[SPEAKER_01]: Rob Herzoff, welcome to Real Talk with Zubi.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Zubi, so great to be on here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in Cape Town, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you may be wondering why there's no books in my bookshelf.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're getting renovations done.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're moving houses for three months this weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so everything's packed awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Rob, I know you've been on a lot of podcasts all over the world recently, but for my listeners who are not familiar with you and who you are, please introduce yourself to my audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'm a fifth generation South African.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was born in Johannesburg, turning 65 in October.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was born into a very wealthy family.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've every privilege imaginable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was born into a plightite South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at age 25, having done school, university, and military service here in South Africa, I left the country in 1985 to seek fame and more fortune.
[SPEAKER_02]: around the world and I went to the US for six years.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was Golden Sex, Wall Street, Harvard Business School, I worked for Rupert Murdoch in New York and then I went to Europe and for the next 25 years I worked in the media business.
[SPEAKER_02]: I founded businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: I made money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I lost money and in 2017, after 31 years living in America, Europe and the UK, I came back to South Africa where I've been with my New Zealand wife and two of my four children.
[SPEAKER_02]: In back in my beautiful troubled home land South Africa, and you know, I have had Pretty much every privilege known to man or woman and I every day thank the Lord And thank my lucky stars and think I've made the most of my opportunities, but I'm back in South Africa
[SPEAKER_02]: building businesses investing and trying to save my beloved country.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's so many things I want to talk about today, but first of all, let's let's go way back because I've heard you talk a little bit about your childhood and growing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was it actually like?
[SPEAKER_01]: growing up in South Africa during the decades that you did, because for people of my age, I mean, I was born in 86, so I have some vague recollection in 1994 when the whole apartheid thing ended, obviously being an eight-year-old, I didn't really know.
[SPEAKER_01]: what it meant and I wasn't avidly watching the news or aware of all these sort of concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I knew that something was going on in this country that I'd never been to before.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm curious what it was like for someone who actually grew up in that situation, what it was like, what were the dynamics, how aware of it were you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also what was that transition like, because you were out of the country, as you said for quite a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then obviously by the time you came back, lots of things have changed, not just that, but also, you know, some things for the better, some things for the worst, but the entire country must have gone through many, many different changes during your own lifetime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, can you just walk me through that a little?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, you know, at born in 1960, you know, for the first eight nine years of your life, you just assume,
[SPEAKER_02]: that everything is normal, you know, that, you know, you live in the big house, you have staff and there is a difference between the, you know, the bites and the blacks and everyone else's because that's how it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But as a certain point in your life, you know, particularly if you come from a wealthy family and you travel the world, you realize, it's not all normal in the
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had a battle at a house manager, Mr. Pete, who I had adored when I was a little boy talking to play football, you know, we'd go and make ice creams together and I loved him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I loved a views, part of the family.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at age eight, I went eight nine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to go to the movies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said to my parents, can Mr. Pete and I go to the movies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they said, well, you can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, why not?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, well, Mr. Peter's not allowed to go to the movies for you, because those are the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's why it's only in these cinemas, and I burst out crying.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's when I realized that this was kind of a new twist, different, but I assumed that was my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's when I hit me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that this wasn't right, that somebody I loved that I felt was, we're part of our family, couldn't come to cinemas easily.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a partite, if you translate a directly means separateness, separateness.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not a hate in the word.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's height, H-E-I-D.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the concept of apartheid was separate development, you know, your culture, your tribes, over here, your cultures, your tribes over here, but the fundamental basis was that black people had to carry passes to intercertain areas and white people did.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was a major difference in opportunity in the budget that was spent on people and it got out of, it got out of control.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was unsustainable.
[SPEAKER_02]: on the macro environment, which is worth reminding people, you know, Africa was a battle between the West and Communism.
[SPEAKER_02]: and colonialism was collapsing, you know, in the 60s, in the East Africa, in the 70s, the Portuguese colonialists pulled out of Mozambique and Angola, those countries fell to communism.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in Redesia, they were fighting independently against terrorism.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so on our borders, there was this kind of encroaching fear of communism moving south.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had a lot of military psychology going on, you know, give your national servicemen, your soldier a lift.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was always kind of patriotism.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are fighting against communists.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are allied with the West.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was internal dynamic of this weirdness and pleasantness of apartheid that you became very aware of.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you either believed in it or you didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our family didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: but you still had this sort of threat of communism moving south in Africa and us fighting on the borders.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, on the one hand, you knew apartheid was wrong and had to end on the other hand, you feared for what came next.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, in 1993, I joined up as a national serviceman, became an infantry officer in the apartheid army.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it
[SPEAKER_02]: in the townships, in the black areas, because it was the first time that, you know, South Africa used on military, which was meant to be defending our borders, internally, and that created real schism in hearts and minds in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the boys like myself, it'd be called in the military, said, this is wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is really wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're prepared to fight communism, we're not prepared to fight fellow South Africans.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in 1985, just to give a little bit of politics and the Africana government, which is running so Africa that had implemented apartheid, came to the conclusion apartheid was not sustainable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Internally, they could have kept going despite sanctions and international threats, but they said internally, this is not sustainable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in 1994, Nelson Mandela had been released from 27 years of jail.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in 1994, we had democratic elections and the ANC government was elected in a landslide majority.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they've pretty much been in power until May 2024, which was last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was, you know, my life, me growing up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that I left the country in 1985 to having finished the military to go to America was nothing to do with
[SPEAKER_02]: leaving South Africa forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: My parents, brothers and sisters, was still in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought I was probably going to return at some point.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to go and see the world and do my thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then in America, when I was there in 85 to 92, we knew it was happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was going to be a transition.
[SPEAKER_02]: I moved to Europe in 1994.
