Imtiaz Sooliman – Why Is ANC Ramaphosa & Co. Leading South Africa If Bad People Are A Minority
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The speakers emphasize the importance of strong bonds and respecting people from different cultures in achieving goals of South Africa. They emphasize the need for education and treating people with integrity and respect, as well as a whole basket of systemic changes to avoid political parties and lead the country. The success of their company in government is also highlighted, citing their ability to influence and support political parties and governments. The speakers emphasize the importance of working together to achieve a better world and encourage viewers to subscribe to their channel.
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This is the greatest country on Earth I've been to. I've been to
45 countries involved in disaster intervention. People have torn in
war situations. People have torn themselves apart. We haven't done
that. We survived 94 we survived the switch over to 94 when people
got stopped buying food, keeping their passports ready, getting
ready to run from the country. It never happened. It was the most
boring story for international media, because nothing happened.
The only thing that happened was peace, calm and love. If we can
survive it, then after so many years of operation, nothing is a
challenge.
You Good morning everybody. Solimwe again here at worldview,
the number one media company, this is where we explore everyone's
perspective on all those things that can broaden our own
worldview. This morning we have formerly Doctor imcha Suleiman.
Everybody knows him in South Africa, in around the world, He is
the founder of gift of the givers, the South African non governmental
organization that takes care of areas where, you know, established
official dome fails and disaster relief around the world. And he's
been doing all these amazing things, to the point where many
people are beginning to think, maybe this is a president that we
need in South Africa. Doctor. MTS, soon. Man, good morning. Good
morning. Solin, good to build you on the problem. Thank you. It's
lovely to see here. You gave me permission to call you. MTS, you
Sorry? MTS, is easier, right? Oh, yes, I don't know. You know, don't
you think, where do we start? Who is this? Man, where do what? Where
does it where did it all start? How did you see yourself, say,
1015, years ago, being where you're at today, in terms of how
much you've grown as an organization and the rich, the
wide, ranging reach of your gift of the givers. Do you see this
coming, or was it just organic over time?
Well, it was organic over time, but there is an explanation around
that. The basis is we need to understand that gift of the givers
is not my organization. I didn't get up one morning and say, Okay,
I think today I'll perform an organization. Give it a name, get
some founder members, write the constitution and do 1234, and
five. It never happened like that. People, the givers, have a very
strong spiritual basis. It's a long story, but I met a spiritual
teacher in Istanbul in August 91 and as part of that visit, when he
looked at me, this was post Gulf War, and Gulf War had polarized.
You know, with the Samuel Huntington spoke about the clash
of civilizations, and at that point it's the perception was
Christians and Jews on one side and Muslims on the other side,
west against east, coming from an apartheid past 10 hub. And when I
get to Turkey, to the Sufi place, the Muslim holy place, I see
people from America, Russia, Europe, South America, Australia,
New Zealand, Africa, all in Muslim holy place, people of different
cultures, different different religions, those who said they
don't even believe everybody was welcome, right? And I suddenly
couldn't understand, you know the harmony, the respect, know the
squad people accepting people for who they are, not what they are,
which group they belong to, right? And the cultural teachers saw the
shock my face when I saw this, and the first message was, it your
first trip to Istanbul and my first trip to Turkey
and so And the man says the spiritual teacher, I made eye
contact. What tells me, straight away, my son, mankind is one
single nation. The God of all mankind is one. We just know him
by different names, any Imam, Priest, Sheik, whereby Pandit,
anyone who preaches violence, extremism, Discord, conflict is
not a man of God. Don't follow him. Anybody who preaches love,
kindness, compassion and mercy is a man of God. Follow him. And we
had a discussion. At some point, he said, I read your soul. I see
you are someone who likes to help people. I done several projects
before gift of the givers, and I saw what I saw, fell in love, what
I saw, the harmony and the love. And I left. I came back the
following year. How long were you there for the first time?
One week, they meet on a Monday, on a Thursday and a Saturday,
right? So I was there on the Monday, the Thursday and Saturday.
It's a couple of hours, and you don't be with him all the time,
because there's people from all over the world. Want to engage him
so but I got quite a few good minutes in that period of time.
And it is more about, you know, absorbing what you sing around
you, understanding what you sing around you, you know, and feeling
the spirituality and the love around you. Something that changed
my mind, my soul, that basically the most stereotypes of my head,
that everybody you know who's from the country we have prejudice
against because of apartheid. Everybody's not a bad person.
Religion is not a bad so was it was a multi religious gathering,
or was it Muslim? It's a Muslim gathering with multi religious
people present, right and and from what I heard is people from all
over the world always come there to to watch and to see.
What's going on so and it's a tradition for years, which of
course, to me, was my first experience, even as a Muslim. So
it was, it was, it was very it was, it was, it was magnificent
feeling to see people so respectful of each other, given
the difficulties in the world, the conflict in the different
countries, the conflict post Gulf War, the Gulf War itself and the
most party negotiations were happening in South Africa already
around the time, yes, yeah, it already started in 1990 right? In
fact, before 1990 Mandela was released in 19 already happening
at that time. And it was something, it was an eye opener.
And I went back. I said, Look, this is a perfect hope. The world
could be as perfect as this, you know. And so I get back on six,
August, 92 I come back to Turkey. My heart years to be there on a
Thursday night at 10pm the spiritual teacher looks straight
in the eye, and he looks heavenward. And those in the in
that order, for years, said, what happened that night has never
happened before. Oh, and he looks He speaks to me in FLUENT Turkish.
I don't understand the word of Turkish, but I understood every
single word that you said that night. Wow. He said, My son, I'm
not asking you, I'm instructing you to form an organization. The
name in Arabic will be walkful. Waki fin translated gift of
the givers. What forward the work? Full Waki Okay?
Walk.
Full wakifin, yes, Arabic, we translated closely, became the
gift of the givers, right? You were support people of all races,
all religions, all colors, all classes, all cultures, of any
geographical location and of any political affiliation. And I was
saying this to you in a free there was there were other people in the
room. He's looking
at you. Everybody was there, right? It's a massive crowd,
right? You serve all people unconditionally, but you will
expect nothing in return, not even a thank you. This is an
instruction for you for the rest of your life. And then the
spiritual message came, remember, my son, that whatever you do is
done through you and not by you. Then to answer your question.
Subsequently, every time I met him, he said, this thing will get
big and bigger and bigger, but I never envisaged it getting to what
it got to now, never my wildest dreams that I thought it will get
so big to get to so many people. And he said, he says he gives
things. He said people from all over the world will look for you.
