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58 - Community Self Defense in a Declining South Africa with K9 Reaper image

58 - Community Self Defense in a Declining South Africa with K9 Reaper

EXIT Podcast
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2.6k Plays11 months ago

K9 Reaper is a private security contractor and community safety activist in South Africa.

As a zoomer, he has no memory of the Before Times — but he has had a front-row seat as things have gone from bad to worse, particularly since the 2021 riots. Copper thieves who would have fled the scene with their hand tools five years ago are now firing on first responders with automatic rifles.

The primary vector of state violence in South Africa is a kind of persecution-by-incompetence, in which white South Africans are shut out of the ever-expanding sphere of government investment while their productive efforts are heavily taxed, expropriated, embezzled, and wasted.

The starkest symbol of this process is copper cable theft, in which multibillion-dollar energy infrastructure, painstakingly assembled by highly skilled laborers and engineers over decades, is sabotaged and stripped for a $50 payday at an illegal scrapping camp.

As in America, the violence is outsourced via race-baiting propaganda aimed at the criminal underclass. But unlike in the States, South Africans enjoy broad latitude in patrolling their communities and violently subduing criminals — partly because the government needs them to maintain basic order, and partly because the government isn’t really competent to stop them.

K9 Reaper notes that South African private security forces number 2.7 million, by far the largest such industry in the world — dwarfing both the South African police (~150,000) and the standing army (~100,000, including reservists).

As the South African state receded in competence, private security filled the gap in an entirely legal and non-adversarial way, until eventually their role was integrated into regular law enforcement procedure.

This process has unfolded gradually over decades, until one day, despite having no constitutionally guaranteed right to firearms or self defense — and in fact facing extreme racial disprivilege under the law — white South Africans have, in practice, more expansive “2A rights” than Americans.

Ethnic enclaves like Orania also became possible on the same terms: not because the South African government is so tolerant and liberal, but because they simply don’t have the juice to do much about it.

I wouldn’t trade places with them at this point, but it illustrates how declining states leak power, which always presents opportunity.

It can be very depressing to discover that your “constitutional rights” are not self-enforcing. On the other hand, it’s liberating to realize that what matters is the practical question: what are you able to do, and who is going to stop you?

Start building with us at exitgroup.us.

Transcript

Introduction to K9 Reaper and Community Safety

00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
00:00:19
Speaker
This is Dr. Bennett.
00:00:20
Speaker
Today we've got K9 Reaper.
00:00:22
Speaker
K9 is a private security contractor involved in community safety in South Africa.
00:00:27
Speaker
He's built a platform publishing footage from his work and what he's seeing out there.
00:00:32
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of people have been asking for me to get him on and talk about sort of what he's seeing out there and what it does or doesn't portend for other parts of the West.
00:00:42
Speaker
So welcome to the show.
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah, man.
00:00:44
Speaker
Listen, thank you so much for having me on.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's a
00:00:47
Speaker
We chatted a little bit earlier and I'm really looking forward to it.
00:00:50
Speaker
Great.
00:00:51
Speaker
I think it's a good place to start.

Community Organization and Event Safety

00:00:54
Speaker
As we were sort of preparing for this interview, you mentioned that what you do involves a lot more community safety and you made a distinction between that and like the private security work, that sort of high risk private security work.
00:01:08
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by there?
00:01:10
Speaker
What is the distinction there?
00:01:12
Speaker
Essentially, when I refer to my community safety work, it's directly in support of either my local community or somebody else's community.
00:01:24
Speaker
And that involves patrolling as a community member, assisting when, how, required, any time of the day or night.
00:01:32
Speaker
With essentially, the majority of it is security stuff for the community.
00:01:37
Speaker
And then the other part of it is
00:01:40
Speaker
helping at call it events and meetings and things like that.
00:01:45
Speaker
We're like a community wants to get together and do community things as your area should be doing, but they need a little bit of support behind it.
00:01:54
Speaker
They needed a little bit of maybe crowd control or assisting with medical or whatever.
00:02:00
Speaker
And then we can assist and help arrange those things and be there on the day and a whole bunch of other stuff.
00:02:07
Speaker
So you're organizing the community themselves to sort of look after each other for those kinds of things.

Community Initiatives and Youth Involvement

00:02:14
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:02:15
Speaker
And you're showing them that, look, I'm here.
00:02:16
Speaker
We're here to help you and to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that really everyone just pulls together because, you know, people don't do that anymore, unfortunately.
00:02:27
Speaker
So the more you can get to pull together and work together,
00:02:31
Speaker
together structurally the better it is for your area as a whole because now people are taking interest in things uh they start looking after things being the smallest thing um you'd be you wouldn't believe we'll go more in depth in it later but you wouldn't believe how the smallest thing can help uplift the community um i mean even just planting a tree as an example not security related just planting a tree
00:02:55
Speaker
There's quite a bit later on.
00:02:57
Speaker
What are the most successful projects for building and securing communities that you've

Comparing Safety Initiatives: US vs South Africa

00:03:02
Speaker
been a part of?
00:03:02
Speaker
What's working?
00:03:03
Speaker
Generally, well, for example, they're going to release a statement about it soon.
00:03:09
Speaker
Just recently, I assisted with a security, not security, a community safety initiative, which is part of this organization.
00:03:17
Speaker
It's just an umbrella of what they do, part of it.
00:03:20
Speaker
where all these youngsters come together and they do what the Afrikaners call stoi.
00:03:26
Speaker
So stoi is to wrestle.
00:03:27
Speaker
So like Americans have your wrestling, et cetera.
00:03:32
Speaker
They do it down here as well.
00:03:33
Speaker
And the youngsters need somewhere safe, comfortable to do it and so forth.
00:03:38
Speaker
I mean, there's hundreds of children.
00:03:40
Speaker
I found out recently there's hundreds of children, thousands of them who do this.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I think it's incredible after watching them, I mean,
00:03:47
Speaker
to physically take on another human being like they are.
00:03:51
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:03:52
Speaker
It's incredible.
00:03:53
Speaker
But yeah, sorry.
00:03:54
Speaker
So we went through recently, it was a 16 hour shift.
00:04:00
Speaker
It was a bloody long day.
00:04:01
Speaker
And we just assisted the community in everything they needed from first aid to crowd control to physics regarding managing the entire thing from where people should park, where they should go to
00:04:18
Speaker
just pretty much everything and anything that we could help with.
00:04:21
Speaker
And you see the joy in those little ones when you're done at the end of the day.
00:04:24
Speaker
I mean, thousands of kids just want to hug you when they're done because you were like there for them during the day.
00:04:30
Speaker
It sounds so simple, but yeah.
00:04:33
Speaker
So that was one of the recent things that I'm not going to mention the organization just yet.
00:04:39
Speaker
There's reasons behind that, that I need to just smooth out and iron out with them.
00:04:46
Speaker
But they will release a statement I'm sure soon and as soon as they do, I will share that and whatever.
00:04:51
Speaker
Cool.
00:04:53
Speaker
As far as like starting something like what you've built for starting a community organization in the US.
00:05:04
Speaker
What advice do you have?
00:05:05
Speaker
How did you go about getting started in this area?
00:05:08
Speaker
To cover how to get it going in the US, I had this question before and it sort of always finishes on the same topic for some reason where if enough Americans get together, it's seen as a militia if you want to do what we're doing, unfortunately.
00:05:25
Speaker
And out of that group, let's say you've got 10 guys.
00:05:30
Speaker
Eight of them are feds.
00:05:33
Speaker
You know, one is the kid who's going to go do something stupid, and then the last guy is actually the legit dude.
00:05:39
Speaker
So to sort of answer that question, for us it works because there's a necessity.
00:05:44
Speaker
There's a requirement for it.
00:05:46
Speaker
The community is the backbone behind where they live at the end of the day.
00:05:53
Speaker
So the necessity is there that, you know what, due to the decline and what's happening in South Africa,
00:06:00
Speaker
No one's going to come help you.
00:06:01
Speaker
You've got to do it yourself, guys.
00:06:02
Speaker
So for us, that's the case.

