User:The C of E/unfa

The Union Nationality and Flag Act 1927 was an Act of the Parliament of the Union of South Africa. The Act was designed to give joint official status to the Oranje, Blanje, Blou alongside the Union Jack as co-official flags of the Union of South Africa.It was also to establish a separate South African nationality separate to British citizenship. The act was abolished in 1961 following the passage of the South African Constitution of 1961.

Background

Before the Act, the only flag with official status in South Africa was the Union Jack as a part of the British Empire. The South Africa Red Ensign was considered as the de facto official flag and was flown from government buildings and used when South Africa required a distinct flag. However both flags were not popular with Afrikaners due to reminders of the Boer War.

Debate

Following the First World War, a new South African identity separate from the British started being formed. In 1924, the National Party's J. B. M. Hertzog became Prime Minister of South Africa and seeing the example of the Irish Free State adopting a flag without British symbolism, had the Interior Minister D. F. Malan put forward a bill to change the flag. The proposal caused controversy with the British South Africans and the black South Africans. The British felt the Afrikaners were trying to remove British symbols and the African National Congress said that blacks felt more loyal to the Union Jack due to it symbolising British justice to them. The majority British Natal province threatened to secede from the Union if the Union Jack was removed.

There was little disagreement on the creation of a separate South African nationality as Malan explained that it would means that South Africans nationals were "British subjects, a smaller circle within a larger one".

Effect

The act created a compromise by requiring both the Union Jack and a new national flag be flown from official government buildings together. The definition of the national flag was also agreed in the act, which resulted in the "Oranje, Blanje, Blou" being created. The two were legally required to be flown together however a number of high profile incidents in the 1930s violated this act. On Union Day in 1938, when Hertzog was due to take a salute the Union Jack was flying but it was lowered and replaced with the "Oranje, Blanje, Blou".

The act also created the concept of a separate South African citizenship in addition to British citizenship as part of the British Empire, then referred to as "Union nationality". In 1930, the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations considered if South Africa's unilateral application of the law to their mandate of South West Africa was in keeping with their mandate. The suggestion was rejected as it was felt it was not a legal concern.