National Anthem of Rhodesia

"Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia"

National anthem of  Rhodesia
Also known as	"Voices of Rhodesia"
Lyrics	Mary Bloom, 1974
Music	Ludwig van Beethoven, 1824
Adopted	1974
Audio sample
Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia (instrumental) file help

"Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia" (or "Voices of Rhodesia") was the national anthem of the unrecognised state of Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1980) between 1974 and 1979. The tune was that of "Ode to Joy", the Fourth Movement from Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which had been adopted as the official European Anthem by the Council of Europe in 1972 (it remains Europe's anthem today). The music used in Rhodesia was an original sixteen-bar arrangement by Captain Ken MacDonald, the bandmaster of the Rhodesian African Rifles. A national competition was organised by the government to find an appropriate set of lyrics to match the chosen tune, and won by Mary Bloom of Gwelo.

In the fallout from Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain on 11 November 1965, the country still claimed loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II as its professed head of state, and so retained "God Save the Queen" as its national anthem. With Rhodesia's reconstitution in 1970 as a republic, however, the royal anthem was dropped along with many other references to the monarchy. The Republic of Rhodesia lacked a national anthem until it adopted "Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia" in 1974. The national anthem lost its legal status in December 1979, when the UK took interim control of the country pending its internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe five months later. Rhodesia's use of the well-known Beethoven tune has since caused the playing of "Ode to Joy" to be controversial in modern-day Zimbabwe.

A dispute over the terms for the granting of full statehood to the self-governing colony of Rhodesia led its predominantly white minority government, headed by Prime Minister Ian Smith, to unilaterally declare independence from Britain on 11 November 1965. As Whitehall had been insisting on majority rule as a condition for independence, this declaration went unrecognised and caused Britain and the United Nations to impose economic sanctions on Rhodesia. Queen Elizabeth II continued to be the Rhodesian head of state in the eyes of Smith's administration, which regarded itself as "Her Majesty's Rhodesian Government" despite its international non-acknowledgement; "God Save the Queen" therefore remained the Rhodesian national anthem. Though this was intended to demonstrate Rhodesia's enduring loyalty to the Queen, the retention of a song so associated with Britain in the midst of the Anglo-Rhodesian constitutional struggle soon gave Rhodesian state occasions "a faintly ironic tone", in the words of the London Times.