Rob Hursiv was born in 1960 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He grew up in a very privileged and loving family and had a loving mother and a loving father. But growing up in the 1960s and 70s in South Africa was not always so easy.
00:01:11.200I was born into great wealth in Johannesburg in the most beautiful country in the world.
00:01:16.380And it really is the most beautiful country in the world.
00:01:19.340And into a world that was, you know, unusual because we had the national government, a white government, that instituted a policy called apartheid.
00:01:30.020And everyone's heard the word apartheid, but no one knows what it actually means.
00:02:01.560So if we're settlers, we've been there a very, very long time.
00:02:07.480And the black tribes had moved south from East Africa hundreds of thousands of years before.
00:02:14.520And they too arrived in South Africa in their own time.
00:02:18.800And the two tribes, the white tribes and the black tribes, met more or less at the Fish River, which is about 700, 800 kilometers north up the coast from Cape Town.
00:02:29.760And you can only imagine that, you know, the colonial powers that arrived in the Cape and then further up country in the Eastern Cape and Natal, met people that didn't have the written word, you know, were massacring each other.
00:02:48.480Very savage people, but also some very decent, nice tribes people.
00:02:53.180And the white and the black tribes worked together, fought each other.
00:02:56.660And eventually South Africa was created.
00:02:58.760The Union of South Africa was only formed in 1910.
00:03:04.140It was made up of different or different unions, federations.
00:03:08.440And where we got to was there were many wars.
00:03:13.100There were the Anglo-Zulu Wars where the British fought the Zulus, the main black tribe of South Africa.
00:03:19.520And there were the Anglo-Boer Wars where the British fought the Afrikaners, or the people of Dutch, French, Huguenot heritage.
00:03:26.700So South Africa has been a warlike country with a lot of wars and problems for all of its history, including South Africa fighting in the First and Second World War on the side of the British and the Allies.
00:03:39.900And in 1948, for the first time ever, the Afrikaners, who were the majority of the white tribes, or tribe at that point, came into power.
00:03:49.200And over the next 10, 12 years, they began to institute this policy of apartheid.
00:03:54.840And you can understand the intellectual side of it, if you're prepared to have an open mind, that there were these people, the black tribes, who were, I'm not going to use the word less civilized, but who were not as advanced as the white tribes by any means.
00:04:13.040You know, when they first met, there was no, barely had the wheel.
00:04:16.560They had, you know, pretty basic tribal ways of living.
00:04:23.300And so there was a huge gap between the two civilizations.
00:04:26.800And we know you, one can catch up very quickly with education, with proper opportunity.
00:04:32.740But I think in the 1930s and 1940s, you know, the white rulers still felt that, you know, the black tribes hadn't reached a point where they were equal.
00:04:44.860And so this policy of apartheid was instituted, and it began in a very intellectual way.
00:04:51.660But then, as with many ideologies, ended up being, you know, way more money spent on black kids and way less money spent on, sorry, way more money spent on white kids, way less money spent on black kids for education.
00:05:08.220And in 1985, the Afrikaner government decided, independently of what was going on, but pressure did come from international sanctions, that this was unsustainable.
00:05:18.680And by 1994, the first democratic elections, Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, ANC, was elected.
00:05:27.020But growing up in Johannesburg in the 60s and 70s, and then being at school in South Africa and university was spectacular, you know, fantastic weather, huge opportunities, a great country.
00:05:37.980You know, I was very privileged, and I'm very fortunate to have such an extraordinary childhood and upbringing.
00:05:45.160I'm very grateful for it, and I don't take it for granted.
00:05:47.160So you're raising all sorts of issues, and it seems to me that we can start drawing a picture of the Dutch Republic in the 1650s, having won the Habsburg Spain during the 80 Years War,
00:06:03.720and then expanding and going to South Africa, and from my understanding, they didn't meet the tribes that now claim to be the indigenous tribes at the point.
00:06:24.760There were Strandlopers, which is a direct translation as beach walkers, so nomadic individual people.
00:06:31.840There were the Khoi Sam, the original very, I won't say primitive, it's probably the word will trigger people and upset people, but people from a very ancient civilization that were really not even hunter-gatherers.
00:06:48.280They were just nomadic people that lived off the land.
00:06:51.860And the Portuguese who had, you know, Vasco da Gama and had traveled south around the African continent, but hadn't stopped these beautiful old crosses that they put where they actually moored to pick up vegetables and food.
00:07:07.740They had faced up to the Khoi Sam in a few battles, but hadn't stayed in Africa.
