Transcription
KK, who am I sending a shout out to? Yi, just Yi. To KK, shout out to K. It's not K Kong South. Shout out to KK Kong Sou. Where is that? Where's where's that? Cville? Oh, Cville. Okay, okay. Thanks, KK. We've got KK to today. Uh, that's taking care of us. Yes. In uh, the absence of Ia, this is my first recording at AMP studios in 2025. Um, I think you were my last recording for 2024. We weren't here though, we were at another studio. Yes, yes, yes. Are you well? I'm good. I'm good. Uh, many people impressed by—I'll sit down—no, many people impressed by you. Let me not try and take the spotlight.
The episode started slowly. I dropped it on a Sunday, which was something new for me, and it started off very slow. And I didn't mind because I don't chase views, but where it's sitting at now, I think speaks to the content that we were—that you—that you brought. Right to the sit down. I want to say thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate the invites. Pin? Yeah, you saw your fans when you came in here that were screaming for you. That was so weird. Asking for autographs. Oh my gosh. Oh my God. Were you bling? No. Uh, it's awkward for me. Okay. In as much as I am outspoken and I know that I command a space when I walk in, it'll always be awkward for me because because I don't like people feeling like that about me. It's weird. I'm just a person. Oh, oh my God, I'm just a person. You—you believe—um, if a woman's not married, she should only have one child? Yes. Hit me, because it's complicated. Pen, like it becomes a lot to have multiple fathers to your children. And the other way, men having kids, it's different for men, unfortunately. That's just the way that we—the world we live in, right? Because the mother is the primary caregiver, she generally gets left with the child most of the time. And men—um, spread their seed. You would—you would know all about—I would know anything about what you speak—all about spreading your seed. Those are jabs, by the way, and that's not nice. At the beginning of the year, you're meant to be gentle after a holiday. So it's—it's based on this thing of that men generally don't live with their children, right? It's something my brother's spoken about, that it's very different being a stepmom, uh, because the man you're going to be with normally doesn't live with these kids versus being a stepdad where you're coming into a space where the woman's living with her children, right? In a situation where the woman maybe sends the kids to the grandparents or the kids live with the father, then they can have more kids with more baby daddies. The [Music] the—I've never been a fan of the whole—um, when you are married, now leave the child that you had before your marriage with your parents because now you're going to go start a new family. Like it doesn't sit well with me. I honestly feel like you rob your child of having you there as the mother. And grandparents generally don't—this is just a generalization, this could be different—they don't instill discipline as well as parents do. So grandmothers tend to be more lenient, and it's because of the age where they are, I think, in life. So I—I don't like it, but I know that people do it for whatever reasons. No judgment. It's just not my preference.
Do you think we were meant to raise our children, or do you think our parents were meant to raise our children? We were meant to raise our children. Why? The discipline factor is a problem. My children lived with my mom until my—my first born was going to start grade one—grade R—grade R. So about six—six. Sort of. Yes, sure. So yeah. No, they're in line now. I'm here. How? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Is it not just a personality thing? Maybe it's not a personality thing. Like if you speak to people and you'll hear the conversations amongst women with children who live with a grandparents, there's a—there's a disconnect and a discipline issue there. My brother taught at a couple of private schools, um, some of the most expensive and most prestigious private schools in the country. And one of the things he noted while he was there—because we come from X model C in Newcastle high—was a lot of the kids—not most, just a lot of them—the school fees was being paid for by the grandparents. They have a trust fund, the grandparents pay. Yeah. And what this does is it frees up their parents to then focus on the hustle. So you start thinking about it maybe from a—um, nature perspective, especially when we speak about being raised by The Village. Everyone was around. If you're misbehaving, the woman or the—the people next door can beat you up. If you're hungry, you can go next door. So when you young, you have a lot of energy, 20s, 30s, and I'd like to think that's when you should be hunting. That's when you should be creating. That's when you're performing, traveling. You may not necessarily have the—the patience, the nurturing ability, and even life experience and wisdom to make—be plowing into kids. So from that perspective, can we not argue that maybe in a perfect world where men to have kids, give them to our parents who have retired, have money, so that we can go and chase money for our grandkids and also money to support our grandparents and the children so that we don't have to get a nanny, so that we don't have to send them to boarding school. Our parents are already there.
I hear you. I think my perspective is different because my mom is a corporate girly. Okay, so she—she works. Okay. There's no time for being a grandparent. And it was actually the—the promotion to buan that pushed the agenda for me to actually take my children because she was like, um, I could go with them. And I was like, that no, bring my kids. Yeah, like you've given me this time to establish myself in Johannesburg. I feel, even though I'm not where I want to be, I have a supportive partner. We're doing this thing together. We can make it work with the children. Just bring them. You live your life, girl. 'Cause she also had me when she was 20. So like, is that young? Yeah, that's mad young. Mad young. I—that's young. Especially because like what you were saying, it is preferred when you are younger and have more energy, it may be a better option to leave your children with your mother. My mom had me and was with me the whole time. She didn't get to be young. So she didn't get to be young. Then I have kids now, she's parenting again. Like, can the girl get a break? I hear you. Yeah, if—if your mom was more retired, chilling at home, it would probably be different, and she probably wouldn't have let the kids go. She'd be like, want to let them go. Also, that's another layer to this conversation, but are we not meant to birth kids for our grandparents to help them around? I think in the black community, yes, that's a thing. I've heard so many people say that, and I know—I don't know about other provinces, but I know in quadin that's big, especially your first born. Your first born is your parents' child, your par-child. You go and have your own child later on. But I worry about the psychological effect on the child as well, in the—in the modern society, 'cause it feels like you were abandoned or something. Yes. Okay, yes. If it was explained properly, maybe it's something we could look into. Perhaps not opposed to it.
