Imtiaz Sooliman – Gift of the Givers Agri EC Congress 2023 Keynote Speaker
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the negative impact of the pandemic on society, including the loss of job prospects and the need for people to live in a safe environment. They emphasize the importance of finding a good candidate for government and finding a good candidate for housing and infrastructure. They also discuss the success of the American Muslim holy month and the need for people to show consistency in CSI during COVID-19. The speakers emphasize the importance of finding positive thoughts and actions to help the country survive and build a country.
AI: Summary ©
Thank you, Brent, and to the ladies who've joined us at the
back there. Welcome
guest speaker. Keynote speaker this year is Dr imte suluman. He
needs no introduce. Introduction. I'm not going to tell you
everything is done, because we could be here for the next three
weeks. What I can say is that if he ran the roads department, the
police department, Eskom and everything else there, there would
be no need for us to even have Congress, because everything would
be working.
Doctor Sullivan, I'd like you to come forward so long, please, and
we, we look forward to your presentation. We, we're very proud
to have you here with us. You passed a comment, what's some of
your program of yours on television the other day where you
said you had five daughters, if I remember correctly, and the
youngest was your boss?
Well,
seven years old. Well, good luck to you. I've got a wife and one
daughter, and I'm bored. So good luck to you with five daughters.
Dr sudhiwan, welcome, and we really look forward to your
address today. Thank you very much. You
thank you for that introduction. The smallest one is seven years
old, and she likes to travel with me, so she came with me to her
Manas three weeks ago, and she sits in a plane alone because she
decided last minute she's coming. So suddenly makes arrangements for
us to sit together, and she says, No, she's sitting next to the guys
teaching her chess on the iPad, so she's learning that from him. And
then he asked her, like, where are you going to she said, I'm going
to bharamanus on a business trip.
She's seven years old, and she's like that all the time.
Thank you very much. Special greetings to Brian and Joe HUL. I
met them here, and I've never met them before. Their daughter is one
of my team members. She's an intensivist, very active. She's
comfortable with many disasters, highly skilled per person, one of
the first doctors in South Africa to get recognized for
environmental interventions, and she got a special degree in that.
And she's a very important team member to us. So very nice meeting
you too.
Wherever I go, I get the same kind of question, is there hope for the
country? What's the way forward? Is there going to be civil unrest?
Are we going to have total shutdown? Are we going to have
blackout. What's going to happen?
We have what? What will destroy any society and people is negative
mindset.
We have many challenges. Yes. What has compounded those challenges
are the events for the last four years more so in KZN, in 2019
what cyclone die hitting Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe,
we got hit with severe floods in Durban cause huge damage to
infrastructure and displaced people in 2020
covid destroyed the whole world, and covid is something where we
have not recovered from the mental health issue with covid has been a
huge matter for our country and the world, and even after that,
you can't deal with because we haven't dealt with the chaos of
covid. Doctors saw their friends die, family members die, and the
worst part of the death was it was a lonely death. You died in
isolation. You died all alone. Your family members couldn't be
with you, and you couldn't hold their hand in the last few
minutes, in the last hour, and that has caused a huge
psychological impact that has affected our functioning. For
future issues, we lost close to 1000 doctors, 2000 nurses, I mean,
2000 teachers, and many others in the in corporate world,
we know it's a serious problem, because Len is my team member, and
as you travel, you know what the medical teams across the world,
they tell you, they don't need counseling. It's fine. They
mature. They can deal with any situation, bombs, explosions,
burnt out, people, they can deal with it. But for the first time in
my history, on the medical chats all over the country, I saw a
request healthcare workers and doctors who generally never asked
for assistance throughout day, it was very subliminally,
is anybody offering yoga?
Does anybody do breathing exercises.
Can we do mindfulness? Is there a retreat we can go to? And then
they ask, do you know a good psychologist or a good
psychiatrist? If the healthcare workers are affected and tormented
to that level, the rest of the population is far worse off and we
haven't dealt with.
That any disaster is too big for you to handle after that,
and are coming out of that, we get hit with the civil unrest in july
2021
which put a lot of fear into a lot of people. There was no need to
have real fear, fear, and I explained that a little later, in
2022 we got hit again in KZN, but floods far bigger than we've ever
had in our whispy, a huge destruction, and we're still
coming out of the other 19 floods, 20 covid, 21 700 and floods again,
and 2023
it's a load shedding in Eskom. And people are worried, you know, is
there going to be several unrest? Is the grid going to survive? Are
the country going to survive? Yes, the country is going to survive.
People say the word failed state, there's no such thing as the
failed state. Failed State is a relative term. Is it a political
issue, an economic issue, a religious issue? What is this? I'm
not a tourist. I'm a disaster tourist.
I specialize in going to chaos, mayhem, disorder. That's what I
see. I don't see normal things, and I've been to many, many
countries. We've intervened in 45 countries, and we've been
everywhere. We nowhere near a failed state. Yes, we have
problems. We can't run away from the fact that we have problems.
But no problem is insurmountable. Let's just do a comparison, 2020
and now in 2020
there were no cars on the road, but in lockdown, the hotels were
empty.