[SPEAKER_02]: The big political change happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, I was loving being an American, you're up and building my life in Korea, married an American girl, my first wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my plan was never to come back.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in 2016, those pains, those hunger to go back to my home country, which I love, you know, I said to my wife, I want to go home and we came back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here I am back in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I get the just from even you just talking now and hearing you in a lot of interviews and I get the same thing with many South African people that I speak to where they have this very deep awareness and concern about the state of the country and they have many complaints about it, but at the same time they have a very strong love for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually quite, I know quite a few South Africans white black colored Indian, just because I know that's how the categorizations are, yeah, exactly, of all these different classifications both within South Africa and outside of it, as you know, there's lots of South Africans in the UK where I'm from.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've met people from South Africa who lived abroad for a while and then actually decided to move back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've met people who went the other direction, who had been living in South Africa from all of their lives and then things got to a level where for themselves and or for their families.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just thought, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too dangerous.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's too much heat here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too unpredictable and they decided to migrate elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's so many directions we can go here, but what are the things that you love about the country so much that made you want to move back there almost 10 years ago?
[SPEAKER_01]: What was it that was drawing you back despite all of the flaws and the struggles and the issues with the segregated history and things like that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll tell it another way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in 1985, I left the country and I was traveling through Asia with a friend and my brother and we ended up on a boat on the Erowadi River in Burma,
[SPEAKER_02]: And this Belgian guy said, you know, I grew up until I was seven years old in the Congo, in the Belgian Congo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we left and we went back to Belgium.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from the day I got back to Belgium to today, all I can think about is cobblestone rain and the bicycle.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can almost remember every single moment of my seven years in Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could smell
[SPEAKER_02]: The rain on the ground, that beautiful, rich smell of the earth, I could, I remember walking on sand hills being bitten by ants, I remember the excitement and fear of when a snake was found in the house and we had to chase it out or kill us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said every single day there was something extraordinary amazing, good and bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was vibrant.
[SPEAKER_02]: I lived my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like eating fruit through your hands.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, fruit runs down your face.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas living in Belgium was like rain and cobblestone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my wife from New Zealand, you know, you know, Lord of the Rings, you know, the great story Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Hobbits are from New Zealand in my view, because there's no pollution, racism, environmental issues, no threats on the border.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nothing going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Hobbits are there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We, in South Africa, live on the edge of the mortal, every day there's acceleration, there's fear, there's threats, there's excitement.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's...
[SPEAKER_02]: You live life 24-7 in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good and bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we live in Paradise and Cape Town.
[SPEAKER_02]: You be in Cape Town.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're rich, we're beautiful home, we're paradise.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden, like four days ago, a family five minutes from us, held a gunpoint by five robbers and belliclovers at gunpoint, kids tied up, everything started.
[SPEAKER_02]: Five minutes from our house.
[SPEAKER_02]: two weeks ago, you know, on neighbor, walking with their dog up in the in the beautiful table mountain forest, five minutes from here, dog is under a bush, comes out, five minutes later, it's limping, ten minutes later, it's dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bang, snake goddess, so, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: it's paradise and it's terror and it's excitement and it's fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: You living life every day and I could explain it with the scenery and the magnificence and the madness of the people and the colloquialisms and and bunny char.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have bunny chares?
[SPEAKER_02]: People take a loaf of bread, take off the top, carve out the middle bit,
[SPEAKER_02]: and they put curry in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a meal for the family.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you take a bite of the top, I mean, where else does, no one else has been each hour, but so, they're forget.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can go on and on and on.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's madness and wondrousness but you're living life to the full everyday.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is all I can explain about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all my buddies who left and who've come back, just so,
[SPEAKER_02]: we miss this place too much, we miss it too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I drove into the desert last weekend for three days was four, four by fours, 12 friends, all boys, we had two nights, three days, and just that openness of the desert and the, the macro daysies coming out in the spring in the desert, it is, I might come go on and on, you asked a question that's getting tears in my eyes, and that it's, Alan Payton wrote a book called,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's sizzled, cry, the beloved country.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's such a fascinating answer, as you were answering.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was on one hand, I understand it on the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, man, this is confusing me even more, especially when you were talking about the situations going on with your neighbors.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, as a man with a wife and children, why would you,
[SPEAKER_01]: want to move back into an area where that type of thing is feasibly possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're one of the safest parts of South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: The risk to South Africa is, is properly edgy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we have the hot, when it has murder rates in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think almost every South African I know has at least been like robbed or mugged or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: at some point.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like a given that if you're there for long enough, that's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I live in Dubai, which as you know is one of the safest cities in the entire world where those types of stories are pretty much unheard of.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in my case, yeah, and in my case, like one of the big things I was thinking was actually about
[SPEAKER_01]: my, you know, future family and children and things like that and thinking about their safety and where they're well being.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think it's different, you know, it's different if you're a, I don't know, if you're a single man or just with a bunch of guys and you're traveling around and doing whatever, the sort of calculations in your brain are quite different if you're considering okay, well, what about wife and children and this and that and that and so I'm curious as to what the decision making process is because obviously there are a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: regardless of what country or city they live in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people are kind of just, they're born somewhere, they live somewhere, they don't have a lot of resources, they don't particularly have a lot of opportunities, everyone they know is in the same place, so they're kind of born, live, and die in the same place.
[SPEAKER_01]: just by default, whereas obviously in your situation, you, yeah, that's what I mean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the opportunity to live wherever you want, so I'm curious as to what's the decision-making process, having gone on these multiple decade adventures and spent time in Europe, spent time in the USA, all of these great places, and then you circle all the way back and decide very consciously.