Okay, I keep getting people sending me videos of yours. Uh, shout out to you, and shout out to me, 'cause now when people see you, they think of me. That's what's up. Um, one in particular is very relevant because we come from the F of season, and it was about how black families—and you speak about black families—I saw some comments were like, it's not just black families. And yes, we're speaking from our experience. Yep. No feedback culture. We don't take criticism. Yep. The communication is not good. If you'd like to maybe rehash and—and yeah, just summarize what you were saying there, 'cause I had some thoughts that I wanted to raise with you. Yes. So the feedback culture thing is huge. It's something that I've been noticing in my own family. It used to be that Christmas, everybody knows—sure—in the rural areas, and we're going to spend it there as a family. But there—because life happens, people get married, you know, um, people live in different cities, and sometimes people want to go on holiday. Sometimes people want to go on holiday. Sometimes people just want to be with their immediate families for Christmas, or they don't have money. Some of us don't have money to travel, or they don't have—have money, right? So but then there's—there's a subtle segregation that's been happening besides all of that that I've picked up. And what I noticed was that at the core of it, it's the feedback culture problem, that you can't say to someone that what you've done has hurt me, so I'm just going to be mad. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm not going to see you guys. Bye. Don't need you. Which is—is incorrect because family is very important. My K once said to me that—I don't know if I can say this in Zulu, if I'm allowed to—for people will always present themselves as better than your family, but they're not. A person from outside, a stranger, will always present themselves as better as someone within the family. Yes. It's—as better than your family, and they—and they—and you may perceive that they are better than your family for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, they're not. Everybody is flawed, and you might find that even in their own families, there's issues there. So a lot of people will say, no, I'm building my own family now with my husband, but when you look at marriage in general, relationships in general, there's a lot of stuff that happens there. And we have all this forgiveness for our spouses, it's a lot. But when it comes to family, there's just this culture of cut off. Yeah. And it's a bit toxic—xic. Also, when you are given critic—criticism, it's some—sometimes people don't know how to handle it or take it, so they get very upset and defensive—and defensive. I'm—I'm more defensive, but I'll always come back, but I'm very defensive when somebody brings information to me for the first time, but then I go back, I process, and I'm like, okay, maybe. Shout out to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because most of the time we're all operating from our lymic system. So—so the challenge as a human being is for you to lengthen the time for the information to move from your lyic to your prefrontal cortex, which is where you reason. So a lot of the stuff is coming from here, from that system. So some—sometimes is this almost like emotions versus logic? Yes. Okay, yes. So sometimes you need to just pull away for a second and come back. And then there's the issue of people who don't know how to apologize. There's so many layers. And also adults—a lot of people in the comments were like, yo Ali, they don't apologize, they don't take accountability. Someone even said, when you try to talk to them, they start crying, and then it's just like, leave her, leave her alone, leave her. So yeah, there's—there's—there's multiple layers to this issue, um, and when you speak to other people, you realize that there's a common threat amongst black families that at some point we've all experienced this. M. And in my family, for years we've been the opposite, and we used to pride ourselves on being that family that's like this, and now I'm seeing the—the separation. So I had to call it out. Somebody sent that video—I didn't send it on the family group, I was a chicken—but my uncle found it on Twitter and he posted it on the group, and he was like, this is the realest thing ever. And that opened up a conversation between us, which I appreciated, even though I did not have the guts to initiate. How sad is it that you raising that is like a mind explosion thing versus a—but everyone knows this. Yeah. And I—I wonder if we ever had a culture pre-colonization that allowed for—because many people now—we were disturbed. We were disturbed by the yanks, the Vasco, the G, and the likes. We're disturbed by aart. We don't know naturally how our cultural practices, our lifestyles would have morphed over time without that disturbance, right? Because what happened is we were fighting, we were being shifted off land, our fathers were being told to go work in the mine. So we don't know how we would have evolved. All we have is what we have now. But the—the thought of, did we ever have that? 'Cause you'll hear my father, his father say things like, we could never speak to our fathers, so you're lucky that you get to speak to me. You could never speak back to Elders. Uh, children should be seen and not heard, etc. And I wonder if that's just a legacy of pre-colonial or something that disrupted. And it's something that not only affects the family—of which the family is probably the—the biggest casualty of this—you see it in black business. Yeah, black business owners struggle with constructive criticism. We don't like your drink? If you don't like it, then I f sake. And you're like, can you not do something? [Music] And you're like, that can't be how you operate. And I remember telling a—writing a post at some point saying, people have had food poisoning from your KFCs and McDonald's. Yeah, but they keep going back. And the question is, why? Why don't you guys give black businesses the same courtesy? I'm like, it's how that business reacts when you tell them about food poisoning. First of all, we're so sorry. Yep. Can we give you a refund? Can we give you another thingal? We apologize. It's—it's the way they handle it. Here, food—no, it's not us. Somewhere—no customer of mine has ever complained. You're the only one. Yep. And you're like, but I'm complaining. Can you please look into it? The businesses we have in Townships versus Suburbia, you look at the difference. I—I made an example of spa's. They're very different. And to me, I think it's because it's not just Sant magically is cleaner. I think the clientele in center have got a higher desire for better service. So if they see the floors are dirty or the food is looking a bit offish, they go immediately to the manager. Sorry, look at that. That's Cent for you boys, it's dirty. Yes. A loction is just like clean, and then you just keep walking. That's true. And then things don't get better. That's so accurate. And you're right, it's clearly a black issue, 'cause now you're making examples that are outside of the family. Something is wrong. Yeah, and we need to figure out what that thing is. But in order for us to figure it out, we need to be comfortable with having these conversations, and we need to get comfortable with actually saying, yo, this isn't it. Yeah, improve here, improve here. And then if somebody chooses to be defensive about it and fight, that's on them, but at least you've given them that feedback.
Do you believe in honesty and transparency? Generally. Generally, but I also believe in the gray banana. What's the gray banana? The graay banana is something that my therapist explained to me is that if it's not going to contribute positively in the situation, it's okay for you to reserve the information for yourself. That's the great banana. But you would like to stay at around 90, 95% honesty. Keep the other 5, 10 for yourself. What's the great banana room? Is it the—the parts of the banana you break off and throw? I don't know. You don't know where it comes from? I don't know where it comes from. She just said it's the gray banana, and I was like, okay, I get that, you know. And this was during—um, a session with my partner and I, 'cause we were trying to figure out the whole 100% honesty thing in our relationship, and she was like, actually 100% is sometimes not necessary. Sure. So I do believe in honesty when it's necessary, but in certain situations you can read the room. Now the question becomes the person that has to discern when to say and when not to say. Yes. Yes. The discernment. My brother's 3 years younger than me. My sister is 12 years younger than you. That's a—that's a big gap. Big gap. And she's a girl. Yeah. Uh, the difference between my brother and I and my sister is my sister doesn't hold back in criticizing my mom. My brother and I just look the other way. And at times she'll say things and then point at us and we'll just whistle and like, yep. And then my mother will be like, see, your brothers are fine. When I wear n—um—and I think it speaks to this—to this chat. Now my mom will do—and look, I'm not putting my mom on blast. She's normal. Yeah. And I'm going to make it a woman thing because it's something we struggle with whenever you address women, girls, and now we'll take it to Elders—the crying, the defensiveness, the—okay. Yeah. And you're like, that's not what—what I was doing. Uh, how do we work on Elder accountability? This is business, politics—politics where it's ANC and those guys have dropped the ball. Our families, of course. How do we work on female accountability where it's not me—P—men are hurting us. And what did you expect me to do? It's like, no, Swami, at some point you also have to be like—and stop crying your tears. Someone said, just because you're crying doesn't mean you're right. That is O—that is so true. Y, I wish I had an answer for this question. It's so layered and complicated. And women don't like me right now, just to put it out there. They're very upset with me. Sorry. Um, it is a thing that women do, and I don't know—I don't necessarily—as a woman, I don't think it's fake when I start crying or I'm trying to absolve myself. Sometimes I'm struggling to communicate the feeling in the moment. And because I am wired to be more emotional, when you come at me with certain information, it may be my natural amigdala lyic system response to cry. So it doesn't make it right. Yeah, but it—it just is, you know. And I think we're the people who are going to have to figure out how to change that. I think our parents and grandparents—shame—go—I'm like, they're so set in their ways, it's very difficult to—to figure out how to help them. And the older people get, the more stubborn they get. So it's a—it's—it's not a win. It starts with those of us who are conscious of the behavior to change and instill something different in your own family. When my daughter calls me out all the time. Sure, she does. And I literally just laugh, 'cause she's right. You know, I'm like, yeah, you—you're kind of right about that, and I can—I can take it. But also, I—I think in my journey to understand myself, I'm probably at a slightly higher level of Consciousness, so I can take it. Yeah, but for the average person, it becomes, how dare this child tell me this. And I would urge women to be more open to criticism. You—you can't always be right, and you can't always have an emotional response to everything. I think also being in corporate has rewi me in that sense. Like we—it's about facts. What's happening right now? What's best for business? It's not about your emotions and your feelings. Unfortunately, that's just—
Do you think we speak about the feminization of men? Do you think there's a masculinization of women? Women? Yes. And corporate becomes one of the places—oh, definitely. Women in corporate are stronger, more masculine. Yep. Can deal with things more at an logic—uh—perspective than emotion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Is that a good thing? I don't think it's good or—bad. I think it just—it is. And if you have—you need to be somebody who has discernment. Don't take the corporate girly home. Huh? Don't take the corporate girly home. Don't take her home. Yes. You can leave her at work. It's fine. So when I leave the office—yes—I don't need to take that with me everywhere I go. Oh, you're talking to women? Yes. Oh, I thought you were talking to Jens T. Stay away from corporate hands, my man. Imagine. Stay away from the corporate Honeys. I'm a corporate hunt myself. So say—say that the corporate hun herself must leave the corporate stuff at work. Yes. And I—I remember making a—a video about this before I left to go home. It's like, people don't know how to divorce themselves from the corporate Joe burger. Like just relax, this is your spouse, this is your mother, this is your child. Like chill, chill. It's—it's tough, 'cause you're now forced to be different human beings at different times, and most people don't know how to switch. I think it's called character switch in or something along those lines. You see it with colors as well. Sometimes they'll be corporate, speaking good English. As soon as they see their people, they're like—and then they bus with Africans. And you're like, hey, who's this? Yeah, that's—that's them. Still—um—I think uh, character switching is—it's got a bad rep, but you don't speak to your two-year-old the way you would speak to your significant other. Yeah, it's just understanding the sphere that you're operating in in that moment. Sure. I—I need you to emphasize something you said. You said women are not always right. I just—I think I heard you say that. I think please can you say it again, just for archiving purposes? Women think that they're right all the time because we've been given the gift of foresight. It's ours. Oh, okay. Right. Men have their own gifts. One of ours is foresight. So you can tend to believe that because you've been given that gift that you're right about everything, and you're actually not. Okay. Women are not right about everything. No. Not about everything. You may be right about some things. You can never be—not—I wouldn't say a few—oh, some. Sorry. Calm down. Negotiate on the Su. Okay. Happiness. Happy. Okay.