Motivations and Methods for Community Coordination

00:06:05
Speaker
For you guys, honestly, what seems to work for you guys is there are some that seem to host community-based projects with regards to, for example, ranching and things like that, where they'll take on a bunch of dudes and pay them a bit and go work the field, buddy, and we're one big, happy family.
00:06:24
Speaker
So it seems like a good position to be in.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, making it explicitly like productive, professional, sort of doing something that's not sort of apolitical, but maybe like implicitly associated with your like cultural background, but not political.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, there we go.
00:06:48
Speaker
That's the nice part in that sentence off of that associated with your cultural, non-political background.
00:06:55
Speaker
views, if that makes sense.
00:06:56
Speaker
Otherwise you become a militia in the eyes of the law.
00:06:59
Speaker
So for us again, there's the necessity, man.
00:07:04
Speaker
If we don't go out and do this, no one else literally, literally, not even the powers that be are going to go out there and do this.
00:07:12
Speaker
So we don't have a choice.
00:07:15
Speaker
I mean, where I'm sitting with you right now, I've got all my gear packed out.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's always ready straight off to every patrol.
00:07:20
Speaker
It's packed, cleaned, restocked, whatever needs to happen.
00:07:24
Speaker
And it's there so it could just be grabbed and go.
00:07:26
Speaker
Even as we're talking now, someone could phone and say, hey, buddy, they're stealing copper cable down the road.
00:07:30
Speaker
You've got to rock and roll.
00:07:32
Speaker
That's just how it is.
00:07:33
Speaker
Because if we don't jump in a car and go down there, who else is going to do it?
00:07:37
Speaker
The police won't do it.
00:07:38
Speaker
The army sure shit won't.
00:07:41
Speaker
Hell, the 99% of the community themselves won't do it.
00:07:45
Speaker
So, yeah, that's where we are.
00:07:48
Speaker
How I got into it, there's no special source there, honestly.
00:07:53
Speaker
One day, I suppose, we just, well, I just sort of looked around and got interested many years ago.
00:08:00
Speaker
And yeah, it does become a passion eventually.
00:08:05
Speaker
You do, I'll be honest with you, you do write off a lot of personal time with your family and loved ones and things like that.
00:08:13
Speaker
But you make up for it as best you can as you go along.
00:08:16
Speaker
And again, yeah, it's a passion.
00:08:19
Speaker
What you said...
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:08:22
Speaker
Sorry.
00:08:23
Speaker
Did you take a job in the industry or did you just like decide to chase down a guy, run it off with some copper cable one day?
00:08:32
Speaker
How did that, how did that work?
00:08:35
Speaker
So on the community side of things, it was more, it was more of a case of, I wanted to know what was going on in my area.
00:08:45
Speaker
And I sort of just hooked up, um,
00:08:48
Speaker
with a bunch of guys that were doing their thing and this and that's sort of where it led to from there.
00:08:52
Speaker
So to give you an idea, the majority of South Africa runs off of WhatsApp groups.
00:08:57
Speaker
So in America, I think you guys still use like a text based whatever SMS service, whatever.
00:09:03
Speaker
In South Africa, it's all WhatsApp and Telegram groups essentially, but primarily WhatsApp.
00:09:09
Speaker
Every single neighborhood in this country and you and I are speaking on video, so I can actually show you this just to give you an idea.
00:09:16
Speaker
every single neighborhood in this country runs off of some form of a WhatsApp group.
00:09:25
Speaker
So I mean, I can, for example, take you down to, let me just find this quickly.
00:09:36
Speaker
Here we go.
00:09:37
Speaker
So this might show backwards.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's mirroring it, unfortunately.
00:09:42
Speaker
But you can see there that they're referring to Copy Cable 5th and how they got a unit to respond to it.
00:09:49
Speaker
And that's how it works.
00:09:50
Speaker
I could scroll through my phone and I kid you not, I'm on thousands of WhatsApp groups for all parts of the country and they're all security related.
00:09:58
Speaker
So that's essentially the not so secret sauce as to how I ended up in community safety.
00:10:04
Speaker
It was just a wanting to know what's going on to knowing what's going on and then wanting to seriously get involved to help.
00:10:11
Speaker
And that's that's where I am now.
00:10:14
Speaker
It's it's it's hilarious to imagine how that would transpire in the US being like the radicalization and militarization of a next door group.