That happens all the time. Are you? Is it like your spiritual
father? Now, do you? Do you have a like a annual pilgrimage to meet
with him, to share the story? No, you, you communicate via, you
know, by intermediaries, right? And he passed on in 1999
and then, in the spiritual order, a new person takes on over. And
then, of course, the first person was that person was a stress
lieutenant who also knew very well, and, you know, so I but the
problem was that after he passed on, I found it very hard to
connect with another teacher. Even though there was nothing wrong
with the teacher, my connection with my first teacher was so
strong that I felt him in my presence more when he was passed
on than when he was then, when he was alive, and I felt him talking
to me. And then eventually, in 2016 I said, No, the spiritual law
teaches that you have to connect with the next teacher. So I went
in 2016 although I connected with him immediately after the first
teacher passed on. And then I had a few engagements, you know, with
him, and you have communication by whatsapp and email and that kind
of stuff. And then he passed on on the fourth of September. And
strangely enough, when I was there in 2019
the person who's the new
teacher now just been inaugurated a week ago. In my mind, summer, it
told me that he's going to be the next teacher. You know, what do
you call the what's the proper name for the the teachers? We call
him Sheik. We just call him chef Sheik. Okay, yeah, yeah, the chef
of the order, yeah, okay. But in this case, the grand Cheikh,
because he's the overall number one in charge, and the other ones
I just call chef or caliphs, you know, Representative so, you know.
And so the new one has come on, which I have to reconnect, but
now, which means I gotta go back to techie at some point. So to
answer your question, there was always connection between people
who were linked to him. And it was always if something was worrying
me, I would send him a message and I would get a reply two days
later. So the connection was always there, except when he
passed on, I found it very difficult to connect with a new
teacher. Always, he's a fantastic man, and at some point I started
the connection with him, and then eventually met him a few times,
you know. And of course, not. The same thing has to happen with a
third teacher, and it is that same first teacher said, you know, you
would never look for money. People will come looking for you from all
over the world, you know, and you will grow and grow and grow. And
he kept on emphasizing, whatever you do is done through you and not
by you. Have you? I don't know if it's a strange question. Did you
watch Spider Man one? In this spider man one, they say, with
great with power comes responsibility. With great power
comes great responsibility.
Something along those lines. But I've observed over time, and I'm
sure you have too that if you want to see the real character of an
individual, give them either a lot of money or a lot of power, and
you see how quickly it is for some people, it goes to the head, and
they become another, something else, a monster. In many cases,
how do you remain grounded throughout all of this? Because
it's his first teaching to me that that same night was, remember,
whatever you do is done through you and not by you. Yeah, there's
no place for ego. It's a spiritual thing. The moment ego comes in,
you will lose everything you know, and ego is destructive. Ego is
greed, ego is evidence, ego is war, ego is Monster. Ego is
everything destruct a human being. You know, it's the and he said,
even in the spiritual law, ego catches spiritual teachers. He
said, we all have to be very not in the spiritual world and non
spiritual everywhere, that even in the spiritual world, the ego can
take the head of us a great spiritual teacher, and destroy him
completely. And he said, That's the number one thing you gotta
safeguard against. And to be honest, sorry, you know if you, if
you're rational in in an intelligent enough when you see
things happening, you understand that the kind of things that we do
is not normally humanly possible. You know that the kind of things
are put up, put in place for us and our things we achieve. You
understand, no, there's a higher hand working for you. You know,
how do you meet the right person in the right time? How do you know
where to go? How do you know which person is the right person you you
should be working with? I mean, you got no history or a CV or as a
specialist Security Agency report or something, and somehow, you
just meet the right people with the right mentality, the right
type of sentiment, to footing, and it's been happening for 30 years.
Do you? Do you meditate often, pray every all the time, to always
be aware of your impact and the person that you are you know, in
order to remain grounded, because you do have to remind yourself, I
mean you, when you see yourself all over the media, the beautiful
work that is done by the organization that you lead,
there must be temptation from time time to time to say, you know, I'm
cool. I mean, cool dude, I'm a big guy. Does it happen? Or do you
does it never happen? I don't allow it to happen. In spiritual
teaching, it's it doesn't say, Don't do the deed. It says, Don't
come close to the deed. And not to come close to the deed is to
prevent the deed from actually happening. So do you prevent it?
Prayer? Prayer, vital prayer, you know, it's a lot of prayer, you
know, all the time and and key reaffirming that this is not you
that have you ever felt endangered?
No, oh yeah, yes, physically Yes. In the war zone, I was shot
wizards friend over me, bombs all over me. Gun was put to my head,
and in South Africa, I was hijacked at gunpoint some time ago
in 2012
so yes, but I'm not afraid of death because So, because our
teaching is, you know, you die when your time is up at the
appointed time, not one minute earlier, not one minute later. And
the only certainty of life is death. You know, you know you
gotta go at some point. So I'm not afraid of that. I mean, you're a
you're a Muslim man,
and you are known to be a Muslim man. You operate in a world where
you save people from across the field. Do you ever think that it's
your right to try and change people into into Islam, to bring
people into Islam so that they can be better people. Or do you say,
This is who I am, this is who you are. We're going to live and, you
know, covid together in this world and make this place place a better
place for everybody. Well, number one, Islamic law does not allow
you to force anybody to become Muslim? You know, it's Secondly,
Islamic law accepts all religion. And as the teacher said, The God
of all mankind is one, we just joined by different names. This
the Islamic teaching teaches you to respect people from all
religions that then the teaching from the sheik was you to help
everybody unconditionally. You're not going to help anybody. What
anterior motive? Oh, are happening with hope that it will become a
Muslim, or this that or the other will give me some gift, or I'll
get something out of him. It's you walk in, do the job and walk out.
We're not interested, you know, in because that defeats the purpose
of true charity, of true service. You know, it has to be done with
expecting absolutely nothing in return. And we've kept that
philosophy for 30 years. And of course, having, I can be telling
you the stuff, but the proof is in the lived example, that the
recipients, enablers benefited from us. No, we have no, there's
no conditions. It's unconditional. Do you who funds you the public? I
mean, the kind of thing you do is like, requires huge amounts of
money and huge amounts of skills and individuals of support. As the
organization becomes bigger, you need people who manage finances,
who operations, who manage communication, who manage all
these things. So you you also have to be blessed with a good team of
people that you can rely on, so that you can also be able to go to
sleep at night without without keeping one eye or.
It? Yes, no, we got a phenomenal team. But you know, it's not this
high, expensive cost. You know that people drink off in a
company. Everybody works there. Doesn't work on a Saturday. They
come here because they have a commitment. They have this
spiritual inclination. They work because they love what they do.
But they have to, sort of, yeah, we don't. They get, they get to
keep paid, but nothing compared to the corporate world. If you want
to make money in the corporate like the corporate like the
corporate world, to come to the wrong place, right? Or in the
South African government, yeah, it's, it's, it's people who come.
I mean, yes, the volunteers that we have, the medical teams and the
certain SV teams, they don't get paid, but they only get called
when we need them for an inter major intervention locally or
internationally. And then those guys come, you know, they come
from expensive homes, expensive cars. They lie in areas where
there's complete there's no switch control, there's no toilets,
there's no water, there's bombs falling, there's no shelter. And
those guys keep coming back over and over again, and they say the
spiritual experience is, is priceless. People, you know, come
like that all the time. And even in within the company, we've
developed the skills of very ordinary people. I mean, a guy was
just packing today is a manager, a warehouse manager in Eastern Cape.
He used to, used to be a packer, and people have grown in multiple
ways. Understood that. I mean, recently, one of my son works with
me, and he said, Look, this lady came from being a packer at a
supermarket. And while she was speaking in whilst packing,
realized that this lady got a lot of skills, right? So he called
her, and he said, You know what? You will answer the phone from
today. And while answering the phone, people started sending us
compliments that this lady speaks brilliantly on the phone, right?
