of the cross designs, accepted the government’s shield flag, or replaced the 1928 flag with Verwoerd’s Springbok proposal.

The same uncertainty surrounded the creation of the present flag. Around 7 000 designs were submitted during the negotiations of 1993, yet none of the formal public proposals produced an acceptable result. The final design was approved only six weeks before the interim Constitution came into force, as detailed by The Common Sense a few weeks ago.

But the new flag was accepted far more readily by South Africans than the old oranje-blanje-blou, even though it had to represent a greater diversity of people. And perhaps that tells us something about the country South Africa has become.