Crime Challenges: Copper Theft and Violence

00:10:26
Speaker
So I don't know if you're familiar with next door.
00:10:28
Speaker
It's basically like a social network for your neighborhood.
00:10:31
Speaker
And interesting.
00:10:33
Speaker
And because, you know, because it's very much peacetime.
00:10:37
Speaker
in most parts of America, these groups are like completely deranged.
00:10:40
Speaker
Like it's, it's, it's, it's people who are like, this person's flashing on the outside of their house isn't quite right.
00:10:46
Speaker
And then, you know, like, and like all these feuds about like how, how long they cut their grass or don't cut their grass.
00:10:54
Speaker
So the, the, the idea that that would, that that would turn into these like sort of, uh,
00:11:00
Speaker
That would be hilarious, the side of the world, because no one would give a shit, actually, the side of the world.
00:11:05
Speaker
No one would care.
00:11:07
Speaker
Right, right.
00:11:10
Speaker
I wonder if you have thoughts on... I mean, so you strike me as a fairly young guy.
00:11:18
Speaker
You probably don't remember the before times.
00:11:22
Speaker
But what has changed in your lifetime?
00:11:25
Speaker
How have you seen things...
00:11:27
Speaker
progress or regress or what have you in South Africa?
00:11:31
Speaker
So before times, I'm going to assume you're referring to apartheid and that sort of thing.
00:11:39
Speaker
I was born after that.
00:11:41
Speaker
I think the only way I could sort of comment on this would be to say that in my lifetime, I have unfortunately watched things go from bad to worse over time steadily.
00:11:53
Speaker
And it is really a steady,
00:11:55
Speaker
March, you could just see the graph slowly tick down, down, down, down as it goes along.
00:12:01
Speaker
And as a result of instances like that, I have lost friends, personal friends and other responders as a result.
00:12:10
Speaker
So I think over time, what I've watched is essentially just decay and decline that slowly builds up.
00:12:21
Speaker
It's obviously not endemic to South Africa.
00:12:23
Speaker
It's happening all over the world.
00:12:24
Speaker
But for us, it's obviously personal because it just feels like it's a lot worse.
00:12:28
Speaker
And a perfect example of that is copper cable thieves are no longer just stealing copper cable.
00:12:36
Speaker
They are stealing copper cable and actively engaging first responders.
00:12:40
Speaker
So you go from thinking, okay, I'm going to pull up on scene and I'm going to chase a guy who's got a spade and a pickaxe down the road in my plate carrier.
00:12:48
Speaker
I hope that I've trained enough in the things that I can outrun the dog.
00:12:52
Speaker
Meanwhile, you pull up
00:12:54
Speaker
and the guy opens fire on your vehicle or on you if it's a foot patrol in a field or whatever.
00:12:59
Speaker
And now you go from a static engagement to all of a sudden, holy shit, dynamic, step off the X, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:13:08
Speaker
And as a result, first responders are unfortunately getting hit or worse.
00:13:15
Speaker
They're dying.
00:13:17
Speaker
So that for me is definitely one of the biggest changes that
00:13:21
Speaker
I have seen now, if you want to call it in recent memory, in the last two years or so.
00:13:27
Speaker
And another part of that, which is another direct link to changes is, for example, Zamasamas, which is South Africa's illegal gold miners.
00:13:40
Speaker
They have now come from below the surface, China multi-task apologies.
00:13:45
Speaker
They've come from below the surface and they are engaging in copper cable theft themselves because they can make more money and it's easier for them.
00:13:54
Speaker
So now you pull up on scene and it's not just to go out the nine malls, to go out the frigging AK and he's going, oh, hi.
00:14:00
Speaker
And now you're in serious trouble because I know everyone thinks they're a hero and this and that and blah, blah, blah, until you pull up and the fun really starts happening.
00:14:08
Speaker
So I suppose for me, the biggest thing that has changed over time is definitely direct link to
00:14:15
Speaker
current circumstances as to why I'm doing what I'm doing.
00:14:18
Speaker
And that's because crime and stuff like that, lawlessness in general really is getting bad.
00:14:25
Speaker
You mentioned these copper cable thieves and in the States we have copper cable thieves, but it's basically,
00:14:37
Speaker
the sort of bottom of the underclass people that are, that are in, in desperate situations in like really bad areas because copper, it just, it's, you know, it's, it's expensive.
00:14:48
Speaker
Copper cable is expensive, but like the economics of stealing it are, are such that you have to be in really desperate straits to do that.
00:14:59
Speaker
Can you tell us a little bit about like, what do you know about how, like,
00:15:04
Speaker
What do they do with the cable?
00:15:05
Speaker
Who do they get it to?
00:15:06
Speaker
Like, is there like a an industry of like people that fence copper cable and and and sell it to industrial operators or how like, where does that go?
00:15:15
Speaker
So one of the things that I have struggled to explain to people is exactly how the copper cable theft works.
00:15:31
Speaker
Now,
00:15:33
Speaker
We're starting to find out, and even I'm learning, I mean, you don't know everything.
00:15:37
Speaker
Well, sorry, one doesn't know everything.
00:15:40
Speaker
So even I am now starting to find out that there are guys who are employed to dig, there are guys who are employed to cut the cable, and there are guys who are then employed to transport the cable.
00:15:51
Speaker
So there's a supply chain behind this.
00:15:53
Speaker
Everyone gets their cut and they move on.
00:15:56
Speaker
Majority of it is not, it's not, it's not,
00:16:01
Speaker
How would I put this?
00:16:02
Speaker
It's not.
00:16:05
Speaker
Man, I can't.
00:16:06
Speaker
Why?
00:16:06
Speaker
For some reason, I can't figure out the terminology.
00:16:08
Speaker
Planned crime syndicate.
00:16:10
Speaker
Thank you.
00:16:10
Speaker
Good Lord.
00:16:11
Speaker
It's been a long life.
00:16:13
Speaker
The majority of it is not syndicates to average vagrant on the side of the road who needs his 50 bucks to get through the day.
00:16:21
Speaker
So he takes your entire town, neighborhood, whatever, offline for that bit of copper cable.
00:16:27
Speaker
Now,
00:16:31
Speaker
Now, the process behind it, essentially, they locate the cable.
00:16:36
Speaker
They do it one of various methods.
00:16:38
Speaker
Some of them literally know where the cable is because they were the ones who laid it as part of the cable-laying team.
00:16:44
Speaker
Others know where it is because they are actually working for the state, whether it's CityPower, ESCOM, whatever, and they sell actual documents and things like that that show where the cable is.
00:16:57
Speaker
Two, it's not that difficult.
00:16:59
Speaker
Usually,
00:17:00
Speaker
they dig it like a T. So they'll find a light pole or they'll find the mini sub box inside the road.
00:17:05
Speaker
They'll dig a line directly across it because the cable only comes out one side.
00:17:10
Speaker
Dig a line directly across that.
00:17:14
Speaker
And then once they find the cable across that line, they'll then dig along the cable because they found it.
00:17:18
Speaker
So they cross the T essentially.
00:17:22
Speaker
And once that cable comes out, they will cut it up, remove the outer plastic sheath,
00:17:30
Speaker
take the armored core off of it, which is just stranded wires and stuff.
00:17:35
Speaker
And then they set it on fire to burn away the rubber and whatever's left behind because they just want the copper.
00:17:41
Speaker
And that then gets transported and sold.
00:17:46
Speaker
Every place sells or purchases copper at a different rate.
00:17:55
Speaker
Now, some places,
00:18:00
Speaker
will sell or buy copper at about, I think someone said somewhere north of Victoria, it was about 165 Rand a kilo.
00:18:08
Speaker
Don't quote me on that, though, for your listeners.
00:18:10
Speaker
But as far as I understand it, it was 165.
00:18:13
Speaker
My part of the world, we have literal copper cable or scrap metal camps popping up.
00:18:24
Speaker
I'm not even saying businesses or centers or, um, they're like literal Jawas from Star Wars is what I've started calling them.
00:18:35
Speaker
Those little shits that, that run around and strip.
00:18:38
Speaker
I mean, if your spaceship crashes, they pop up out of the sand literally and just strip the thing and disappear again.
00:18:45
Speaker
This is literally how it works here.
00:18:48
Speaker
And we find that they are turning those, um,
00:18:53
Speaker
They are turning those camps into this essentially.
00:18:57
Speaker
Now, sorry, your listeners probably think I'm losing my train of thought.
00:19:00
Speaker
I'm multitasking.
00:19:01
Speaker
I'm going to stop now.
00:19:01
Speaker
I'm going to focus.
00:19:02
Speaker
I apologize.
00:19:02
Speaker
Okay, so these camps are popping up everywhere.
00:19:05
Speaker
Every piece of open, available green land, you will literally find a camp.
00:19:10
Speaker
And what I'm going to do for you right now, because you can see me, I'm going to open Google Maps, and I'm going to literally show you satellite view.
00:19:18
Speaker
I'm going to scroll up.
00:19:21
Speaker
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
00:19:23
Speaker
There we go.
00:19:24
Speaker
OK.
00:19:26
Speaker
So it doesn't matter that this is, how would I put this, that this is, how would I say, like mirrored, because you can still see what I'm looking at.
00:19:33
Speaker
OK.
00:19:34
Speaker
So you can see a beautiful little area.
00:19:35
Speaker
If I come out a little bit, there's like a nice piece of open green land there.
00:19:39
Speaker
There's estates, complexes, houses, schools, the whole nine yard.
00:19:45
Speaker
Now you can see where that field is in the middle there.
00:19:49
Speaker
I'm going to zoom in on that field.
00:19:53
Speaker
And there you go, Jawa Camp, in the literal middle of a suburban neighborhood.
00:19:59
Speaker
Now these guys will buy your copper cable for 95 Rand a kilo, no matter where the hell you steal it from, and they will trade it.
00:20:07
Speaker
Now look at that, that, I'll even get it closer for you.
00:20:10
Speaker
That is a friggin' camp.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's not even a settlement.
00:20:15
Speaker
It's just a shit shack in between the trees.
00:20:18
Speaker
And look at the pathways from the traffic.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, and so they, there's some intermediary where that copper gets, I mean, do they send it overseas?
00:20:30
Speaker
Like, are there businesses that are like taking in copper under the table or like, you know, how do they, how do they launder it?
00:20:39
Speaker
So we found and we have tracked, okay.
00:20:42
Speaker
I know a team that has tracked copper cable going from central Johannesburg across the border
00:20:51
Speaker
the Mozambique off to China at the end of the day.
00:20:57
Speaker
They lost tracking of the shipment towards China's waters.
00:21:00
Speaker
It could have only gone towards China.
00:21:03
Speaker
So essentially that's we find is happening a lot of the times.
00:21:08
Speaker
There's another side of that coin though.
00:21:10
Speaker
A big part of organized crime, proper organized crime in South Africa is illegal cigarette smuggling.
00:21:18
Speaker
They bring the cigarettes over from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, whatever.
00:21:22
Speaker
You're talking about caravans of people, hundreds of people carrying boxes on their backs in a very specific way.
00:21:29
Speaker
They like strapped them in this weird way and they bring cigarettes over by the tonnage, uh, through private land forms, whatever.
00:21:37
Speaker
And, uh, we find that now they're coming over with cigarettes and they're often going back with stolen copper that's been melted down.
00:21:47
Speaker
So the trade continues.
00:21:48
Speaker
The, the, the Jawas are learning, unfortunately.
00:21:52
Speaker
They're evolving, if I can say that without getting arrested.
00:21:56
Speaker
But Joe?
00:21:59
Speaker
You mentioned the Chinese, and we have our own issues with sort of nefarious Chinese action in the United States.
00:22:09
Speaker
I've heard this.
00:22:11
Speaker
Is it actually true that Chinese are considered black in terms of the South African race laws, like in terms of black-owned businesses?
00:22:21
Speaker
I think so.
00:22:22
Speaker
Hang on.
00:22:23
Speaker
Google it.
00:22:23
Speaker
Hang on.
00:22:27
Speaker
All Chinese black in South Africa.
00:22:32
Speaker
End of June 2008, High Court in Pretoria, blah, blah, blah.
00:22:36
Speaker
The South African Chinese fall within the definition of black people in the Constitution.
00:22:40
Speaker
There you go.
00:22:44
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:22:45
Speaker
Qualify for BEE, which is the Black Economic Empowerment Structure.
00:22:51
Speaker
conversation that you're more than welcome to have with your friends.
00:22:55
Speaker
Just FYI, now that you mention that, there's about 100 and something race-based laws in South Africa that are directed just at white people alone, just as an FYI.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
Or Chinese people, black.
00:23:09
Speaker
I can't believe I had to Google that.
00:23:10
Speaker
It's been the longest week and it's only Monday.