The planes were not flying.
There was no car guard, there was no waiter, nobody going to the
restaurant and the bar all embedded that was closed, knowing
God economy, 1000s of jobs lost at the same time. We had a drought in
the Northern Cape, but parts near the southern cape, all that kind
of chaos, we survived it. Do you see that now sentence at four
o'clock on a Friday afternoon during lockdown, turn at any kind
the road, you could even see the cockroach or No Deal the rat and
the cat and everything else, but no people.
More damage was done during lockdown than down during load
shedding.
And I spoke about a positive mindset. If your mind is messed
up, no matter how strong your body is, it won't function because the
negative mind destroys the entire soul and being of a person,
and that's why we did it. What stages step by step
for the last 15 years, our biggest problem is that we left everything
to government, they're
going to solve the problem, and we sat on the wayside. White people
are scared to talk because you speak. They tell you white
monopoly capital, racist prejudice of the past, you got benefits so
you get too scared to speak and stay quiet and you can't talk out.
That has made you very passive and scared to say anything.
But in recent times, those things have changed. The
government can't use race as an issue anymore
because black people themselves are saying, how do we make the
country survive and function? Nobody is worried about color
anymore. They worried about service delivery
if all of us take out our branding. AG, say, gift of the
givers, government departments, saps, a NDF, RTI, take all that
branding off. Put everybody in the ground together, all of us, we all
know as government, who's a politician, who's a farmer, who's
an NGO, who's a doctor, but we will know one thing,
we are all South African
and as South Africans, as a human, whether you're the president, a
minister, a premier, agriculture, corporate, what do you have in
mind? How can I live in safety, peacefully? Have education, have
health, have healing, have neighborliness and growth. Every
South African has that.
So how do we work towards that?
We need to understand very clearly that the country does not belong
to the government. It's not their country. Nowhere in the world does
the country belong to the government. They are already
administers of who put them there.
They got to do what we ask them to do. They don't tell us what to do.
We need to change our thinking and how we do things, how we select
people to represent us in Parliament. Are they representing
us or representing themselves? You need to make that clear, and
that's all dependent on you. We're not going to vote. Makes no sense.
It's pointless. Nothing's going to happen. Of course, nothing is
going to happen if you don't do anything. But if you choose the
right candidate, that candidate can make a difference, because the
candidate is supposed to go to serve you, not everybody else or
himself, for that matter.
The second positive point you got to think about. Everybody says
government is corrupt. Are we going to work with them?
Government is not corrupt. There's people inside government that are
corrupt.
You get corruption in the in the corporate sector too. A lot of the
corruption in government is created by the corporates.
We need to fix the system.
Don't say everybody in government's corrupt. There's a
lot of good people wanting to do a lot of good things, and then we
say, can't save the country. The saps is useless. They're all
corrupt. They're part of the criminal gangs and part of the the
mess. Everybody in saps is not corrupt.
There's a lot of good people from here, general and Carter from PE
is a dynamic, dedicated policeman who will clean up the area he
was committed to fight gangsterism and corruption within owes police
in free state. Recently, at an awards event, an Afrikaner lady
cop in one of the award categories
wins the award. What was award for? There were a lot of
categories, but that particular award category that Africana lady
won the award for was what for.
She exposed corruption in the saps. This is a police lady who
exposed corruption in the saps. Not only did she expose
corruption, she even got the cops locked up.
And for that, she got a big applause from the entire saps
sitting there,
because, believe it or not, like you and me want things to go the
right way. There are people in government, politicians, civil
servants, police services, everybody who wants things to go
right in the right way. That is all an aspect of spirituality.
Again, about government and us,
we have to get involved.
You see 7.4 million people's taxes can't look after 65 million
people. It's impossible. Take the country and offer it to Canada.
Give it to Germany. Give it to the US. Leave it Australia. Say, take
it. If you're looking, I mean, they'll tell us. Do you think we
met? How can 7.4 million people's taxes look after 65 million
people? We won't make right? Won't make right. We won't be able to do
it. So we have an obligation
of those who have to help with government to start pulling people
up. The only way to success is to put people up with you. When you
pick people up, you grow with them, and you go upwards,
otherwise you get dragged down the opposite direction when you leave
people alone while falling apart. There is no other way of doing
this. And then you will tell me, yes, I pay tax, company tax, super
tax, VAT fuel Levy, this rates, this that, yes, you do pay all
that. It's correct. You do pay all of that.
But again,
it's not enough to cover the lives of 65 billion people.
We need to take some facts. Understand it very clearly. You
see, people spoke about social unrest and civil unrest and chaos.
They would be chaos in this country,
what you see is criminal activity. You need to separate a third
force, criminal activity and uprising from the masses. It's
three different things. During the time of the they call it an
insurrection. I'll explain that just now, 2021
they say trucks are burning at moiravatoll, trucks are always
burning at Moreover, tall. What's new? It's been happening all the
time. It's not something new that happened suddenly that time.