[SPEAKER_02]: First, and you should be asking, it's probably not me, because I'm from here.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's my wife, because she's from New Zealand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we moved here in 2017, only planning to be back for two years, because I honestly felt under Jacob Zuma, or then president, the country was finished, was hitting it to the abyss.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he got ousted, and this new guy saw Ramakhoza came in in my wife, so what does this mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, go,
[SPEAKER_02]: we just kicked the canned on the road, the problems are still coming.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've just bought us off more time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the process of being here after about 2019, 2020, I remember clearly, she looked up at me and said, I'm like, I'm going to swear on your show, but she said, I love this effing place.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really love South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to leave.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's worth fighting
[SPEAKER_02]: and for a New Zealander, from one of the safest countries of the world to come here and say that, say something like this country and I said okay, then let's stay and let's fight for this country.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was the beginning of a whole new world for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think of some of the biggest misconceptions people have about South Africa?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you look at the stats and you look at the motor rates and you look at you say it's dangerous, but the reality is it's still one of the greatest tourist countries in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I went to Australia three months ago on holiday and the winter to see my wife and kids to see her in laws from New Zealand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you'd go all the way up the east coast of Australia, the coastline looks the same the whole way.
[SPEAKER_02]: In South Africa, you drive one hour, it's different.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have South Africa's one of the seven floral cave towns, one of the several floral kingdoms in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: A floral kingdom is where the plant DNA is similar, from the original DNA.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the whole of North America is one floral kingdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole of Europe and Western Russia is one floral kingdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cape Town is a floral kingdom.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are 16,000 species of plants, more than the whole of North America, in Cape Town.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the diversity that geographic topological, whatever this is, and the geodones, I don't know, are using the wrong words.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have savanna, we have desert, we have forest land, we have it's beyond your wildest imaginations, this place is the tourist mecca.
[SPEAKER_02]: So people go, it's dangerous, it's avoidable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Back, they've got that wrong, it's actually just be a bit careful, you'll have no problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: They also think there's serious racial issues here.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our government, our ANC government, is trying to create identity politics and racial divisions to stay in power.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the vast majority of South Africans of all colors and creeds get on very, very well and have done for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, most of our country is a Judea Christian, conservative, and one of the same is everyone else.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want a better life for their kids and an opportunity to thrive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's another interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the white population of South Africa in 1994 was 20% of the country's now 7%.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our population's grown from 25 million to 60 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: and most people, you know, look at it and say, you know, South Africa's never going to have a white president.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they did a research poll six months ago, where most South Africa said they didn't actually care what color the president was.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't care if it's white green blue yellow, but they want someone that's actually going to do a good job.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the racial issues are manufactured by the ANC government to stay in power.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not real.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's another misconception.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess a misconception in South Africa is that we think the rest of the world take us seriously.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our economy is the size of Louisiana.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think we're really important, we're not that important.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most people don't know what the hell's going on here and don't care.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I went on the podcast too.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I'm thrilled to be on the
[SPEAKER_02]: Explain the misconceptions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell people what's going on, and get people a little bit interested in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, Zibu.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm so happy to have you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find South Africa such a fascinating country.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went there twice in 2023 prior to then I'd never been to the country before, but I've now spent, I guess, a total of about two and a half weeks there between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very far from
[SPEAKER_01]: from an expert or someone who's a super knowledgeable about the country, but I feel like over the last couple of years I have gained some insight into it because my entire life, I'd always heard two very polar opposites about the country of South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's like you'd ask one person about it and you get the statistics, you get the robbery rates and the rape rates and the murder rates and you know stories of apartheid and racism in this and that and then you talk to someone else and they're like oh gosh I went there on vacation it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, table mountains amazing and the water and the people are so friendly in this and that and
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've learned, you know, as someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia and now lives in the UAE, like needless to say, the Middle East is a very misunderstood part of the world, particularly in the West.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always have the opinion of, okay, I'm going to, I'll talk to people, I'll research, I'll learn about places, but I'm always going to form judgments.
[SPEAKER_01]: of nations and cities based on my own experience, and ideally not just going there for one day, but spending at least a few weeks there being on the ground, talking to people, taking in the energy, experiencing things, and just seeing, okay, what really what's up, because I know there can be so many misconceptions, and sadly, we live in a world and just due to the way that human nature is negative spreads a lot further and faster than positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I mean, Americans who are afraid to go to the UK because they think they're going to get stabbed or they think they're going to run into a grooming gang or some terrorist activity or something, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm there trying to sort of tell them, like, guys, like, the UK is not some, you know, hyper dangerous country.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's okay to travel to London and other cities, the probability.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but then I know people in the UK, I have British friends who are afraid to step foot in America because all they hear about are mass shootings and out of control police officers, just murdering black people, Willie Nilly and this and this and I'm just like man, it runs in all sorts of directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: You meet Mexicans who are afraid to go to the US, Americans who are afraid to go to Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: People here who are afraid to go there and they are just like,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it gets worse with social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bit of a double-edged sword in one way people can spread more information and dispel some of the myths, but at the same time, I just feel like now people see everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: If something horrible happens in Cape Town and someone gets a video of it or a photo, it's going to be on my social media feeds.
[SPEAKER_01]: tomorrow, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether no matter what country you're in, someone's going to see it and they'll be like, oh, look, this is this is South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what's happening at a, you know, millions and millions of people see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always say that normal doesn't go viral.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're never going to have, oh, it was a nice sunny day in Cape Town and people got on well with each other and lots of nice good deeds.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're done to each other and everyone was friendly and cordial.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's not news.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as soon as someone goes out and does something horrible,
[SPEAKER_01]: everybody knows about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we live in this weird world where something can be, I feel like we live in a time where something can simultaneously be true in false.
[SPEAKER_01]: As in, it can be true that this thing did happen, and these types of things do happen, but the falsity is it can be made to look as if it's a very common occurrence, whereas actually
[SPEAKER_01]: Circumstance.
