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.
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 (i.e., Xhosa and Zulu) cosmology, the colours are not taken literally to represent particular cultural groups.
Read more about this topic: Rainbow Nation
Famous quotes containing the words symbolic and/or identity:
“The symbolic view of things is a consequence of long absorption in images. Is sign language the real language of Paradise?”
—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)
“There is a terrible blindness in the love that wants only to accommodate. It’s not only to do with omissions and half-truths. It implants a lack of being in the speaker and robs the self of an identity without which it is impossible for one to grow close to another.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)