Staying in South Africa: Challenges and Hope

00:23:13
Speaker
So under the circumstances, and this is something that my guys are interested in, like, A, are people leaving?
00:23:22
Speaker
And B, like, why choose to stay?
00:23:26
Speaker
Or do you feel like you have a choice to stay?
00:23:28
Speaker
Or is it difficult to leave?
00:23:30
Speaker
It's an interesting question.
00:23:31
Speaker
I like that.
00:23:32
Speaker
So A, yes, people are leaving.
00:23:37
Speaker
We often get news headlines of millions of people leaving and whatever, and they're taking all their money with them.
00:23:42
Speaker
and off they go into the sunset.
00:23:45
Speaker
But then you talk to people, and those who have emigrated, some of them are coming back because they get to another part of the world, and they're like, oh, wow, this is a shit show.
00:23:53
Speaker
I don't want to be a part of this.
00:23:54
Speaker
And they come back to South Africa.
00:23:57
Speaker
Now, yes, the talent pool, unfortunately, is draining from South Africa.
00:24:02
Speaker
There's no other way to say that.
00:24:03
Speaker
People with smarts, essentially, doctors, lawyers, whatever you want to call them,
00:24:10
Speaker
hopping on planes and boats and they're getting out of Dodge.
00:24:13
Speaker
That is what it is.
00:24:15
Speaker
But then a lot of people are choosing to actually invest here.
00:24:18
Speaker
A lot of people, especially in the Western Cape and stuff like that, they come through and they buy expensive properties and they choose to stay.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yes, a lot of them are drug lords and other nefarious individuals, but they're still investing in my country, so thank you.
00:24:36
Speaker
And personally...
00:24:39
Speaker
I like my country.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yes, it's gone to shit and it's every man, woman and child for themselves.
00:24:45
Speaker
But to be honest with you, if I really wanted to, I could leave.
00:24:52
Speaker
I could.
00:24:53
Speaker
I could hop on a plane.
00:24:54
Speaker
I could go to the US.
00:24:55
Speaker
There's a lot of guys there that would take me in.
00:24:58
Speaker
And that's the end of that story.
00:25:01
Speaker
But I would never because I love my country.
00:25:05
Speaker
And with that being said, a lot of people look at my account and they go, oh, he's fear-mongering, but it's not.
00:25:09
Speaker
It's just posting what's happening at the end of the day.
00:25:12
Speaker
So I love it, dear.
00:25:14
Speaker
Tourists, for example.
00:25:15
Speaker
Tourists and stuff.
00:25:16
Speaker
I get hundreds of messages every month.
00:25:18
Speaker
Hey, man, we're going to be in your country at this day and time.
00:25:21
Speaker
Am I going to be safe?
00:25:23
Speaker
And I always tell them, dude, you're going to be perfectly fine.
00:25:25
Speaker
Just don't be an idiot.
00:25:26
Speaker
If it looks dodgy, get out of there.
00:25:29
Speaker
And they all know, everyone knows, they can message me at any time and ask,
00:25:34
Speaker
whatever.
00:25:35
Speaker
And if I can't answer it, I'll give you someone who can.
00:25:37
Speaker
So I try and always give a non biased point of view with that regard.
00:25:40
Speaker
So yes, I'm staying because I actually do.
00:25:45
Speaker
I do really love my country regardless of what's going on.
00:25:48
Speaker
Otherwise, I wouldn't be putting in this effort.
00:25:49
Speaker
I wouldn't go out there and put my life at risk in order to try and improve things.
00:25:55
Speaker
Do you think that there's
00:25:57
Speaker
hope for things to improve in the short term in your lifetime?
00:26:03
Speaker
Do you feel that there's a, what do you see as like the light at the end of the tunnel?
00:26:10
Speaker
How could things get better?
00:26:13
Speaker
There's absolutely hope.
00:26:14
Speaker
If there wasn't hope, I wouldn't be doing this.
00:26:16
Speaker
You know, one doesn't get involved to this extent to just simply slow things down.
00:26:22
Speaker
You try and change it and fix it.
00:26:25
Speaker
There absolutely is hope.
00:26:29
Speaker
There's only hope, and the only way we're going to fix it that answers the other side of the question too, is if everybody gets involved.
00:26:35
Speaker
And the problem is, with that being said, the majority of people just aren't at the end of the day.
00:26:41
Speaker
But there is hope.
00:26:43
Speaker
I can look after my neighborhood, but if the next guy doesn't look after his, it's kind of going to become his problem eventually.
00:26:50
Speaker
And yeah, so there absolutely, there really, really is, there is hope.
00:26:56
Speaker
But it's going to be a hell of a tough,
00:26:59
Speaker
ride to get there.
00:27:01
Speaker
It really is.
00:27:01
Speaker
And it will be unfortunate as it is, it will be paved in blood at the end of the day.
00:27:06
Speaker
That's just how it is.
00:27:07
Speaker
That leads to, you know, the sort of interactions between, um,
00:27:12
Speaker
between whites and blacks in the community and also just sort of the government itself.
00:27:19
Speaker
How are you seeing those relations working out?
00:27:24
Speaker
Like, I mean, it seems to me that like there is either a path forward that is that involves collaboration with the majority population that involves integration, that involves
00:27:42
Speaker
getting them to well getting them to stop actively discriminating against the white minority um or there is hope in like we're gonna we're gonna wall off our thing like i mean the the i i don't know if you are you associated with orania or are you just sort of in the same space do you do you like what they're doing what are your thoughts on on orania and their approach so for the the record i'm not um associated with uh orania i'm not
00:28:13
Speaker
a member of any organizations they may have.
00:28:15
Speaker
I don't represent them.
00:28:18
Speaker
I don't speak for them or anything like that.
00:28:21
Speaker
I do, I ever feel that what they're doing is the right thing.
00:28:25
Speaker
And I don't see how it isn't the right thing for them.
00:28:31
Speaker
And the reason I'm saying that is a lot of people say, but it's a whites only town.
00:28:35
Speaker
Well, it's a cultural thing.
00:28:38
Speaker
If I may be so front and forward, I don't know a lot about Rania.
00:28:43
Speaker
apart from a bunch of things that they're busy with.
00:28:47
Speaker
It's got a long history behind it.
00:28:48
Speaker
There's a lot of regulations and stuff behind their town and how they became what they've become as well.
00:28:56
Speaker
Things that took place many, many years ago.
00:28:59
Speaker
But a lot of people say, oh, but Irania, this, this, and that.
00:29:03
Speaker
But then you look at them and you go, but there are entire ethnic cities and stuff.
00:29:08
Speaker
Not really cities, but like,
00:29:11
Speaker
For example, you go down to KZN, KwaZulu-Natal.
00:29:15
Speaker
There are literal villages there.
00:29:17
Speaker
It's just black people living in those villages.
00:29:19
Speaker
Just Zulus, for example, because it's a tribal thing.
00:29:24
Speaker
They still live under their clan name.
00:29:26
Speaker
They still follow the various methodologies and processes and cultural traditions of their clan.
00:29:37
Speaker
As a white person, I can't just walk in while they're busy doing...
00:29:41
Speaker
something, I'm going to catch you hiding.
00:29:43
Speaker
That's just the way it is.
00:29:45
Speaker
And I respect that.
00:29:46
Speaker
That's what they want to do.
00:29:47
Speaker
That's their thing.
00:29:48
Speaker
Great.
00:29:49
Speaker
Now, in South African context, the moment a bunch of white people do that under a cultural vibe, Afrikaners as a whole, now all of a sudden, oh, but hey, there's a town that's just white people.
00:30:02
Speaker
But they're in the middle of the freaking desert, basically, next to a river.
00:30:05
Speaker
I mean, come on.
00:30:08
Speaker
But I will be visiting them this month.
00:30:10
Speaker
just so by the way, and I do look forward to it, seeing what they've achieved, what they've done and what they have planned for the future.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I look forward to getting a bunch of questions answered for myself as well.
00:30:23
Speaker
I will actually put you in touch if you haven't spoken to them yet with the head of the organization or the group as a whole.
00:30:33
Speaker
I think you'd be a great, I think you'd be a great guy to have on your show to explain
00:30:40
Speaker
much better ways than what I possibly could in with regards to what they've done, where they're going.
00:30:45
Speaker
You must just remind me, please, when we're done.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:30:47
Speaker
Thank you.
00:30:48
Speaker
And so when you're envisioning the future of South Africa, the cause for hope, you're imagining it sounds like almost like a federalist sort of people not totally integrated and cooperative, but sort of...
00:31:09
Speaker
in their enclaves peacefully.
00:31:12
Speaker
That's what you're so balcanize the thing and just get it over and done with essentially not now with that comes the whole thing of but you're just doing it because you just want to live with white people, blah, blah, blah.
00:31:29
Speaker
It's it's again, it's not the case like we discussed earlier off the air.
00:31:35
Speaker
People in South Africa should be allowed to do what they want to do that obviously it doesn't harm others.
00:31:42
Speaker
And if you want to live in a particular way, cultural particular way or whatever, then by all means, go right ahead.
00:31:53
Speaker
The problem with that is because South Africa is so divided at times with regards to race, to achieve that now, it's a tough task.
00:32:02
Speaker
Honestly, it's a tough task.
00:32:06
Speaker
I mean, as we speak, for example, as we speak, a lot of people, unfortunately, on Twitter referred to me as a racist, which is interesting.
00:32:13
Speaker
But in the beginning, I used to be so worried about it.
00:32:16
Speaker
I was like, oh, shit, you know, people are thinking this, this and this.
00:32:19
Speaker
And now I don't give a damn because the offer is always open to them.
00:32:23
Speaker
Join me on Overtrol.
00:32:24
Speaker
Let me show you where I go.
00:32:26
Speaker
Let me show you who I interact with.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
surprise, it's not 9.9% black people in need, because that's just how it is in this country.
00:32:35
Speaker
And yeah, you're in this position where the state of discrimination, like it's sort of like, even if you don't care about race, race cares about you, you know,
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, exactly that.
00:32:48
Speaker
That's less true in the States, obviously.
00:32:50
Speaker
Just our political environment is not in the same.
00:32:53
Speaker
We're not in the same situation that you guys are.
00:32:55
Speaker
But it's, yeah, it's like, do you want your idealized, harmonious situation where we can all get along?
00:33:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:05
Speaker
But in the meantime, while we're not getting along, can people build places where
00:33:11
Speaker
those conflicts don't arise.
00:33:13
Speaker
I think that's a worthy goal.
00:33:16
Speaker
Well, people don't get along though.
00:33:20
Speaker
They never have and they never will.
00:33:23
Speaker
So, I mean, look at how America was founded.
00:33:26
Speaker
You guys decided screw those guys.
00:33:29
Speaker
Now look where you are.
00:33:32
Speaker
And you're prospering, hopefully.
00:33:34
Speaker
You're
00:33:35
Speaker
prospering as a result and everyone's happier.
00:33:38
Speaker
So in life, there's always going to be conflicts, etc.
00:33:42
Speaker
And I mean, South Africa on a cultural basis, hell, we've got Zulus, Xhosa, Peris, Susutus, Afrikaners, English.
00:33:52
Speaker
There's so many different
00:33:54
Speaker
cultural and ethnic groups in this country, it's impossible to stick them all in a box and say, okay, cool.
00:34:01
Speaker
You guys are all friends now.
00:34:03
Speaker
It will never happen.
00:34:03
Speaker
I mean, this country was essentially founded on conflict and then peace and then conflict.
00:34:09
Speaker
It's just a never ending set of wars that defined where we are today.
00:34:16
Speaker
And it's a bit above my pay grade to talk about that.
00:34:19
Speaker
But yeah, that's essentially as a result.
00:34:22
Speaker
But I mean,
00:34:23
Speaker
I love my country's cultural history.
00:34:25
Speaker
It's beautiful reading about what's happened and how we got to where we are today.
00:34:33
Speaker
I mean, my family line, for example, fought on both sides of the first Anglo-Boer War and then continued in this country from then onwards as the English.
00:34:43
Speaker
And I'm still English.
00:34:44
Speaker
And I'm proud to be so.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's the long and short of that.
00:34:50
Speaker
You've talked on the timeline about people, and this goes back, I mean, this covers a lot of what we've talked about in terms of the racial situation and how bad things have gotten and like why stay.