And then we said, Okay, we're not responding to the social media,
which is good enough put her on to respond to social media, and she
started responding to that. And we just started getting responses
from everywhere to say, You know what, yes. So, you know, you give
people a chance. It's what, this is, what the country is all about.
It's about opportunity, yeah, identifying people and giving a
chance to grow and in the organization to tell them that if
you find a better job, we will get a better salary, not a charity
related salary. You are most welcome to go, but everybody
lives. Nobody leaves. Yeah. I mean, it shows a lot of people
will go, will stay in an organization, not so much for the
salary, but because the atmosphere in the the feeling of of worth,
you know, feeling they contribute to this. They see the difference
of of what they do in the lives of others, and people will stay
usually. Yes. Have you ever had to fire anyone? Yes, I did. Yeah, for
you know, give them many warnings, especially when it comes to theft,
you know, and especially when we when we tell you, if you want
something, we'll give it to you for free. Please don't steal it
was spoil the culture of what we stand for, spiritual organization.
We can't be having no misdeeds taking place here. Please don't
steal, you know, and and they get the stuff for free. And when you
set that kind of example, I find them on the spot. There's no
second chance. But, I mean, there are labor laws in South Africa,
you can just say, because a lot of companies are unable to fire
people who should have been fired long or even in government, we we
see people on huge, huge salaries, on suspension for four, five
years, some of you, some of them, some of them even come back to to
claim bonuses while they are on suspension. I mean, like
everything, we take everything to the labor law. We take it to the
CCMA. We haven't lost a single case, right, right? Did you what?
What are the values? I mean, when somebody comes into the
organization, do you have a piece of paper with the values of gift
of the givers so that everybody knows these are the the prescripts
by which we live well when they come in, we, when we, when we
employ them, you know what? We don't have it written down,
because it's impossible to write everything down, you know, it's
about being honest, about having the product character, you know to
and you know you Why did you, first of all, why did you come to
this organization? Right? Right? So you should know why you came to
us, you know. And you came to us because you see, the kind of
things that we do, is your behavior going to be consistent
with the kind of things that we do? Yes, if that's going to be
welcome to come there? Yes, you may make a mistake along the line.
That's possible, that it's understandable. People may have
some bad habits. Doesn't make them bad people, you know? So we have
to look at that in totality, where so and we, and the most important
thing is what us, when you in the field, how do you treat people?
Yeah, make them feel, you know, like there's some kind of dirt,
that you're the boss, that you're more arrogant that you do you
don't have control over their lives. Or do you teach them treat
them, about Love, dignity, kindness, if you fail, dead, I'm
not taking you back, yeah,
because it's about how you relate to people, and that's the most
important, because we deliver stuff to people when great
distress. Yeah, I was in waiting to teach it in at a Paris based
organization called IP. So for people who go into multilateral
organizations diplomacy, it's called auditor national politic,
and they so we look at the history of conflict resolution. Obviously
in earlier times, it was you wait for the conflict to happen and
then you jump in guns blazing to say to people.
Where we were, you stand aside. You stand aside. Let's sort it
out. And over time, it's become How do you prevent conflict so
that it doesn't happen? Because conflict is expensive, conflict
resolution can be quite expensive, and can it? Can it can be quite
protracted, and that now is about creating conditions for there to
be no conflict. So how so you guys, do you wait for conflict to
happen and then jump in. Or do you when there is there's no disaster
happening? Do you teach do you say to people, do you have tools that
enable you to say there's going to be conflict there? There's going
to be disaster there? Let's go in before it happens and talk. Talk
people down. I'll ask people to come down and maybe have them see
that if they continue the way they are doing, there's going to be
conflict or do you just wait for the good to do disaster? No, our
role is different. We're humanitarian. We deliver aid, we
assist medical teams. We're not involved in conflict resolution.
Those are different people who do that. And then to do that, it
requires some kind of political element before something happens
to the disaster. Then you have to get into the political space. You
have to get permission to come into that kind into that country
to talk to different groups. Now, that takes a lot of time on its
own. We specialize. We specialize in one kind of it's purely
humanitarian, alright. But while saying that, we always preach, you
know, to use for the lack of better word, sort of religious
thing, but you know, just to say, teach people that is always better
to have harmony tranquility, whether it's foreign nationals and
South Africans, whether it's South Africans and South Africans,
whether it's different race groups, what is our country and
the rest of Africa and the rest of the world? Why in other parts of
the world we preach that, you know, or teach that love and
compassion and kindness and respect for each other, it's it's
far more beneficial, far more happy, and, you know, more joyful
than having conflict and trying to prove yourself better than
somebody else. In the long run, nobody wins in a conflict. Nobody
wins in a war because the hate, the the desire for revenge, the
the friction and the discord just carries on for hundreds upon
hundreds upon hundreds of years, and you can never win a situation
like that. As I said in the beginning, don't do the disaster,
you know, prevent getting to the disaster in the same way, prevent
the conflict. Don't get into conflict and try to sort it out,
because there is no winning a conflict. Yeah, you know, people
are saying, if you look at South Africa today, there's going to be
conflict if certain things don't change. Mister Doctor imtia
Suliman, Imtiaz, people respect you. A lot of people, you know?
They will say, yeah, maybe this is a man who should lead South
Africa. People in South Africa don't have in in Mandela anymore.
We are a very diverse society, and many South Africans live with
with, with the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Many have not
even acknowledged all all backgrounds. There's been pain in
the past, and they need somebody to hold them together. Do you
think your calling could also be maybe, from time to time, maybe
you're doing it right now with me. Say we need to not forget that we
need one another. Do you find that people have to do more of that? I
do that all the time, you know. And this year I've been I've up to
now. I've done 114 talks this year, and all of them is nothing
about raising money for charity. It's all about giving South
Africans hope, telling them how important we are to work with each
other, show the flaws in the country, but emphasize the
spiritual aspect. Yes, there are people with bad habits. Doesn't
make everybody bad. Yes, there's corruption government, but
everybody in government is not corrupt, you know, yes, there's a
problem with the saps, but every guy in saps is not bad, you know.
So we need to understand we can't make a blanket decision on
everyone, and that if you see South Africans in daily life, in
the area that you live, where you work, at your school, there's
understanding, there's joy, there's harmony. There are people
outside that space who try to cause the conflict for political
end or for their own popularity, for their own ego, people like
that. I call them traitors and anti patriots. Anybody, of course,
cause conflict, anybody who steals money, anybody with disadvantage,
poor people or the surrounding society, is a traitor and anti
patriot. And that's what we need to call them out for, alright, but
look, I totally agree and understand. People like to say,
but say, say, you talk about the ANC. But not everybody is corrupt.
