Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
Speaker: This is Dr. Bennett.
Speaker: Today we've got K9 Reaper.
Speaker: K9 is a private security contractor involved in community safety in South Africa.
Speaker: He's built a platform publishing footage from his work and what he's seeing out there.
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.
Speaker: So welcome to the show.
Speaker: Yeah, man.
Speaker: Listen, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker: It's a
Speaker: We chatted a little bit earlier and I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I think it's a good place to start.
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.
Speaker: Can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by there?
Speaker: What is the distinction there?
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.
Speaker: And that involves patrolling as a community member, assisting when, how, required, any time of the day or night.
Speaker: With essentially, the majority of it is security stuff for the community.
Speaker: And then the other part of it is
Speaker: helping at call it events and meetings and things like that.
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.
Speaker: They needed a little bit of maybe crowd control or assisting with medical or whatever.
Speaker: And then we can assist and help arrange those things and be there on the day and a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker: So you're organizing the community themselves to sort of look after each other for those kinds of things.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And you're showing them that, look, I'm here.
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.
Speaker: So the more you can get to pull together and work together,
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
Speaker: There's quite a bit later on.
Speaker: What are the most successful projects for building and securing communities that you've been a part of?
Speaker: What's working?
Speaker: Generally, well, for example, they're going to release a statement about it soon.
Speaker: Just recently, I assisted with a security, not security, a community safety initiative, which is part of this organization.
Speaker: It's just an umbrella of what they do, part of it.
Speaker: where all these youngsters come together and they do what the Afrikaners call stoi.
Speaker: So stoi is to wrestle.
Speaker: So like Americans have your wrestling, et cetera.
Speaker: They do it down here as well.
Speaker: And the youngsters need somewhere safe, comfortable to do it and so forth.
Speaker: I mean, there's hundreds of children.
Speaker: I found out recently there's hundreds of children, thousands of them who do this.
Speaker: And I think it's incredible after watching them, I mean,
Speaker: to physically take on another human being like they are.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: It's incredible.
Speaker: But yeah, sorry.
Speaker: So we went through recently, it was a 16 hour shift.
Speaker: It was a bloody long day.
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
Speaker: just pretty much everything and anything that we could help with.
Speaker: And you see the joy in those little ones when you're done at the end of the day.
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.
Speaker: It sounds so simple, but yeah.
Speaker: So that was one of the recent things that I'm not going to mention the organization just yet.
Speaker: There's reasons behind that, that I need to just smooth out and iron out with them.
Speaker: But they will release a statement I'm sure soon and as soon as they do, I will share that and whatever.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: As far as like starting something like what you've built for starting a community organization in the US.
Speaker: What advice do you have?
Speaker: How did you go about getting started in this area?
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.
Speaker: And out of that group, let's say you've got 10 guys.
Speaker: Eight of them are feds.
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.
Speaker: So to sort of answer that question, for us it works because there's a necessity.
Speaker: There's a requirement for it.
Speaker: The community is the backbone behind where they live at the end of the day.
Speaker: So the necessity is there that, you know what, due to the decline and what's happening in South Africa,
Speaker: No one's going to come help you.
Speaker: You've got to do it yourself, guys.
Speaker: So for us, that's the case.
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.
Speaker: So it seems like a good position to be in.
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.
Speaker: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker: That's the nice part in that sentence off of that associated with your cultural, non-political background.
Speaker: views, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Otherwise you become a militia in the eyes of the law.
Speaker: So for us again, there's the necessity, man.
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.
Speaker: So we don't have a choice.
Speaker: I mean, where I'm sitting with you right now, I've got all my gear packed out.
Speaker: It's always ready straight off to every patrol.
Speaker: It's packed, cleaned, restocked, whatever needs to happen.
Speaker: And it's there so it could just be grabbed and go.
Speaker: Even as we're talking now, someone could phone and say, hey, buddy, they're stealing copper cable down the road.
Speaker: You've got to rock and roll.
Speaker: That's just how it is.
Speaker: Because if we don't jump in a car and go down there, who else is going to do it?
Speaker: The police won't do it.
Speaker: The army sure shit won't.
Speaker: Hell, the 99% of the community themselves won't do it.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's where we are.
Speaker: How I got into it, there's no special source there, honestly.
