Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses the spiritual teach of a Christian, Jews, and Muslims-arian organization that was designed to serve all races, cultures, political activism, and religious affiliation. The importance of belief in oneself and not just trying to achieve something is emphasized. The transcript also touches on the devastation of the South African population due to drought, a earthquake, and the loss of schools and healthcare, and the use of racist tendencies and social service to encourage people to stay strong. The crisis in Afghanistan is described as a crisis for everyone, and the medical team is preparing for the meeting.
AI: Summary ©
Good morning everyone. Professor, Teo volma, person who spoke before
me, sorry, I didn't catch your name, guru, and the one person
introduced me and everyone here, it's great to be at this
university. I'm born in Pakistan. This is the first time I walked
into this university.
What the gentleman before me spoke in the introduction was very
critical in terms of the type of challenges that the country and
the continent has, the emphasis on ethics and morality. In my
business, we come up all people who have no morality and no
ethics. The sadness about that is they they interfere with people's
lives and people die. We've seen that on many occasions in our in
our relief work throughout the world, and we would think people
would blame Africa for shodding work. Strangely enough, those
people who do those kind of practices come from northern
countries, from what we've experienced. People try to put us
down. Say we are the begging nation. We carry the begging bowl.
They insult us, and they take our spirit away, so much so that we
don't believe in ourselves. We don't believe in our capability
and the things that we can do. My presentation focuses predominantly
on international projects, those are the most difficult ones. But
at the end of the presentation, you can ask me about the local
projects. We're involved right now with the Cape Town drought. We're
involved in setting up a big ball in Beaufort West we're involved in
nice down the fires and from November, from August till
December, we delivered 40 million Rand worth of animal fodder to the
farmers in southern Northern Cape, parts of Eastern Cape and parts of
Western Cape. So we're involved in a lot of different projects, but
let's go to the presentation the ethics and the morality. Gifts of
the givers is a spiritual organization, not a Muslim
organization. A spiritual organization. It encompasses all
faiths, all creeds, all religions, all races, and I'll explain that
as we go along. The story starts in 1991 August.
I get sent to Istanbul, but it was because I did a project with
government before gift of the givers. But the reason I got there
was the man I met in 1986
he had moved to Peter marisburg. He had come from Pretoria. I had
moved to Peter marisburg from Durban. The man was an Africana.
He told me, you need to go to Turkey to meet a spiritual man. He
said, the spiritual man that I know, the one that he knows. He
met him in America. But that man passed on in 1985
and 1986 there was a new teacher, a new spiritual leader in Istanbul
that you should meet. So I started laughing. I said, Mr. Muller, it's
1986
I still haven't seen Cape Town. When am I going to see Istanbul?
He
said, something very important. He said, What the almighty worlds
will happen? There's a time and place for everything. The Time and
Place came in August, 1901 when we moved the ship, lot of aid, the SA
is raquelsburg. We took it from the government, and we moved aid
to Bangladesh for the cyclone. At that point, we arrived in
Istanbul, and I was taken to a place the lead, or the one of the
disciples of the spiritual master. I had to go to his house because
he came from America. He speaks English, and he sent a man with me
and my wife to take us to the place where we're going to meet at
night, a Muslim holy place, and we're going to meet this man. This
man passed on in 1999 my spiritual teacher, Muhammad Safiya, Afeni
aljarahi,
when I went inside there, my wife and I were completely confused.
This was post Gulf War as we know. The Gulf War polarized nations and
civilizations. There was a perception that east and west were
against each other. Samuel Hunter, Hunter, spoke of the clash of
civilizations. We spoke about Christians and Jews and Muslims,
all at holograms with each other, and coming from an apartheid South
Africa didn't help at all.
But coming to that place, I was stunned. I saw Christians, Jews,
Hindus, Muslims, even those who say they don't believe in any God,
all working together in a very harmonious way. And
when I looked at the teacher, he saw the confusion in my face.
He said, What do you see? I said, I can't understand. We fought each
other in so many different countries. How come we all in the
same place and we're not fighting. You said my son, mankind is one
single nation.
The God of all mankind is one. We just call him by different names.
The bad behavior or unacceptable behavior of a small group of
people is not indicative of an.
