Choice of S. Africa Anthems Stirs Furor : Symbols: Commission suggests citizens sing both an Afrikaner melody and a hymn used by ANC.

In the end, even the vexillologists were vexed Wednesday.

After all, the experts in flags were swamped with 7,000 proposed designs for the flag that should wave over the new, post-apartheid South Africa.

A few were easy to dump--like one showing Bart Simpson at the beach, or another of a hammer and sickle composed of a banana and an assault rifle.

But when the Commission on National Symbols reported Wednesday to the multiracial negotiating council hammering out South Africa’s political future here, its recommendations for a new national motto, coat of arms and flag--actually, it recommended six possible flags--were quickly eclipsed by the furor over its choice of a new national anthem.

The problem was that the commission’s members couldn’t pick one out of the 119 songs submitted in some of the nation’s 11 major languages. So they proposed that South Africans sing two national anthems until a new government is elected next April.

And not just any two songs: The panel nominated “Die Stem van Suid Afrika” (“The Call of South Africa”), the Afrikaner melody that has been the apartheid regime’s anthem since 1957, and “Nkosi Sikelel’i Afrika” (“God Bless Africa”), the Xhosa hymn sung as a liberation cry by the African National Congress and nearly every other black organization here.

Not surprisingly, whites and blacks immediately objected. And the emotion-packed dispute reveals much about the challenges, both great and small, that South Africans face as they struggle to create a new identity and heal the bitter wounds of apartheid.

“Die Stem” is “reminiscent of old apartheid South Africa” to millions of dispossessed blacks, said Carl Niehaus, the ANC spokesman. “It’s the symbol of white domination and white privilege. It’s not a symbol that can bring unity to our country.”

But right-wing whites say they’ll never sing “Nkosi,” a nonpolitical, call-and-response hymn inspired by colonial missionaries and popular throughout black Africa.

“I’m absolutely against this,” grumbled Hendrik Johannes Botha, a prominent member of the pro-apartheid Conservative Party. “I can’t see how it can work. Things are being forced on us. There’s going to be bloodshed.”

It wasn’t the first time that South Africans have bickered over symbols and songs. When the country’s first multiracial Olympic team competed in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 after a 32-year absence, it did so without a national flag or anthem. Instead, the team waved the Olympic flag of five interlocking colored rings and stood to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

President Frederik W. de Klerk’s National Party, which has ruled the country for 45 years, concedes that old symbols may hinder political progress, or at least its own chances in free elections. So party rallies before black voters now sometimes end with an Afrikaans version of “Nkosi.”

Similarly, De Klerk’s party has changed its colors, having traded its old blue-and-orange party logo earlier this year for a warm yellow sun on a pastel green, blue and white background.

The choice of a national flag to replace the country’s 66-year-old orange, white and blue standard was tougher, even though the symbols commission was only mandated to find a flag for the six months until a new government takes office and can choose one for itself.

Although the commission only convened Sept. 7, about 7,000 designs for banners and burgees poured in from around the country, drawn in everything from crayon to computer. Hundreds of citizens followed up with letters, phone calls and personal pleas.

The panel first whittled the list down to 130, then finally to six. Its first choice has a gold-and-green background, signifying Africa’s wealth and fertility. Imposed on that are green, red and blue triangles, a motif supposedly symbolizing interlinked peoples and harmony.

The panel also had to choose a new national motto. The top choice: Ubuntu , which means “humanism.”

The panelists also suggested a new national coat of arms featuring the still-unchanged national flower, the King Protea, under leopards drawn in black and white to imply equality and non-discrimination. South Africa’s current crest features two species of antelope: a horned springbok, the national animal, and that favorite creature of Scrabble fans, the oryx.