Speaker: One day, I suppose, we just, well, I just sort of looked around and got interested many years ago.
Speaker: And yeah, it does become a passion eventually.
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.
Speaker: But you make up for it as best you can as you go along.
Speaker: And again, yeah, it's a passion.
Speaker: What you said...
Speaker: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker: Sorry.
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?
Speaker: How did that, how did that work?
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.
Speaker: And I sort of just hooked up, um,
Speaker: with a bunch of guys that were doing their thing and this and that's sort of where it led to from there.
Speaker: So to give you an idea, the majority of South Africa runs off of WhatsApp groups.
Speaker: So in America, I think you guys still use like a text based whatever SMS service, whatever.
Speaker: In South Africa, it's all WhatsApp and Telegram groups essentially, but primarily WhatsApp.
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.
Speaker: every single neighborhood in this country runs off of some form of a WhatsApp group.
Speaker: So I mean, I can, for example, take you down to, let me just find this quickly.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: So this might show backwards.
Speaker: Yeah, it's mirroring it, unfortunately.
Speaker: But you can see there that they're referring to Copy Cable 5th and how they got a unit to respond to it.
Speaker: And that's how it works.
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.
Speaker: So that's essentially the not so secret sauce as to how I ended up in community safety.
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.
Speaker: And that's that's where I am now.
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.
Speaker: So I don't know if you're familiar with next door.
Speaker: It's basically like a social network for your neighborhood.
Speaker: And interesting.
Speaker: And because, you know, because it's very much peacetime.
Speaker: in most parts of America, these groups are like completely deranged.
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.
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.
Speaker: So the, the, the idea that that would, that that would turn into these like sort of, uh,
Speaker: That would be hilarious, the side of the world, because no one would give a shit, actually, the side of the world.
Speaker: No one would care.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: I wonder if you have thoughts on... I mean, so you strike me as a fairly young guy.
Speaker: You probably don't remember the before times.
Speaker: But what has changed in your lifetime?
Speaker: How have you seen things...
Speaker: progress or regress or what have you in South Africa?
Speaker: So before times, I'm going to assume you're referring to apartheid and that sort of thing.
Speaker: I was born after that.
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.
Speaker: And it is really a steady,
Speaker: March, you could just see the graph slowly tick down, down, down, down as it goes along.
Speaker: And as a result of instances like that, I have lost friends, personal friends and other responders as a result.
Speaker: So I think over time, what I've watched is essentially just decay and decline that slowly builds up.
Speaker: It's obviously not endemic to South Africa.
Speaker: It's happening all over the world.
Speaker: But for us, it's obviously personal because it just feels like it's a lot worse.
Speaker: And a perfect example of that is copper cable thieves are no longer just stealing copper cable.
Speaker: They are stealing copper cable and actively engaging first responders.
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.
Speaker: I hope that I've trained enough in the things that I can outrun the dog.
Speaker: Meanwhile, you pull up
Speaker: and the guy opens fire on your vehicle or on you if it's a foot patrol in a field or whatever.
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.
Speaker: And as a result, first responders are unfortunately getting hit or worse.
Speaker: They're dying.
Speaker: So that for me is definitely one of the biggest changes that
Speaker: I have seen now, if you want to call it in recent memory, in the last two years or so.
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.
Speaker: They have now come from below the surface, China multi-task apologies.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: So I suppose for me, the biggest thing that has changed over time is definitely direct link to
Speaker: current circumstances as to why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker: And that's because crime and stuff like that, lawlessness in general really is getting bad.
Speaker: You mentioned these copper cable thieves and in the States we have copper cable thieves, but it's basically,
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.
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.
Speaker: Can you tell us a little bit about like, what do you know about how, like,
Speaker: What do they do with the cable?
Speaker: Who do they get it to?
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?
Speaker: So one of the things that I have struggled to explain to people is exactly how the copper cable theft works.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: We're starting to find out, and even I'm learning, I mean, you don't know everything.
Speaker: Well, sorry, one doesn't know everything.
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.
Speaker: So there's a supply chain behind this.
Speaker: Everyone gets their cut and they move on.
Speaker: Majority of it is not, it's not, it's not,
Speaker: How would I put this?
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: Man, I can't.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: For some reason, I can't figure out the terminology.