Or in government, not everybody is corrupt. But if the whole
direction of the movement of the government is is in the wrong way,
it means that even though not everybody is bad, the people who
are bad are dominating the environment. Sometimes it takes a
little minority to to take it, to direct a ship in the room, in into
the room waters, you know, stormy waters. What you say is completely
true, and we have the mechanism to stop that. It's called the vote,
right? So people have to educate themselves. Yes, you would
actually educate themselves. You can't keep going, you know, in the
same vein all the time,
and you tell those in the ruling party that it's like the same
thing. Why did you come to gift of the givers? What attracted you to
organization? Was it Lori? Was it spiritual? Was it to help people?
So why did you go into power? Did you go there because you said
you're the liberation movement so many hundreds of years, you know,
years, over 100 years, you did this, that in the other they have
helped you.
Forefathers helping the oppressed people. But did you actually going
to do that? Or you're going to serve yourselves? You're in the
wrong place. You shouldn't be in government. You should be in the
corporate world or somewhere else, right? And then you don't, you
don't set the and the corporate world is coming more service
oriented, you know, to be fair to them, especially during covid, the
civil unrest and the floods, you can see there's more and more
interest from CEOs, not CSI, the CEOs of companies, saying, how do
we get involved in fixing the country? How do we help our
people? Which is compassion in in and continue in. You know, in
materialism, with very, very in the commercial world, there's not
compassion. How to serve? So in the three way, one, the corporate
world is coming towards humanity. Within the government you are
there to serve. If you don't make the grade and you're there for the
wrong reason, then you gotta leave. And the people who can see
that they have the power in the end say, Sorry, we don't want you
go. Yeah. But look, I mean, we've seen through state capture and
other continuing forms of corruption in South Africa that
many people in the corporate world have been, have participated in
some of that stuff. A lot of money has gone through the banks in
South Africa that was stolen. If I'm a teacher, I get paid, and
money, my own money, comes into A into my South African bank
account. I get asked fill in this form. They said, What's this money
for? But people have moved millions, millions and millions,
and people still fund political parties that are corrupt. Surely,
the corporate world needs to be clear. They need to raise a voice
that says, We can't. It's not good for South Africa for these things
to happen. But it seems like they keep quiet, because they get, some
of them get government, government business, and they can't afford to
lose that, so they'd rather keep quiet. Look the other way. Well,
that has changed, that has changed, and it's changing more
and more, whilst we're talking about an ethical dilemma in
government, under the public you have to talk about that to the
corporate world. And that's something that I do also. And I
keep telling them, You guys say government is corrupt. Auto
corrupts government. Yeah, you and the guys are corrupt government.
But at the same level, why is there changes? And you know, an
awareness among and people inside government. The same thing is
happening in the corporate world also, and you find a lot of people
wanting to fix things. For example, the floods, what
happened? The corporate world didn't say, let's put millions of
brands into government's hands. They said, No, no money to
government. You know, they don't want to vote anymore and and you
can see that there's a cooling off between government and political
parties, because the political parties prove they couldn't save
the corporate world from the unrest in 2051 and the billions of
brands that we've put into your hands, you failed us. We lost over
50 billion. So you are unreliable partner. You're not, you know, we
can't respect you and we can't deal with you, because you've
proven that you can't do anything, you know, constructive so that and
in the what all that has happened, it's good that it has happened.
You know, state capture has woken us up, because we are just all
South African citizens. We just sit back and say, okay, counter
dispensation is changed. Everything's going well, leave
everything to government, and people went to sleep and, you
know, and now suddenly, the good thing is, it has been exposed. It
also put under the carpet. People are trying to, to know, to to
arrest people, to charge them, to exile SIU, the Hawks, they're all
trying to do them. But Yes, there'll be always obstacles, to
stop them, to prevent them, to not to gain resources. But it's in the
open. We've seen what's happening. For me that August, very, very
well for thriving democracy and to see change in the country, and
eventually comes down to one thing, we want to see the change.
We must be the change within ourselves to see the change happen
in the country. Yeah, absolutely. Does the President take your
calls? No, I don't ever call him. You know, if you were to give, to
be given an hour, 30 minutes or 15 minutes with him in your room,
what? What would be your two, three main messages be to him,
just go out to the people. My, my, my only message will be to go out
on the ground and see what. And that's message, not only to the
President, to the ministers, to the premiers, to the MSCs. Don't
listen to your advisers. You know they tell you what you like to
hear. Right? What do you feel a pulse of the people be? What true
leaders are? They go into the trenches. They go down and they
listen. I don't kind of make offensive speech. Yes, yes, yes.
We sort it out next week. When you got absolutely no intention of
doing that, don't give false hope, false promises, because you would
like somebody to give you false hope and give you false promises
and live in a situation you are in, especially when they put their
heart, their soul, their trust in you, but your power, for one
reason, to change the situation, if you really care for the people,
get out of the cars, get out of the buildings, and go into the
into rural areas and all the areas, and listen rich, poor,
black, white, Indian, color, everybody. Listen to everybody's
women sit at the table and say, okay, 50% we can fix 50% we can't
fix. It's going to take a little longer, but fix something at
least. Let's listen to something. And every 1% progress is 1%
progress. So let's go and do that. We don't need to do anything else.
Do you have a sense that any of them listen to you.
Yes, they do. You know, I speak to a lot of leaders. They call me,
ministers call me. We fight all of that. You know, in a day time, we
fight in a night with friends. And they know the fight is not for any
particular reason. I'm not interested in their political
power. I'm not interested in government. I'm interested in the
people they have promised to serve. And if a.
If we don't do that, the country will go up in flames, because
people will be desperate. It's not about hunger. It's about lack of
dignity. It's about humiliation. It's about total lack of hope.