Um, you've spoken before about—and I don't know if we did a deep dive—I don't think we did—property versus renting. Yeah, we didn't talk about that the last time. Um, should we stop buying property, just generally? No, guys. Don't stop. Uh, but enter at your own risk and understand what you're getting yourself into because a lot of what you believe is what has been sold to you and what you've heard, but you've never really run the numbers. Yeah. And nobody really runs the numbers. I was watching—was it Diary of a CEO or LS house? Can't remember which podcaster it was. And there was somebody there who was speaking about how we've been indoctrinated to believe certain things that aren't true about property. Yeah. One of the reason—reasons why that was done was because there was a huge marketing campaign in the 19 something in America where Banks were trying to convince people to buy houses for their own benefits, of course. Buy your—buy the house through us, and then we'll put an interest rate. And there was a marketing campaign that spread the word that this is the best investment you will ever make. Sure. And that has trickled down multiple generations, and it is only now that people are starting to be like, well, hang on a minute. What—what's really—what's happening here? This mats is not matsing. I think a lot of the times when we think about property, we think—if you buy the property, you have to live in it. Sure. But some people have a different approach to property. Some people will say, I will buy it for somebody else to live in it to help me pay it off. Nothing wrong with that, right? But you need to understand that with an aart—let's say in randur—a two bedroom apartment, 8, 9,000 Rand, that's not the only cost that you're paying. There's also the maintenance of the home, there's levies, there's rates. And when you add those costs up over a period of time, you start to realize that the carrying costs for owning a home are actually 2.5 times higher than what you are paying for the actual house over that 20, 25 year period—perod. I've seen 30 year bonds. I'm so worried about people who enter into 30 year bonds. We used to have 30—30 used to be the standard, then we went down to 20. Can we please go back down to 20? 'Cause I—people are getting themselves in a dark rabbit.
Hole. Yeah, and then it's also the comparison of investments. So property has been shown to yield what is it, a profit of about 4 to 8% a year. Yeah, when you could be investing in other high-yielding investments that, like, for example, stocks—uh, S&P 500 is a big one—uh, which yields at around 10%, sometimes 12 to 14% on a good year. Per annum, yeah.
So if you look at 4–8% versus 12–14%, it's just like, and I'm living in this house, and I'm paying for all these things, the maintenance, everything. Do I really need to—is it not a better option for, for you, depending on your financial status, to rather rent, take all of the other costs that would be associated with owning a home, and put them in an investment like the S&P 500 or Bitcoin, whatever it is that you want to invest in? So we tie ourselves to these things, and then a lot of us, after we've paid the bond and everything, fact, so now you don't have money to invest in anything else because you're pouring all of this money, money into your home. Sure, for an alleged profit that you will only see if you ever decide to sell. Ever. If you ever decide to sell, of which that's not the plan; it's for your kids and grandkids. So you don't really have a plan to sell for your kids; you don't have a plan to sell if you're honest. So I think people should be wary. We're not saying do not buy, but just know what you're getting yourself into and always ask yourself if this is fact or story. Like, is this an indoctrination or is this factual? Run the numbers, guys.
I sat with one of the leaders of—uh, I'm going to mess it up—no, um, Rise ZTI, and she raised a term that I thought was so brilliant. I hope it was her; I hope I'm not crediting the wrong person, but she's brilliant nonetheless. Spatial injustice. Spatial injustice. This is something that hasn't been resolved in this country. What is that? What does that mean? Um, so again, we speak the land; we want the land. Hey, we want the land. When you raise this thing of rent versus buy and do the numbers, people will be like, "But where must we stay? Uh, what if you get kicked out? What if?" And then the conversations also then go into maybe buy property at home, go buy land, tribal land, whatever the case, get a permission to occupy, and it was this whole thing of the way we live speaks to just special interest justice. We've got so much land in this country, and people find themselves in a shack; they find themselves living in flats on top of each other, happy with just the sectional title deed, and, and, and it's because we have spatial injustice, where everyone should comfortably have space, whether you want to put a shack or a mansion or whatever. And if we can address that, you don't need to speak about land, cuz the land question is lazy. It's people were shifted off the land, which is fine, and it's meant to be resolved, and it hasn't been by the ANC government. Some were given money; the money's gone. Some have kept the land; they're not doing anything with it, etc. But it's forget that. Can we just have spatial justice? Can everyone just have enough space to live, to run an enterprise of sorts? And then if we can get that right, almost nothing else matters. If you hear the Oppenheimers own 50,000 hectares of what, what, but you've got your own five hectares, you're fine. Yes. Yes, I get it. You've got spatial justice. My grandfather's land. Sure, don't worry, you're fine, or your family is fine; you guys can use this land productively; you've got a place to stay, and we can take it from there. And I think it's one of the conversations we need to have in this because with spatial injustice, we then need to speak economic justice, injustice, cuz some people are like, "Our fathers in the mines," and then it's like there are white people who are saying, "We weren't beneficiaries of apartheid; we want economic justice." Not necessarily, "Give us the companies and the mines which you don't know what to do with; give us the farms you don't know what to do with them." Economic justice is saying, "Let's teach you how to deal with money, work with money so that you're fine," cuz what they'll do is they'll give you land: "Here's your family land, 100 hectares." They'll give you a piece of a company: "Here's a mine," and they'll walk away, and we'll give you five years; you'll lose that in five years. Yeah, you won't have money; you're going to—bond the land, you're going to put it as collateral—uh, this company you're going to run to the dogs. Next thing, the same people are going to come and get that same asset back at a steal, and then tomorrow they'll be like, "Please don't come to us cuz we gave you what you wanted," but it's because we didn't deal with the spatial and economic justice right.