Speaker: Planned crime syndicate.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: It's been a long life.
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.
Speaker: So he takes your entire town, neighborhood, whatever, offline for that bit of copper cable.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: Now, the process behind it, essentially, they locate the cable.
Speaker: They do it one of various methods.
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.
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.
Speaker: Two, it's not that difficult.
Speaker: Usually,
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.
Speaker: They'll dig a line directly across it because the cable only comes out one side.
Speaker: Dig a line directly across that.
Speaker: And then once they find the cable across that line, they'll then dig along the cable because they found it.
Speaker: So they cross the T essentially.
Speaker: And once that cable comes out, they will cut it up, remove the outer plastic sheath,
Speaker: take the armored core off of it, which is just stranded wires and stuff.
Speaker: And then they set it on fire to burn away the rubber and whatever's left behind because they just want the copper.
Speaker: And that then gets transported and sold.
Speaker: Every place sells or purchases copper at a different rate.
Speaker: Now, some places,
Speaker: will sell or buy copper at about, I think someone said somewhere north of Victoria, it was about 165 Rand a kilo.
Speaker: Don't quote me on that, though, for your listeners.
Speaker: But as far as I understand it, it was 165.
Speaker: My part of the world, we have literal copper cable or scrap metal camps popping up.
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.
Speaker: Those little shits that, that run around and strip.
Speaker: I mean, if your spaceship crashes, they pop up out of the sand literally and just strip the thing and disappear again.
Speaker: This is literally how it works here.
Speaker: And we find that they are turning those, um,
Speaker: They are turning those camps into this essentially.
Speaker: Now, sorry, your listeners probably think I'm losing my train of thought.
Speaker: I'm multitasking.
Speaker: I'm going to stop now.
Speaker: I'm going to focus.
Speaker: I apologize.
Speaker: Okay, so these camps are popping up everywhere.
Speaker: Every piece of open, available green land, you will literally find a camp.
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.
Speaker: I'm going to scroll up.
Speaker: Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: OK.
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.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: So you can see a beautiful little area.
Speaker: If I come out a little bit, there's like a nice piece of open green land there.
Speaker: There's estates, complexes, houses, schools, the whole nine yard.
Speaker: Now you can see where that field is in the middle there.
Speaker: I'm going to zoom in on that field.
Speaker: And there you go, Jawa Camp, in the literal middle of a suburban neighborhood.
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.
Speaker: Now look at that, that, I'll even get it closer for you.
Speaker: That is a friggin' camp.
Speaker: It's not even a settlement.
Speaker: It's just a shit shack in between the trees.
Speaker: And look at the pathways from the traffic.
Speaker: Yeah, and so they, there's some intermediary where that copper gets, I mean, do they send it overseas?
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?
Speaker: So we found and we have tracked, okay.
Speaker: I know a team that has tracked copper cable going from central Johannesburg across the border
Speaker: the Mozambique off to China at the end of the day.
Speaker: They lost tracking of the shipment towards China's waters.
Speaker: It could have only gone towards China.
Speaker: So essentially that's we find is happening a lot of the times.
Speaker: There's another side of that coin though.
Speaker: A big part of organized crime, proper organized crime in South Africa is illegal cigarette smuggling.
Speaker: They bring the cigarettes over from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, whatever.
Speaker: You're talking about caravans of people, hundreds of people carrying boxes on their backs in a very specific way.
Speaker: They like strapped them in this weird way and they bring cigarettes over by the tonnage, uh, through private land forms, whatever.
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.
Speaker: So the trade continues.
Speaker: The, the, the Jawas are learning, unfortunately.
Speaker: They're evolving, if I can say that without getting arrested.
Speaker: But Joe?
Speaker: You mentioned the Chinese, and we have our own issues with sort of nefarious Chinese action in the United States.
Speaker: I've heard this.
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?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: Google it.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: All Chinese black in South Africa.
Speaker: End of June 2008, High Court in Pretoria, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: The South African Chinese fall within the definition of black people in the Constitution.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Qualify for BEE, which is the Black Economic Empowerment Structure.
Speaker: conversation that you're more than welcome to have with your friends.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or Chinese people, black.
Speaker: I can't believe I had to Google that.
Speaker: It's been the longest week and it's only Monday.