Loss of
hope is completely lost. We need to fit those things, and people
are very resilient. They're very patient, they're very calm,
they're very forgiving. We can't abuse that, you know? Yeah, we
need to take care. And a lot of them listen and they say, What
does we do? And a lot of them come back and say, our systems
preventing us, prevent us from doing the right things we want to
do the right things. We don't know how. We don't have the skills, we
don't have the management, we have the obstruction, we have the
blocks, we have the bureaucracy. So I tell them, are you in
government? Yes or no. They said, Yes. I said, What stops government
from removing those obstacles for progress? I said, call a Cabinet
meeting. Yeah, take all the points, number one to 15 that you
don't like and start deleting and start implementing. Because I
said, you guys don't understand three words, urgency, emergency
and disaster is not in your vocabulary. You can't declare a
national state of disaster or a national state of emergency, not
emergency disaster, and still take six months to do something about
it. It defeats the purpose. When you say disaster, it means now the
next hour, in the next 24 hours, not eight or nine months later and
still running, happens. So they have there is a willingness to do
a lot of people do the right thing, but the systems are
crippling. Let me give one more example in a disaster, like the
case that influence, there's a complete disconnect. Who does the
stuff? Is a national, provincial or local? Is it disaster
management, the canine or defense force? Is it the municipality or
human settlements or water and sanitation? Nobody knows. So
there's no clear chain of command. Everybody wants to do something,
but nobody does anything, because everybody leaves it to somebody
else, and nothing happens. The problem happens, yeah, but surely,
because we've had the experience, one would hope that somebody would
have sat down, looked back at how it unfolded, and then said
precisely what we've just said, let's have a conversation about
ensuring that it doesn't happen again, or if it happens again, we
are ready for it? Do you sense there's that kind of conversation,
if the floods were to happen again tomorrow, the same floods in
Canada, in another part of South Africa? Do you think that we are
more ready for them? No, we're not. We're not ready because the
systems are not in place. Number one, but the systems were created
by people. Yes, but the peoples have egos. That's the problem
every province. I mean, take the ANC in in case they didn't told
that the Kalima, they're not going to listen to him. They'll announce
a candidate if they want him, if there's indiscipline within the
organization, how you expect the government to be disciplined? But
at the same time they are, you know, people and government who
are disciplined. I mean, the Minister of Social Development
called me and she said, You know what? What are the problems with
the disaster in our country? And she called the whole NDA, and she
called everybody to sit and talk to me, you know, on, on Zoom and,
and she said, What you're saying is right. But she said, we've got
a problem with our system. Now you must change the systems. So that's
exactly what I told her, you know. And, but, but I admire her for
calling me to stop her right wanting to listen and saying what
you're saying is right. We need to fix it, but we need to find a way
how to fix it. So how long ago was that? When was that? March this
year? Okay, so many, many months ago now? Yeah, so. But I mean, at
least it was a start, you know, and and even you speak to other
disaster management people, you can't change things overnight
because the systems are too slow. But the fact that people want to
listen, they want to listen, they want to discuss, they want you to
be part of them. It's a good step. It's a but. But, you see, this is
the thing that we do best in South Africa. In Africa, we have these
conversations with, say, all the right things. We know what must
not happen. We know what must happen. We know who are the people
messing up the system, the lives of many, many people. And then we,
then we go home. We've had the conversation. It's great. We post
it on social media, but nothing happens. You guys had that meeting
in March, and this year, surely there could have been some form
of, okay, let's, let's, let's have some key implementables over, say,
the next 12 months, and then let's check on them. It's like be, we're
discussing be the other day. Uh, it's been around since the early
90s. A lot of people think it's messing up the systems, you know,
professional procurement rules, etc, etc, but we're not changing
them. So we keep trying the same things over and over again. We
have conferences, beautiful, intelligent conversations with
doctors and professors and this and that, but nothing changes. So
what's the use of it?
Taking responsibility for me to make sure that electricity crisis
and the other crisis they're getting, they're getting a lot of
pressure. You can see the problem. There will never was pressure in
the beginning, everybody just sat down, sat down. And I've, I've
made a call to the country, and I'm saying it loudly and clearly,
wherever I speak, the country does not belong to the government. It's
not their country. It belongs to me, to you, at 65 million people,
and the moment, the more realize that we take ownership of the
country, and we start putting pressure on those people who say
they're serving us, we don't serve us to out, and that's why we need
to use the boat. But at the same time, you can't keep complaining.
Let's fix what we can ourselves, because to.
Fair to government, 7 million people's taxes. Can't look after
65 million people, given all the difficulties that we have. So
whether the Australians, the Germans, the Americans or the
Canadians, were running our country, they they had 7 million
people paying taxes. They can't look after 65 million people.
Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, a big proportion of the of those
taxes go to into places where they should go. That's a problem. Yeah,
that's true. That's true. A lot of money is lost, but even spider,
even if it wasn't lost, you still won't have to look after 65
million people, right? And that's why we gotta stand together and
tell govern, okay, we put in your notice. We're giving three to four
years. The corruption is there. The mess has been made. We can't
really say about that, you know, let's put the people on it
overalls, attach assets, bring the money back from outside, and make
sure this thing never as Judge Richard luzondo said, we must make
sure that this thing never happens again. We can't do anything about
what's already done, but we can learn from it and prevent it from
happening a second time, you know. And at the same time, whilst doing
that, let's try to catch those and attach as much and set an example
to say, this will not be allowed. And the only people can do that is
the public wants to take ownership of the country and say, Look,
we're not. And at the same time, there is another important issue.
Whilst we're talking about the government, there are several
servants who want to do their job inside government. They are
government, but they are really, really good people. The police
want to do the right things. They say you want to do the right
thing. So once talking about social development, I must tell
you, when the youngest maintained the tailings dam collapsed. The
Social Development guys were outstanding. I've never seen
government people work like that in my entire 13 years. That's
right, I thought this, you know, and they, they don't they're not
young ladies. They're in the it was hot. They were within a day,
they had a list of everybody was affected. They visited every house
they had, every name they knew was missing. They knew where to put
them, where to move them, who requires what, how many in the
house, and when we came with the staff to assist them, they said,
Please, we got the list, but we don't have the items. We said,
we'll bring that. No problem. They organized everybody in the line,
and the people were disciplined. They were absolutely amazing.
Yeah, that is what real government is about. When I see that, I have
a lot of hope that when you can fix a lot of things in this
country. Yeah, that's that makes me smile. I I'm very happy to hear
what you've just said. But yeah, of course. And I totally agree
that there are some centers of excellence here and there. There
are people we've also seen people come out as whistleblowers, as
people who refused to sign a document that they knew would lead
to somebody stealing money. There are many good people, there's no
doubt about it, but maybe we need to grow that community of people.
But we also need to, you know, I'm I mean, I mean brand reputation
management, and I think that all brands, just like the gift, gift
of the givers, brand, are led by somebody, and that person has to
lead from the front, because you represent the brand, whether you
like it or not, you are the brand. You are out there the same the
things that you will do, that you do, how you do them, speak to the
brand. A country as diverse as South Africa needs a president, a
leader, who is able to speak to everybody who is who has the moral
high ground, as it were to say, but that's wrong. This is not good
for us, not for my party, for my people being a portion of the
population, but for all of us, our Africans. This is we are. We don't
have a choice. You see, we don't have a choice of South Africans.
We have to make this country work for us, for all of us, but if you
don't have a leader who's able to stand from the top and say, Guys,
stop it. This is not acceptable. This is acceptable. This is what
we do. We are not acceptable. Then we continue going in all
directions. I understand that citizens have to take
responsibility, but there's gotta be a voice up there that unites
us, don't you think, yes, sure, the citizens are taking
responsibility, but the voice is not there to lead us. That's the
problem, you see? So we have to come in to fill that gap, but it
doesn't mean we absolve the leaders at the top from doing what
they have to do, right? You need leadership from the front, and you
have to do it without fear or favor. It's not about the
political party. It's about the country. You know, it's you are
there, not for yourself. And until you realize that, you know,
Mandela was outspoken. He was not scared of anybody. You know, we
need that kind of character again, to say, you know, what put in the
party and like what he said, If my party does the wrong thing. Vote
against him, you know, replace them. He was bold enough to say
that from the beginning, not that he found anything wrong with the
party, but he was making a statement was that was important
to bear for the future. You know, it's a principle that everybody
should follow, that the interest of the people is above any other
interest in even your own interest. And if you do that, we
can fix the country and the President needs to speak out and
say, what is wrong and stop it. And the country comes first. The
party cannot be first. Yeah, I get a sense that, and I've been saying
this for quite a while now, that probably, first of all, I believe
that we need a whole basket of systemic changes. Do we need to
change the way our institution functions? People have got
appointed, but we also played too much powers in the president's
office, thinking that everybody is going to be like Mandela. And
we've seen what happened so and and I also think, and this is my
question to you, that we need to have a South Africa where the
President of the Republic plays, plays allegiance to the
Constitution of the country of the Republic.