00:07:12.860So the original people that the Dutch colonists discovered were the Khoi Sam.
00:07:22.280So you mentioned apartheid standing for separateness.
00:07:27.120And could you give us some examples of how was it to live under apartheid?
00:07:31.960What were the, how did the separateness manifest institutionally speaking, and also on a daily human level?
00:07:40.260Well, so I suppose the most egregious element of it was that all black citizens of South Africa had to carry a pass, a document, to say where they were from in South Africa, and that they were in white areas to work.
00:07:56.920So at any time a policeman could say, show me your pass, where it wasn't required of a white person, there were black schools, white schools, there were black hospitals, white hospitals, transport was separate, everything became separate.
00:08:11.980And, you know, there were those infamous signs that you can still see the photographs of from the old days, of slecht blankers, whites only, or blacks only.
00:08:38.920So the population growth of the black people in South Africa has been exponential, whereas of the white people has been, you know, not nearly as fast.
00:08:52.600And also a lot of the, I think a million of the 5 million white people that were around in the 1970s and 80s have left the country, have emigrated.
00:09:02.740It's been a terrible brain drain since the 1970s, because there was this issue of Swart Ghafar, which if you translate directly means black, fear of the blacks.
00:09:38.340So I want to ask you a bit about Nelson Mandela.
00:09:41.700But before I ask you this, I have another question.
00:09:44.600To what extent did this happen to countries near South Africa, which raises fear exponentially that the same thing can happen to South Africans, to white South Africans?
00:10:26.260And those countries collapsed into communism, terrorism, and really horrific situations on our borders.
00:10:36.220So the South African military was in Southwest Africa, which is now called Namibia.
00:10:42.720And on that border, the Angolan border, the MPLA, which was the Russian-backed and Cuban-backed Marxist organization, fought against within Angola.
00:10:54.340UNITA, which was South African and American-backed.
00:10:57.660And all of us, my age, went to the military.
00:11:01.920I spent two years as an infantry officer, 1983 and 1984, as did all my colleagues.
00:11:07.940You know, you were called up for national service.
00:11:10.040And we fought on the border of Namibia or Southwest Africa and Angola.
00:11:16.420Mozambique also had a similar collapse overnight.
00:11:20.180People streaming across the border to escape.
00:11:22.140And that country melted down into a sort of Marxist-inspired morass.
00:11:30.260Rhodesia announced UDI, Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
00:11:34.900And there was the most extraordinary resistance against the oncoming onslaught of communism and all those things that we feared in the 70s and 80s.
00:11:44.960And they held out for a very long time.
00:11:46.620And eventually, Rhodesia went over to democratic and black rule.
00:11:52.660Mugabe came in, and we all know the story there, destroyed their economy.
00:11:56.620So South Africa was sitting there with a very large white population and large colored and Indian population.
00:12:03.820I think it's important just to differentiate that there are 26 black tribes in South Africa, the biggest being Zulu and Gaza.
00:12:11.460There are 24 other languages and black tribes, Soutu, Swana, Ndebele.
00:12:45.420But on the Anglo-English-speaking side of the white tribes, there are all the other agglomerations.
00:12:51.020The Jews that escaped Eastern Europe and Russia, people from England, the 1820 settlers, the Portuguese who'd come south from Angola and Mozambique.
00:13:01.040So South Africa is a very large country.
00:13:17.800So you mentioned Nelson Mandela, but also communist infiltration in South Africa.
00:13:23.700Wasn't Nelson Mandela involved in communist activity and communist subversion before he was elected president, after his 27 years in prison?
00:13:58.120And even though every organization that defends against, you know, these sort of situations decided not to pursue the South African courts because he was given a fair trial.
00:14:17.780And having spent so much time in jail, he came out realizing the only way for this country to survive, to be fixed, to mend the wounds, was to be a conciliatory, spiritual, visionary leader of South Africa.
00:14:34.100And that he was, but in the basic mandate of the ANC, was communism, elitism, and actually anti-white racism, which is now coming to the fore, which we'll talk about just now.
00:15:17.560And, you know, there's one pretty main road in Johannesburg called the Winnie Mandela Drive.
00:15:23.340And it makes me sick when you think of the, of the things that she promoted.
00:15:29.040There's a, there's a terrible form of killing in South Africa called necklacing, where people had tires thrown around them and there was satellite, burned to death.
00:15:38.160This is Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife.
00:15:42.900And you think, you claim that he was a pillar of stability throughout his rule?