Then they tell, you see, there's service delivery protests. We've
had more than 5000 service delivery protests over the last
few years. So what's new?
They tell you, it's an insurrection. What's an
insurrection?
An insurrection is why you attack the Presidential quarters,
Parliament, Union Buildings, defense, force, police, RTI,
airports, Harbor, electricity, dams, water. That's an
insurrection. And you don't do it in one province. You do it in the
entire country, where, in the history of the world, have you
heard of an insurrection where people go and loot them all? Are
they going to take the country over by looting them all? That's
crazy. There's no such thing.
And you see, the guys who planned this were very, very clever.
They said they freed Zuma. Poor Zuma. Didn't even know that was
being done in his name.
We didn't know he would never agree to that. I know the man
personally, he would never agree to that. He.
They wanted to show they had political power, it actually
exposed their weakness, because they didn't have enough people to
get into the streets. So you tell people, go take free stuff. You
will get 1000s of people doing that, whether South America,
Europe or Asia, the same thing will happen. People will go and
take free stuff at times of economic crisis. It will happen.
They didn't have the forces or the numbers. It actually showed an
inherent weakness in the people I call the traitors and anti
patriots. We need to get back to the philosophy of paterism. This
country is ours. We were born here. We live here. We will die
here. Just take the drive from PE to Jefferies Bay. What a
magnificent drive. Failed State, we say. Emirates told me, pre
covid, we had 49 flights a week to South Africa. They're already on
42 flights a week to South Africa. Are all mad people coming to a
failed state.
For the ICC, all international conferences are booked up to 2026
how
many international sporting events are going to take place here?
Foreigners are buying houses in South Africa.
You get scared. You say, Oh, so many South Africans are leaving.
Do they tell you how many South Africans want to come back and how
many South Africans are coming back already. Why are they coming
back? You think the worst possible time? Why are they coming back?
Because they seen what they don't want outside. They see a country
of harmony and peace and progress and weather. It's not only about
the weather. It's not about their mountain and sea and lakes. It's
about spirituality. It's about fate. It's about belief in God.
It's about the spirit of Ubuntu, which this country has more than
any other country in the world.
So when those people went to the malls, they were not violent.
The violence came afterwards, but the guys made to cause conflict,
and he may end those poor people went to the mall. A two year old
child, a lady on a walking stick,
no stones,
no bombs, no guns, no clockies. They didn't go to harm anybody.
Child takes a pair of shoes, somebody takes a ton of fish,
somebody takes a packet of chips, somebody takes a new branded
shirt. And you walk out the mall that was on TV almost every day
looks like mall checkers in Peter marisberg. I love one kilometer
from that wall
on the road. They were walking 1000s of them,
they didn't harm anybody. What the fridge on their back, and a DSTV
in the end, and a big TV and a stove, they're
waving two years they're walking. This is really a violin. People.
No, they had great remorse few days after that happened and
realized they were used by the traitors and anti patriots. All
that ecobot was given back three it was taken back three days
later,
and the regret was they were used.
Why do I say so? That was not an insurrection. Those people were
not violent. Didn't cause any damage. The real damage took place
after hours.
People came with trucks, and they knew that this warehouse had 2000
pallets of this goods. That warehouse had 500 pallets of that
goods. The biggest theft took place by rich people after hours,
and the biggest culprits were those that came with German cars
to steal stuff in the day. What hunger were they suffering from?
People say it's because hunger the country is going to explode when
then we are 15 years behind time because Eastern Cape is suffering
from hunger from the time of the WSSD, the World Summit on
Sustainable Development, more than 20 years in 2002
when we had the summit in the front page of The Sunday Times,
167
children died of starvation in the Eastern Cape. Right as I talk to
you in transcribe and Butterworth, they dying of starvation.
Starvation is quite normal for them not to eat food for days. Do
you see people burning shops, houses, cars budding the road?
They don't do that, because it's not in their way.
Let's go back to the greatest at the most significant event in the
history of this country,
27th April, 1994
not because the black government replaced the white government. No
governments come and change all the time. There's no big deal
about that.
What was significant was the behavior of the people.
You see the world's international media all came here with war rooms
because they want to watch how this country was going to explode.
You were told.
To buy food, stockpile, keep your passport, documents, jewelry,
money ready. You're going to fly from the country. Very risky, very
dangerous. The people are going to erupt. And all the media were
waiting for this. They lacked sensationalism.
It was probably the most boring story in world history,
because nothing happened,
but in nothing that happened,
everything happened.
The people showed you that true quality, the messes. Everybody
tries to make negative thoughts about the messes. Understand this
very clearly. You need to get your psyche correct.
So what did they do? They stood in long lines in the heat
with discipline,
obedience, respect and with hope.
Mandela always said that people have spoken.
They spoke that day without the words, the behavior said, Yes, we
got shot on June 16. We got shot on chapel. We had to carry the
passbook. We got detention without trial. Our family members have
disappeared. Our children died. We were locked up. We were oppressed,
but we will not burn the country. We will not take revenge. We will
not burn any shop. We won't turn against our employer. We won't
turn against the Correctional Services or the police or the
military. We will rebuild this country together.