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% so the people that got robbed three days ago, it's a very rare in our suburbs, Constantian Bishop's culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the wealthiest suburbs in South Africa, it's a curious sheet, everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's one family got robbed this year that I've heard of out of 50,000 to 60,000 families.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in making up the number in this area.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nothing really.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know it's a lot worse in our from here in other areas, but
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, every day has been a good day other than that for that family.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is what you if you look at things positively I had a statistic which is clearly wrong that 92% of people are pessimists and 8% are optimists Okay, I'll I'm trying to be in that 8% of it, but there could be 50 50, but I said 92 8 sounds about the right and you know We die of Tuesday, K 150 years ago now we have dentist at Bomb and I like nice white shiny teeth.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a major.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing
[SPEAKER_02]: I think every day is a better day than the day before for the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, yes, you've got issues, and Israel, Gaza, and whatever, and, you know, whatever is going on in the world, and you go, oh my God, it's terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, why isn't the Ukraine war over?
[SPEAKER_02]: But most countries are at peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most people are actually having a better life this year than last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the 8th Amendment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And South Africa's the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Rob, why do you think it is that what you just said there is we live in a time where I'd say that what you just said is actually quite controversial people people really like the negativity and the outrage and fear and maybe it's always been this way, but I get the sense that so many people now thrive.
[SPEAKER_01]: on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And being someone who's a creator myself, who's a, you know, a podcast there, someone who does things on social media makes music and so on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know darn well that I can frame this podcast in a way to get more views by leaning very, very heavily.
[SPEAKER_01]: into all the negative stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we will talk about some of the negative stuff in the can.
[SPEAKER_01]: The title you put, the title you put on the chart too, could you could say I'm very aware.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of strange being strange being in this world because you get this understanding of why the media operates the way that it does.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, it then becomes this kind of cycle and this self-fulfilling prophecy where it's just anger, division, controversy, drama, violence, and everything is framed in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people get very addicted to it that when you actually try to cover things in a bit of a more balanced way, I found, I don't know if you've experienced this, but, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there are people who actually get offended by it, or at a minimum, you know, they just don't want to click because it's not, you know, they don't want to click or listen because it's like, no, no, no, just give me the, give me the stuff that's going to make me angry, give me the, don't, don't tell me that the races are getting on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about the anti black racism and the anti white racism.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about the murders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't want to hear that actually daily life in South Africa is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I put the UK is falling, why the UK is burning?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's five years left for the UK, boom, that'll get lots of clicks, it'll get lots of attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I'm like, actually, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's bad stuff in the UK, and there's things to be concerned about, and we can really talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, I mean, the UK is not collapsing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like in five years, the UK is going to be a pile of dust.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to give you three answers to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to forgotten one of the three of them away.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my favorite unknown newsletter and podcast, which gets no views, is the rational optimist society.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go and check those these guys up.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of a nerdy geeky guy and an Irish guy, his accent's quite strong, so sometimes you know, quite tell what he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all they talk about are unbelievably good things that are happening in the world, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I dig it, it's like, this is what small, medium, new key reactors can deliver.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the new type of aircraft that's going to save the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really cool developments, tech, manufacturing, industrial, amazing things that are happening around the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're podcast-skid, no views, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking of stealing the information, putting it to AI and then having it as my own, here's some good news for the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just nicken the information,
[SPEAKER_02]: You and I'd get several more views.
[SPEAKER_02]: So check out the rational optimist side.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get a week he news that I read it covered a comment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Second.
[SPEAKER_02]: This friend of mine made a couple of billion dollars who's the first guy in the world to invent the conference in the 70s.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he had conferences all over the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I asked him, what was the key to success of conferences?
[SPEAKER_02]: He knew conferences on investing and the politics and transport, whatever, all over the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, Mike, title for every conference as something we could learn for podcasts has to have fear or greediness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless you come to my conference, you'll lose all your money, or if you come, you're going to learn the secrets of making a billion, and every title he'd have fear or greed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was genius.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so simple and so genius.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for our podcast, we should instead of having scary clickbait, we should have fear or greed.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the title.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what is the third thing that I was going to tell you?
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew I'd forget something.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's so true, you know, it's a people thrive on sphere and bad news because it's oh, here's the third thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when people talk badly behind your back like, you know, backstabbing, I ridden article in the Economist, must have been at 18 years ago, about gossip.
[SPEAKER_02]: if you only say nice things about people.
[SPEAKER_02]: the people to whom you're speaking lose interest and lose trust.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I could have said you did you did your job, Joe Smith, you go, Joe's a lovely guy, great guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Concessions over.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if I say, so you know Joe Smith, you go, I know Joe's a great guy, but let me just tell you a little bit of, you know, and you tell me a little bit of gossip about him.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're engaging in a conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're sharing information with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sharing with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: In many cases, you probably don't mean what you're saying and you don't mean it badly,
[SPEAKER_02]: It connect people and this economist article said it's fascinating and I tried it out I'm not because of the article in London for about three months I said I'm gonna say no bad things about anyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because, you know, someone who's for my own entrepreneurial purposes has done some study of, you know, human psychology and sales and marketing is, yeah, it's I know that it works like I know I know how to do it but I have an ethical, I have an ethical issue with leaning too hard into it
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you just end up feeding the problem and becoming the thing that you set out to oppose.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you ask a lot of people what their problem is with mainstream media, whether it's online or it's newspapers or it's the television, it's that it's so divisive, it makes them feel angry, they focus on all the negative all of the time, and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true, but it's also your own psychology, and that is the thing that people are clicking on.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing people are watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing that's driving revenue.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then as myself as an independent creator, if I then start a podcast or I start a YouTube channel, then I'm like, okay, well, let me just run the exact same playbook.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then over the course of time, how am I any better than these same
[SPEAKER_01]: things that I've been complaining about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always try my best to be part of the solution, more than part of the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think it's not, I don't think it's unethical to like.
