Racism a national security risk: security minister
Racism poses a risk to national security, State Security Minister David Mahlobo told Parliament on Tuesday.
“If racism is allowed to manifest itself like in other parties, institutions, and countries, where racists are harboured and seek refuge, it poses a security risk to our national security,” he said during his department’s budget speech.
He told MPs that over the past few months, the country had seen cases of racism which were of major concern.
“It is a stark reminder of our painful past experience. It creates profound racial tensions and conflict in virtually all aspects of life in a society,” he said.
Mahlobo said the country could not claim to be truly free when racism reared its ugly head in institutions of higher learning, the media, and the private and public sectors.
He called on South Africans to refuse to be part of “this barbaric, backward thinking and inhumane belief that some races are inherently superior physically, intellectually, or culturally to others and therefore have a right to dominate them”.
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