Nation, religion or country. He went on to say that any spiritual
teacher
in spite of his external paraphernalia, be he rabbi, Imam,
church, Sheik, Pastor, please, pundit. It doesn't matter if that
man promotes terrorism, violence, extremism, conflict, the taking of
life. That man is not a man of God. Don't follow him.
Any person who promotes love, kindness, compassion and mercy. He
is a man of God. Follow him.
I looked at that. I saw the people that night and something Mahat
told me, I want to come back here. It happened six August, 1992
it was a Thursday night. I walked in again. Spiritual teachers saw
me again. Now the the confusion was gone.
He looked at me at 10pm
in Islamic culture, Thursday night is beginning of Friday. Islamic
day starts on Thursday after sunset. We follow that calendar.
It was 10 o'clock at night because Thursday is very important to us.
This is a Sufi place. It's one branch of Islam. And in a Sufi
place, they they start chanting the names of God Almighty in
Arabic, in the Bible and in other books, you will know it as the
self sustaining, the one and only, the eternal, the loving, the kind,
the Compassionate, the Merciful, all those qualities of God
Almighty. We chant them in Arabic at
the end of the chant around 10pm you're sitting in the corner of
the room. I'm sitting on the side. He looks me straight in the eye,
but I can see that whilst he's looking at me, he's connecting
heaven with and that's why I said this is a spiritual organization.
It was a spiritual instruction from a spiritual man that came to
a divine command. And he says in FLUENT Turkish, and I don't
understand the word of Turkish, but I understood every single word
that he said, Brother, he said, My
son, I am not asking you, I am instructing you to form an
organization. The name in Arabic will be walkful wakife, translated
means gift of the givers. You will serve all people of all races, of
all religions, of all colors, of all cultures, of all classes, of
any geographical location and of any political affiliation, but you
will serve them unconditionally. You will not expect anything in
return, not even a thank you. In fact, in what you're going to be
doing for the rest of your life, expect to get a kick up your back.
If you don't get a kick up your back, regard it as a bonus. Serve
people with love, kindness, compassion and mercy, and
remember, especially you guys bring the MBA. The dignity of men
is foremost when somebody is down. Don't be like the bank and then
take the umbrella
away. Make sure that you look after the dignity of people when
somebody's down the ground, lift them, hold them and pick them up.
Wipe the tear of a grieving child. It's free. Doesn't cost anything.
Caress the head of an orphan, say words of good counsel to our
widow, be honest in everything that you do, clothe the naked,
feed the hungry and provide water to the thirsty, and in everything
that you do, he told me, be the best at what you do, not because
of ego. Well, I am the guy. No, you do it because you're dealing
with human emotion, human feeling, human dignity and human life. For
you to understand that more tangibly, put yourself on the
other side, be a refugee in your mind, and understand then, how
would you want somebody to treat you when they come to bring you.
Do you want torn plots? Do you want blown up cans of food? Do you
want expired medicines? Or do you want to be treated as a proper
human being? If you can understand that, apply it in your business,
and you will know then how to treat people with dignity. Be the
best at what you are, be close to dealing with human life. He went
on to say in Arabic, Hai, unas mein, fah, unas best among people
are those who benefit mankind. He said it three times. He didn't say
Muslim, but he didn't say Indian. He didn't say Arab. He said best
among people are those who benefit mankind unconditionally. He said,
Now go back to South Africa and remember that whatever you do is
done through you and not by you.
I'm a loving proof. 25 years now.
That the kind of things that I do are not humanly possible.
Don't think you're an MBA student. You're very clever that you got
here. I'm very blunt. Sorry you are here purely by the grace of
God Almighty. They can take it away with one single accident, a
stroke, brain damage, loss of speech, loss of hearing in a split
second, when you think I'm the eye,
the more gratitude you give, the more you will prosper, the more
you will grow. But it will not come without challenges, because
challenges is put in front of men that what makes us grow and find
solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to be the best everything
comes to us. He then told me, now go for the rest of your life. Life
you will know what to do. Believe me in every aspect, in every
field, I do know what to do, not because of me, because of
spiritual force that comes and guides you in every part. I'll
show you as we go along with some of the slides. Everything is shown
to you. And at one point, I asked him, I've been to Turkey 22 times,
asked him, my teacher, how come when you speak Turkish, I
understand, but when somebody else speaks Turkish, I don't
understand. One word
he says, My son, when the hearts connect and the souls Connect. The
words make meaning because of the heart and the soul connecting.