Community Involvement in Public Safety

00:35:05
Speaker
You've talked a lot about people sort of keeping their heads in the sand, even under the conditions that you're in right now.
00:35:10
Speaker
How do you thread the needle between like, there's hope and we can build and we can make things better?
00:35:18
Speaker
while also you talked about how you sort of perceived as a doomer or perceived as fear mongering or something.
00:35:25
Speaker
How do you thread that between like, you know, inspiring people, giving people hope, but also keeping them like awake to what's happening?
00:35:32
Speaker
Honestly, I don't know how to answer that because I find in my, well, in any case I've come across, people don't actually care.
00:35:42
Speaker
There's no other way for me to say it.
00:35:44
Speaker
It's just, it is what it is.
00:35:46
Speaker
Something happens, the first thing they do is they go onto this, a cell phone, they open their WhatsApp groups and they go, I need help.
00:35:52
Speaker
There's a guy jumping off my wall, he's going to kill my family or whatever.
00:35:56
Speaker
But they won't, out of their own, go and help their neighbor, for example.
00:36:00
Speaker
Someone once said that it's possibly due to like a lack of national pride, possibly, and I can understand that.
00:36:07
Speaker
But I unfortunately can't answer why people just won't get involved.
00:36:11
Speaker
It blows my mind too, I'll be dead honest with you.
00:36:14
Speaker
It blows my mind too.
00:36:15
Speaker
I don't understand it, but I can't, for some reason, I can't sit back and watch those in need, need help on whatever level it may be, and then not go and assist them if I have the ability to do so.
00:36:31
Speaker
It seems fairly obvious in the States why people stand down.
00:36:36
Speaker
And it's because we see these high profile cases of people taking matters into their own hands and then being just ruthlessly punished for it.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I wonder if you comment on like
00:36:50
Speaker
Is that a concern in South Africa?
00:36:51
Speaker
Like we've seen, you know, these sort of, I don't know if they're considered vigilantes in the eyes of the state, but like these private security operations are engaging felons in like firefights in the street.
00:37:07
Speaker
And like what, how are those things tolerated by the government?
00:37:11
Speaker
Are they tolerated?
00:37:12
Speaker
Is it something where the government like doesn't have the means to stop you or like what's going on there?
00:37:18
Speaker
So I shouldn't laugh, but anyway, I'm laughing because the easiest way to answer that, I could go on patrols and they will, sometimes a police van will stop, stop you, and they will ask for assistance.
00:37:33
Speaker
So jump in my vehicle.
00:37:34
Speaker
I need to go check out this response.
00:37:36
Speaker
Can you come help me?
00:37:38
Speaker
Cool.
00:37:38
Speaker
Officer, you're giving me an instruction.
00:37:39
Speaker
I'm between the ages of 18 and 65, as per South Africa's law.
00:37:43
Speaker
You have to assist people.
00:37:45
Speaker
If you're able, you have to assist within reason when instructed to do so by the law.
00:37:51
Speaker
Cool.
00:37:52
Speaker
Hop in.
00:37:52
Speaker
Off you go.
00:37:53
Speaker
You assist them.
00:37:54
Speaker
Sometimes it can end with a bit of a hot scene.
00:37:57
Speaker
Sometimes a cold scene.
00:37:58
Speaker
Sometimes you get there.
00:37:59
Speaker
People are dying.
00:38:00
Speaker
You've got to try and perform life-saving techniques.
00:38:02
Speaker
I'm not a medical specialist.
00:38:03
Speaker
I only have first aid level three.
00:38:05
Speaker
And obviously a bunch of other courses and stuff I've done over the years, Stop the Bleeds and whatever, which will help within reason where and how you can.
00:38:14
Speaker
So,
00:38:15
Speaker
No, in South Africa, the law is not going to come down on you for getting involved in community safety, primarily being because our government has zero oversight.
00:38:27
Speaker
There is nothing that they can do.
00:38:29
Speaker
In the US, your Fed that's been assigned to you is probably watching this right now as we speak.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, he's watching this right now and he's listening to my accent going, who the fuck is that guy?
00:38:41
Speaker
And...
00:38:43
Speaker
Essentially, that's, fuck you, Fed, firstly.
00:38:47
Speaker
That's essentially what it comes down to.
00:38:49
Speaker
We shouldn't swear on these things.
00:38:50
Speaker
I'm so sorry.
00:38:51
Speaker
So we've got no oversight.
00:38:52
Speaker
We've got, bro, we have zip, nothing.
00:38:57
Speaker
In fact, these same WhatsApp groups on the cell phone, the police announce operational events, proper ops, and they go, please make yourselves available to assist members of the public.
00:39:11
Speaker
And that's what it is.
00:39:13
Speaker
Members of the public, community safety initiatives, security companies.
00:39:19
Speaker
They name it an operation and then they say it's open.
00:39:22
Speaker
Whoever wants to be there, meet at the police station at this time.
00:39:24
Speaker
It's open our vehicles and off we go.
00:39:27
Speaker
And that is just how it is.
00:39:32
Speaker
So, yeah, I've got no way of answering that.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think some of us in the States would be surprised to hear that.
00:39:42
Speaker
Because on the one hand, you have this profound, overt economic persecution.
00:39:49
Speaker
Right.
00:39:49
Speaker
But on the other hand, you have this like racially exclusive ethnic enclave that's that's well, I don't even know to what extent they're sort of legally prescribed or punished by the state for being their thing.
00:40:04
Speaker
But like like on on the one hand, the state is doing things to white South Africans that the American state can't yet do.
00:40:11
Speaker
But on the other hand.
00:40:13
Speaker
White South Africans have so much more latitude in terms of what Orani is doing, in terms of what you're doing, than we would be given here.
00:40:22
Speaker
And I wonder if that's just a consequence of, you know, things breaking down and the state sort of needing you guys, you know, and there's like sort of an acknowledgement that like the security situation is so out of control, we sort of have to give these guys some latitude to police their own communities.
00:40:41
Speaker
You've answered your own question there essentially and it's 100% true.
00:40:46
Speaker
The government needs our help at the end of the day.
00:40:49
Speaker
I went to go look at the stats quickly.
00:40:51
Speaker
If this can be trusted, don't quote me on this, but as far as I understand this is legit-ish.
00:40:58
Speaker
There's fewer than 150,000 police officers in South Africa.
00:41:01
Speaker
Remember that also includes anything that's considered a police officer, even one that just sits behind the desk.
00:41:07
Speaker
And that's the population of like, what are we now?
00:41:10
Speaker
65 million, 70 million people, whatever.
00:41:13
Speaker
On the other side of the coin, there's more than 2.7 million registered private security personnel.
00:41:19
Speaker
So 150,000 cops for 2.7 million registered private security personnel to give you an idea of how much the government needs us.
00:41:27
Speaker
Perfect example of that, the July riots of 2021.
00:41:30
Speaker
If it wasn't for civilian based intervention teams, I truly believe this country would have gotten to a point where cities would have just looked like Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down style.
00:41:42
Speaker
That's what would have been the outcome.
00:41:47
Speaker
The guy would have run on over and been like, canine's gone, man, and give another guy the rifle and told them to continue that beautiful scene in Black Hawk Down.
00:41:57
Speaker
I shouldn't appropriate it like that.
00:41:59
Speaker
No disrespect to any of the veterans out there.
00:42:01
Speaker
I'm just saying this is essentially what it would have looked like in reality had community based civilian structures, safety structures not gotten involved.
00:42:10
Speaker
And they did.
00:42:10
Speaker
They got involved to a point where they managed to keep the
00:42:13
Speaker
looters and rioters at bay and bought the military and the police enough time to act.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, it was fascinating and frightening to watch from the outside while that was happening.