Speaker: So under the circumstances, and this is something that my guys are interested in, like, A, are people leaving?
Speaker: And B, like, why choose to stay?
Speaker: Or do you feel like you have a choice to stay?
Speaker: Or is it difficult to leave?
Speaker: It's an interesting question.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: So A, yes, people are leaving.
Speaker: We often get news headlines of millions of people leaving and whatever, and they're taking all their money with them.
Speaker: and off they go into the sunset.
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.
Speaker: I don't want to be a part of this.
Speaker: And they come back to South Africa.
Speaker: Now, yes, the talent pool, unfortunately, is draining from South Africa.
Speaker: There's no other way to say that.
Speaker: People with smarts, essentially, doctors, lawyers, whatever you want to call them,
Speaker: hopping on planes and boats and they're getting out of Dodge.
Speaker: That is what it is.
Speaker: But then a lot of people are choosing to actually invest here.
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.
Speaker: Yes, a lot of them are drug lords and other nefarious individuals, but they're still investing in my country, so thank you.
Speaker: And personally...
Speaker: I like my country.
Speaker: Yes, it's gone to shit and it's every man, woman and child for themselves.
Speaker: But to be honest with you, if I really wanted to, I could leave.
Speaker: I could.
Speaker: I could hop on a plane.
Speaker: I could go to the US.
Speaker: There's a lot of guys there that would take me in.
Speaker: And that's the end of that story.
Speaker: But I would never because I love my country.
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.
Speaker: It's just posting what's happening at the end of the day.
Speaker: So I love it, dear.
Speaker: Tourists, for example.
Speaker: Tourists and stuff.
Speaker: I get hundreds of messages every month.
Speaker: Hey, man, we're going to be in your country at this day and time.
Speaker: Am I going to be safe?
Speaker: And I always tell them, dude, you're going to be perfectly fine.
Speaker: Just don't be an idiot.
Speaker: If it looks dodgy, get out of there.
Speaker: And they all know, everyone knows, they can message me at any time and ask,
Speaker: whatever.
Speaker: And if I can't answer it, I'll give you someone who can.
Speaker: So I try and always give a non biased point of view with that regard.
Speaker: So yes, I'm staying because I actually do.
Speaker: I do really love my country regardless of what's going on.
Speaker: Otherwise, I wouldn't be putting in this effort.
Speaker: I wouldn't go out there and put my life at risk in order to try and improve things.
Speaker: Do you think that there's
Speaker: hope for things to improve in the short term in your lifetime?
Speaker: Do you feel that there's a, what do you see as like the light at the end of the tunnel?
Speaker: How could things get better?
Speaker: There's absolutely hope.
Speaker: If there wasn't hope, I wouldn't be doing this.
Speaker: You know, one doesn't get involved to this extent to just simply slow things down.
Speaker: You try and change it and fix it.
Speaker: There absolutely is hope.
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.
Speaker: And the problem is, with that being said, the majority of people just aren't at the end of the day.
Speaker: But there is hope.
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.
Speaker: And yeah, so there absolutely, there really, really is, there is hope.
Speaker: But it's going to be a hell of a tough,
Speaker: ride to get there.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And it will be unfortunate as it is, it will be paved in blood at the end of the day.
Speaker: That's just how it is.
Speaker: That leads to, you know, the sort of interactions between, um,
Speaker: between whites and blacks in the community and also just sort of the government itself.
Speaker: How are you seeing those relations working out?
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
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
Speaker: a member of any organizations they may have.
Speaker: I don't represent them.
Speaker: I don't speak for them or anything like that.
Speaker: I do, I ever feel that what they're doing is the right thing.
Speaker: And I don't see how it isn't the right thing for them.
Speaker: And the reason I'm saying that is a lot of people say, but it's a whites only town.
Speaker: Well, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker: If I may be so front and forward, I don't know a lot about Rania.
Speaker: apart from a bunch of things that they're busy with.
Speaker: It's got a long history behind it.
Speaker: There's a lot of regulations and stuff behind their town and how they became what they've become as well.
Speaker: Things that took place many, many years ago.
Speaker: But a lot of people say, oh, but Irania, this, this, and that.
Speaker: But then you look at them and you go, but there are entire ethnic cities and stuff.