[SPEAKER_01]: occasionally use tapping into fear or occasionally use tapping into, um, you know, outrage or concern or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think when it becomes the, the one trick podium where it's like, OK, every single thing I do, I'm going to, you know, put the fire and the red in the thumbnails and I'm going to have, you know, the faces like, you know, the most extreme is a good one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pizmorgon ready.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pizmorgon, I've met
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept saying to peers I've becoming quite well-followed in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't I come on your show and he'd say, yeah, well, I like to do stuff that's of interest to America, so South Africa's number.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, he suddenly called me out of the blue and he said, okay, I'm inviting you on my show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a message from his people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm inviting you on my show and I got really excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said to my wife, I'd last pierces and I'd imagine I'm super excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife said you shouldn't do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: She said, look what pierces does.
[SPEAKER_02]: two on this opinion, and two on this opinion, doesn't let them speak long enough to make a point, and he gets them all shouting and screaming to each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, everyone's just click bait for the pair's Morgan show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, I looked at it, I thought she's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm being set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said to video messages to peers, it pears, I think you've great buddy.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want me one on one, I'm available anytime, but I'm not gonna be kicked back for you because I saw the other three people on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one guy was kind of in my camp, the other two, I would have wanted to strangle after about 15 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sure enough, I got a friend of mine on instead of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gareth Cliff, he's an important podcaster, so that's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he and this, you know Gareth, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he and Owen's roots.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, versus Gareth and this is two other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it ended being a shouting match.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like duck the bullet there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Woo!
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, I do get, there are gotcha men, some sure you've had them and you've given them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's fair enough, you know, somebody says something in the past, you go, well, why did you say it or why did you do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And they've got to have an answer for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I find that I can deal with that because if people say, well, Rob, you know, you say these things and you're from a rich white privileged South African family.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and I go, yeah, I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they said, I said, yeah, I would say that, wouldn't I?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they go, okay, next.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just, you know, own yourself, own what you say and get on with us here, and then that's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with that said, obviously, there are issues going on in South Africa that you are very concerned about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard you speak about the violence I've heard you speak about the actual racial discrimination policies, which of
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, sort of inverted and come back around the other way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were talking about the actually I did have a question on something you said earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to drill into it a little bit because it sort of popped up in my head when you said it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said the white South African population has dropped from 20% to seven percent.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was curious, what's the main thing driving that is that predominantly birth rates?
[SPEAKER_01]: or is it migration or what's the main reason for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's birth rates.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fact that the white youth in this country,
[SPEAKER_02]: are leaving in droves, because of policies like black economic empowerment, D.E.I., a lot of young white people who finish their high school or graduate have less opportunity of getting jobs than children of other races.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they tell what's the point, I'll go overseas, and if they can, they leave.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're losing
[SPEAKER_02]: talented graduates of all colors, but primarily white in droves.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a mass immigration of these sort of people because they just don't feel there's an opportunity in the country when there's specific career.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two, we have completely poorest borders.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our militaries collapsed, and as useless our home affairs has been as a disaster, and people are just pouring across our borders.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our population is now 63 million, but I think we've got an additional 78 million illegal foreigners in our country from Zimbabwe, Sanbia, Congo, places like that, and they've poured in and overwhelming our public services.
[SPEAKER_02]: but also there's birth rate issues, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: The highly educated people of all colours, black white, cuten and whatever, tend to have, like anywhere else in the world, two children.
[SPEAKER_02]: the poorer people, or less educated, pretend to have a hell of a lot more children.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you'll see, you saw that in Asia, in Asia in the 60's, 70's, had very high birth rates.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the birth rates have gone down to, you know, two, and in some countries they're going backwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: Japan, more views the word nappies or diapers.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you, okay, so in Japan, more adult nappies are sold now than children's nappies.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the population going backwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: In South Africa, amongst the educator population, white black color and Indian population growth is down, and the less educated it's going through the roof, and that's a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's those, though, that's what's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the racial breakdown in South Africa is 7% white, 7% colored, which you know is a mix of mixed race, 2% of Indian descent.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's about 20% of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Put this, that's something South African, 20% non-black.
[SPEAKER_02]: But of the black tribes, there are 26 different languages.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's Thorser, Zulu, and Swanna, and Vendor.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a 60 million, 60, something million people complicated country to our size of France.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not easy to manage.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean South Africa is my family backgrounds originally from Nigeria, and these are both countries that probably should not be a single country.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in Nigeria, over 400 languages, but you have Christian and Muslim, those the main splits.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have a religious breakdown like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have more of a racial, cultural, linguistic breakdown.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, the Western Cape is like a completely different animal to
[SPEAKER_02]: could easily be separate countries.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, so what is going on in terms of the, in terms of the, the racial policies now in South Africa?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because from what, from what it looks like to me, it looks like there's been obviously through the 1900s, up until 1994.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you, for the most part of it, you had the apartheid regime where obviously, you know, white people were favored and blacks and others were discriminated against.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, just very open and outright segregation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the ANC have come into power from my understanding from yourself and other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a time period.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could be wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I was about to say about 15 years, where things were generally considered good by people regardless of their background.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in the last, I don't know, 10 plus years, it's shifted more towards,
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess what people there might call black empowerment if they're in favor of it, but others would call anti-white discrimination.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you talked about BE and then you've got the appropriation of land and other private property quite similar to what happened in Zimbabwe under Moogabe and that looming threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: is still hanging on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what can you tell me some of the details of what's actually happening there, as well as what people think about it because I'm curious to know what percentage of the population actually supports these ideas and thinks it's good versus
[SPEAKER_01]: the number who are against it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the same way, I'm curious as to what that would have been like prior to the breakdown of apartheid.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've nailed this.