They made the supreme sacrifice. Nobody seems to see that
in 95 at great risk to his political career. Political
career, Mandela walked Francois piranhas Jersey rugby. I'm a very
blunt guy. Sorry. Rugby is regarded as a sport of the
oppressor,
and yet Mandela wore the jersey because he understood clear
leadership. He could have won the battle and let everybody erupt and
make violence, but he would have lost the war.
I come from countries where neighbor turned against neighbor,
same religion, same color, same street, same nationality turn
against each other. 300 years, you will not fix that problem. You
will never fix that problem, because the revenge and hatred
will be too far for too much. We'll just keep going from
generation to generation. We're fortunate. We have people who are
forgiving in nature, who want to work together, who will not
destroy the country, and that's why it carried on in 2021
they were so remorseful at what have we done here? This is not in
our way.
My domestics passed out a few years ago. Her son was one of the
looters.
He came. My wife called him home and she told him, did you loot?
And she said, Yes, my wife is like the FBI. You're worried about your
wife, wait till you meet mine
and she tell him, what is looting?
He said, stealing. My wife asked him one question,
if your mother was alive today, what would she have done for what
you did?
He said, My mother would have killed me
because my mother was a church going person. My mother was a very
religious person. My mother will never allow this,
and that same sentiment goes across every single sphere of this
country,
people,
they looted, they caused chaos within themselves, but they had
great remorse. And something else happened
that same time of 2021
to show the goodness of this country, you see, I told you 94
people done by the country in 2021
they looted, but they were remorseful.
How's the response of those people that were looted
corporate South Africa called and they said, we lost our warehouse,
we lost our goods, we lost our truck, we lost our forklift, our
people at this place, they won't be able to work for months. What
do you need and how much do you need to bring heart to all those
people who are part of of the looting, those who looted and
those who lost because there was no more shop, no more groceries,
no more food. Everything became difficult. Corporate South Africa
had the same heart that the people had in 94
that we are the giving nation that we build and we don't break and we
don't destroy. Three days after the looting, if you walked in the
streets of KZN, black, white, Indian, colored, Pakistani Indian,
Bangladesh, Somali, Ethiopian, walk next to each other, you'll
swear nothing happened.
People helped each other with.
Head, what water, what food, what support in the garage, absolute
respect between each group
brought to the other countries. You think that's possible. You
will kill each other in the streets
because of the nature of the people. You will never see this
anywhere else in the world,
because we are not a nation given to destruction,
and that is driven by faith,
by prayer, by God, consciousness
in 2022
when the floods came, april 11, at night, at half past five, when the
flood waters rose eight meters in 45 minutes in Tonga,
I expected people to say, send a helicopter, send a boat, send
divers, send Earth, moving equipment. The boundary wall has
fallen down. People are trapped.
Those such requests, the only request till one o'clock in the
morning, or the only calls till one o'clock in the morning was
from corporate South Africa.
What do you need and how much do you need
now, when you have that kind of compassion and that kind of caring
working both ways, you fix the country.
And to show the consistency in 2020 when covid came for the first
time, CEOs and MDs of companies called not CSI managers. CSI was
put up because it was a government requirement. Nobody really took it
seriously. To be honest, all I wanted to do was, how many bee
points tech certificate do you get? The right type in the media?
The type of project was irrelevant. It didn't make sense
after the time and during covid. Then this call said, Forget about,
be points, forget about tax certificate, forget about write
up. How do you save our people and how do you save our country when
that compassion runs across all people of all races and all
religions, your country can never collapse. We have an Arabic term
called barakah.
Barakah means bountys and blessings in abundance without
measure. One plus one becomes 100
because of the nature of the heart and the nature of sincerity. The
masses proved themselves again
on 20th March, 2023
a
political party said we're going to have national shutdown. It's
our right to march. If you don't March and don't close your shops,
they'll be looting. Who you to tell us when this became your
country?
Nobody dictates to us what to do. You
want to watch, please feel free. It's a free country, but don't
dictate to other people to close the shops. We will go to the shop
and we will go to hospital, and we will go to schools and
universities, and we will go to the ACDS. Nobody is going to
dictate to us. This country does not belong to you. Belongs to me
and to you, and to 65 million South Africans. And what happened
that day,
the messes in the country showed the party the middle finger.
We're not going to walk in the streets. We're not going to be
used the second time around. Go to Abu asi inanda and KWA Mashu at
night on the 19th of March, old ladies were sitting around the
malls. Were not kiddies and saying, what happened in 2021 it's
never going to happen again. We will not allow anybody to do this.
And in 2021
who played a vital role in stopping what was going on, the
people we just don't like, the taxi drivers,
they made sure that this will not happen. You see,
I got a spiritual teacher,
and he always says, look at the good in a person.
Never look for the negative. Never promote the negative. Always look
at the positive. So even a person irritates you, nags you, seems to
be doing the wrong thing. Always look at the soul and find
something good. And if you keep speaking about the good, the good
goes up, and the negative goes down, and the person becomes the
better person. That's the law of the universe. You send positive
thought into the universe. Positive things happen. You're
positive that this country will survive. This country will
survive. It will be the greatest country on Earth.
Go around the last few months. I mean, if this country is a failed
state, what are 50,000 Africans doing Loftus festival two weeks
ago,
and going all crazy and excited about a box meeting Australia.
Would you see that in a failed state,
or you will see total depression and sadness and people's spirits
killed.
We landed in a place called palompo in the Philippines.
Typhoon Haiyan, 2013 we
were the first team in the world that got there in.
As you got to the entering the island, the mayor, the councilors
and the leaders of the town came to the front,
very depressed. You don't say you don't hear any sound in the
island. You don't see any people moving around. You don't see any
activity. You see people all depressed. Nothing happening.
What happened?
The typhoon destroyed lot of houses, killed people, but more
than that, they're going to shut the main hospital down, the only
hospital down in the city, because the roof was severely damaged. You
shut down the hospital, you shut down life. Nobody had initiative
to do things for themselves. Everybody was just totally
depressed. I'm Afrikaner. Guys in my team, guys who know
engineering, who are good at building, who can make things
happen.
And they asked me what we're going to do. I said, we're going to fix
the roof of this hospital in three days, in 72 hours. They repaired
1000 square meters of the roof.
They started fixing the hospital, painting glass, tiling equipment,
and as we started suddenly in the entire island, we started getting
hammers and nails, and people started knocking.
Our job is to bring hope, to inspire to return faith to the
people,
and we as South Africans can do that. We are resilient. We can do
anything. We can fix anything. No problem is insurmountable. When
Eskom has load shedding, it's to prevent that grid from collapsing.
That's why they have load shedding. We will not reach that
point. And already 4000 megawatts have been created outside Eskom,
and that numbers will arise where people will get off the grid, and
there'll be less pressure on the grid, and the country will get
fixed. We got the last 30 days to go to survive, till 31st August.
We will survive. This country will survive. We have absolutely
nothing to fear. This is the greatest country on Earth. No
country goes without its challenges and its problems. We
will fix the country, but we need to do this together.
There's no skills in government. There's not enough experience. All
the best people are gone. We need the experienced people to come
back. We need the engineers, the teachers, the doctors, the
farmers, but we need to share, to hold, to make this country
survive. We need to hold hands with those who don't have and
carry them up with us. You see, we have a teaching
what you don't use is not yours. So if I give all of you 2 billion
each, you'll be very happy.
How many lifetimes it's going to take you to spend that money?
100 lifetimes. You can buy five houses, but you can only sleep in
one bedroom. You can make 10 cars. You can only drive one. The other
nine, they're battery going to go flat, and then you find the
mechanic to come sort it out. All the
headache, and you overeat, you get sick, you end up in hospital and
you pay the medical bill. Doesn't make any sense. From a spiritual
point of view, there's always a blessing in sharing. The more you
give, the more you get. Don't look at it in many terms. There's much
more to life than money. There's happiness, contentment, children
growing up the right way, family, goodness, calmness, prosperity in
business relationship between husband and wife and brothers and
sisters. That's what we call barakah.
So let me go back to where it all started, and then I'll finish off.
There
you see, six August, 1992
is the official date. The gift of the givers was created.
The unofficial date is very spiritual. It goes back to 1985
gift of the givers is not my organization. I didn't
get up one morning and say to myself, ah, I think today I'll
form an organization. Give it a name, get some founder members,
write a constitution and write down 1234, and five. This is what
I gotta do. It never happened like that. In 1985 I was doing
internship in King Edward Hospital in Durban, and like all young
people, I had plans for the future.
So I said, next year I will be a medical officer, then I'll become
a registrar, and then I'll become a specialist in internal medicine
as a consultant. It never happened that way.
There was no opportunity for me to study further. There was no post.
I couldn't make progress. I threw choices much like what everybody
in the country faced. I can sit in the corner and mope and cry and
roll and be depressed and make cartwheats and say, Oh, the world
is finishing up.
Or I can say, God, you've given me faith. You've given me a brain,
intellect and wisdom. I need to make a plan look at something
different. So I decided I go into private practice, something that I
did not want to do.
Them, but life has to carry on. So I said, I go into private
practice. We have a teaching. We don't pray for what we want.
We pray for what is good for us, because what you want may not
necessarily be good for you. So when there's a road bump and
there's difficulty, look at it again, man, you're going the wrong
road. The thing doesn't work out. Every time I try to do it, there's
an obstacle, obstacle, obstacle. God is telling you something, my
friend. Look at it properly. You're doing something wrong. Find
another part. There's too many potholes on that side. Go
somewhere else. Look at it very clearly with hope, and you will
find the solution. So January 86 I decided to leave Durban. My mother
passed on in 1984 in Durban, and I moved to marysburg. My wife's
family is from there. I set up private practice the week I moved
to marysburg in January 86
the new neighbor now comes to me is a butcher, and he says I got
this African guy that came from Pretoria. He was in America. He
was coming to the French at the university. He bought meat from
me, but he needs a doctor,
so I meet Miller,
and I treat him a few times, and then one day, he tells me an
unusual story.
He says I was in America on a scholarship, and I was walking
through the streets of New York, and that one day, I was feeling so
dejected, depressed, down, not sure my soul is empty, my spirit
is empty. I'm not sure why am I even living? What am I doing here?
It says from the corner of his eye, he sees a man looking at him.
He doesn't know what his men he's never seen him before. His heart
tells him, Follow the man.
We have another teaching. When in doubt, listen to the heart. Follow
the heart, not the head.
So he follows the man, and the man walks into Saint John the Divine,
a huge Church in New York, and when he gets in, he realizes the
man he followed into the church was a Muslim,
a Turk, a Sufi master, a master of spirituality
in the church. That same Sufi Master then makes a zikr.
A zikr in Islamic terminology, is the recitation of God's names in
Arabic. In other scriptures, you would say God the one and only
kind, compassionate, merciful, loving, eternal, absolute,
cheddar, nourisher, sustainer, crate of the universe, creat of
the heavens and the earth. Who say things like that,
but he says there were Jewish rabbi in the church,
Christian priests, Hindu pundits, people of other faiths and people
of no faith. They didn't understand about religion. They
all participated in the Zika unanimously, all of them.
And I looked at this and say, How is this possible?
And then understood
the thinking of the Christian elders of the church. The
Christian elders of the church understood real religion,
that religion is harmony. It's the unity of people, Unity of Mankind.
Real Unity does not cause conflict.
People have been telling us religion is a source of conflict.
Religion is not the source of conflict. People who leave
religion create conflict.
Why do you blame the religion?
When lawyers steal from the road accident fund, do you blame the
legal profession, or do you blame the lawyer?
When doctors make mad practice? Do you blame the medical profession,
or do you blame the doctor? So
what's the difference with religion?
The people lose the path and the problem.
And I understood this further,
malar tells me to go to Istanbul. The
spirituality is from there. He tells me that in 96 in 86
I tell him, Miller, I haven't even seen Cape Town. When am I going to
get to Turkey? He says something very profound. You said, what God
wills, happens? If God wills, this is going to be a great country.
This is going to be a great country, and it will be a great
country, and it is a great country.
You said, there's a time and a place. The time and a place was
August, 91
my wife and I landed there. What minister in New York we saw in
Istanbul,
what he saw in the church we saw in the Muslim Sufi place. But the
time that we saw was far more difficult than the time that he
saw, because our time was post Gulf War. Samuel Huntington spoke
of a clash of civilizations during the Gulf War.
The perception was Christians, Hindus and Muslims on one side,
and Christian Hindus and Jews on one side and Muslims on the other
side, east on one side, west on the other side. And coming from an
apartheid past, turned it up and.
When you walked inside, there you see Jews, Christians, Hindus,
Americans, Russians, people from Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Norway,
Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast
Asia and Africa, all in a Muslim holy place, believers and non
believers, religion and non religion.
No friction,
no discord, nobody taking his book and putting down somebody else's
throat. Yeah, you must follow this. Nothing,
only respect and understanding.
The teacher saw the shot on my face. How is this ever possible?
He said, What do you see?
I said, I'm really confused. How are people from different
religions and different nationalities in a Muslim holy
place? We fought with them all over the world. Why are they here?
Said my son, you see, right?
Mankind is one single nation. He said,
The God of all mankind is one. We just call him by different names.
Any Imam, Sheik, Priest, Pandit, Sufi that promotes violence,
extremism, Discord, chaos, confrontation or disorder, is not
a man of God. Don't follow him.
Any person who preaches love, kindness, compassion and mercy is
a man of God. Follow him.
If all of us do that in our country, if all of us forget the
race and labels and agenda and and titles and branding. And do that,
you will find the social cohesion, you will find the love. You'll
find the progress and the prosperity.
I leave Turkey,
August 92 the heart has been journeying the whole year since I
left that place. I saw something that touched my soul.
Six August, 92 the official date of gift of the givers. Formation.
I get to Turkey. They have the zikr again at 10 o'clock, 10pm at
night. Spiritual Teacher, after the Zika, picks his head up, makes
eye contact with me. I'm on the other side of the room, and he
looks seven words at the same time in FLUENT Turkish. And I don't
speak a word of Turkish,
but I understood every single word that you said in Turkish that
night. He said, My son, I'm not asking you, I'm instructing you to
form an organization. The name in Arabic will be walkful waqifen,
translated gift of the givers. You will serve all people of all
races, all religions, all colors, all classes, all cultures of any
geographical location and of any political affiliation, but you
will serve them unconditionally. You will expect nothing 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 the dignity
of man is foremost. Race difference will not destroy a
country, color difference will not destroy a country. Class
difference will not destroy a country. Eskom will not destroy a
country. What will destroy a country is when people lose
dignity, when you lose dignity, there are no consequences, because
there is nothing more to lose. You have lost everything. Once you
lose dignity. And when that happens, we are in serious
trouble,
because the amount of negative energy that will be created by a
loss of dignity will cause mayhem, chaos, confusion and disorder.
We nowhere near that. But intelligent people don't allow
that to happen. We make sure we prevent such a situation from
happening, and the only way to do that is to share, to hold hands,
to love people and to work together with government. Because
alone, nobody can do this. We have to do this together, clothe the
naked, feed the hungry and provide water to the thirsty, and in
everything that you do be the best at what you do,
not because of ego. That is the biggest obstacle on Earth. Ego
destroys a relationship between husband and wife, between parents
and children, between directors, people in the church, in the NGO
sector, in the corporate world, in the government, if anything,
destroys.
Is progress. It's ego, not because of ego, but because you're dealing
with human life, human emotion, human suffering and human dignity.
My son, this is an instruction for you for the rest of your life. I
was 30 years old, and then he said, remember that whatever you
do is done through you and not by you.
It's our anniversary on Sunday, 31 years I'm intelligent enough to
know that the kind of things that people think that I do is not
humanly possible.
There's a hand above that takes care of every single thing.
I told you. He spoke in Turkish. I don't understand Turkish. I
understood everything he said in Turkish. And asked him, I said,
How come when you speak Turkish? I understand and other people speak
Turkish, I don't understand. He said, My son,
when the hearts connect and the souls connect, the words become
understandable.
Asked him, there's a bit of a problem here. What exactly am I
supposed to do? I'm a doctor in private practice. I have three
surgeries in a place called Peter mattersburg in South Africa. What
am I supposed to do? And when am I supposed to do this like after
hours, public holidays, long weekends, school holidays. When
he told me one line,
you will know
for 31 years, I do know
what to do, how to do, what to touch, what not to touch, it
sounds philosophical. Let me give you a clear example. January 6,
2014
a group calls us from Yemen and says, you're looking for two South
Africans taken hostage. We said, yes, come tomorrow morning, seven,
January, 10 o'clock to Aden.
My team member from Yemen goes. They allow him to communicate with
me. He walks into the room. We don't know who took them, Pierre
and Yolanda, Yolandi, Koki,
and he they tell him,
Do you know who we are?
We are al Qaeda,
and you know what we're capable of? That
was his welcome. What do you want? We want the two South Africans.
Let's
start with the lady. You can have a 3 million US dollars,
four days, no training by the FBI, no training by Ms six, no trading
by state security, no degree, no PhD in hostage negotiations. In
four days, we knew exactly what to do. In four days, we took out
Yolandi Corki unharmed, unconditionally, no ransom, and we
pulled her out from al Qaeda in four days with no training, we
knew exactly what to do with no training.
The teacher said, You will know
in fact, the moment I walked out of that place of six, August, 1992
it came to me by inspiration respond to the civil war in
Bosnia. The same month, I took in 32 containers of eight all alone
into water in Bosnia. Three months later, I took it eight containers
of winter items the chill factor in Eastern Europe in winter can
reach minus 21 degrees. And the following year, because he opened
my mind, don't be prejudiced. Don't be stereotyped. Don't look
at all people, people in negative way. Open your heart to everyone.
I worked with an African company, afrit, from the Vietnam
engineering you've seen it on the trucks, the trailers Africa on the
road, and we designed the world's first containerized mobile
hospital, a product of South African technology, built in South
Africa and Pretoria our world first taken from Africa into
Europe, because we worked together across race and religion and had
no boxes, no stereotypes, taking every corner we work together as
human beings. And as a result of that, the CNN commentator said to
South African containerized mobile hospital is equal to any of the
best hospitals in Europe. We have the skills. We have the training,
we can make anything happen. I was invited by the Bosnian government
in 2005 my family and five my family and I went, and they said,
we identify South Africans for the giving of life, because there were
1000s of people that were saved in this hospital, and 1000s of
children were born in this hospital. Thank you very, very
much.
The final part
about something about the police. People, everybody say police is
bad.
A few years ago, the police van was driving from my own town,
Peter barrisberg, to Durban on the entry
on the road. The dog was running across,
the police stopped, picked up the dog and put it safely on the side.
It not to harm itself and to cause chaos on the road. Nobody takes
notice of that.
In April 2022
when the floods came, a child and a grandfather drowned in Henley
Dam near Peter marisburg,
a police lady diver dived in
not to take out a live person, to take out two deceased people so
that families can get closure. We all want closure. We all want
burial. We want cremation, because that's part of who we are.
The police diver drowned.
She got two small kids at home.
She go home and say, No, Malaysia is part of the saps, all corrupt,
bad elements, criminal people, is that the psyche you're going to
put in the
child? No, it's not correct. In ranzamo, April, 2020 in strand,
lockdown level five at
eight o'clock, the police comes to my team and says, shut down. The
old people are waiting in the queue. The queue, every person is
one meter apart. Is social distancing, physical distancing.
They're hungry. They haven't had food. It's ice cold, and police
cars comes and says, Sorry, level five, lockdown. That's the law.