It's a spiritual gift. There is a thing as spirituality. People say
they don't believe they're really losing out something, but we don't
impose belief on everyone. Belief is free world. It's free choice.
It has to come from inside yourself.
Instantly I got home, we got involved in the war in Bosnia. It
came get involved, not a feeding scheme or a food parcel or a
blanket. The organization did not form. What craziness The first
thing we get involved is in the war in Eastern Europe,
1992
university of University of Sarajevo, totally destroyed.
We go in. We take in 31 containers of food ate
August, 92 to save me a month. Three months later, in November, I
go back, but before I go back, I'm in Johannesburg. I'm at an arms
show I see in containers, a theater, a sterilization unit and
an x ray Well, the arm score X ray unit. And this is implanted in
mine. November. I go to Bosnia. I take it eight containers. When I
say I It means with me, eight containers of eight.
It's winter. The Church factor is minus 21 degrees. There is no
heating, no gas, no electricity. If they had escort, it would make
no difference,
no blankets, no roof, no window, no doors. They bleeding. They
infected hypothermia. People died from that.
So we took an appropriate intervention, eight containers of
winter items, jackets, tents, blankets. At that point, when I
saw the destruction all over Bosnia, I told them, and I don't
know why I said this, do you want the hospital in containers?
So they asked me, What's that? I said, I don't know.
Sorry, I've got a flame for a whole year.
I said, even I don't know what's that, but the thought was
implanted in my head. I came back and I found the company on the
road, when you drive, most of these trailers will stay at the
bottom. Says, effort afrit for the virtual engineering. What the
people I contacted, but why did I contact them? Would I have gone to
an Africana? Would have gone to a white guy? Would have gone to a
Christian because of what it's South Africa? The answer is, no, I
would not have gone,
but because the spiritual teacher showed me that human beings are
all equal. Don't put people in boxes because of a particular
color, a religion or a way of life. They are good people amongst
everyone. So I met him, and I'll explain to you why, how this
developed. They came to my house in February, 1993
I said, Johan, we're going to sit and design the world's first
containerized mobile hospital.
We don't believe in ourselves, don't we don't believe in
ourselves, but South African engineering designed the world's
first containerized mobile hospital delivered to the port of
Trieste in Italy, a product of engineers and skills that have
come from all our 26 universities in this country, and we achieved
that. And where did we take a universal a hospital from Africa.
We took it to Europe,
the continents who say that we are begging bowl, that we don't have
skill yet. They want our doctors. They want our engineers. They want
our nurses, our.
Teachers and accountants. Why come to the stupid continent? Now,
somebody calls us a shithole.
The ambulance and everything was carried on the SAS autoniqua. You
have to give a story, the spiritual story behind this. We
don't have the time, but there is a spiritual story behind this.
Also we took it, a generator,
the heaters. That's Johan and me when I was much older in those
days.
That's the theater. Theater unit. That's Glenn Beck, the South
African ambassador to Italy. Another view of the theater,
sterilization unit, X ray unit. Three years ago, when you went for
X ray, you saw the guys walking around with aprons everywhere.
Bought the aprons. They don't want radium to go through them. How
thick is a shipping container? It's a thermal walled shipping
container. If you take radium today, it will penetrate the walls
and cause cancer on the outside. South African engineering we built
lead into the walls of the container. What's the point of an
x ray machine if you can't develop the film? So we put a dark room in
the back. What's the point of a dark room if you hold don't have
the X ray film and the powder? So we took 28 containers of state of
the art medical equipment, but 10 containers of backup supplies,
sutures, IV fluids, medicines, X ray, films, everything, a
generator and fuel to run a hospital for a whole year, one
year. So if they bomb us, close the roads, close everything, you
will still be able to see patients for one year. MBA, it's about
planning, for planning, locate the options, thinking of the
possibilities. You have to apply your mind and watch this business
in my life, if I make a mistake, people die.
Incubators, orthopedic unit, burns unit, dental unit, outpatient
unit, admin unit and the warehouse, underground warehouse,
where we put it 2005
before that, in 94 CNN film hospital, the CNN commentator said
the South African container hospital is equal to any of the
best hospitals in Europe.