Infrastructure Challenges and Energy Solutions

00:42:23
Speaker
When you, as those types of situations become more intense and more frequent, what do you do or what do you advise people to do as far as, like there's the security question, but there's also just like keeping the lights on, keeping food on the table, you know, making sure that you have the basics.
00:42:39
Speaker
Like what kind of, what kind of preparations do you make
00:42:42
Speaker
in terms of making sure that you've got your basic needs during situations like that?
00:42:45
Speaker
So from experience, I can tell you that a good, and I'm not going to say to people stock up on water, food, staple foods, you know, the usual stuff, but from actual experience, communication genuinely, genuinely saves lives.
00:43:02
Speaker
There were instances where, I mean, for example, I was assisting running one of the biggest jocks, joint operations centers, the primary one actually, for the July riots of 2021.
00:43:12
Speaker
And because we were actively deploying members and individuals to the right places at the right time, because we had proper intel and communication, we literally slowed the riots down big time, like massively.
00:43:23
Speaker
If you go through my Twitter account, there is a thread on the July riots just for what happened in Johannesburg, for example.
00:43:29
Speaker
You can actually see how it played out for the most part from old store data that I found on my phone from the time.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, for me, people, I know people want to hear, you know, go buy yourself 10 tons of beans, go buy yourself fricking dry rice and milk powder and yada, yada, yada.
00:43:48
Speaker
But honestly, everyone knows that at the end of the day, I cannot stress this enough.
00:43:54
Speaker
Communication, proper communication and Intel, it's worth its weight in gold.
00:44:00
Speaker
I mean, for example, I have informants everywhere.
00:44:04
Speaker
Some of them are paid for their information.
00:44:08
Speaker
Some of them receive maybe food or something else, whatever, nothing malicious.
00:44:14
Speaker
And that information over the years has paid off exceptionally, exceptionally well with regards to, hey, man, they're going to hit this cable at this time or they're going to hit this house at that time or this, that, blah, blah, blah.
00:44:30
Speaker
Good intelligence and communication, you can't beat that.
00:44:34
Speaker
And with good intelligence and communication often comes a good team.
00:44:39
Speaker
So instead of buying 10 tons of rice, maybe just find out who your neighbor is.
00:44:44
Speaker
Talk to your neighbor, you know, Hey buddy, you guys want to have a braai or I don't know what you guys call it, a barbecue or whatever.
00:44:52
Speaker
Um, and just chat, you know, and, uh, it's like, again, July riots, 2021 neighbors had no choice.
00:45:02
Speaker
Shit.
00:45:02
Speaker
I've got to go next door, find out who the hell this guy is and get him to stand on the street with me.
00:45:06
Speaker
So they don't loot our houses.
00:45:08
Speaker
People had no choice.
00:45:09
Speaker
So communication and intel, you cannot beat it, honestly.
00:45:13
Speaker
Old-fashioned human intelligence.
00:45:15
Speaker
When you were in those straits, and also just like, it seems to me that like, you guys just have blackouts on a fairly regular basis because of the theft and failure of the infrastructure.
00:45:26
Speaker
Does that factor into, like, did you lose visibility on areas because of losing cell towers, losing, like, how did you communicate or did those things go down?
00:45:37
Speaker
So the biggest mistake this country could have ever made was allowing the news or the media to refer to roading blackouts as load shedding.
00:45:47
Speaker
So the government coined the term load shedding.
00:45:53
Speaker
The government coined the term load shedding and it makes it sound not so bad.
00:45:59
Speaker
Meanwhile, at its worst, you were going six to eight hours, 12 hours, 14 hours a day with no power.
00:46:08
Speaker
spread out over various intervals all at once, whatever the case may be.
00:46:11
Speaker
If that doesn't sound bad enough, the copper cable thieves, of which there are millions, countless, all those freaking Jawas sit there, and we've got apps.
00:46:21
Speaker
We've got actual apps that we use for load shedding purposes.
00:46:28
Speaker
See, even I'm calling it load shedding out of bloody habit.
00:46:31
Speaker
Rolling blackouts.
00:46:33
Speaker
And they use these apps
00:46:37
Speaker
It'll give you an indication of the times and the time slots and whatever.
00:46:42
Speaker
They use these apps as a flippant menu and they sit there and they go, oh look, the power's gonna be off in this area at that time.
00:46:49
Speaker
Okay, let's pull in there and clean out the copper cable wherever we could find it.
00:46:53
Speaker
Now all of a sudden, because the Jawas have pulled in and done their thing, you don't have power for two, three days whilst you wait for a collapsing service provider
00:47:06
Speaker
Eskom, City Power, to come and replace that cable.
00:47:10
Speaker
And they can't because they don't have the supplies, they don't have the money, and they don't have the manpower.
00:47:16
Speaker
Then City Power finally comes out to replace your cable.
00:47:19
Speaker
Then the van gets robbed because, oh shit, there's copper cable on the back of the van.
00:47:24
Speaker
So you understand what I'm saying?
00:47:26
Speaker
It is an absolute shitshow from start to finish.
00:47:29
Speaker
And I hope this sounds rough because it really is.
00:47:32
Speaker
There are communities out here that are going without power for weeks on end.
00:47:37
Speaker
because of copper cable theft and as a result of rolling blackouts and whatever.
00:47:41
Speaker
They will be repairing the line 100 meters down.
00:47:44
Speaker
The guy's busy digging as fast as he can because he knows they're fixing that thing and he wants the last scraps of it.
00:47:50
Speaker
I mean, come on.
00:47:53
Speaker
Is anybody working on sort of decentralized or independent power generation or fuel generators or anything like that to obviate that problem?
00:48:06
Speaker
Or is it something where you just have to stop the thieves?
00:48:10
Speaker
So the solar power industry in South Africa absolutely boomed, exploded in numbers and what they're doing.
00:48:16
Speaker
So the solar power industry in South Africa, alternative power generation, whatever people want to call it,
00:48:23
Speaker
just exploded.
00:48:26
Speaker
South Africa's power ratio just went through the roof in terms of what people are supplying themselves.
00:48:35
Speaker
And a fantastic example of that, you mentioned Orania earlier.
00:48:40
Speaker
They've got their own power generating plant through solar.
00:48:44
Speaker
You can actually see their solar panels on Google Maps.
00:48:46
Speaker
They've got a whole field full of them.
00:48:49
Speaker
with these massive battery power banks and stuff that as far as I understand they had delivered recently, these huge things.
00:48:56
Speaker
But that's some expensive shit to steal too, right?
00:48:58
Speaker
Oh yeah, there's no way you're gonna carry that power bank off.
00:49:02
Speaker
If a guy can carry that loaded onto... Actually, what am I saying?
00:49:05
Speaker
You know what, it is possible.
00:49:06
Speaker
Not in Orania, because I know they take their security and things seriously, but let me tell you, Transformers on poles, for example,
00:49:17
Speaker
Guys climb up those poles, strip the transformer, let it fall to the ground, they carry that bloody thing away.
00:49:21
Speaker
That thing weighs like 100 kilos.
00:49:25
Speaker
Mini substations.
00:49:26
Speaker
I often talk about mini subs on my Twitter.
00:49:29
Speaker
So it's big green boxes.
00:49:30
Speaker
Usually it's like an olive green box with a couple doors on it.
00:49:34
Speaker
They will dig that out of the ground, lift it with a jack, and then use an engine crane or whatever to put onto the back of a truck and drive off with it.
00:49:43
Speaker
They'll then bury it in the ground in a township with the shack on top of it, and they'll run the power through that bloody thing.
00:49:49
Speaker
Entire transformers with cables that are thicker than my whole body, they will cut through that.
00:49:54
Speaker
They've done it.
00:49:55
Speaker
I've got the proof.
00:49:55
Speaker
I just need to find the damn thing.
00:49:57
Speaker
And they'll make off with huge, huge transformers.
00:50:02
Speaker
So what am I saying?
00:50:03
Speaker
You know what?
00:50:04
Speaker
If it's not bolted down, it'll get stolen.
00:50:06
Speaker
If it is bolted down, they'll cut the bloody thing out and they'll take it anyway.
00:50:10
Speaker
That's just how it is.
00:50:11
Speaker
So yes, that could totally get stolen.
00:50:14
Speaker
Not in Orania though.
00:50:17
Speaker
Down the road for me, absolutely not there.
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:19
Speaker
So I mean, security is number one.
00:50:21
Speaker
That's because all the other stuff breaks down if you don't have security because your infrastructure is so dependent on these resources that are economical to steal in that environment.
00:50:33
Speaker
Did you hear about in Kenya, I think it's a couple years old actually, but I just saw it on the timeline recently, people breaking into transformers in Kenya for the mineral oil to fry chips in?
00:50:51
Speaker
How does that meme go?
00:50:52
Speaker
The guy standing, he's getting hung and he's like, first time.
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:58
Speaker
Welcome to South Africa.
00:51:01
Speaker
And it's like insanely carcinogenic.
00:51:03
Speaker
It's like, it's like this horrible poisonous oil.
00:51:07
Speaker
Um, but in South Africa, they don't, they don't really, uh, steal the oil per se, but they do drain the oil from those units so that the unit goes down.
00:51:20
Speaker
And then when the unit goes down, they steal more copy cable and, um,
00:51:26
Speaker
I mean, for example, here's the internal of one of those.
00:51:29
Speaker
That's what the internals look like.
00:51:30
Speaker
Supposed to be oil in there.
00:51:32
Speaker
They drain it.
00:51:33
Speaker
It knocks.
00:51:34
Speaker
There's supposed to be buzz bars and all this copper like stuff in there.
00:51:36
Speaker
It's completely empty.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's supposed to be full of things.
00:51:39
Speaker
They strip that out.
00:51:40
Speaker
That goes offline.
00:51:41
Speaker
This is an entire switching station, by the way.
00:51:44
Speaker
Cleaned out.
00:51:45
Speaker
This is a building.
00:51:47
Speaker
Completely cleaned out.
00:51:49
Speaker
Obviously, your listeners can't see that, but I can't explain how rough it is.
00:51:55
Speaker
Honestly, I wish...
00:51:56
Speaker
I wish I could, even if I were to make content, which I do hope to be doing soon on what's exactly going on, it would never put into perspective just how bad things are with crime in South Africa.
00:52:10
Speaker
It's rough.
00:52:11
Speaker
It's really, really rough.
00:52:13
Speaker
Are you personally interested in, because I mean, you're talking about the security situation and the need to sort of protect these