Speaker: Not really cities, but like,
Speaker: For example, you go down to KZN, KwaZulu-Natal.
Speaker: There are literal villages there.
Speaker: It's just black people living in those villages.
Speaker: Just Zulus, for example, because it's a tribal thing.
Speaker: They still live under their clan name.
Speaker: They still follow the various methodologies and processes and cultural traditions of their clan.
Speaker: As a white person, I can't just walk in while they're busy doing...
Speaker: something, I'm going to catch you hiding.
Speaker: That's just the way it is.
Speaker: And I respect that.
Speaker: That's what they want to do.
Speaker: That's their thing.
Speaker: Great.
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.
Speaker: But they're in the middle of the freaking desert, basically, next to a river.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: But I will be visiting them this month.
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.
Speaker: And I look forward to getting a bunch of questions answered for myself as well.
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.
Speaker: I think you'd be a great, I think you'd be a great guy to have on your show to explain
Speaker: much better ways than what I possibly could in with regards to what they've done, where they're going.
Speaker: You must just remind me, please, when we're done.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Thank you.
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...
Speaker: in their enclaves peacefully.
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.
Speaker: It's it's again, it's not the case like we discussed earlier off the air.
Speaker: People in South Africa should be allowed to do what they want to do that obviously it doesn't harm others.
Speaker: And if you want to live in a particular way, cultural particular way or whatever, then by all means, go right ahead.
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.
Speaker: Honestly, it's a tough task.
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.
Speaker: But in the beginning, I used to be so worried about it.
Speaker: I was like, oh, shit, you know, people are thinking this, this and this.
Speaker: And now I don't give a damn because the offer is always open to them.
Speaker: Join me on Overtrol.
Speaker: Let me show you where I go.
Speaker: Let me show you who I interact with.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: surprise, it's not 9.9% black people in need, because that's just how it is in this country.
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,
Speaker: Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker: That's less true in the States, obviously.
Speaker: Just our political environment is not in the same.
Speaker: We're not in the same situation that you guys are.
Speaker: But it's, yeah, it's like, do you want your idealized, harmonious situation where we can all get along?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But in the meantime, while we're not getting along, can people build places where
Speaker: those conflicts don't arise.
Speaker: I think that's a worthy goal.
Speaker: Well, people don't get along though.
Speaker: They never have and they never will.
Speaker: So, I mean, look at how America was founded.
Speaker: You guys decided screw those guys.
Speaker: Now look where you are.
Speaker: And you're prospering, hopefully.
Speaker: You're
Speaker: prospering as a result and everyone's happier.
Speaker: So in life, there's always going to be conflicts, etc.
Speaker: And I mean, South Africa on a cultural basis, hell, we've got Zulus, Xhosa, Peris, Susutus, Afrikaners, English.
Speaker: There's so many different
Speaker: cultural and ethnic groups in this country, it's impossible to stick them all in a box and say, okay, cool.
Speaker: You guys are all friends now.
Speaker: It will never happen.
Speaker: I mean, this country was essentially founded on conflict and then peace and then conflict.
Speaker: It's just a never ending set of wars that defined where we are today.
Speaker: And it's a bit above my pay grade to talk about that.
Speaker: But yeah, that's essentially as a result.
Speaker: But I mean,
Speaker: I love my country's cultural history.
Speaker: It's beautiful reading about what's happened and how we got to where we are today.
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.
Speaker: And I'm still English.
Speaker: And I'm proud to be so.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's the long and short of that.
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.
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.
Speaker: How do you thread the needle between like, there's hope and we can build and we can make things better?
Speaker: while also you talked about how you sort of perceived as a doomer or perceived as fear mongering or something.
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?
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.
Speaker: There's no other way for me to say it.
Speaker: It's just, it is what it is.
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.
Speaker: There's a guy jumping off my wall, he's going to kill my family or whatever.
Speaker: But they won't, out of their own, go and help their neighbor, for example.
Speaker: Someone once said that it's possibly due to like a lack of national pride, possibly, and I can understand that.
Speaker: But I unfortunately can't answer why people just won't get involved.
Speaker: It blows my mind too, I'll be dead honest with you.
Speaker: It blows my mind too.
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.
Speaker: It seems fairly obvious in the States why people stand down.
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.
Speaker: And I wonder if you comment on like
Speaker: Is that a concern in South Africa?