He was not comparing a container hospital from Africa to Container
hospitals in Europe, because there are no container hospitals in
Europe.
He was comparing it to proper hospitals. It shows the quality,
the caliber of our students and our engineers and our people in
this country. But we don't believe in that. We all want to run
away in 92,000 and finds I was invited by the Bosnian government
to come as their guest. They said, 12 years later. We know it's 12
years later, but we like to show gratitude. I said, you don't have
to do that. They said, If you don't come, we feel insulted. I
went back. Before I left, I told the doctor in chartered hospital,
when the war is over, break the containers, take the equipment out
and put it in the most central place. It's feasible to use it
like that. The war is over when I get back in 2005 that's exactly
what they did. They broke the containers. They put a Copa in the
military barracks, which became the biggest hospital in the
region. He tells me, my friend, remember in 93 you told me that we
can do everything besides heart surgery in this theater. I said,
Yes, that's what I told you. It says, meet this lady. And brings
the lady to me. Said, you see this lady? She had shrapnel in her
heart. We removed the shrapnel in her heart from this theater, in
this hospital in the war that you South Africans provided. Then he
said, you see this four children. These four children were born to
this lady after the shuttles moved in the same hospital that you
South Africans provided. That's why the Bosnian president called
you to say that South Africans are identified with giving life. But
do we understand that we fight with each other every day, we
fight with each other the whole year. Why do we only excel in
situations like this, or when the Rugby World Cup comes and Mandela
wears a shirt and Franco stands out, or the World Cup where we
don't even make it to the other dogs, but we still stood behind
the team.
Why do we do that? Why do we have this racist mentality or just
prejudice against each other? We need to take the box out and look
at as human being as a human being, because somebody is
anybody's blood blue here or green or white,
blood is the same. The pain is the same, the anxiety is the same, the
hunger is the same, the emotion is the same, the needs are the same.
We are one nation. We need to understand that. We need to stand
together.
So he calls us and we go back. 2004 I finally got to Cape Town,
but the moment I walked in, boom, the new tsunami hits 13 countries
in the Indian Ocean, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, India, a whole
lot of countries India says we don't want any.
Up. Everybody runs to Thailand, Indonesia, because all the MBA
students, all the big economic countries have their factories in
Indonesia. And they go for the past time in Thailand. So they run
their first they forget about the foreign countries. Africa got hit
in a place called hafun. I'll explain to them. Just now, Sri
Lanka got hit. The Sri Lankan President comes on TV and says, we
don't know what to do.
26 December, my team had just landed in Dubai. They were about
to go to India. I have this information. A tsunami has hit Sri
Lanka. Doesn't know what to do. You don't settle that information
and like the guy say, Go, put it in the cupboard. Doesn't help you.
I take the information and you use it. I stopped my teams. I said,
You are diverted. You are flying to Sri Lanka right now. And they
moved to Sri Lanka. We were the first team in the world that
responded to the tsunami in Sri Lanka. The president at that time
was Chandrika Kumaratunga,
ships, trains, houses, everything was blown apart, moved away
kilometers by the sheer force of the tsunami. We partnered. We were
the first people that met the president within 48 hours, and we
partnered businesses. This is your role again, your social
responsibility, as per when you go into the big companies, don't
forget that President, I'll remind you,
we partnered with companies, and within five days, we delivered 7
million naira weights. We hired planes. Flew medicines over blown
up bridges. When I say blown up, I don't mean by war. I mean by
tsunami, by weather, over bridges to areas that were not possible.
We took in water, food, dishes, clothing, medicines and all kind
of things. We were the first agency in the world given land by
the Sri Lankan President, and we were the first agency in the world
that built a housing village in Sri Lanka,
all from South Africa. Who says it can't be done.
But I told you, a place called her was affected. Her food is on the
east coast of Somalia, across the border from Yemen, very small
population. The tsunami came. Actually, you could feel a tsunami
in Cape Town too. Everybody was on the coast that day. Could feel the
water was very unsettled. The waves were very high. It was
disturbance everywhere. You could feel that Kenya was also affected.