Rural Vulnerability and Personal Security Measures

00:52:21
Speaker
things.
00:52:21
Speaker
And maybe this is a good time to talk about farm murders.
00:52:24
Speaker
I mean, like it seems to me just from the outside that the farm murders are obviously just a consequence of the overall political situation.
00:52:33
Speaker
But also it has to do with these people being very far flung, very isolated, and
00:52:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:52:40
Speaker
Sort of surrounded by hostiles.
00:52:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:52:44
Speaker
Are you interested in or do you advocate for people sort of moving closer together for security reasons, taking a more active role in their security?
00:52:55
Speaker
With regards to people taking an active role in their own security, yes, absolutely.
00:53:00
Speaker
Moving closer together, not so much.
00:53:03
Speaker
People should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it's not harming others.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:10
Speaker
You speak about farm murders and stuff.
00:53:11
Speaker
I'd like to point out that I think you're pretty spot on with regards to, yes, it's also because they are isolated and often secluded from society, the farmer.
00:53:24
Speaker
But a lot of it is, unfortunately, and I know I did say to you, I didn't want to discuss race and politics or whatever, but with regards to this, a lot of it is racially motivated, unfortunately.
00:53:35
Speaker
I mean, we've got the proof there.
00:53:36
Speaker
You've got political parties singing, kill the bull and whatever.
00:53:40
Speaker
And also part of it is understanding that sometimes our farmers in the most part, unfortunately, they're just not always prepared for active contact.
00:53:49
Speaker
A lot of times you find out the guns were locked in the safe, et cetera.
00:53:54
Speaker
But then you get the other side of the coin where your local farmers come together and they do something like this, where they take on cash and transit heist guys.
00:54:03
Speaker
They have a shootout in their Rhodesian shorts.
00:54:09
Speaker
and uh they win the fight they take out four heavily armed cash and chancer dudes uh in nothing but shorts and pluckies uh which is your slip slops and um they win the fight so yes unfortunately and i mean our farmers are stubborn a lot of them are stubborn you can tell tell the worm the uncle the old guy
00:54:34
Speaker
You know, don't you want to sleep with your handgun next to the bed tonight or something.
00:54:38
Speaker
But because they're sometimes so stubborn and stuck in their ways to get that message across that take a little bit of interest in your own safety.
00:54:45
Speaker
It's difficult.
00:54:47
Speaker
Honestly, it is.
00:54:48
Speaker
As far as you, you know, it sounds like you started from essentially civilian background, not not even starting in law enforcement or military.
00:55:00
Speaker
Are there a lot of, I don't know how the, what the South African military looks like these days.
00:55:07
Speaker
Are there a lot of guys getting training?
00:55:10
Speaker
Is that difficult to do under the sort of racial circumstances in the government?
00:55:14
Speaker
And if so, how are you, or how did you go about getting tactical training, if any, or, or sort of like, like how did you become competent in that domain?
00:55:25
Speaker
So,
00:55:26
Speaker
I tell people, look, I'm not law enforcement.
00:55:29
Speaker
I'm not military or anything like that.
00:55:32
Speaker
Just a guy that's been lucky enough and blessed enough to have met the right people in my path in life and been able to acquire some solid quality training off of them.
00:55:45
Speaker
And whatever training is needed, apart from that,
00:55:49
Speaker
you sign up for it and you go for it.
00:55:52
Speaker
There are a lot of good places in this country that will train you tactically or I hate using that word, but tactically or efficiently in whatever you want the outcome to be.
00:56:03
Speaker
And we sign up for those and we go for it.
00:56:06
Speaker
A lot of it is also, I just, it's something that I do truly, truly enjoy.
00:56:11
Speaker
And I think one of my biggest driving factors is the fear of one day something
00:56:17
Speaker
happening to my family and me not being able to handle the situation within my means.
00:56:24
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:56:26
Speaker
So for me, one of the biggest, biggest driving factors, and I'll be dead honest with you, that's a personal point that I've never, ever made anywhere else.
00:56:32
Speaker
But the more I train and do things, the more I see what's actually happening out there, and the more crime scenes we come across and home invasions and things like that,
00:56:44
Speaker
the more I just remind myself, keep going, keep going, keep going, learn something every day, get better at something, whatever.
00:56:51
Speaker
So one day when it's just a God never happens, but if it's your turn one day, you can handle the situation accordingly.
00:56:57
Speaker
So it is a lot of its personal reasons as well.
00:56:59
Speaker
It's not just to help the community.
00:57:01
Speaker
I'll be honest.
00:57:04
Speaker
But the community does benefit from it.
00:57:06
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:57:06
Speaker
Do you, this is a question, another question raised by the guys.
00:57:11
Speaker
Do you find that in your interactions with black South Africans, are they happy with the situation?
00:57:17
Speaker
Like, do they, how do they feel about sort of the reverse apartheid, the breakdown of the economy as sort of a,
00:57:27
Speaker
unqualified, incompetent people are put in these positions of authority and sort of given license to embezzle and that kind of thing.
00:57:34
Speaker
Like what sort of takes do you get from them?
00:57:37
Speaker
Are they frustrated with it?
00:57:39
Speaker
Do they see it as like sort of justified?
00:57:42
Speaker
What's that like?
00:57:43
Speaker
I'm sure it varies.
00:57:44
Speaker
If I was honest, yeah, it varies.
00:57:47
Speaker
If I was being honest with you, I would say that a lot of them don't care.
00:57:52
Speaker
The other part of the coin, once again, is a lot of them are all for it.
00:57:57
Speaker
So again, we've got South Africa with different cultures and people of different backgrounds and stuff and shoving them into one box, telling them to get along is impossible.
00:58:04
Speaker
So you will have people that are like, oh no, you're persecuting a group.
00:58:09
Speaker
And then the other side of the point is, oh, go for it.
00:58:12
Speaker
Give them more.
00:58:12
Speaker
In fact, they're not getting enough.
00:58:14
Speaker
And then the outcome of that sometimes is things like this, where you have, this is part of a violent farm murder.
00:58:22
Speaker
This is a son who fought them off
00:58:25
Speaker
and saved his father's life in a racially motivated attack.
00:58:30
Speaker
You get things like that.
00:58:32
Speaker
And then the other side of the coin, like we discussed off the air, was I patrol with black patrollers.
00:58:38
Speaker
I have those same black patrollers coming into my home openly and sitting down for coffee, chow, whatever, and just having a good chat and things like that.
00:58:47
Speaker
So not everyone is trying to kill everyone, but unfortunately those who are, are
00:58:54
Speaker
Vast in numbers.
00:58:55
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:58:56
Speaker
What's your goal with your online