00:15:49.400Yes, because I think having spent 27 years in jail, you know, he realized the only way to make this country work was to let bygones be bygones, focus on forward thinking.
00:15:59.860And even though the ANC had all the evil within it that is manifesting itself now, he held that back while he was in power.
00:16:09.780And he was followed by Thabo Mbeki, who even though he had major faults, like saying that HIV and AIDS, you know, couldn't cure them and they were meant to happen.
00:16:22.840And he was quite extraordinarily stupid when it came to things like that.
00:16:26.740The economy grew at three to 5% a year.
00:16:32.100And the, the, and there was still meritocracy in the country.
00:16:35.420You know, businesses and state-owned enterprises were run by competent people who got the job done.
00:16:40.640And the country was trending in the right direction.
00:16:43.300But within the mandate of the ANC, all the evil was there, was being implemented and has come to bear today.
00:16:51.140So, I think that in the Western mind, in the collective consciousness, that isn't particularly political and doesn't follow the politics of South Africa.
00:17:00.660There has been a sort of myth or story, let's say.
00:17:37.460So, could we fast forward to today and describe, could you please describe, let's start with infrastructure and then go progress to the more monstrous.
00:18:30.120And two, they've had this policy called cadre, or CADRE, deployment, which Cyril Ramaphosa has been a fundamental proponent of cadre deployment.
00:18:41.080I think in 2005 was the first main committee meeting, although they were deploying loyalists well in advance of that.
00:18:48.320But it was accelerated from 2005 onwards into positions of power, not just in state-owned enterprises, but on our institutions of democracy and judiciary.
00:19:00.340So what happened was there was this concept called state capture, and it began in full force when this gangster called Jacob Zuma became president.
00:19:12.600And Jacob Zuma was in power until 2017.
00:19:15.580And from 2008 to 2017 saw the collapse of all of our state-owned enterprises, stolen to death, broken to death, by incompetent people who were ANC loyalists.
00:19:28.740Secondly, laws have been implemented, not just under Jacob Zuma, but increasingly under our spineless current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called black economic empowerment.
00:19:43.540And even though that began in the 1990s, and South Africa accepted it as empowering previously disadvantaged, what it's really turned into is theft.
00:19:55.780So 100 families have stolen over a trillion rand from the economy.
00:20:02.320So black economic empowerment hasn't empowered the broad-based black or previously disadvantaged population of South Africa.
00:20:23.520And then there's a law which was signed into law by Cyril Ramaphosa in the last 12 months called expropriation without compensation.
00:20:32.520And if you want to think of a more stupid name for a law, something that will chase away all foreign direct investment, you'd call it expropriation without compensation.
00:20:43.120Everywhere in the world you have expropriation with compensation.
00:20:46.280You know, if you want to build a railway or an airport, you've got to expropriate land from people.
00:50:36.840Soft diplomacy is a concept for weaklings and is a concept for losers.
00:50:43.840Just because you're too scared to say boo to a black leader in South Africa means they laugh in your face.
00:50:52.840And to my friend who's in the House of Lords, grow some cojones and tell it like it is, please, on behalf of all your friends in South Africa.
00:51:03.840The issue with democracy that I'm really worried about, especially with fake democracies, because it seems to me that right now there are lots of people in Western democracies who think that all of them can live like oligarchs.
00:51:20.840Or all of them can live like aristocrats.
00:51:23.840And they treat the state as a sort of mechanism that would allow them to do this.
00:51:29.840Which reinforces the philosophy of looting and over-regulation and excessive intervention in the economy, which ends up creating an economic meltdown and disaster.
00:51:47.840Just because something is a democracy doesn't mean it's good and it's okay and you don't have to look at it and you can look the other way.
00:51:54.840You know, everyone like Mandela legacy, it's a democracy.
00:52:22.840We're not going to fix it unless we get there.
00:52:25.840And when it comes to this question as a sub-question, do you think that Western countries right now, like England and other, like Germany, France, they are afraid to assert a sort of European identity, let's say.
00:52:50.840Not European, pan-European as opposed to, you know, the regional one.
00:52:56.840But do you think that they think like mere economic zones and not economy of the good type?
00:53:17.840I mean, Europe and America are South Africa's biggest trading partners.
00:53:21.840There are stronger cultural, economic, and other links between America and Europe and South Africa than ANC's favourite brothers and comrades in Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
00:53:48.840And do you think that this is, to a very large extent, self-imposed, which has to do with communist subversion, which manifested initially with anti-economic, anti-capitalism, and then with all the crazy DEI stuff, anti-Western, anti-white, anti-whatever.