But hafun, the tsunami came wiped out all the houses we decided to
respond. But how do you respond to Somalia? There's no organized
government, there's security concerns. There's no communication
networks, proper networks. How do you work out logistics? There's no
proper runways. Half food is in health.
Health out of *. You have to go to bosaso. You can't go to our
phone. What do you do?
You hire an illusion, an Russian aircraft in the back. You can see
it's first class. You're very relaxed. You don't need seat
belts. You can play volleyball numbers on the telephasic seat
belt. You have a lovely time. The problem is the illusion cannot
land in bosaso. The plane is too heavy, it's too big, and the
runway is too short. So you have to make a plan.
You change some illusion, and you stop in Uganda, and you transfer
all the goods into two antonovs. Antonov is a smaller plane. It can
land in bosaso. It's not too heavy. The runway is ideal.
There's only one small problem. You can't sit in the cargo hold
like an illusion. But if you sit there in 10 minutes, you'll be
dead. There's no oxygen control. But as they say, the budmark plan,
17 of us sat in the cockpit with the pilot below him, behind him
and above him, and we fly to bosaso. And as we get to bosaso,
the pilot says, shit.
So I said, now what's the problem? You said I made a mistake, that
three is 300 meters too short. Boom. He just brings the plane
right down. And we fly all over in the cockpit, but you see advanced
thinking. Who did I took take to fly the plane. I took Russian
fighter pilots.
So Putin is very happy with me.
I know maybe I'll sign a nuclear deal.
The plane stops too short of the runway.
The journey is not over yet. We have to take the truck to go 400
kilometers where there is no road, 16 hours across the grass in the
bush. We come to the bhafun, but you have to wait for the sea tide
to recede. When the sea tide recedes, then you get across and
you deliver the goods. All the boats are destroyed. All the
fishing nets are destroyed. From then up to today, we put in boats.
We put in fishing nets. It's about sustainability. It's about self
sufficiency. It's about catching the fish and having protein to eat
and to sell and to trade. It's to make human beings independent
and to have give them dignity and self worth.
This was the first time in our history. In 2004
we were one notch higher. In 1993 we delivered the hospital.
But we didn't have a medical team. We went to Sri Lanka. We didn't
have a medical team, but in 2004 for the first time, we added a
medical team in our history, and this was a primary health care
team, pediatrician. And thereafter, we built a medical
center in hafun. It's still running up to today. We supply
medicines, medical staff, equipment, the patients, and the
patient population has grown because from agadisha, they all
come into the North.
Whilst I was in Turkey in 2005
on the way back from Bosnia, we saw pictures on the screen of the
famine in Niger.
Our agencies did not pick it up. Our media did not pick it up.
Everybody was sleeping while African children were dying.
We call the embassy international relations. I have a very good
relationship, but international relations and I said, I need
diplomatic support. We need to get to Niger. They say, We don't have
an embassy. The closest one is Ivory Coast. So I said, but it has
to be done. It was taking time. Whenever you land a plane, you
have to kill it with civil aviation. So we call civil
aviation in Niger, and we asked the guy, what's the conditions
like? He said, children are dying in the 1000s. Can we come? He
said, please come. So we go to the our first class, business class
plane,
and we fly in the middle of the night. We land in Asia at two
o'clock in the morning. I get out of the plane, the guy we spoke to
was a guy called Muktar. I said, is it muktaria? Because yeah, me
Muktar, and yeah. I said, Mukhtar. I got one small problem. He said,
What's the problem? I said, we don't have visas. He said, My
brother, this is Africa. Anything is possible.
He brings the stem and he stamped all the passports.
I said, now we need a hotel. He said, We got intercontinental, not
the European one, very different. Then I said, we need transport. He
bids, broken down. Cars crack windscreen, flat tire. I wouldn't
trade that for any German, expensive car. You know why?
