A few months ago my wife and I visited the beautiful Iguazu falls between Argentina and Brazil. As I photographed the spectacular rainbow spanning the falls, my mind turned to thoughts of the Rainbow Nation. Wikipedia says Desmond Tutu coined the phrase to encapsulate the unity of multi culturism and the coming together of people of many different nations in a country once identified with the strict division of white and black.

President Nelson Mandela embraced the concept and early on in 1994 he spoke of it: "Each of us is intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country...a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world."

Of course, there were detractors. Winnie Madikizela Mandela tartly pointed out the obvious: there are no black and white colours in the rainbow. She overlooked the symbolism of the ending of old divisions and the hope of a bright future which is the association of the rainbow in South African indigenous culture.

Jeremy Cronin, the clever Communist, warned "...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."

Why ‘smug' rainbowism? Why not just rainbowism that seeks to unite, that seeks to build a real nation founded on our wonderful constitutional principles?

President Mbeki had many faults and many virtues (like most of us). One of his faults was that he seemed to move away from nation-building which used all of us as building blocks. His emphasis was too often on the black/white divide and berating whites, instead of stressing the things we share, our common humanity, our desire for peace and showing us how we could work together to ensure a fair deal for all in our country.

President Zuma is his own man when it comes to cultural matters. He is unashamed of being a Zulu traditionalist with all that entails. And that is his right. Just as it is the right of every person and group in our country to be themselves and be happy in their skins - white black brown or whatever. One hoped to see him become more than that, though.

I hoped he would truly become a president for all the people, eschewing racial nationalism and racial stereotypes. His famous comment about dogs and whites was manna from heaven for the press during the silly season; they had precious little else to write about.

I trust by now he realises he hurt the feelings of many and made himself look silly. He probably had no intention of hurting anyone's feelings but what led him into this foolish statement was a focus on one colour, one cultural identity, instead of going out of his way to embrace the whole South African nation and making us all feel part of it.

My appeal to the president is this: you, Sir, will not go far wrong if you follow the path of Mandela and Tutu. Leave it to the pygmies in your party to play up race differences; you could be bigger than that.

Douglas Gibson is a former Opposition Chief Whip and former ambassador to Thailand.

This article first appeared in The Citizen.

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