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.
Speaker: And like what, how are those things tolerated by the government?
Speaker: Are they tolerated?
Speaker: Is it something where the government like doesn't have the means to stop you or like what's going on there?
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.
Speaker: So jump in my vehicle.
Speaker: I need to go check out this response.
Speaker: Can you come help me?
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Officer, you're giving me an instruction.
Speaker: I'm between the ages of 18 and 65, as per South Africa's law.
Speaker: You have to assist people.
Speaker: If you're able, you have to assist within reason when instructed to do so by the law.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Hop in.
Speaker: Off you go.
Speaker: You assist them.
Speaker: Sometimes it can end with a bit of a hot scene.
Speaker: Sometimes a cold scene.
Speaker: Sometimes you get there.
Speaker: People are dying.
Speaker: You've got to try and perform life-saving techniques.
Speaker: I'm not a medical specialist.
Speaker: I only have first aid level three.
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.
Speaker: So,
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.
Speaker: There is nothing that they can do.
Speaker: In the US, your Fed that's been assigned to you is probably watching this right now as we speak.
Speaker: Yeah, he's watching this right now and he's listening to my accent going, who the fuck is that guy?
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Essentially, that's, fuck you, Fed, firstly.
Speaker: That's essentially what it comes down to.
Speaker: We shouldn't swear on these things.
Speaker: I'm so sorry.
Speaker: So we've got no oversight.
Speaker: We've got, bro, we have zip, nothing.
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.
Speaker: And that's what it is.
Speaker: Members of the public, community safety initiatives, security companies.
Speaker: They name it an operation and then they say it's open.
Speaker: Whoever wants to be there, meet at the police station at this time.
Speaker: It's open our vehicles and off we go.
Speaker: And that is just how it is.
Speaker: So, yeah, I've got no way of answering that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think some of us in the States would be surprised to hear that.
Speaker: Because on the one hand, you have this profound, overt economic persecution.
Speaker: Right.
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.
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.
Speaker: But on the other hand.
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.
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.
Speaker: You've answered your own question there essentially and it's 100% true.
Speaker: The government needs our help at the end of the day.
Speaker: I went to go look at the stats quickly.
Speaker: If this can be trusted, don't quote me on this, but as far as I understand this is legit-ish.
Speaker: There's fewer than 150,000 police officers in South Africa.
Speaker: Remember that also includes anything that's considered a police officer, even one that just sits behind the desk.
Speaker: And that's the population of like, what are we now?
Speaker: 65 million, 70 million people, whatever.
Speaker: On the other side of the coin, there's more than 2.7 million registered private security personnel.
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.
Speaker: Perfect example of that, the July riots of 2021.
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.
Speaker: That's what would have been the outcome.
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.
Speaker: I shouldn't appropriate it like that.
Speaker: No disrespect to any of the veterans out there.
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.
Speaker: And they did.
Speaker: They got involved to a point where they managed to keep the
Speaker: looters and rioters at bay and bought the military and the police enough time to act.
Speaker: Yeah, it was fascinating and frightening to watch from the outside while that was happening.
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.
Speaker: Like what kind of, what kind of preparations do you make
Speaker: in terms of making sure that you've got your basic needs during situations like that?
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: If you go through my Twitter account, there is a thread on the July riots just for what happened in Johannesburg, for example.
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.
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.
Speaker: But honestly, everyone knows that at the end of the day, I cannot stress this enough.
Speaker: Communication, proper communication and Intel, it's worth its weight in gold.
Speaker: I mean, for example, I have informants everywhere.
Speaker: Some of them are paid for their information.
Speaker: Some of them receive maybe food or something else, whatever, nothing malicious.
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.
Speaker: Good intelligence and communication, you can't beat that.
Speaker: And with good intelligence and communication often comes a good team.
Speaker: So instead of buying 10 tons of rice, maybe just find out who your neighbor is.
Speaker: Talk to your neighbor, you know, Hey buddy, you guys want to h ave a braai or I don't know what you guys call it, a barbecue or whatever.
Speaker: Um, and just chat, you know, and, uh, it's like, again, July riots, 2021 neighbors had no choice.
Speaker: Shit.
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.
Speaker: So they don't loot our houses.
Speaker: People had no choice.
