[Sunday Times] Is the use of racial categories holding back national unity?

It is crucial that there is a national dialogue that engages seriously with the question of how we work towards a truly non-racist society.

While this discourse on the impugned racial classifications includes identities of individuals and groups, it is also integral to the national question — a question about nation-building pursuant to redress, redistribution, reparations, and reconciliation processes and measures.

This twin deconstruction and reconstruction approach is also the approach that was proposed by then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in 1996 in his “I am an African” speech, while also, in a 1998 speech, warning that South Africa continues to be a society of two nations necessitating radical transformation measures.

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