Ali was there. He called me. I said, tell the saps. I'm not
shutting down the program. They can lock us up, they can jump in
the lake, fall in the sea, do what they want. I'm going to break the
law, and they can do what they want.
The police, to his credit,
sits and things for a while, and he says he's also going to break
the law
because people are important.
He phones for reinforcements, and he says, I need your guys help
you. These are all people. It's cold. Take the food parcel, and
let's take them to the house. Once they collect the food parcel,
there's a lot of goodness in South Africans. We just need to be
positive. At half past 12 in the morning, the last already takes a
fourth parcel,
and she says, I'm going home now to wake my grandchildren up.
And we said, Are you crazy? She said, when I left home this
morning, my grandchildren looked at me, what their eyes? What hope
in their eyes that I'm bringing home something they haven't eaten
in three days. If the police carried out the law, if he stopped
us, we would have destroyed the grandmother, her soul and her
grandchildren.
But because of the goodness and graciousness in this country, it
didn't happen.
In July, 2020
in Makanda, a small child comes to the soup kitchen, queue, thin,
freezing the cold, no shoes, torn shirt, no jersey, no jacket, no
hat, and it says, I'm very hungry,
but I won't eat. Just give me a little bit. Would you rather give
the food for me to take home for my mother, my father, my brother
and my sister, they haven't eaten.
The child became the sacrificial lamb. The child was sacrificing
how adults would sacrifice, and the child was prepared to go even
hungry so that the parents the respect and the brother and sister
could eat. And of course, we wouldn't allow that. We gave food
for everybody. These are the tragedies in our country which the
government self can't solve. Only we as human beings that sit
together and hold hands together and share together can make it
happen, to return dignity to the people, to work together, to
support each other. We can build this country. I'm gonna give you a
last example of the power of spirituality that I'm done
in November last year. My
friend from Cape Town calls me and he says, Would you like to meet
the new general manager of Turkish Airlines? He's from San Francis,
San Francisco. He's coming to Cape Town. He's going to be the Jew
General Manager, I told him, yes, as part of my job, we build
networks, we meet ambassadors, we meet plain people, we meet but
logistics, we meet equipment companies, and we do this, that
and the other Yes, I would meet him. I need a airline partner. I
can't find the right product. Till now, February three. And I told
him, there's a time and a place. February 3. February 1, I jump in
a plane in Durban I'm about to fly. And I say, hey, let's check
into the guy from Turkey is here. So I phoned him. He says, Here,
I'm checking now. Gets back. Yes, the guy is here. Can we meet
tonight? Yes, abus nine will have supply the Turkish restaurant.
I meet the general manager of Turkish Airlines. My first words
to him, Sinan, I need an airline partner in the event, I need to
move search and rescue equipment very quickly, personnel and
canines in case an earthquake hits a country four days later an
earthquake hits his country.
On the sixth of February, arrangements were made, search and
rescue equipment, personnel.
The canines all could move at speed because that relationship
was sorted out on the first of February. I didn't plan that come
to November last year, but five days before the earthquake, we
were shown the way. Two days later, I sent the canine unit from
the saps and in the rubble,
Donna, the dog of the Eastern Cape, head of dog unit, prakati,
vimalak mudli, picks up a live scent in the building, and eight
days later, we pull out a live grand, 90 year old grandmother.
Because of this dog in the earthquake itself, there were 12
teams. There 11 from government, from different governments in the
world. We were the only non government team in the area. We
came with five dogs. They were stunned at our skill at South
African skill at South African compassion across race and
religion.
And one of the teams was the Bosnian team.
And the Bosnian man comes,
kicks out a wallet, starts crying, takes out a picture and shows my
team leader the picture, baby and mother.
He said, This guy is tall like this. He says, this baby is me.
This lady is my mother.
I know your guy's name. So he said, What do you mean?
He said, You guys bought a hospital to Bosnia in 1993
I was born in that hospital. I will never forget people of South
Africa. What's the chances of that happening? Earthquakes all over
the world, damages all over the world. The man that's born in the
hospital, that gift of the givers took a cross, lands up and meets
my team members in an earthquake in Turkey,
ladies and gentlemen, fate
and four other important qualities are important to fix ourselves and
our country, spirituality,
morality,
values and ethics. All of us have that in our religions, all of us
have had that, as in our scriptures, in our books, we need
to return to it. We need to train our children and our
grandchildren. There is no need to go anywhere. This country is going
nowhere. Have both feet in this country. Work hard and together,
we will fix this country. It will be the best country in the world.
Thank you very much.
Dr suriman, that is actually quite mind boggling. What you people do.
And I think the bottom line is civil society people like us, who
are perhaps more fortunate than others, we need to have a
backbone, and we need to stand up, not towards white or black or
anything, but we need to stand up for what is right. And there are
lots of people who do have a backbone in this country, but it's
time we pulled it together. It's not the first time things are
being tight.
Won't be the last time that there will be problems in this country
and negativity, but it's us as the leadership of this country who
need to have your positive mindset and make it work and pull the bar
through the drift, as they used to say, for your time and your
effort. Thank you very much. Dr Suleman, applause.