Because it was brought with love. It was brought with heart. It was
brought with gratitude, not that we wanted gratitude. And it was
brought to spirituality. We go to the hotel, I tell him, Muktar, my
team's hungry. Four o'clock in the morning, the cook came walking, no
car, no bicycle, came walking with the pot in his hand, and he cooked
for a meal that everybody could eat your fingers, because it was
cooked with love. I said, Mukhtar, I have one more request. I need to
speak to the president of the country. He said to her, tell you,
this is Africa. The all of the hotel is a friend of the
President. So we
speak to the President. I said, I need somebody from your office,
not you personally, just to receive us, because the South
African media is here. He said, Fine. I need trucks. I need mini
busses. I need wheelhouses. I need staff, and I need to know one
important thing, God. You see, we are very clever South Africans. We
come from North University. We're very sharp. We come from wits and
new city and protect turkeys. We're great people. We can do
anything. You never say that. You send my Mr. President, we are here
as your African brothers. We're here to see how we can fit into
your program. Where do you want us to assist our brothers and
sisters? He said, My Friend, I need you in tele buddy, everything
will be available for you in three hours. They will come. You think
of African time. It doesn't mean three hours. Doesn't mean 30 hours
in less than three hours. He was there. The lady next to me is the
President's personal adviser, the three people next to our ministers
and the guys next to our directors General. We're not a government.
We don't even have an embassy in India. But the respect they
afforded us because fellow Africans came to have Africans,
they gave us the trucks, the laborers, the warehouses and the
minibusses. That's not the desert, that's the river
Cape town's being the same
way. That's the animals. One of the caters already suffered that
1000s of animals have died like this because of the drought.
That's the people,
I told him, We have a free service. He said, We need to
announce it. They announced it in 42 degree heat, 15,000 people
turned up. I had seven doctors. I
went to the crowds. Two things stood out. One, no adult males.
Two, not two. 7.1 No. Adult males, no teenagers, no big kids, no
mothers ask for help. That is the spirituality of Africa, which we
don't see.
And after that, I said, the quiet dignity of the people of Africa.
They smile. They sat in patience that we saved this child and we
saved every.
Every single child. And you know why? Because they walked out of
the queue. They made it easy for us to see those that were really
sick, so we could save them.
When we talk about religion, when we talk about faith, do we really
believe? Can any of us do that with our children? Ask yourself
and answer that question honestly, before we profess to be this great
spiritual people ask that question, if you can answer it
honestly. You know, this is what the people of Nigeria went through
the same year, October eight, 2005
earthquake hits Pakistan. This is a massive earthquake. Why is it
massive? An earthquake strikes one city. Thus, earthquake wiped out
the entire northwestern region, from rom pan Pindi to the India
border, everything, 400 villages on the way, everything sank into
the ground.
There the Twin Towers of Islamabad.
Tarpon doesn't know there's another Twin Towers.
Destruction is a mountain.
We land in Rawalpindi, the Pakistani military comes to us.
Now, you think Afrikaners are for who you haven't met the Pakistani
military, yet powers don't take it seriously. We meet the Pakistan
military generals come to me. He says, My Friend, I don't know you,
but your South African Government has recommended you, do you mind
not going to the earthquake?
So I said, that's fine. So my team said, What did you come for? I
said, Wait, I tell the man, Which hospital are you giving me? So he
says, you understand? I said, Of course, I understand. So they
asked, What is he saying? I said, what this guy is telling you?
There is nothing left there on the mountains. Everybody is dead. The
hospitals are gone, the politicians are gone, that we
don't worry about too much.
Other guys are gone, and there's no people, nothing. You can't do
anything there. So I said, Okay, which hospital to give me? But I
need to take my teams to the mountain to stabilize those in our
life. He said, All the helicopters are gone. Now. The First Secretary
of the South African Embassy is with me. The Americans are there.
This is the helicopters. So he said, maybe we need to speak to
them. I said, my friend, you're going to write to them. Take three
years, start going to work. We need to get it now. I said, Leave
this to me. So I walk around, I see a big black guy, American
soldier. I said, my friend, you're from America. He says, Yes, I'm
from America. I said, but first, you're from Africa? He said, Yes,
first, I'm from Africa.
So I said, Me, also I'm from Africa. I got a small problem. I
need a helicopter. He said, Omni. I said, What can you give me? He
said, Take three. Two Minutes. I got three helicopters,
Black Hawk, two Black Hawks and another one. We put our teams. We
send them to the mountain to stabilize the patients. We come to
this hospital, praskranton hospital of Rawalpindi, given to
us. When you walk in, you know, we complain too much. We complain a
little too much. When you walk into the hospital, there's a child
that's lying on the stretcher for three days for the smell of
gangrene, no drip, no medicines, no food, no parents and often, no
medical care. And patients like all of the Oswald or the stink of
gangrene all over the hospital, no proper nursing care, no
facilities. So I go back to the military guy. I said, is this an
organized killing field? Will you bring your mother here. So he
says, What do you mean? So he comes with me, he puts his head
down in shame. So what happened? The superintendent says, we're
about to shut this hospital down. I said, You guys are crazy.