First time ever heard that term. Makes sense. Yeah. Do you support capitalism, and your thoughts around capitalism, socialism, communism? I don't know if you know the differences. I kind of understand the differences, right? Can you try? I can try and illustrate. Socialism is more of, in my understanding, the government owns everything. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I'll let you finish, and then I'll come in. And then it's, it's shared with the people. So something that would be an example of a socialist kind of act, even though we're still capitalist, would be the whole NHI situation. Okay, right. And then communism is—nobody owns anything; everything is you share it amongst the people and each other, like China, like how China operates. Nobody owns—ah, okay. Is that not—please keep going. Is that not it? Please keep going. No, you can correct me. Fa—no, don't worry. I, I don't have the blueprint or the, the, the memo, but please keep going. Yeah, so that's, that's what I understand. Now, do I have a preference? Look, I'm not down with the CU. Sometimes there's a lack of control in these things, and you're overly controlled, like what's happening in, in China right now, like the people there—shame. Like, but it's working for them, the people in there—shame. Yeah, sh—I don't feel like they have a lot of a say. I could be wrong; I've never lived in China. Um, aay, in what—and what happens, okay, with their own country? Keep going. Like, everybody else decides; the government decides what's happening with everyone, and then things just are expedited, and people fall in line. That's what I understand. So I don't, I don't—because I don't like authority; that would really irritate me. Um, no, I can't do that, but that's just for me personally, but I can't deny the fact that it's working for China. Sure. Capitalism, you understanding? I, my understanding is that you and I start a lemonade stand, for example, and we sell lemonade to people, and we make those profits, and we keep those profits, right, for ourselves. Okay. Then the problem there becomes that those of us who own private sector tend to have a little bit more money than the rest of the average person, and the wealth is not shared in the way that it should, so people are getting richer and richer, and those who are not rich are getting poor, poor, and poor. Sure. Um, socialism: you and I have lemonade stands; others have lemonade stands; we all make the profits, but the profits are kind of sheded amongst the people. Okay, that's what I understand. No problem. Feel free to jump in. Please don't worry about me jumping. No, I'm good. I'm done with my, my explanation. I can't figure out what I like, okay, or what—probably a mix. A mix would be nice, because when you go all in on one, it becomes a problem. I don't know how the people in China feel about their lives; they might, they might love their lives. Um, in the room, I, I hope I'll get a chance to sit with them at some point. Uh, I've got two of my kids in Africa; they lived in China for four years. Uh, it would be interesting hearing their perspective. Yeah. Um, I, I've struggled with the definitions of communism and socialism because they're similar. Capitalism is relatively easier to explain, how I've learned to explain for myself, because you speak to philosophers, economists, politicians, business people, and how they define these things, it's so complicated. Then they speak about Karl Marx, and they speak about, then they're like, at Venezuela and Cuba, and you're like, "Hey, stop it." They speak about China. How I've come to make it make sense for me is, yeah, how involved government is, okay, whereas other people look at what benefit does, let's say, the individual have. Keep going. So when I look at the influence of government, a pure capitalist, which doesn't exist anywhere in the world, is one where there's no government. So what that means is that if you want a highway, the business people need to build it; if you want schools, the business people, the people with money must build it, not government. As you move from there to, let's say, midway, which I'd argue sort of socialism is midway, now we have—uh, what you were saying, NHI, which I'd call public healthcare. Public healthcare, where people need public healthcare, you go there. Who's paying for it? Government, kind of. Where do they get the money from? Taxes. Um, same with schooling, same with other things as well. We call it social welfare in my opinion, because it's socialism grants public schooling, public healthcare, um, arguably even things like the roads, the subsidies of electricity that we've had for so long, that is socialism. The same business people who will be like, "Ah, what, what? It's—" but you guys benefit, right? Because if the government goes away, you're going to have to build the road yourself. Government be like, "But you guys don't want to pay tax anymore. Elon Musk, you guys don't want government to do anything. Cool. You do everything. You guys set up your private security; try and kill as many poor people as possible cuz they're going to want what you have, and see how you manage them." The reason we exist and why some rich people understand government's role is: I want to make money; I don't want to be dealing with poor people and building roads and making sure there's infrastructure. Let's fund these guys to go and campaign to the poor to be like, "We're the best guys to take care of you," but also kind of hold the business people accountable, accountable. And then on the extreme end is extreme communism, which has also never really existed. They can use the Soviet Union and those places as examples, but it's not true. Extreme communism is where the government owns everything. So in China, they don't own everything. I'll tell you about China. So in communism, the government owns everything. So if you need anything, you have to ask government: "We're hungry; we're poor," and government's like, "Okay, you guys can have some cheese, or you guys can go whatever," and you're at the government's mercy. That's my understanding, but as you will be corrected, I'll also be corrected, but it's how we try and rationalize what this is. People like capitalism is the maximization of profit; it's the split between land, labor, and capital, and socialism is when—and communism is, you know, the father of communism is Karl Marx, and he believed in the proletariat, and you're like, "This is complicated." How involved is government? Less government, more capitalism; uh, more government, more socialism, capitalism, uh, communism. Sorry. China is run by the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, which is headed by Xi Jinping, and they've done a phenomenal job from the days of, known as a dictator, Mao Zedong. He was a communist, and he was like, "Look, these are my children." This happens in North Korea today that we could argue is sort of more communist than China. Where are your parents? Again, maybe let me use this example: capitalism, children, parents. Capitalism: no government, no parents. You want to have ice cream every day? Have a good time; knock yourself out. You've got a tummy ache? I'm sorry; you're living your life; go see what you do with it, but I don't have money for a doctor; I'm sorry; it's your life; see what you do with it. Socialism: you'll do the chores; I'll give you pocket money; you'll wash my car; I'll pay for, like, there's something; I'll give you some benefits. Communism: I'm God in this house; I'll, I'll decide what if we're eating cabbage or oxtail or ice cream; I decide which school you go to; I decide if you're going to a hospital; I'm God here; no decisions on the, the person; everything is up to God; I'm government. Yeah. So I normally say this to capitalists: I'm like, before I speak about China, I normally say, "You guys claim to be pure capitalist, but you don't exercise capitalism in your own families and in your own communities. Your child who's struggling at school is a bit slow; you're going to help them out; you're not going to send them to the wolves, but now you want other people's leaders to kind of be fine with sending people to the wolves because you guys are rich, and that's unfair because you have an advantage." Exactly. If you want a fair playing field, at least rich white people give back all the benefits of apartheid and colonization, and let's start on fair footing. Don't say, "No, but private property," and my family, you've got a slow kid that I'm smarter than, but I can't compete on an equal footing, right, because you don't believe in capitalism; you believe in preserving your child in this little communist state of your family, and then you believe in socialism with your friends. Your friends, you help out and bail out at times; yes, they contribute, but whenever your friend needs money, whenever your friend is struggling, you help them out. Everyone when you own a business, business that works for you, your family, or your, let's say, your family, the beneficiaries. Communism: they get to benefit almost without doing anything. Your employees: socialism; they put in some work; they get some benefits. All your customers: that's capitalism; you're not my friend; you're not my family; you either pay or you get no service. Exactly, type of thing. So China is communist in how they manage the country, but not in how they run the economy. Okay, their economy is very capitalist. That's why we were buying Fongs Kongs back in the day, and the Fongs Kongs have gradu—bu Kong, no. Today, they've graduated to your BYD cars, your Huawei’s; they're very advanced now; they don't fall apart like they did then, except for the fake Gucci bags. But yeah, keep going. I was going to say there's levels. So the Gucci B, 50 Rand, is definitely going to tear tomorrow, yes, but China can develop, can prod, 5,000 Rand one, a 5,000 Rand one, a 500 Rand one; you just choose your level of Fong Kong. Uh, China is capitalist to the world aggressively, so they will pump money, like the family example, they will pump money in their local industries and subsidize them crazy: BYD, Huawei, Tencent, and WeChat will give you all the money you need to go out into the world. The world are strangers; they must pay; you get nothing, but to you guys when the money comes here, we are God. That's why Jack Ma disappeared with Alibaba; you got too smart; spend too much