Raising Awareness and Engagement with South Africa

00:58:58
Speaker
presence?
00:58:58
Speaker
Like, do you have, are there elements of like, does it help you to raise awareness with people overseas?
00:59:06
Speaker
Are you concerned about more like getting your domestic audience involved?
00:59:10
Speaker
Like what are you hoping to accomplish when you raise awareness about what you're seeing?
00:59:14
Speaker
So I just want people to see what's going on.
00:59:18
Speaker
That's all it is.
00:59:20
Speaker
It's nothing other than
00:59:23
Speaker
Do me a favor, guys.
00:59:24
Speaker
Take note of what's happening in South Africa and support those who are trying to actually make a difference down here.
00:59:34
Speaker
It's not turning around and saying, send us your money, but supplies, whatever, at the end of the day, that's essentially what it comes down to.
00:59:45
Speaker
And that's what my account is sort of all about.
00:59:50
Speaker
It's just going...
00:59:52
Speaker
Take a look here.
00:59:52
Speaker
Pull your head out of the sand, please, for the love of everything that's holy.
00:59:57
Speaker
Take note of what's going on and get involved because the few of us that are involved, you can't carry that burden alone.
01:00:04
Speaker
It's impossible.
01:00:06
Speaker
So more people need to get involved.
01:00:08
Speaker
And again, I'm not saying I'm a hero.
01:00:11
Speaker
I'm not.
01:00:12
Speaker
I'm one of many, many individuals who are out there making a difference in the same way I am.
01:00:18
Speaker
I'm just blessed enough to have
01:00:19
Speaker
a social media presence that allows me to show people what I'm doing.
01:00:22
Speaker
What are the biggest gaps in terms of like, is it material?
01:00:25
Speaker
Is it manpower?
01:00:26
Speaker
What, you know, if you sort of had the big benefactor say like, hey, K-9, I'm going to give you whatever you need.
01:00:33
Speaker
What would you ask for?
01:00:34
Speaker
Artillery.
01:00:36
Speaker
Send me all the mortars that you can possibly send me.
01:00:40
Speaker
If you can't, if you can't send a fucking battleship, I'll give you grid coordinates.
01:00:45
Speaker
You can level it.
01:00:47
Speaker
I'm
01:00:49
Speaker
Send me an aircraft carrier.
01:00:50
Speaker
That's what I want.
01:00:51
Speaker
There we go.
01:00:52
Speaker
Christmas isn't too far away.
01:00:53
Speaker
I want, listen, American listeners, I want an aircraft carrier.
01:00:57
Speaker
Send it, baby.
01:01:05
Speaker
If all else fails, send the bloody Marines.
01:01:07
Speaker
I don't know.
01:01:07
Speaker
Something.
01:01:09
Speaker
No, look.
01:01:10
Speaker
At the end of the day, I would honestly say, yeah, it's a bit of both, lack of supplies, but it's more lack of manpower because, again, people just aren't getting involved.
01:01:20
Speaker
People aren't getting involved.
01:01:23
Speaker
They'll quickly call you for help.
01:01:24
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
01:01:25
Speaker
They know exactly where to come for help, but they themselves won't go out Friday, Saturday, Sunday night, 10 p.m.
01:01:33
Speaker
to 4 a.m.
01:01:34
Speaker
in the morning.
01:01:36
Speaker
just to try and make a difference.
01:01:37
Speaker
They won't respond during the week or work week at any time of the day or night to assist on an operation, cable theft in progress, violent home invasion, whatever.
01:01:47
Speaker
Do you think that if they had access to equipment and training, that that would be helpful?
01:01:53
Speaker
What do you think would get people over that hump or close the gap, make it less of a...
01:02:03
Speaker
Is it because they're afraid?
01:02:06
Speaker
Is it because they don't see it as a problem?
01:02:11
Speaker
What do you think is stopping them?
01:02:12
Speaker
Tough one, eh?
01:02:13
Speaker
Very tough one, I think.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, very tough one.
01:02:16
Speaker
I think that it must be a combination of factors.
01:02:21
Speaker
A lot of it must be not my problem, firstly.
01:02:26
Speaker
I find a very common one is actually I pay my taxes.
01:02:30
Speaker
And then the next thing is, but my taxes go nowhere.
01:02:34
Speaker
And they say they're in the same breath.
01:02:35
Speaker
And it's like, come on, guys.
01:02:36
Speaker
The other side of the coin is complacency.
01:02:38
Speaker
And I don't care attitude.
01:02:41
Speaker
Or why should I?
01:02:42
Speaker
So exceptionally difficult question to answer.
01:02:45
Speaker
If you ever get someone on the chat one day and they can figure that out for you, just let me know.
01:02:50
Speaker
Are you hearing that primarily from black South Africans?
01:02:53
Speaker
Or is it the white South Africans that are saying that as well?
01:02:56
Speaker
Everyone, everyone.
01:02:58
Speaker
I can tell you right now, I have patrolled in Alexander Township, one of the biggest black townships in South Africa.
01:03:08
Speaker
They've got a whole group of dedicated individuals who are trying to make a difference there.
01:03:13
Speaker
I've been inside Deepslurt, another big black township.
01:03:16
Speaker
Also, they've got individuals.
01:03:18
Speaker
Tembisa, same thing.
01:03:19
Speaker
They also have groups that are trying to make a difference.
01:03:22
Speaker
And they have nothing, hey?
01:03:24
Speaker
As I sit here and talk to you, I have my plate carrier.
01:03:27
Speaker
I've got this fantastic thermal that was sent to me.
01:03:30
Speaker
I've got my pre-packed jump bags and stuff for whatever may or may not be needed.
01:03:35
Speaker
I've got...
01:03:36
Speaker
comms and stuff and and and whatever uh they have nothing they just have a radio sometimes uh and that's essentially essentially it so maybe to answer your question from before this uh perhaps it's not a fact of the matter that oh i don't have supplies therefore i can't get involved it's more matter of i don't care at the end of the day unfortunately for many yeah well then i think uh
01:04:01
Speaker
probably what you're doing makes the most sense, which is just sort of putting, kind of holding it under people's noses, being like, look at what's happening, look at the consequences.
01:04:11
Speaker
And not only that, but like, it's getting worse and it will impact you and your family.
01:04:18
Speaker
It absolutely, absolutely will.
01:04:22
Speaker
Anyone, I mean, even in the high end is security estates.
01:04:26
Speaker
They're literally called security estates.
01:04:29
Speaker
People are getting, the houses are getting knocked.
01:04:31
Speaker
People are getting robbed, raped, murdered, kidnapped.
01:04:36
Speaker
So it's only a matter of time in my eyes before someone experiences something crime related in South Africa.
01:04:43
Speaker
Well, Kanan, this has been a great conversation.
01:04:45
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
01:04:48
Speaker
Where should we send people?
01:04:49
Speaker
If they want to, they're more than welcome to view my Twitter page.
01:04:52
Speaker
It's at kanine underscore reaper.
01:04:56
Speaker
That's essentially the only place where I am at the moment.
01:04:59
Speaker
I will hopefully be making usable content soon.
01:05:03
Speaker
It's just difficult on patrols.
01:05:06
Speaker
Some things you can't show and whatever, but we'll work around that.
01:05:10
Speaker
But above and beyond that, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
01:05:15
Speaker
I don't do many of these, to be honest with you, and it's always difficult for me to speak in front of other people.
01:05:21
Speaker
But this was great.
01:05:22
Speaker
I actually really, really enjoyed this one, and I appreciate your time.
01:05:25
Speaker
Thanks so much, man.