There's nothing wrong with this hospital. So I said, I'm going to
give you a shopping list. If you give me this, we'll show you what
South Africans can do.
In less than 24 hours, they brought the equipment, and the
South African medical team converted the Pakistani hospital
that was about to shut down into a 400 bed emergency hospital, and we
did 75 operations a day because of skills acquired in this country.
For that, the Pakistan president gave us a Presidential Award, the
only agency in Africa to get that it was indicative of our skills,
amputations, big problem, not major in Copeman, but we did our
job.
This a lovely story. You see, we have this racist tendencies. We go
against each other. This lady's name is Karina extien. She's an
Africana Christian from Pretoria University, her specialty spinal
rehab. When does she decide to go to Pakistan
on Christmas?
She gives up her Christmas for the family, her religious time to be
with Muslim country people in the Muslim country, to give social
service. This is the quality and the caliber of the boot of our
people, no race, no religion, no color, no geography. She goes and
she does it for three weeks. She gives that service to Muslim
people as a Christian. And when she leaves, the patients cry.
Their families cry, the doctors cry, and even the military cries
because of what this lady did. Arif.
Action of what we as South Africans, again, can do on the
outside. Why can't we do it here? That is the question. And the
change can only come from us, not from anybody else.
This is the last Friday I'm going to give you, and then we can open
it for questions. 12 of January, 2010
I just walk into my house, I get a call from seven or two at 610, in
the morning. Have you heard there's an earthquake in Haiti? So
put a TV on. I look at the pictures,
and I say to myself, in the space that I'm seeing on the screen, at
least 25,000 people are dead.
250,000 people died in that earthquake.
Pakistan was another milestone to us, primary healthcare team in
Somalia, trauma team. We took the Pakistan. We had a new addition in
2010
for the first time, we had our own search and rescue team. The search
and rescue team was headed by Ahmed BAM sitting. Ahmed, set up,
stay up. You're so short they can't see you.
And money house you see them just now,
when, within one hour, the search and rescue team is ready. Within
the next hour, the medical team is ready. We were ready to respond to
the crisis, but now we had a choice. How do you go either
through America or to France. Now, going to America is going to be a
big problem. The bigger the beard, the bigger the terrorist. So
that's going to be a bigger problem. So it's a direct
relationship. Mathematically, the longer the beard, the greater the
you are the terrorist. So you have no beard, you are safe. So they
said that that's not going to work. We're not going to go
through Hashima. I got no chance of going to America. Any case,
they don't pick it there. And so they blocked all the Muslims from
going there in any case, too. So we said, we'll go to France. I
found International Relations for the French government. The French
council said, please come. No problem. In five minutes, we get a
Schengen visa,
no form, no pictures, but you know what's the best part? It's free.
Re engines, we Indians. We like three things.
So we get the visa, and then we said, Okay, we'll give Air France
the business. I tell Air France, we give you the business. Will you
get my teams to border Prince? They said, Yes. I said the airport
will close. They said the airport is open. I said it will close.
They said it's open. I said, you give me a guaranteed writing. They
give me a guarantee in writing. They'll get my team support a
prince. I knew that's never going to happen anyway. I take the
guarantee. My teams go
all the big border guys, Ahmed and everybody go to the airport and
they leave, but I'm making arrangements now. Remember, I told
you, it's about forward thinking.
From gladysburg, I fought the Catholic society in Joburg. I
said, I need the Pope. The guy gets ice cold on the other side.
Why does the Muslim guy want the Pope? I tell
you, I want to tell us ama Bin Laden where he is
for the guys will stunt I said, Why do you need a pope? How are
going to get hold of him? I said, Aren't you Christian guys
connected all over the world? We Muslims, you connected everywhere.
So it's okay. I'll get back to you in three hours. They said, What do
you want? I said, I want a Catholic society to meet the South
African team, not in Port au Prince in Dominican Republic.