[SPEAKER_02]: From 94 to 2008, things were pretty damn good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mandela came out and it was the rainbow nation.
[SPEAKER_02]: was meritocracy, he aimed at economic growth, and then Taba and Becky came into 2008.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those years were pretty damn good.
[SPEAKER_02]: We grew at 3 to 3,45% a year, added 400,500, thousand new jobs a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was meritocracy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did have black economic empowerment, but everyone accepted it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a good thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's empower the previously disinvantaged.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Western world, basically had a look and said, we've solved the problem, rainbow nation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good luck.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're off to find the next problem to solve some reals of the world, and turn the eyes away.
[SPEAKER_02]: In 2008, a man called Jacob Zuma got elected, and Jacob Zuma was a world-class kleptocrat.
[SPEAKER_02]: His aim was to break democracy as much as he could.
[SPEAKER_02]: Break our economy as much as he could, so that they could steal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as part Nigerian, you know what, you know, corruption and cryptocurrency can do to the economy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think South Africa has outperformed Nigeria in rampant corruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've been South Africa's professionalized at the government level.
[SPEAKER_02]: What a competition.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what a competition, I don't know, it's not something you ought to win at, and so what has happened is all our state-owned enterprises, S. Palmer, electricity supply, transnational, rll network, or ports would use to be the best in Africa, or now the worst in Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: We get six hours a day of no electricity, I mean it's countries falling apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it was a coherent policy by Jacob Zuma to break, so he could steal, and a family from India came in the three Gupta brothers who must have stolen 500 billion from the economy and they're hiding out in Dubai.
[SPEAKER_02]: So South Africa was shredded economically, and in 2017
[SPEAKER_02]: At last, the ANC got rid of Jacob Zimmer and brought in a man called Cyril Ramaposa.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've ever seen him on television.
[SPEAKER_02]: He looks the part.
[SPEAKER_02]: He speaks beautifully, he dresses in a suit, he pretends to be a businessman and acted out and he was head of the trade unions and he's a dollar bill in air and he was much loved.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has been almost worse than Jacob Zimmer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob Zumer at least said, let's keep the economy ticking along so we can steal for a long long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sarah Rameposa has just doubled down on race-based anti-white laws, socialist policies, and he has snubbed the West.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has poked the big American bear in the eye, and South Africa has voted against the United Nations consistently and almost every single the United Nations vote over ten years.
[SPEAKER_02]: has run into the arms of bricks, has sided with Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the ANC is almost a Iran proxy, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as Pistomeric are off to the point where Donald Trump says, we're coming in swinging.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what has actually happened is we got rid of apartheid.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got rid of racism.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's been reintroduced by the ANC.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll give you a little important element to note.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ANC has had a majority of a 50% from 1994 to 2024.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last year in May, they went from 65% to 40%.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're vote collapsed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by 2029, when I have our next national election, same in Britain, by the way, same year, the ANC will drop below 20%.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are in ICU, but they're not dead yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now the problem with it, you injure a buffalo.
[SPEAKER_02]: It becomes a very dangerous animal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where the ANC is right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are wounded, that they're not dead, and they are at their most dangerous.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what are they doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: On every metric, education, health, safety, we are collapsing, falling apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they are now saying, where is the blame for this?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not us, the ANT, it's whiteness, it's apartheid, it's colonialism.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are reintroducing racism, anti-white racism, and fear mungering the population.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, the voter isn't stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: do not believe in what their current ANC leaders are touting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anti-white anti-West rhetoric, anti-white rhetoric, and socialist ideology.
[SPEAKER_02]: They will be out of power by 2020-29.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just have to survive till then.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the last gasp of a liberation army turned clip-tocracy in it,ocracy.
[SPEAKER_02]: How those for two words?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you ask, am I pessimistic optimistic?
[SPEAKER_02]: I am really pessimistic between our 2020-29.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some terrible things are going to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: But from 2020-29 onwards, I'm optimistic.
[SPEAKER_02]: there is light at the end of this tunnel.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just got to make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the democratic alliance that's most likely to win next?
[SPEAKER_02]: So the democratic alliance, along with two or three other centrist judo Christian pro-West capitalist property rights top parties, they need to come together.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's really messy right now, you know, we have a coalition government, but the ANC being the lead partner is just trying to rapidly push through policies within the coalition government.
[SPEAKER_02]: Democracy is working.
[SPEAKER_02]: We still have free speech, you know, people, people go rob you, always banging on about the negatives, but the positives are, it's still the greatest country of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got bunny char and you guys don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: The good love had been, you know, we're not bad at rugby and crickets and and we've got free speech, you know, the things that I say public key, you know, calling sorrow impose a spine that's calling ANC voters morons.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd be in jail or dead in Iran, North Korea, Russia and China, but here I'm saying it and here I am still alive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have a question with the ANC and their, you know, race-based policies and general race baiting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering, are they doing that in some site type of populist appeal?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, are those types of policies?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a big chunk of the population that is,
[SPEAKER_01]: demanding those type of policies and they're just trying to go along with it, or I'm wondering where is that sentiment coming from?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a revenge thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a, hey, look for decades, you know, the boot was on the other, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just wondering why I guess I'm just wondering wondering why they're kind of going for that target and those type of policies
[SPEAKER_01]: in particular.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm trying to understand where that I think it's going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: They think it'll work is in they think it's going to make the country better or they think it'll work in order to get votes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it'll work in order to get votes and divert the attention of people who haven't got sewage, water and electricity and going, hang on a sec, you came to power 31 years ago and we're actually going backwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I was wrong supporting the ANC, you sort of football team that I support through the container to political party.