Not to a political party right now, it seems like we have had
presidents who have to look to decide every morning whether
they're wearing a political party hat or a Republican Republic's
hat. We had the president, the current president, once saying
that he would rather be seen as a weak president of the Republic of
South Africa than one under whom his political party would be
split. So then, so that's not good. We can't have that really,
surely, no, surely, no. It comes down to, why did you come into
office, and what did you come to the office for? It comes back to
the basics, you know. And you come in to serve, then you should sit
back. I uphold, I uphold the Constitution of the country,
whatever the words they use, you know, and the time they appoint
you. And we have to go back and look at that, and you're right.
Yes, the President has to serve the Constitution and the country.
And yes, we need to have system major changes in the way
government works. It's a big flaw, provincial, natural and local. It
can't work that way. There's too many cooks in abroad. There's too
many egos, and nothing gets done. The whole system of implementation
has to change, and even with certain things are done. I think
Treasury gotta take total control and not give it to different
departments to control funding for certain things. I think
municipalities is a big area for corruption. Water should not be
municipal responsibility. It should be a national
responsibility, you know. And the other thing as a as an aside,
completely off the topic, is that within the Treasury, we should
have a budget for maintenance and repair, not put maintenance and
repair within the different housing, education, you know,
health, whatever, put it under treasury. And they themselves must
take responsibility for fixing the country itself. So they we have to
read and what responsibilities we give to whom. And, you know, what
should be a national responsibility and what should be
a local responsibility, and and also the the way money is spent,
why one municipality will pay four, 4 million for the school and
another municipality pay 200,000 for the same school. We need to
have a central system. By the moment the price comes in, the
computer say, hey, something's wrong here, you know. So we need a
more centralized system where everything is controlled as price,
you know, matching to say, hey, something wrong. What is this
machine is costing 200,000 a year, but other places costing you to do
1 million there's something wrong. So we need a better system.
Nothing is not happen. You know, all the crisis we've had in the
last nine or 10 years has brought a lot of good people to the fore,
who want to change the system, who want to fix the system. And the
the biggest crisis would have been if this thing wasn't brought to
the fore. Nobody was interested in the system. Nobody was interested
in challenging the system. Nobody was there to make a big noise. If
that happened, we were a total state of disaster, yeah. But
because that, we are changing the system and standing up. That's
going to make the difference. Yeah. I think it'd be great for
the minister, relevant minister, to understand these things that
happened over the past two, three years will not happen again,
because these are the measures we put in, we have put in place to
make sure they don't happen again. To speak to South Africans come
closely, as you say, the Minister must go out to the people, not
only when there disaster, but the South Africans need to be kept
together. So there's too many South Africans who fail. Is there
a future for me here? Is there a future for my children here? And
they come from all backgrounds, because they've lost hope and
faith in the system. I mean, people live in a parallel economy.
You pay your taxes to government to protect you. The saps is
useless. Mostly. You still have to pay private security company to
protect your home and your streets. You still have to pay for
private schooling, for private health, because you can't trust
the public institutions anymore. It's disaster. Surely we need to
get to a point where all of this gets aligned again, and we have a
government works for the people, exactly, and, you know, and, and
it's not. And the best part is, whatever you're saying is not
impossible to fix from within, within government. You know,
there's a lot of things that can be done. We can have world class
public hospitals, because all academic teaching takes place in
public hospitals. It's, it's it, you know, it's basically
management, maintenance, world, you know, desire to serve and to
have. The last few months that I've been speaking, we did four
important principles, spirituality, morality, values and
ethics. We fix spirituality. Spiritual, morality, values and
ethics. We fix that. Ethics is required throughout the country,
whether it's corporate government, health law, even the religious
sector, NGO sector, all all need ethics. And we bring that into the
country and bring consciousness and awareness to do the right
things. Things will fall into place. You won't have to look for
money. Money will find out. Hey, I love you, man, I really do. So I
teach branding, and I and I say to people who to manage a good brand,
you need to have a vision. In terms of the country, brand that
is South Africa. We have the Constitution. I want to say to
people, please go if you don't have time, just read the the, the,
the, the preamble to the South African constitution. It will
remind you of what we tried, of the project South Africa from 1994
what we've been trying to create. We've forgotten that you need
vision. Where are you going with this thing? You need values, and
you put them into four buckets. You need values. There's no doubt.
But you also you need leadership. You need people who are able to
lead from the front. You can have all the fancy values and ethics
and codes of conduct and all that. But if the people in the in at the
top don't think that the the rule.
Rules.
They must also fall under the same rules where, like in South Africa,
we've become, in my view, some kind of
a Animal Farm, where the law is for some people and not for other
people. It's a big problem. But the fourth thing is that you no
brain exists on an island of its own. South Africa is not an island
of its own. For instance, we exist in a world community of nations.
How do we play a part that is constructive in that broader
worldly ecosystem when there are humans and animals and plants and
microbiological beings and and oceanic beings, etc? So how do we
what role do we want to play as a country,
and do that if you don't have the leadership that constantly reminds
we lost the respect of the world. We've lost the respect of the
world. People say that we don't reply to the emails countries.
Government said it percent message itself. Nobody responds. Nobody
goes them. There's nobody cares. It's it's not like what we were
before. It's like we just got downgraded completely. And yet, we
have the skills, we have the personnel. It's just, they're
just, and of course, that's right, we need a leadership to drive
that, to say we're going to be, you know, the best guys on the
continent, and we're going to do this, we're going to set example.
Everybody's come here. We're fortunate people come here. They
love our weather, they love our people, they love our country.
That's why they're coming, you know. So some great thing we've
done as a leadership, you know, and we can enhance that by setting
examples as a leadership and we can teach values, and we can teach
things where people are, you know, identify with the kind of
principles we lay down, that's in addition to our weather and, you
know, our scenery, and the type of people we have and the restaurants
we have, and the fact that our end is so cheap to force foreign
currency, you know, all that kind of stuff. But all that doesn't
save a country. Yeah, leadership saves the country, and the people
are looking for hope in a cool leader. And we can't waste any
more time when you sit down to look at South Africa, especially
given everything that's happening in South Africa, everything that's
happening in South Africa, do you see any form of disaster ahead if
something is not done. For instance, do you see, do you think
my notices are protected, protected in South Africa? Do you
see, because sometimes a lot of negative, racist, divisive
narratives in some political corridors that doesn't, that
doesn't get hit on the wrist, if it were from the top? Do you think
that there's danger ahead if certain things are not done, it
could be in that area or in a in a different area.
