SOUTH AFRICA: 'WE ARE NOT BEGGARS'

South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe says Africa does not need the West's philanthropy as it possesses enough natural resources to meet its people's needs.

Addressing the 2025 Africa Mining Indaba (summit) in Cape Town, South Africa, Mantashe said that if African countries united to reclaim control of the mining industry, they could reap massive returns from the enormous mineral deposits across the continent. Mantashe said Africa needs to stop allowing the West to cheaply get our minerals, only for them to turn around and call us 'beggars.' 

His comments came after US President Donald Trump threatened to end aid to South Africa in response to a newly signed law allowing it to seize privately owned land (sometimes without compensation) to address land ownership imbalances caused by colonial and apartheid-era laws. Trump accused South Africa of 'confiscating land' and treating ‘certain classes of people very badly.’

Many say Trump's threat is the result of lobbying by South African right-wing organisation AfriForum and individuals, such as Trump's confidant, major campaign donor and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk. On 3 February, Musk claimed in a reply to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on X that South Africa has racist laws.

In 2018, Fox News's ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ hosted Afrikaner Foundation Executive Director Ernst Roets to talk about South Africa allegedly persecuting white-settler farmers and about an alleged 'white gencide.' The term 'white gencide' refers to a state-backed plot to k*ll white farmers to drive them off their land. However, numerous studies have debunked this theory.

Video credit: @sabcnews

Sources:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886321811937189902

https://apnews.com/article/69edd18af846491fa2c27b5bd3d483d4

https://x.com/kalliekriel/status/994001002591289344

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/3/south-africa-rejects-trumps-accusations-over-expropriation-act

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/03/the-myth-of-white-genocide-in-south-africa

https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/reports/are-sa-whites-really-being-killed-flies-why-steve-hofmeyr-wrong

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2019-04-01-dissecting-white-genocide-what-is-to-be-feared-and-why

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/trump-south-africa-land.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dMYhLZb96Q