Desmond Tutu (47327456801) (cropped and adjusted)

Rainbow Nation is a term coined by Archbishop

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbish ...

to describe post-apartheid South Africa after

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

's first fully democratic election in 1994. The phrase was elaborated upon by President

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the ...

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 Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothi ...

and the

mimosa ''Mimosa'' is a genus of about 590 species of herbs and shrubs, in the mimosoid clade of the legume family Fabaceae. The generic name is derived from the Greek word (''mimos''), an "actor" or "mime", and the feminine suffix -''osa'', "resemb ...

trees of the

bushveld The Bushveld (from af, bosveld, af, bos 'bush' and af, veld) is a sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa. It encompasses most of Limpopo Province and a small part of the North West Province of South Africa, the Central and Nort ...

– a

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

nation at

peace Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...

with itself and the world."

Symbolic identity

The term was intended to encapsulate the unity of multi-culturalism and the coming-together of people of many different nations, in a country once identified with the strict division of white and black under the

Apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regime. In a series of televised appearances, Tutu spoke of the "Rainbow People of God". As a cleric, this

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

drew upon the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

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. 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

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...

's seven colours, or five of the Nguni (i.e. Xhosa and Zulu) cosmology, the colours are not taken literally to represent particular cultural groups.

Rainbow influence

Rainbow nation as a spoken metaphor for South African unity is uniquely but not deliberately represented by the

South African flag The flag of South Africa was designed in March 1994 and adopted on 27 April 1994, at the beginning of South Africa's 1994 general election, to replace the flag that had been used since 1928. The flag has horizontal bands of red (on the top) ...

, which sports six different colours.

Rainbowism

South African political commentators have been known to speculate on rainbowism, whereby true domestic issues such as the legacy of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in C ...

, and the like are glossed over and sugar-coated by the cover of rainbow peace. South African politician, academic, and noted poet

Jeremy Cronin Jeremy Patrick Cronin (born 12 September 1949) is a South African writer, author, and noted poet. A longtime activist in politics, Cronin is a member of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the National Executive Committee of ...

cautions: "Allowing ourselves to sink into a smug rainbowism will prove to be a terrible betrayal of the possibilities for real transformation, real reconciliation, and real national unity that are still at play in our contemporary South African reality." It has been argued that rainbowism was associated with a unique, post-apartheid South African socio-political trajectory at the end of the 20th century, which initially contrasted with conventional post-colonialism. Since then, the post-apartheid epoch and associated concepts such as rainbowism and nation building have been displaced by orthodox post-colonialism in South Africa.Wynand Greffrath
The demise of post-apartheid and the emergence of post-colonial South Africa
Journal of Contemporary History. Volume 41. Issue 2. Pages 161-183.

References

External links

Identity and Nation building in post-Apartheid South Africa

{{political history of South Africa Anti-racism in South Africa Desmond Tutu Liberalism in South Africa Multiculturalism in Africa Multiracial affairs in Africa Nation Political terminology in South Africa Rainbows in culture

Symbolic identity

Rainbow influence

Rainbowism

See also

References

External links