time with Americans: "I don't like authority; we are free; free rights; our privacy." They're like, "Oh, this one's too smart; let's shut him down," because they have a vision. Every province has some economic activity intentionally. So you imagine South Africa saying, "Our agriculture will be in the Free State," so there's an agricultural economy there; you can be super rich; you can build a full economy. We'll have a manufacturing economy in the Eastern Cape, so all our cars are manufactured there, all our appliances, all our—we'll have a mining economy in maybe the Northwest; we'll have all our tourism or the bulk of our tourism economy in KZN, the beach, uh, the South Coast. All they, they intentionally do that. When one province is doing much better than another, they kind of—it's like a company that cross-shares money, right? They're like, "No, we'll take some of the resources and the talent and send it there." You can't have all your company's head offices in Sandton. Yeah, that's rubbish. Yeah, you need some here; you need some here, so that people don't all flock here. You know what I mean? But you also can't talk me, and you shouldn't be here. No, that's what I'm saying; I understand that completely, but because of what you're saying, definitely we're all coming here because we need to make a living. So China did that, and, and it succeeded because they had a firm hand. The people that criticize it do it almost like China, but they make it seem like there's freedom and democracy. It's almost like China's a surveillance country; they have cameras everywhere; they do facial recognition. The Americans will tell you they believe in, in privacy, but their phones listen to our voice; their phones pick up intel; they read our messages, our emails; they know what we're doing. Google Maps knows exactly where I am. Yeah, that's true. Um, so it's just a different side of the same, the value, I guess you would say, that they hide it behind the value add, yeah, that they—so let me ask you this question again, and do it from family, community, country; you can use mix if you want: capitalism, socialism, communism, the way we've kind of understood it. What would you want for your family? What would you want for your community? And what would you want for your country?
That's a tricky one. Uh, I'm a bit of a dictator, so that's it. What me and my partners say goes. Yeah, the children fall in line. That's communism. You can have your opinion, but at the end of the, the day, my decision is what is going to happen. Yeah, so yes, communism at home, yes, definitely, with some suggestions, with some suggestions here and there, but 90%. By the way, in China, the, the, the population gets to suggest a lot; they're allowed to innovate and give ideas; it's just the, the final decision, I think, is what I'm trying to say. The final decision, and the way the CCP set up, it's almost, it's almost fully meritocracy, like Singapore. Everyone at that level has served like—as a councillor, as an MMC in municipality, as a mayor, as an MEC, as a premier. All of them. Xi Jinping is the most qualified, most experienced person to run that country; it's not accidental. Yes, he doesn't campaign, and he's cool, and, and so they've got their thing on lock. Yeah. So at home, communism, yes, but in terms of community and the country, probably a mix of—after you've explained it to me—a mix of—are you using my definition? Yes, I'm using, I'm using the explanation of what you, how you've just mapped out how China does it—a mix of capitalism and communism, no socialism, or somewhere there. I don't know what is the, what is the benefit of—from what I understand about socialism, what is the benefit? Because I feel like with socialism, people can just be like, "What's the point? What's the point? Free things anyway. Yeah, what's the point?" So those two for me would be a better mix. What would be yours? Jeez, am I supposed—I'm here to interview you. H—it doesn't matter; we're having a conversation; it's not an interview; it's a conversation. Naval Ravikant is my favorite uh, podcast guest, probably of all time. Naval. It's only in one podcast sit-down; it was with Joe Rogan, and he was quoting Nassim Taleb. I don't know if it was from *Black Swan*, the book, where he was speaking about this thing, and he spoke communism, socialism, capitalism, and then he spoke federalism, liberalism, etc. But it's these ideas of the closer the people are to you, you obviously hope that there's more trust, and you want more of a leg up; you want your child to get the scholarship and to be assisted along the way, right, even though they don't necessarily deserve it because you feel they'll benefit in the long run, and the further away people are from you, the stricter you get. Yes. Um, so Russians want to trade with us; don't give them a discount; they must pay the premium; we don't know them. If they make money, how do we benefit the people closer to us? And maybe I'll use Jews and Muslims, some of my favorite examples here. Last I checked, Muslims don't loan to each other with interest. Actually, I don't think they believe in interest just generally as a principle. Um, it's for trade, right? And I think largely the Jewish community is similar in the sense that I'll loan you money; you're doing something; when you're ready, you can pay it back; no interest. Black people back in the day would do the same: there was a storm; your cows died; the community would give you a bull and maybe three cows so that you can reproduce, and then when your livestock has been replenished, you give back the cows and the three cows and the bull; you don't have to give interest so that we, we prop you up uh, where we can, and China's big on it; the apartheid government was big on it, subsidizing local industries so that we can compete unfairly in the world. Um, so obviously the closer the people are, not so much communism dictating, but more the person who is the most qualified, yeah, uh, who has got a track record gets to have the bulk of the decision-making, and then others are assisted until they've proved their worth. Um, my issue with, I guess, what we'd call socialism, social welfare, is this thing of you're getting something for nothing. Yeah, you know, and I sat with Reverend Kenneth Meshoe of—um, ACP, and we spoke about Brazil and other places which my kids are living in now. He was in Brazil at some point, and we spoke about the Bill of Rights. We have a Bill of Rights; everyone's like, "I've got children's rights; I've got women's rights; I've got a right to this and that," and we don't speak about a bill of responsibilities. You never learned that in school. Responsibilities. Yeah, I'm saying no one speaks about them; no one goes on platforms and say—nobody says that, but I've got responsibilities. Yes, that's true. You know I mean? True. That's true. So I have a right to water, but what's my responsibility in terms of closing, in terms of not wasting the water, in terms of—because if you're being responsible here, it makes sense for you to get the right, yes, but if you're just—because of Braila, you're not paying for electricity; you get to play music the whole day; your lights are on; your geysers on, and the idiots in the suburbs have to pay extra money. That's true, kind of situation. Now it's, it's a disconnect. Um, and I've come up with so many different models. If ever I maybe got into government or became a, a formal advisor, but it would need to be someone who's willing to do what needs to be done, making sure that our grant system is, is a reward system: you'll get a grant as a leg up if you need the money, but most people don't need money, and the more you do, the more you get, okay, because we disincentivize progress. If you pass 3,500, you get switched off; if you earn so much, you can't use this free thing anymore, and you're like, "What's the incentive?" Whereas you should tell people, "Here's a glass today; if you can come with two chickens tomorrow, we'll give you 10 glasses," so that people can be stimulated, almost like NSAs saying, and I think they've, they've killed this thing. Last I heard about, they're turning a—I think it's a grant now; I'm not sure; I'm not sure; it's not important. I, I, I studied through NSFAS. So back in the day, my day, yeah, if you, if you pass your subject, it automatically turns into a bursary. Bursary. Yes, that was, that was the, the vibe in my day as well. Sure, because I did well in school, I would get a bursary, so that becomes the incentive that, "Look, if you do this, we'll give you so much more." Our current social welfare system is not based on that; it's not based on vitality and discovery; it's on the fact that you exist; just you exist, then you have a South African ID, which illegal foreigners buy because it's such a commodity. Yeah. Vitality: if you run—if we see you at marathons and you scan—if we see you gyming, if we see you volunteering at these schools, you'll get extra medicine; you'll get a higher grant; your kids will get taken to a better school because we can see you investing, but if you're doing nothing, you'll get the bare minimum until you're ready. I like that. Anyway, so it's, it's just—and that's how we should be doing things. I agree with you. And then with strangers, yeah, man, with strangers, capitalism is the order of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, if…
A person has not proven their worth in the home, in the community; they must pay. I kind of run my life like that now, cuz I get a lot of people asking for favors in the DMs. I used to help people—free advice; I'd refer them where I could; I'd donate, uh—but I realize these people are strangers. I'm going to build your home, you're going to have money, and then you're gone. The day I come knocking, you're like, "My kids are hungry." You'll be like, "Hey baba, hey." These are not my kids. And I realized the hard way, oh okay. But instead of becoming a sellout like ANC leaders and being like, "Let me just be rich myself," wow, sorry, sorry, I was like, "Look, um, I will help those who are close to me, where I know if I help you out, I know when you make money I get to visit your house and eat your groceries at least." And for everyone else, it's like, pay—whether in cash or kind. What benefit can you give me? I don't have anything kind. Let's calm down, let's calm down, beginning of the year, let's calm down.
