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"Rainbow nation" is a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to describe post-apartheid South Africa after South Africa's first Democracy election in 1994.
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
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.
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's seven colours, or five of the Nguni people (i.e. Xhosa and Zulu people) cosmology, the colours are not taken literally to represent particular cultural groups.
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.
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