Everything about Rainbow Nation totally explained
Rainbow Nation is a term coined by the then
Anglican Archbishop of
Cape Town,
Desmond Tutu to describe post-
1994 South Africa when
apartheid rule officially ended after
South Africa's first fully-
democratic election, which was won by the
African National Congress (ANC).
The phrase was elaborated upon by President
Nelson Mandela in his first month of office, when he proclaimed: "Each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous
jacaranda trees of
Pretoria and the
mimosa trees of the
bushveld - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world" (cited in Manzo 1996, p.71).
Symbolic identity
The term was intended to encapsulate the unity of multi-culturalism and the coming-together of people of many different races, in a country once identified with the strict division of white and black.
In a series of televised appearances, Tutu spoke of the '
Rainbow People of
God'. As a cleric, this metaphor drew upon the
Old Testament story of Noah's Flood, and its ensuing rainbow of peace.
Within South African indigenous cultures, the rainbow is associated with hope and a bright future (as in
Xhosa culture).
The secondary
metaphor the rainbow allows is more political. Unlike the primary metaphor, the room for different cultural interpretations of the colour spectrum is slight. Whether the rainbow has
Newton's seven colours, or five of the
Nguni (for example, Xhosa and
Zulu) cosmology, the colours are not taken literally to represent particular cultural groups. The implied
rhetoric avoids direct reference to colour in the sense of race (especially when acknowledging that natural rainbows have neither white nor black, the two race-associative colours). The colours are simply said to symbolise the diversity of South Africa's usually unspecified cultural, ethnic or racial groups.
Rainbow influence
Rainbow Nation, as a spoken metaphor for South African unity is uniquely (although not deliberately) represented by the internationally acclaimed
South African flag, which sports six near-rainbow colours.
The term 'Rainbow Nation' is most often applied by the South African media when referring to South Africa in the context of its fledgling
democracy. As such, many non-South Africans know the country by this term. The wide-scale use of the term has lent itself as a quasi-patriotic expression, used in a multitude of applications (for instance, commercial when advertising a product.) This use isn't unlike American patriotism and its unfettered use of the
American flag and
Bald Eagle when pushing or promoting a distinctly American agenda.
Rainbowism
South African political commentators have been known to speculate on 'rainbowism', whereby true domestic issues such as the legacy of racism,
crime and the such are glossed over and 'sugar-coated' by the cover of rainbow peace;
South African politician, academic and noted poet
Jeremy Cronin cautions:
American Dream.
Wider interpretations
Gay-rights activists in South Africa have used the imagery provided by the Rainbow Nation phrase to interpret it to mean tolerance of homosexuals in the country. This alternative interpretation connects well to the international rainbow colour motif as used by gays and
lesbians around the world to express their sexuality, as well as the original connotations of diversity and tolerance expressed in the term, but is an unintentional connotation of the phrase as originally used.
Rainbow coalition
The coalition of three nations Brazil, India and South Africa is called as the Rainbow coalition in diplomatic parlace. The name originated since the location of three nation form an arc on the map covering three continents.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Rainbow Nation'.
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