So, for example, you are brilliant at maths. I'm like, "Can you give my child 10 free maths lessons?" And then I'll help you with what you need. But in the absence of that, just pay. Let's keep it moving. The Jews and the Muslims—I never finish my example—are that it's in their communities they help as much as possible for free; they give for free. And then to the outside world, they sell at a premium. And what that premium allows them is to also help their communities, and over and above they also do charity work specifically in the communities of their customers. Cuz like, these people give us money, exactly; we make a premium so that we can every now and then give them food parcels, etc. And that kind of works in that way.
But if you look at um, how South Africa is run, right, I think we have this—I, we have this idealist approach to what we think should happen and what we would like to happen. But with our current government, even if we changed or switched things up, do you think it would stop the greed? Our, our political system and along with many others in the world are broken. It's such a broken system.
Yeah, even our democracy is just a shame. Yeah. My solution personally is communities. I, I wish we could—I mean, you visit Dubai, you look at Stellenbosch here, yeah, places like Sandton—if we can get people to be focused on their community and to have healthy competition, like football teams and [Music] say, "We make this Dubai," and then to the rest of the GEs and be like, "Step up, look at us, look at us," and then we have a healthy competition of communities, and the communities trade with each other—capitalism because we don't trust each other—but within the community it's like, "We'll help you as much as you need, cuz we know you'll turn us into Dubai," and that is Stellenbosch, and then you switch off. That's less reliance on government, cuz we do everything for ourselves.
And why I visited Orania to kind of see what they're doing, yeah, last year we did—I did two interviews with the son of one of the co-founders—minus no, Carl Bosov, his father was one of the three co-founders of Orania—and then the current leader now, uh, Y Stoms, he's relatively young, uh, brilliant. I enjoyed visiting there.
I need to watch that interview. Sure. Okay. What else do I have for you? Uh, one of the challenges I gave you last time, we said, "Oh my God, not this question." Okay. Oh, you don't go home and think, "Did you say that?" I'm—I was talking about responding with emotion, but anyway, it's fine. Ask the question. People like you and I and many others have said, would believe that the country is not being run correctly and is not moving in the right direction, and we look at—most of us—politics as the main uh, platform to effect change. There are others—business, maybe NGOs to some degree—um, my question was, since we claim to be smarter than the people in power, uh, more well-read, we've got these great ideas, we've got energy, um, where do you see yourself uh, playing a role? Would you join politics? Are you looking to go somewhere else? How do you affect change besides making TikTok videos?
I'm a TikTok activist, and I am a TikTok activist. I will admit it, guys, and I, I really don't like politics. I don't like it. And the question of how I affect change is a tricky one, because it's that thing we discussed the last time of having to work your way into a system in order for you to be able to change it, but I don't know—know how practical and possible that is in our lifetime. Yeah. So politics for me is an absolute no. Negative. But if you don't change it, who's going to change it? And how going to change? I'm a YouTube [Music] activist. Why me? Um, I, I really don't have an answer. It's something that I've, I have been thinking about, and I've been thinking about how I affect change—me, myself—and whenever I think about affecting change, my mind just goes to a show. I have no interest in the, in making a difference in terms of being in politics. Yeah. When I think of making a difference, I think about where my great, great, great grandfather was born, yeah, and what needs to happen there.
Do you have a plan? I do. It just requires a hell of a lot of money. How much? Lots of millions, hundreds of millions. 500 million. Yeah. Do you have a plan to raise 500 million? Not yet. Do you think the economy of a show—it makes 500 million a year? No, you don't think so? No, really? No, no, no. Not where I'm from is this show. So it's not even a show with the whole—when I—you specifically want to go home—home like it's extremely underdeveloped. Why not become an MEC in KZN and try and effect change in that way? Go into politics, go into KZN, there's budgets, there's money, you can be on the ground and make sure that you build compounds and schools, and that's exactly what I want. Yeah, that's what I think about when I think of—so why not do that? Why not build, or why, why do I need um, to be a politician in order for me to do that? That's why I'm asking.
Do you have a plan? My thing is like, I'm, I'm a bit crazy in a sense, is that when I think about change—which is very stupid at the same time—I think about how am I going to do this myself? I don't think about, "I need to go ask for help," which is a problem because 500 million is a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of money, but that's where my mind goes, because I think—this may have been a conversation we had off camera, but I remember speaking to you about—I don't like asking, and it's a pride thing. I understand. I don't—I like—so me having to go into those systems, um, work through the politics within the politics and the violence and the self-preservation, like I, it's just too much for me, if—cuz when I know that when I get in there, I have an agenda, yeah, to uplift my community, m, and I'm going to be very selfish about it. So am I entering into this space because I want to better myself? And I think when you're a politician, the "you" needs to be lost, and that's a problem that we're facing right now is that the "you" is first. Yeah. So I'm thinking about myself, so I need to—there's a lot of work that needs to be done there. I can't even get home properly because the roads are a mess. Sure. And getting in and out is such a problem; if it rains, it's messed up, you can't move. I can't move; I'm stuck. So those are—I'm glad you raised this cuz I'm going to hold you accountable, and I'm going to shout at you on a regular—oh my God, I'm sorry. It's your fault. It is my fault. You know, besides getting into politics, you can hold politicians accountable. There are budgets for those things, and the the minimal homework you need to do is going and figure out who are the role players, right, politically and in business, if that area and surrounding that you can just start by asking about—including maybe if there's pizza shops there owned by Pakistanis, no, as an example, to be like, "What are they doing there?" If there's people that own livestock, do they make access so they can send it out of the community to bring—
I was excited—a, a part of the reason I was excited last year's election, which ended up disappointing me, was the new people coming in, because we've gotten new people now that are not—weren't raised in struggle and politics—people that were part of a movement since they were children—Herman Mashaba at some point with the DA, and then he'd set up ActionSA—comes from business. Yeah, you have Ghone McKenzie, the Patriotic Alliance—ex-convict turned businessman now in politics—uh, Musim Manmani, who was brought into the DA as well, who set up Build One SA. He brought in Noaz Webster, an amazing lady from, from KZN, brought in Ayanda Allie, who was in media, very passionate about her community; she does a lot of work, I think for—is what she said when we sat down—people like as well—also from a business background—people that were like, "We're tired of complaining. Yeah, we all see the same rotten system, and we're like, 'But if no one's going to change it, then who? If not us?'" And they went in. The system is currently dealing with them. I'm hoping they'll change. There's another amazing lady, I think from the Western Cape.