To me, the only danger, to be honest, sorry, is if the people
lose all dignity and they're completely humiliated and they
have no hope, people won't go try to argue they're hungry. If that's
the case, SFK would have 100 times were already as I'm speaking to
you, every day there's children dying of starvation and
malnutrition in Eastern Cape right now,
yes, in a country of gold, diamonds and platinum, there's
children dying every day. There's people without food. There's and
it's not only the poor. There's middle class who are battling now
because of covid, of lockdown or lost jobs, and they're trying to
save the dignity. There's school kids going hungry, university
students going hungry are not fairly you know, middle class type
of families. It's not something new. It's not just visible because
people are afraid to talk. They don't introduce it's an
embarrassment kind of stuff. There's farmers who are depending
on food pass who want food parcels for them to survive, not the farm
workers, the farmers who got Hector about Hectors about
hectares of land, don't have the money, because the drought
destroyed everything. So people are in crisis. But people are
patient, you know, God fearing. They have faith and trust in God
Almighty. We need to change the system. I have no fear. I don't
even worry about the minorities issue. Because if you by far and
large, we go in the streets. Everybody gets along well with
everybody. We survived the unrest, and in the same areas of unrest,
you know, the floods came, and the same people, who are, you know,
assisted each other even there was conflict during the time of the
looting, and the same people helped each other and held hands
together and did things together. We, we are a very forgiving
nation. We are a very caring nation. So I don't have an issue
with that. Issue I have is with those people, I said,
specifically, the traitors and the anti patriots, whose big
statements they bring about their division, they bring about racism,
they bring about conflict. They bring out it to to harness their
own image, you know, to support their own image, not caring what's
going to happen to the country. Those are the dangerous people to
the country.
Of course, you go to the workplace, you go everywhere.
People are quite happy with each other. There's no friction. It's
something. It take us off something. And, you know, people
go in a blind frenzy that causes the problem. Yeah, do you think
government is aware of these things that you mentioned, the
hunger. There's a widespread hunger pain. I mean, we write
about these things. We talk about especially we think people in the
middle class, you know, if you think about it, covid arrived, and
people were not allowed to work, to trade, small businesses. A lot,
a lot of these people had committed to home loans to their
purchased cars that they have to pay over to Imperial they drive
fancy cars. Some of them maybe come from townships and their
families, friends, neighbors saw them as having, you know,
succeeded, and suddenly they their banks come back. They take their
homes, take their cars. They are afraid to go back and say, Damn.
Lost everything. So especially in the middle class, I simply
everywhere I know of people where the guy said he can phone his
friend and said, Can you send a mood some food, Mr. Delivery. I
can't tell my family. I haven't got money to buy a food. So can,
you know, I just said that I ordered Mr. Delivery. You know, in
the meantime, I take a friend, send the food to the house and a
fairly affluent type of home. I had airline managers call us,
hotel managers call us and said we were very well off. We can't
afford to pay the bond our house on our car. We've taken our kids
out of private schools. We can't send them into other school. It's
embarrassing, so we're going to homeschool them. We've told you
the truth of our situation. Can you please send us a food parcel?
Sure, a manager from a private kids at a private school. That's
how things have changed, you know. And people need to and of course,
we need to reverse it. We need to grow the economy and fighting
corruption and disorder and this criminal and everything that
causes harm and destruction. We need to remove that if we want the
respect of the world. We need to set an example, you know, in the
way that people believe us and trust in us and open us to invest.
The good thing is, I've spoken to company, the European companies,
you know, I've spoken to ambassadors. I've spoken to guys
from many, many different international companies, and I
give them my perspective of the country, not that they didn't
know, you know, right? Right? They all said, we will increase our
investment in the country. We have faith in the country. We know it
will get fixed up. We know it's a country, country where we can make
money. So let's be honest. We go where we can make money, and we
know South Africa's got the potential. And what we're going to
do is we're going to take a lot of young people, we're going to put
them in our factories, in our warehouses, we're going to give
them skills, we're going to train them, and you're going to employ
them. And if that kind of sentiment is coming through, we
can do it. We need to start our extra business locally. I will let
the industry locally, absolutely, farming locally. And there's lots
of ways to creating jobs and giving people skills and giving
them hope and giving them dignity and making them independent. It's
not impossible. It can be done, yeah. But you see, I mean, I
totally agree, and embrace the need for people, for private
sector or privately driven initiatives to improve, to feed
people, to create better schools and stuff. But we mustn't think,
therefore we must let people in government get away. We need a
source total system overhaul so that we have a caring government.
We used to say it's a government for the people, by the people,
show the people. We all, each one of us, has a role to play, but the
people that we put in place have even a bigger role to play,
because they control the national budget. They control policy
making. We if they come up with policies that don't work, that
work against any effort, private effort, then it doesn't, it
doesn't work in the end. No, I agree with you. I'm not saying we
do the other stuff and neglect government and their
responsibility, but the good thing is, when all other things are
happening, the government is getting a lot of pressure and
being asked by the media and by people like you and by the
country, how come the outsiders who don't have the budgets or
don't have the taxes, who don't have the kind of money that we
have, can achieve what they can in such a short space of time? And so
let's solve it across and you are put in power by us. Wherever the
money have all institutions have all the the Grand Power, you can't
achieve that. What is wrong with your system? And again, comes back
to the same point, unless citizens get up and talk and put pressure,
the system will keep going the way it's going. And finally, if it
show our our this, the our dislike to the vote, it has suddenly
caused a huge awareness in the country, and at the government
very much aware of that, and people are now looking at
alternatives. Of course, they need alternatives also. What kind of
alternative system do we have? But the important things the
consciousness has started is not when we walk in a walk in the
park, pretty like previously, yeah, I was a few years ago,
invited by the Community Chest in Cape Town. They have these annual
awards where NGOs, big, small, NGOs who do amazing work around
the country in schools, taking care of kids in poor communities
after school, to make sure they don't do into go into drugs and,
you know, other troubles activity, they take care of all elderly
people also serve. I was I was in tears when I saw that, and I kept
wondering, who gives these people money? Is there enough money to
fund all these amazing South Africans who are quietly doing
awesome work that should be done by government? Well, that comes
back to the same point at the beginning. 7 million people's
taxes can look up to 65 million people, and you need the
assistance of all these different institutions. These institutions
are supported by private individuals or corporates. So
that's where corporate South Africa has come to the party, as
well as private institutions. The institutions and religious
organizations all have a sense of, you know, a tourism and
responsibility service to the people where government can play a
role is improve its own systems and not be an obstacle to progress
of the other organizations. There was always a question is, who is
is government? Is government supposed to do something and not
other people? And there could be an obstacle, block, you know, some
kind of thing that prevents you, like even covid. There was a fear
that government was not going to allow any organizations to do
delivery. But that was, was not unfounded.
And there's enough pressure from the public to say that's never
going to happen. You know, publicly, it's going to stand up,
it's going to serve so we are saying the ideal system is we all
work together in a in a harmonious manner. Government does its work
ethically. Same with the corporate Same with the private sector, same
with the NGOs, same with religious organizations. We all realize that
we need each other. The bottom line is on my talks and I spoken
earlier, the message is the same, that we all need each other in a
respectful manner, dignified manner. We all respect the rules,
and we do everything within our system to improve our own systems,
you know, within ourselves and for collaboration. And we do that.