[SPEAKER_02]: Service delivery, they have failed in every count.
[SPEAKER_02]: And who can they blame that aren't a blame themselves?
[SPEAKER_02]: Blame the white guys, that's the easy answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think it's, I don't think it's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the ANC is disconnected even from its own voter right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ANC leaders and government.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think they're gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're heading into the, they're heading into the best, but pulling the economy with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, we're the easy guys to blame.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've been, you know, white guys, the africaners have been blamed for apartheid.
[SPEAKER_02]: and we're only 7% of the country and, you know, the, and told Donald J. Trump arrived, the world's not didn't seem to care or weren't going to write to our rescue, we were the easy, you know, punching bag.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't think the voters believe it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they don't think white guys are all the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: we're not even in power.
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we be the problem after 30 or years?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think that's excuses can stick.
[SPEAKER_02]: People are going to look at the ANC and say, you have failed.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're voting you're out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who are we going to wait until 3029 for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear that.
[SPEAKER_01]: How much power or support?
[SPEAKER_01]: or influence do the economic freedom fighters have because I think they're quite famous online because they're crazy rallies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you'll kind of keep going viral every, every few months where they're singing there, you know, kill the bore song, kill the farmers, you know, whiteness is bad, and all that type of rhetoric, obviously they have a very,
[SPEAKER_01]: looks to me psychotic yet somewhat charismatic leader.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they a real, are they a real concern a threat or are they too small?
[SPEAKER_02]: They are too small.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not a threat.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are,
[SPEAKER_02]: dangerous but they're only 7% of the voting population and the voting let's say 50% of the people vote.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there may be they're less than 5% of South Africa's population and they tend to be isolated up in the north east of the country that's where their power base is from and I'm like students at university.
[SPEAKER_02]: um, they are not a threat of civil unrest and yesterday, yesterday, before, uh, Julius Mleme yesterday was convicted of hate speech in the Cape Courts.
[SPEAKER_02]: First time, oh, wow, now he's in trouble.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a big breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm tempted to challenge him to a cage fight because he's a younger than he was.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's lost a lot of weight.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been lifting weights in practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'd get drickest dupe in the seed of training.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rob herself, there's a Julia Svelleva cage fight on UFC.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think in 2025, like, just given the past decade we've lived through, I mean, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were pretty close to, you know, having a cage fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, unfortunately, I wouldn't didn't materialize, but I've seen some pretty crazy things over the past few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'd be down.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, dangerous, what they say, that it's nasty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it creates a lot of problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have farm attacks the spike off to all of this killable.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think he's in serious trouble now.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's lost most of the top people in his party and I think the EFF is on his way out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because South Africa's a pretty conservative Judea-Christian country, a lot of people fear Julius, are you'll never get ever above 10% of the vote.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at worst, he's a dangerous populist, an opportunist, but there's no chance he can be a real threat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank goodness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, because I'm curious, I think to outsiders, I mean, is because it's interesting because someone can have only 5% support.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, 5% in a country of 60 million plus people, it's like, well, you see these rallies with 10, tens of thousands of people, and they're also chanting and getting items, I mean, and you're all wearing their red communist hats and whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a bit like,
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see how someone sees that and is like holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Moli, this looks like a gigantic movement that's sort of spreading through South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's good to get some reassurance that, okay, this is not, um, this is not at the sale.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't we see a one?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no single party, single group that could do a coup d'etat, not even the military.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm literally just a joke or police have him infighting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know that, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a friend with the, when the look of these stations hit of firearms and he said to me that the police budget allows them to go to the shooting range once a year and shoot at a fixed target.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, you middle class guys with guns are way better trade have more ammo on a way scarier than the police.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are three times more armed private security guards in South Africa than members of the police and army put together.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the real military are the security services, protecting businesses and homes and likelands.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the real military and so I think it's so there's not going to be real civil unrest, there's not going to be a coup d'état, and I'm not going into politics.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew you were going to ask me that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going into politics.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't blame you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll look, I think it's, I think it's best that people use their influence where they can make the most impact.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got that question a lot as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was like, why don't you go in?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, hey, I just don't want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have negative desire to go into politics.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also just given where my talent and skills set lies and where my interest lie, I think I can do more for the world
[SPEAKER_01]: in the various areas that I'm contributing sort of socially and culturally, then I can, I don't know, trying to be a mayor somewhere or if you weren't a podcast to, if you weren't being an incentive, if you weren't being a philosopher, which you all of those, what would you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just just generally speaking, I'd be another type of entrepreneur.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, if I weren't a creative entrepreneur, I'd, you know, I'd be running a small business somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that's just the way that I'm wired.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't see myself ever being in the sort of corporate world for decades and decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not my path.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not my personality type.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not where my interest lies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd still be an entrepreneur and investor just more less in the public, less in the public space.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I have Rob, is I know you've mentioned a few times of South Africa sort of having to survive and hang on for the next four years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a particular thing that makes you worry that that might not be the case that something could go so horribly wrong in such a short space of time that you sort of don't quote unquote make it until 2029?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we have municipal elections in the end of 2026 beginning of 2027 and that's when the big political swings going to happen from these mad, leftist ideologues to the centre.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to happen in droves and that's when the pendulum moves because then the ANC know they're doomed and I think what will happen is they'll either get more desperate but without the mandate.
[SPEAKER_02]: they'll realize they have to reform in some way and move to the center and then they will be incorporated into a whole new coalition going forward and that's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our economy is damaged badly, but
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1994, we had more rail infrastructure than the whole of Africa put together.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most of us are not working, but it's fixable.