What do you mean the system is dealing with them? I'll explain. Lauren Bernardo of OMM, the Organic Humanity Movement, she believes in destroying government and revolutionizing, but her approach and her followers are, "We need to get in first." I'm like, "You don't—" But they believe that, and it's okay. The system is dealing with them because what happens is—and I'm shame, this is no—I'm not judging them at all—when you get into political office—S, I think is a speaker in Parliament or one of the uh, forums there—um, I think are sitting—I think is a member of Parliament—I think Allie is now with Premier level—I think might be in the city, if not the province—Ghone obviously is a minister of sports, arts and culture uh, etc.—once you get into a position, it's got a job spec, and you've got meetings, and you follow protocol, and you earn your salary, and there's this and there's that and there's show face, and then you still have to go and do party work. So whatever great idea you had for a show, you have minimal time because you've got back-to-back meetings, you have to sign documents, you have to go campaign, you have to sit with these people, there are business people that want to wine and dine you, you're still trying to be a mom, still trying to be a wife or a partner, so it deals with you. Cuz the system is built intentionally like that to be like—you almost have to completely break—which is why you'd almost want to build a ZCC church—sh, become Kanye West and be like, "I will fundraise on my own to focus on this thing." You have to break away, as—or exactly the guys in Orania could have joined government, exactly, and said, "We want to raise the funds and try and build a little"—or they were like, "[ __ ] government, we'll just build it and struggle right until we get it right," type of—
In sitting with a lot of these people, some of the really cool ideas that have come in the conversations I've had, which are ideas for you and other people like you—your first problem is your sellout, cuz you're here now and you're not a—sure. Number two, I can bet good money that you're not sending any money there to build anything. Are you sure? I can bet—I'm betting. Okay, I could be wrong, so I'll lose the bet. I can bet money that yourself and whatever friends and circles you have are not—every year for a few days a week—going there to volunteer, to pass on knowledge, to take kids out and send them to better—definitely, because it's work. It's work against the system. You've got a job, you want to relax on the weekend, you've got kids, you, you can't—it's a wish. Right. Sir was visiting his primary school, cha, and they were taking pictures. I'm like, "This is embarrassing. This is your primary school." Did the same before he passed on, and he was proud. I'm like, "This is embarrassing, fam," but the system sucks you right.
So in some of the conversations we had, besides Orania, besides an AfriForum, which is another good example to follow, besides Gift of the Givers—another good example to follow—um, looking at number one, what is the potential economy of that place? If you don't have one, you have to build one, right? Cuz if not—if you're not building an economy—get all the people out, convince everyone to dig up the graves, cuz people stay there cuz—and there's no way that we're leaving because of that. So if not that, building economy—Dubai was built in a desert, Las Vegas was built in a desert, Sun City was built in the middle of nowhere. I said with Chaba Map, he's an PhD in architecture, brilliant, he's a lecturer I think at Vits, and one of the conversations we had was, "If you guys don't have mining commodities—there—uranium, platinum, gold, coal, whatever—if you don't have fertile lands for planting maize, sugar cane—if it's not fertile for livestock—you guys can grow your lucerne and your hay, and you guys have got a, a Karen beef or ZZ2 there—the next thing is tourism, and now the innovation now needs to come up—what would make people come here? Is it a pilgrimage? Is it Moria? Do we build the Eiffel Tower, and you're like, 'I'm going to spend the rest of my life building a pyramid in that village,' for one reason only—to get people to just travel far and wide to come see this pyramid, leave money there, and the place will automatically develop? Or I'm going to set up—cuz the UAE is doing this—I'm going to set up a tournament, whether it's F1, rugby sevens, that forces people to just come here, m, or I'm going to build the best university in the country here, or I'm going to build Silicon Valley. I'm going to get the brightest minds around the world to come here, and we have the fastest computers, we have the whatever—all the apps being built in South Africa, on the African continents are there, and you're like, 'There was this crazy lady who was like, "I need this place to get developed," and these are some of the ideas we need to do.'
I forget to mention I didn't sit with him—Chris Papa and the work he's doing—these are people who are like, "We're tired of sitting on the sidelines," and retired. And my question to you is, "What's the plan, sister?" I'm not going to share my plans with you. What's the plan, sister? But I will tell you that it is something that I think about a lot, and they've been numerous things that I've tried to work towards, cuz that place is just—it's—you're working alone. Yes, working alone. That's your first hurdle. Yeah, because who, who am I going to do it with? People from there, whether they live there or they've run away like you—that's such a complex situation, because the people who live there, most of them—a lot of them—live in serious poverty, and they are not very educated, so it's a challenge. You know that feeling when you think, you think, you think, you think, and then there's some way where you're just like, you stop and you're like, "How am I going to get over this hurdle?" So a lot of the times I have blockages when I think about that area because there's so many issues that I just, I don't even know where to—can we just get a road first?
Do you care about the area or do you care about the people? I care about the people a lot, and the area both. I care about both. If you could move the people, would you? No, I wouldn't. Do you know the population size? No, I'm not sure what the population size—you must try and find that, cuz that will also help per capita to see what you're dealing with, cuz again, it could be just a matter of scholarships, getting kids out to study in Joburg, sending them back to go and do volunteer work, um, finding people—befriending, as an example—civil engineers and being like, "The only reason I attend your conferences and the cheese and wines because I want you go look at this, because I want you guys to go and build a road there as a favor for me, cuz you're my friend—at least go and see uh, what's going on there and and work out a budget for free as a friend," and then again, I'll see how I repay you. I'll give you a shout-out, I'll set up your website, whatever the case may be. Yeah, uh, because there are so many people with skills in this country. I startled an amazing lady—um, I think I hope I'm not butchering where she comes from—um, she's an attorney, uh, she's doing community work—so—trying to help people to set up trusts, etc., so that we're not dealing with these issues where people are fighting over—ino—but part of what we was discussing is she spoke about—I wrote it in my notes somewhere—I think Women Leaning In Business Circle, and she was like, "There are so many of us talented attorneys, bankers, economists, etc., and we're burning to give our skills to people that can use them in some way," right? Um, plugging into spaces like that and organizing a road trip—like, "Guys, I want us to camp—there's this really cool place where my grandfather—apparently it's got water—let's go camping," and you get there like, "But the roads are bad." You're like, "Oh, they suck." Yeah. "Don't you guys know anyone who can—" "I've got friends that are engineers." "Oh, let's bring your friends." Exactly. You know what I mean? Type of things, so we can do these things. And maybe if not politics, if not business, if you take this as your life calling, uh, please step it up. And you've told me now, so you're a bit bugged. I'm so bugged right now, so—and you're not the only one. I'm sure—hold myself um, accountable, because I think it's—people—we like to talk a lot—it's—"I want to do this, and and I want to do that," and you try to get buy-in from your family, and it doesn't work out, or whatever the case may be, and then nothing ever gets done. So now you're going to be shouting at me for however long until I—maybe your ancestors send me—I die, I know for sure, because—
Are you a very spiritual person? I'm God in my religion—Jesus—boom, gets no better, homie. Yeah, there's certain things that happen when you're a spiritual person, and you're—you dream, and you speak to people in your dreams, and they tell you certain things, and they put certain things on you, and those are the things that I know about myself—I'm not going to be able to run away much longer. I'm probably going to have to—and it's not even about TCE or anything; it's just the work that needs to be done, and you are supposed to do it. It's such a heavy cross to bear. Shame. What's the area? Eani. Yes. Does it even show up on Google, or is it like a dot somewhere? Um, does it fall under—just say Kangani? Kangani uh, Kangani. Let's see. Oh, it does show up—Kangani Primary School. Yes, there's a primary school and a high school. Uh, by the way, the condition of the school—you know when I drove past there, I was like, "This can't be it, guys." A's population is 14,000, just for reference, cuz these are some of the things people don't know, and these are the things that fascinate me. Orania's got a population of 3,000 people. Get out! 3,000 people; they've built their own school. It's so dope. They're building rugby fields; they're 50% off-grid. I think they got a battery last year; they're planning to 100% off-grid. They've set up their own newspaper; when I was there—they've got kids that run their own businesses. They build all their houses from scratch—beautiful homes—they build all their houses. It's one of the things that if you ever visit Orania, should fascinate you as a black person watching white people doing hard manual labor, because they believe in doing their own labor. They believe it's the one mistake that happened during apartheid, where they were exploiting black labor—that's why they don't have black people there—because they're like, "We will do for self." They are—mascot on their flag—I don't know if it's a mascot—their symbol on their flag is a young boy rolling his sleeves up because they believe in working for self. They created their own economy; I think there's nuts—they've created their own irrigation systems, yeah, etc., etc. And this is a community of 3,000 people. So again, just as an example—you may not like white people, you may believe Afrikaners are are racist, that's okay—but you want to go and learn from them and learn from the Chinese if you can. If you believe that it's going to take communism to develop your area, it means when you go there you're not negotiating, and it means you're going to be hated—hopefully you won't use violence—but hopefully doesn't get to that. Yeah, unfortunately I don't use violence; I wouldn't initiate the violence, that's for sure. Sometimes you start by defending yourself, and then sometimes—and then it becomes a mess, because there are certain dictators—if they came into power, they probably remove the whole—they be like—"—"And you guys would cry," and they be like, "We don't care that you're crying; we're turning this into a whatever we want it to be," and then they force you somewhere else. You'll cry, you'll complain, but you move on with life. That's what hard decisions are uh, when you're that type of leader. But is sure as a whole—14,000 P—you've got work to do. Any closing remarks? So do you—I've got no work—me—I'm here to chat—I—my work—so you're just going to be here chatting—chatting—I'm here to activate. I've got a wish—what is your wish? Identifying a thousand relatively young, passionate, skilled people in South Africa and giving them one area each—by—by one area. What do you mean? As in like—could be your hometown—focus—no one geographical area. Okay, so—yours as an example. Yes. Uh, Julius—Julius is from Limpopo; we're in Limpopo again. He likes—be—is it—maybe this is you, and then it's like your goal is to turn this place into Dubai. It doesn't have to be fancy and skyscrapers, but you need to turn this into the Vatican City—into be the wealthiest piece of land on the planet with the most educated people, the fastest internet, the best uh, public transport system, the happiest people, the healthiest people—like the Japanese. That's your—forget the rest of the country—forget all the Cape Flats and the violence—no, but they're killing each other—KZN—no, but look at—that's—forget that—focus here—develop this place—a thousand of you, yeah—and then as you're developing—with—hey, but do you see what they're doing at Stellenbosch? You guys are kind of sleeping, right? And then you're like, "Okay, I'm going to take you and your team, go to Stellenbosch, be there for a while—like we sent delegations outside—and then come back and plow back in your community." If South Africa is not enough, go to Dubai, go to America, go to China, go to Spain, go learn and come back and be like, "Okay," and then build your own currencies—like Orania, you know—which is not a currency, it's a voucher—have your own voucher system where you like—when you come into this town, you can't transact until you have our own little vouchers because we need you to leave money here. We're not going to have you come here, have a good time, and then leave with your money. No, no. Exactly. Whatever you want to eat from here, you eat here; you leave your vouchers here—like a casino—uh, when you leave, you leave your chips—sorry, bye—we keep the money—and then you do that. That would be my dream, but I'm here to, to—
To speak more than anything and hopefully ignite some people. And then, where possible, connect. If you're serious about—about, as an example, I know civil engineers—I've told you to visit, or we could go there. There are many people that want to go back with me when I go, um, again. I've given you some homework: find out who are the W counselors; find out who are the—find out what the budgets are; and then find out what's going on, because you guys should have a road, at the very least, yeah. And who's meant to be held accountable? You've got TikTok; people are listening to you. So while you're busy, like, like, okay, you're using your influence for real change; facts.
Yeah, any closing remarks? Not really. No. No. Feeling a bit better. Your spirit was a bit down, my—yeah, my energy is a bit low today, but I do feel better. I will say I do feel better. Sure. Um, I guess there's a lot of work that needs to be done. What are you hoping to achieve with sitting down with me, besides exposing yourself more to my audience? I'm still trying to figure that out; it's still a question mark for me, because, uh, TikTok kind of happened by accident, so I'm still trying to navigate what next. And I'm trying to find what the real purpose of the platform is, and where it's supposed to go, and what—I think I've posted a video about this on TikTok—and what I'm supposed to do, and why people want to listen to the voice, and what is it like, what is this about? It's still a question mark for me. But I will say that, um, for me, our conversations, they challenge me; they annoyingly push me to go to the place that I don't really—I'm afraid to go.
Yeah, I think we've had this conversation before about having to let go of certain things in order for other things to birth themselves. And for me, right now, if I'm completely honest, it's such a struggle. There's a lot of questions bubbling in my mind. We work alone; that's the biggest thing. Hdle again, like I said, that you need to get over: don't work alone. There are people like you; you'd be surprised about how many people are actually going to be like, oh. You might find there's an entire community. No, definitely. There are people; are people; there are people who I've seen, like when I was home this December, I was like, where are these mansions coming from? Like something is happening there. I just hope that it translates to not just me and my own, but it translates to, okay, I can see that there's clearly some people who've managed to make something of their lives in this place. Yeah. What next for the community? What are we bringing back? So I know you said you don't really want to speak about it, but I want to give a shout-out to your skill set. I don't need to mention it, but you're world-class at what you do, and people don't know that you work locally and internationally in the work that you do. And you've offered to give me guidance in the work that I do, and you've criticized some of my content, at least from a technical perspective. Um, maybe in time, when you're ready, you'll tell people exactly what it is that you do and why you're world-class, but I want to appreciate you for adding value in my life.
Besides your videos, to be like, if even though you're doing good work, Pen, you could be better. Yes, you could, because I'm world-class, and I can give you some of my expertise, and this becomes a teachable moment for other people that when you sit with someone, it's not necessarily to extract whatever they have, but it's to be like, how can I make their lives better? Exactly. Um, what are you struggling with? Maybe you're tired? Have you tried doing this? Is it your diet? Is it your—so that you walk away saying, this person added value in my life, and we make each other better, and that's like, in the real sense, exchange. Yeah, thank you so much for joining me. Have a great year. Let's sit down again soon. Forgive me, guys, for having such low energy; vibrating low. I'm vibrating high. Blue Jew—this blue Jew that I'm drinking—those things are not okay, dog. No, this is not an energy drink. What? What is—we'll talk about it another day. Let's shut it down before we plug the wrong people. Cheers. Cheers.