Speaker: So communication and intel, you cannot beat it, honestly.
Speaker: Old-fashioned human intelligence.
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.
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?
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.
Speaker: So the government coined the term load shedding.
Speaker: The government coined the term load shedding and it makes it sound not so bad.
Speaker: Meanwhile, at its worst, you were going six to eight hours, 12 hours, 14 hours a day with no power.
Speaker: spread out over various intervals all at once, whatever the case may be.
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.
Speaker: We've got actual apps that we use for load shedding purposes.
Speaker: See, even I'm calling it load shedding out of bloody habit.
Speaker: Rolling blackouts.
Speaker: And they use these apps
Speaker: It'll give you an indication of the times and the time slots and whatever.
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.
Speaker: Okay, let's pull in there and clean out the copper cable wherever we could find it.
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
Speaker: Eskom, City Power, to come and replace that cable.
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.
Speaker: Then City Power finally comes out to replace your cable.
Speaker: Then the van gets robbed because, oh shit, there's copper cable on the back of the van.
Speaker: So you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker: It is an absolute shitshow from start to finish.
Speaker: And I hope this sounds rough because it really is.
Speaker: There are communities out here that are going without power for weeks on end.
Speaker: because of copper cable theft and as a result of rolling blackouts and whatever.
Speaker: They will be repairing the line 100 meters down.
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.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: Is anybody working on sort of decentralized or independent power generation or fuel generators or anything like that to obviate that problem?
Speaker: Or is it something where you just have to stop the thieves?
Speaker: So the solar power industry in South Africa absolutely boomed, exploded in numbers and what they're doing.
Speaker: So the solar power industry in South Africa, alternative power generation, whatever people want to call it,
Speaker: just exploded.
Speaker: South Africa's power ratio just went through the roof in terms of what people are supplying themselves.
Speaker: And a fantastic example of that, you mentioned Orania earlier.
Speaker: They've got their own power generating plant through solar.
Speaker: You can actually see their solar panels on Google Maps.
Speaker: They've got a whole field full of them.
Speaker: with these massive battery power banks and stuff that as far as I understand they had delivered recently, these huge things.
Speaker: But that's some expensive shit to steal too, right?
Speaker: Oh yeah, there's no way you're gonna carry that power bank off.
Speaker: If a guy can carry that loaded onto... Actually, what am I saying?
Speaker: You know what, it is possible.
Speaker: Not in Orania, because I know they take their security and things seriously, but let me tell you, Transformers on poles, for example,
Speaker: Guys climb up those poles, strip the transformer, let it fall to the ground, they carry that bloody thing away.
Speaker: That thing weighs like 100 kilos.
Speaker: Mini substations.
Speaker: I often talk about mini subs on my Twitter.
Speaker: So it's big green boxes.
Speaker: Usually it's like an olive green box with a couple doors on it.
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.
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.
Speaker: Entire transformers with cables that are thicker than my whole body, they will cut through that.
Speaker: They've done it.
Speaker: I've got the proof.
Speaker: I just need to find the damn thing.
Speaker: And they'll make off with huge, huge transformers.
Speaker: So what am I saying?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: If it's not bolted down, it'll get stolen.
Speaker: If it is bolted down, they'll cut the bloody thing out and they'll take it anyway.
Speaker: That's just how it is.
Speaker: So yes, that could totally get stolen.
Speaker: Not in Orania though.
Speaker: Down the road for me, absolutely not there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I mean, security is number one.
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.
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?
Speaker: How does that meme go?
Speaker: The guy standing, he's getting hung and he's like, first time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Welcome to South Africa.
Speaker: And it's like insanely carcinogenic.
Speaker: It's like, it's like this horrible poisonous oil.
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.
Speaker: And then when the unit goes down, they steal more copy cable and, um,
Speaker: I mean, for example, here's the internal of one of those.
Speaker: That's what the internals look like.
Speaker: Supposed to be oil in there.
Speaker: They drain it.
Speaker: It knocks.
Speaker: There's supposed to be buzz bars and all this copper like stuff in there.
Speaker: It's completely empty.
Speaker: It's supposed to be full of things.
Speaker: They strip that out.
Speaker: That goes offline.
Speaker: This is an entire switching station, by the way.
Speaker: Cleaned out.