[SPEAKER_02]: We exported 60% of our electricity to the rest of Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we import electricity, but we can still do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can still things can get turned around relatively quickly with
[SPEAKER_02]: talent returning to South Africa reverse diaspora that just happened in Nigeria.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of great entrepreneurs have returned to Nigeria and boom, look at your fin tech businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same could happen to us and a lot of foreign direct investment can come into South America ample turn very quickly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have hit rock bottom.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the economy of ours obviously can get worse, but we've pretty much hit rock bottom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say that because
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been calling for privatization of state-owned enterprises for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's happening by default now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for example, there'd be a big mining operation where the rail link from the main rail way to the mining operation has collapsed.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mining company is fixing their rail.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mining company is setting a persona electricity supply because they can't do without it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the government isn't resisting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So its privatization is happening by default.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's happening all over South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: People are fixing their own roads.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden, you're going to have a ground-up solution where top-down doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: By default, because human nature people are going to make it happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though we've hit rock bottom, and we're going sideways.
[SPEAKER_02]: their little signs of life of good things happening in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we can just get through these next three and a half or four years, it'll take off like a rocket.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what, maybe in two years, three years time is a very, very good time to invest in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: because like Nigeria, if our million South Africans have left the country, all of them have made money, getting jobs, good experiences, building their drugs, if 10, 20% of those return, oh my goodness, we'll lift like a, the scum tree will fly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So pessimistic today, but optimistic in four years time.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's that's very important to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the last questions I wanted to ask because I know that the youth unemployment and unemployment rate in general in South Africa is off the charts.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the as far as you know, what's the sentiment amongst the youth full population?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they feeling that sense of optimism or are they all just trying to get out?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the general sentiment?
[SPEAKER_02]: they're trying to survive, they're trying to make it day-to-day, you know, their criminality is not an option, it's a career choice, you know, it's a necessity for some people, and that's why we have high criminality, high murder rates, high, you know, not good, but we have there's a great quote, so I'm going to get this wrong, we have deserts of despair,
[SPEAKER_02]: and OACs of opportunity.
[SPEAKER_02]: South Africa is kind of a mishmash of small areas of incredible things happening, little communities that are thriving, of all races, and we have areas of complete desperation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as long as the areas of opportunity can maintain themselves, once things start turning, that will spread to the neighboring areas in the country will thrive again.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for young people who haven't had an education,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a lost going to be a terrible, lost generation, and that very, very worrying, you know, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do they thrive?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do they survive?
[SPEAKER_02]: So economic growth lift all boats.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we get back to 3, 4, 5% economic growth, people get pulled into the workforce.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we start spending money effectively.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it'll take 10 years, but our country will come back strong.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm rooting for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I look around the world in general, I do have, I'm someone like yourself who's naturally optimistic by nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: I consider myself an optimistic realist.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do have some really big concerns for, I don't know, let's say people who are under 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: or so right now, like the current teenagers, people in there, young adulthood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm concerned for them in the US and in Canada and in the UK, let alone African countries and other parts where the battle was already uphill and there's just all of the additional challenges that I think are facing Gen Z, Gen Alpha now
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it's going to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I certainly hope and pray that for the most part, the outlook in the future is going to be positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not just rooting for.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm rooting for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm rooting for humanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to see South Africa do well, genuinely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have
[SPEAKER_01]: When I look at those nations, when I look at South Africa, when I look at my father country of Nigeria, the amount of potential, you have such a, I mean, in Nigeria half the population is under the age of 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you know, there's so much potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many natural resources, there's so much human potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many smart and entrepreneurial people,
[SPEAKER_01]: As we already said, you know, the amount of corruption and the collapse of just basic infrastructure roads, electricity, all these type of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like this lid that prevents the society from going to where it could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I really hope that this century, you know, within the next few decades, we really start to see just some of these countries just start to hit their stride in a way that
[SPEAKER_01]: sustainable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to El Salvador for the first time last year, and that was really fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you've seen what's going on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you had a chance to visit?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but I've fascinated.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're Bitcoin adoption, they're motor rates going down to, I mean, it was amazing, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually went to a, I got invited to his inauguration last year, so I got a chance to briefly meet him as well, and I've never been to a nation where I felt such a wave of like genuine optimism and so much genuine love of the leader, because you know, you see online, oh 90% approval rating, and you know, you wonder, okay, is that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like legit, it's real, it's real, like taxi drivers, people in the barber shop, like women working in the stores, like I've never been to a country where I like there was just so much love for the leader.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just having conversations with people and everyone has these like horrible stories of like what it used to be like and how dangerous it was, almost everyone knows someone in their family or a friend who got murdered, who got kidnapped too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, he's dropped their homicide rate by 99% like, like, like, what, like, I've never, ever, ever even heard of that happening anywhere in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you've gone from the most dangerous country in the entire world to the safest in the Western Hemisphere in a matter of years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what you're saying inspires me because I've been a big follower of Prokele and El Salvador from a distance and Malay and various others.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I'm 65 this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can sense in five, six, seven years time, South Africa is going to be feeling as you've described.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's going to be this surge of love and compassion and excitement and optimism and belief.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't wait.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a little example I want to leave you with.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that is Rugby.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Springbok Rugby team, which is the last two World Cup's World Champions, if you look at the racial makeup of that Springbok Rugby team today, it is seriously a true representation of South Africa.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got all races, all sizes, all types, and we are World
[SPEAKER_02]: winning country where we believe and we're optimistic again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I won't be my rocking chair quite a year.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll be, I'll be, I think my job is done in this country's on track.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't wait for that to have people with smiles on their faces.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Rob, I appreciate your optimism.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love listening to your insights.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got such a good knowledge of the history of the country and what's going on now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, just thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep on speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll come visit.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come visit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come as my guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I will.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Next time I'm in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will absolutely let you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're staying with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll take you off on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Rob.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye.