Nationalism and the concomitant concept of nation building presuppose commonality and national unity at the expense of cultural, economic and social diversity. In an over-zealous attempt to unify divided South Africa into “one (Rainbow) Nation” many forms of diversity, particularly in terms of cultural ethnicity, may be repressed. Ironically enough, these are the differences which the former apartheid government stressed in order to implement its grand scheme of racial segregation, based on a “divide and rule” policy. There is now a tendency for the government of national unity to undermine these differences in its attempt to build a united South Africa. To do so, South African needs translation and interpreting services at municipal level. These services are discussed and suggestions are made to further develop those services.