Give it a shorter three hundreds of years, a short space of time
will fix a lot of stuff, even like the energy, you know, give people
the whole what that means to create their own energy. Let them
do it. We take all the pressure off the grid. You know, if more
people get off the grid, and more people use balls, and more people
get off the water system, it means those who can't afford it, who
can't get to the balls, at least it's available on the grid for
them. But whoever wants to be don't stop it. Because I said,
it's our country and whatever's possible, let's just go ahead and
do it, because we actually helping the system by getting off the
system so there's more energy available for other people. Yeah,
there was a discussion a number of years ago that, you know, during
apartheid, a lot of NGOs were receiving funding from outside,
governments outside, you know, bodies outside of South Africa.
And then the argument was, look, now we have a government for the
people, by the people, money doesn't have to go from outside
into into, directly into NGOs. It must come through government,
because we have a good, caring government, do you is it still the
case? Can, can NGOs, on the ground, receive funds directly
from outside South Africa, or is there still a check on them? No,
no, they can receive funds from outside. There's no issue. Okay,
yeah, but I think that was more specifically the government got
worried. They thought it was a political agenda. You see, that
was the problem. They were taught that organized. And you hear that
in Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa, organizations are funded
internationally because have worked to cause conflict to bring
the government down. You know that aid money is used for political
purposes. There is That danger and, you know, and that fear from
the government, but by far, not all those funders have actually
pulled out. They don't fund that kind of funding anymore, you know.
But recent times, what the civil unrest, but not so much of the 700
but more about covid and the floods. You see a lot of
organizations wanting to come back, not for political purpose,
but for the purpose of upgrading the social aspect of people's
lives, improving how improving water, improving environment,
improving, you know, education. A lot of people have that kind of
interest, and the government's not blocking that. You know, I mean
within government, you ask people within government, people say, and
I got called by a consul a consult from a big country, and the
council tells me, I'm finding this very strange. We offered money to
government and asked them what they needed for the candidate
floods. And unanimous, unanimously, everybody said, Don't
give government the money. Give it to gift of the givers. I just
said, but since I was surprised that the government people
themselves said that, you know, so there is an awakening to put money
to use the right way. So, yes, they don't block money coming in.
In fact, to be honest, they do appreciate what is done, so the
money comes through, right? Yeah, they don't say it loudly, because
they know where they fail. This thing happened, saved their skin,
you know? And that's happening a lot of them, as I said, are very
good people. They just don't know the system, how to do it and how
to bypass their own systems, right? So, MTS, you've been
called, you've been you've received this calling many years
ago to lead this awesome organization called The Gift of
the givers. You've done awesome work in South Africa across the
world. Would you accept another call that says, Dude, Your country
needs you go into government for two, three years and just help you
know, some provide some moral leadership there, or would you
rather stay where you are? Well, number one, I started to a teacher
saw this already in 92 and he told me in that time that you will
never be in government. You will never be in politics. You will
always work with government. And he told me that 30 years ago, long
before the calls came, and I was thinking, why would you tell me
something like that? And now I see 30 years later why that's
happening. Secondly, if the spiritual law tells me that you
could have been government, then I will be in government. Spiritually
asked me to do that, because I follow everything by the spiritual
law, but it's very unlikely. Thirdly, you got far more
effective from outside government than inside government. We are
successful because we work from outside government for 30 years.
And we can influence government. We can influence people don't feel
afraid of us, because they know we're not there to take anything.
We're there to enhance and support everything. So all political
parties, all government departments, everybody is quite
happy to work with us, because we not afraid. We take over some
system. We're there for only one reason. If we improve the lives,
it will be the lives of their families that we're improving, or
their grandparents or their uncles and aunties that whatever we
drink, you know, the water doesn't select, okay, I'm only going, not
going to the Pope's houses, or we went into these people's houses.
I'm not going, I'm not there's no water is not going anywhere. So
rich, poor, black, white, rich, political, non political.
Everybody benefits from our interventions. And to me, I think,
I think that's still the same system, not structure.
No red tape, no bureaucracy. I can break rules. I break rules all the
time. You know? I do what I want. You know, I got the advantage of
being outside.
Okay, so as a final word coming to the end of this discussion for
today,
if you were to have a message for the people of South Africa, for
the people of Africa, for the people of the world, what would
you say
for both, specifically for South Africans. This is the greatest
country on Earth I've been to. I've been to 45 countries involved
in disaster intervention. People have torn in war situations.
People have torn themselves apart. We haven't done that. We survived
94 we survived the switch over to 94 when people got stopped buying
food, keeping their passports ready, getting ready to run from
the country. It never happened. It was the most boring story for
international media, because nothing happened. The only thing
that happened was peace, calm and love. If we can survive it, then
after so many years of operation, nothing is a challenge. We've
survived. You know, the floods, the covid, the civil unrest, that
the floods again, and even stage six load shedding, we survived
that too. So nothing should be an issue. Let's but don't wait for
somebody else to do something for you. Let's all us, of our said, I
don't mean to reach only poor, rich murder clubs, all of us.
Let's see how we can make a difference to this country. And
let's hold politicians accountable those people that we put into
power. Let's hold them accountable to you, to to make sure they
deliver what they supposed to deliver in the interest of the
country. So there's no need to run anyway, no need to get depressed.
We can fix the country if you all work together. The emphasis is on
working together harmoniously, and we can achieve that as South
Africans, okay, and to Africans and the world, to the broader
world, and you know, and to and the same principles apply to the
whole world. You know, the principles of of dream, good of
it's the same thing in any country in the world before we all
connected. Really, pain in all part of the world is felt
elsewhere. Yeah, because, you know, the spirituality, morality,
values and ethics is something that applies to every parts of the
world. In fact, in Europe, they've been asking me, they said, do you
find a suddenly, the huge increase in people interested to
spirituality. I began in their kind of course. And I said, Yes,
I've seen you in the country post covid. And you know, we all one
family, one nation. As my teacher told me, mankind is one single
nation, South Africans, Africans, Europeans, Americans. We all
totally dependent on each other. We have different resources,
different skills, different types of things that come out from the
earth, different types of production, but we each need
everybody else's stuff. And it's far easier to deal in harmony than
to deal in conflict, absolutely. And let's make that the motto that
we want to work towards harmony, not towards conflict. Yeah, I
would say to add to your word that you know we we all have pain. We
need all of us in the world, in South Africa and Africa across the
world, to develop high levels of empathy. A lot of times we think
we are we have, we own exclusivity to pain. We are saying so we don't
see the other person's pain. And as long as we refuse to see the
pain that is felt by the other, fear that is felt by the other. We
cannot rightfully expect that others will see our pain. So we
need to understand that we can't work if we don't feel each other's
pain, one another's pain. That's very true. Absolutely.
This has been an awesome conversation. Images. I really,
really appreciate this. I have to tell you that I decided not to
prepare too many questions for this. I thought I'd let's just
have a a wide raising conversation, and it was just
really one of the most beautiful I've had. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the work that you do. Please do not stop. And I hope
that, and I know that South Africans love you, there's no
doubt about it. And just just keep doing what you do. Thanks, Ollie,
thanks a lot. And to our viewers out there, if you have come this
way. This fight means you enjoyed the conversation. Please continue
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this is soli Wang at worldview, bye, bye. You.