1. Introduction

Abstract

The first non-racial elections in South Africa, held on 27/04/1994, ushered in a government whose political framework is grounded on principles of democracy, nonracism and non-sexism. The ‘rainbow people of the South’ is a phrase popularized by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to describe the new post-apartheid South African society. The ‘rainbow’ metaphor captures both the different backgrounds of South Africans and the common non-racial values to which the nation should strive. Underlying both this rainbow metaphor, and the new South African political framework, is an implied intention to de-emphasize the boundaries or partitions which kept different races or population groups of one nation apart.