BusinessTech reports that Mantashe was speaking at a TNA Business Breakfast briefing on racism in SA. He said that we’ve come to a point now where we can enter into a ‘real transition’.

“We have avoided discussing the matter in earnest.”

Mantashe added that he’s been trying to wrap his head around the thinking of apartheid leaders of old and has come to the conclusion that racism has been ‘indoctrinated’ into the minds of whites, giving them a superiority complex.

 “We cannot be apologetic for being black, and we cannot be apologetic for being majority in this country”, Mantashe said.

“We as South Africans, we must build a nation, we must let go (of the past) and we must allow ourselves to be a part of building.”

The secretary general said that as South Africans, we need to take care to not simplify the racial debate into a space where we say that “if we dispose every white person in South Africa, and redistribute everything to black South Africans, we have solved the problem”.

“That is not the issue. We must build a prosperous South Africa, where we can all benefit.”