Thanks for giving us the hope and good fortune of calling us the Rainbow Nation! With your permission, I offer my thoughts on this concept.

A rainbow at the end of a storm brings the beautiful promise that terrestrial life will never again be destroyed by flood. After many years of bad times in South Africa, our rainbow began to emerge in 1990, showing beauty in its colourful diversity, the colours blending as well as standing out, dazzling in their individual brilliance and in their unity.

Each colour has the responsibility to maintain its own brilliance but also to merge at its edges with the next colour. This is as it could be in South Africa, where we should allow all to be their own colours and not to spoil our rainbow by not RESPECTING their needs, who they are and what they want when it comes to race, religion, sexuality and political and social affiliations.

The beauty of our rainbow, like any rainbow, is that it seems more beautiful from afar, while I believe that the beauty is truly being part of it from the start and allowing the sun to touch us all, respecting all of us equally in all ways to be who we are. We must never forget this and we must never allow the inequalities of the past to be perpetuated and to destroy our rainbow.

These inequalities can manifest in many ways – poverty, race, gender, sexuality – so let's take care of the dreams and aspirations of all South African to ensure our rainbow remains as bright as it has to be! Let's work together to ensure the eradication of poverty, poor education, lack of service delivery by working on building mutual respect and a sense of responsibility to ensure the RIGHT we have to be a RAINBOW NATION.

Madiba, I hope this is more or less what you meant and much more! Let's not get caught up in words and actions of those that want destroy this wonderful vision, let's all be proudly South African because like the rainbow no matter where you are, you will always be a rainbow South African!

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