Firstly, three hours later, it's arranged Catholic Relief Services,
CRS and Caritas, will meet your team in Dominican Republic. Amber
lands on the team in Paris. He said, You got a problem. I said, I
know what you got a problem is, how do you know? I said, I'm sure
the airport is closed. Yes, the airport is closed. In the
meantime, I already spoke to Air France. I said, you see, you can
be guaranteed in writing, in email, look at my team's
supporter, Prince reroot, my teams to Dominican Republic. They said,
that's not a problem. I said, in two hours, is your flight to
Dominican Republic? Change flights. They get there. They land
in Dominican Republic. Caritas and CRS is waiting. South African team
food, bottle water, hotel food, everything arranged the Caritas
teams. You see how important was that meeting with a spiritual
teacher. You don't see race, you don't see religion, you don't see
color, you don't see anything else. The teams now are mixed of
all religions, and they stay with the Catholic people in their
compound, while the UN teams work three hours a day. The South
African team with the Canada people about nine hours a day.
They walk through the rubble everywhere.
They make friends with the Mexican dog.
He didn't speak English.
Then 20th, January, 2010
the most amazing thing happened. I'm speaking to Amit. He says, I
have to go. Eight days after the earthquake, the air sounds in the
rubble.
They go for three hours, they start searching, and three hours
later they pull out
64 year old anazizi In the Catholic.
Church that had collapsed, no oxygen, no food, no medicines, no
water, fractured hip. Eight days later, this lady survives because
God wants her to live. And she lives, and she comes out, and she
says to Ahmed and to manikhost, the first thing she tells him,
tells manikhost, the tall one on that side, she tells him, I love
God
with studying hope and faith in people several 1000 kilometers
away. And then she tells them, I love you. It was the world first
for South Africa and for Africa and for us, nowhere in the history
of the world has any African team taken anybody out of the river
alive in an earthquake outside the African continent. We're the first
to do that, ladies and gentlemen, you need to believe in yourselves.
Then came the medical teams behind them,
and when the French and Americans came, they said, We can't work
here. There's no machines, no CT scan, no. X ray, nothing is
functional. My teams have instruction the day they leave the
first day two, I tell and take the medicine, control, council book
and throw it out of the window. Don't follow the rules. I said, if
you follow the rules, you do nothing in a disaster zone. If you
don't do anything, guarantee the patient is going to die. You guys
are working in outpatient casualty for so many years, you have to
have gut feeling about the situation, do something. So my
team's work, and the French and American said, if you want life,
if you want healing, if you want help, go to the Dream Team. And
the Dream Team is from South Africa. And finally, the last
story, the big paramedics went into the church. They washed the
wall, they washed the floor, and then the patients came. They
walked to the Mexican doctors. The child came. I was talking, we talk
about ethics in the beginning, you see, I told you, from the northern
countries, they went and practiced their medicine on children from a
poor country, and they didn't do the amputation correctly. So we
have to recut the hand or the arm or the leg, not one, hundreds of
them.
And when you're finished, you tell the child, go home, and the child
looks at you, go away.
No house, no parents, no grandparents, no family, no food,
no clothes, no matter where must I go?
But you now robbed him of his hand and his arm because somebody came
to practice my team's witness, I won't say the name, important
country in Europe. The guys walk to the guy's leg. He died from
bleeding.
It's all about ethics, and the other important part of ethics. Do
you know why 250,000 people died? Because the architect passed a
plan for the incorrectly, the engineer scheme the structure. So
when one building fell, they all went boom, like a pack of cards.
But one day it will come back to you. It's not your child, it's not
your wife, it's not judgment. So it doesn't matter. Let me make a
next step back and let somebody else die. Got nothing to do with
me, but it always comes back. That's the law of life. Ladies and
gentlemen, whatever you do in business world, Excel. Be the
best, but don't forget your humanity and your compassion.
We've made the greatest advances in science, in technology, in
every aspect of the world, but we are 400 years back when it comes
to minority human relations, friction and discord, we have gone
back to the dark ages. We need to change that. We need to believe,
but we more than believe, we need to have humanity in us. Thank you
very much. Ladies and gentlemen, great to be here. You.