Speaker: This is a building.
Speaker: Completely cleaned out.
Speaker: Obviously, your listeners can't see that, but I can't explain how rough it is.
Speaker: Honestly, I wish...
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.
Speaker: It's rough.
Speaker: It's really, really rough.
Speaker: Are you personally interested in, because I mean, you're talking about the security situation and the need to sort of protect these things.
Speaker: And maybe this is a good time to talk about farm murders.
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.
Speaker: But also it has to do with these people being very far flung, very isolated, and
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Sort of surrounded by hostiles.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
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?
Speaker: With regards to people taking an active role in their own security, yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Moving closer together, not so much.
Speaker: People should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it's not harming others.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You speak about farm murders and stuff.
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.
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.
Speaker: I mean, we've got the proof there.
Speaker: You've got political parties singing, kill the bull and whatever.
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.
Speaker: A lot of times you find out the guns were locked in the safe, et cetera.
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.
Speaker: They have a shootout in their Rhodesian shorts.
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
Speaker: You know, don't you want to sleep with your handgun next to the bed tonight or something.
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.
Speaker: It's difficult.
Speaker: Honestly, it is.
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.
Speaker: Are there a lot of, I don't know how the, what the South African military looks like these days.
Speaker: Are there a lot of guys getting training?
Speaker: Is that difficult to do under the sort of racial circumstances in the government?
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?
Speaker: So,
Speaker: I tell people, look, I'm not law enforcement.
Speaker: I'm not military or anything like that.
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.
Speaker: And whatever training is needed, apart from that,
Speaker: you sign up for it and you go for it.
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.
Speaker: And we sign up for those and we go for it.
Speaker: A lot of it is also, I just, it's something that I do truly, truly enjoy.
Speaker: And I think one of my biggest driving factors is the fear of one day something
Speaker: happening to my family and me not being able to handle the situation within my means.
Speaker: Let's put it that way.
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.
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,
Speaker: the more I just remind myself, keep going, keep going, keep going, learn something every day, get better at something, whatever.
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.
Speaker: So it is a lot of its personal reasons as well.
Speaker: It's not just to help the community.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: But the community does benefit from it.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Do you, this is a question, another question raised by the guys.
Speaker: Do you find that in your interactions with black South Africans, are they happy with the situation?
Speaker: Like, do they, how do they feel about sort of the reverse apartheid, the breakdown of the economy as sort of a,
Speaker: unqualified, incompetent people are put in these positions of authority and sort of given license to embezzle and that kind of thing.
Speaker: Like what sort of takes do you get from them?
Speaker: Are they frustrated with it?
Speaker: Do they see it as like sort of justified?
Speaker: What's that like?
Speaker: I'm sure it varies.
Speaker: If I was honest, yeah, it varies.
Speaker: If I was being honest with you, I would say that a lot of them don't care.
Speaker: The other part of the coin, once again, is a lot of them are all for it.
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.
Speaker: So you will have people that are like, oh no, you're persecuting a group.
Speaker: And then the other side of the point is, oh, go for it.
Speaker: Give them more.
Speaker: In fact, they're not getting enough.
Speaker: And then the outcome of that sometimes is things like this, where you have, this is part of a violent farm murder.
Speaker: This is a son who fought them off
Speaker: and saved his father's life in a racially motivated attack.
Speaker: You get things like that.
Speaker: And then the other side of the coin, like we discussed off the air, was I patrol with black patrollers.
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.
Speaker: So not everyone is trying to kill everyone, but unfortunately those who are, are
Speaker: Vast in numbers.
Speaker: Let's put it that way.
Speaker: What's your goal with your online presence?
Speaker: Like, do you have, are there elements of like, does it help you to raise awareness with people overseas?
Speaker: Are you concerned about more like getting your domestic audience involved?
Speaker: Like what are you hoping to accomplish when you raise awareness about what you're seeing?
Speaker: So I just want people to see what's going on.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: It's nothing other than
Speaker: Do me a favor, guys.
Speaker: Take note of what's happening in South Africa and support those who are trying to actually make a difference down here.
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.
Speaker: And that's what my account is sort of all about.
Speaker: It's just going...
Speaker: Take a look here.
Speaker: Pull your head out of the sand, please, for the love of everything that's holy.
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.
Speaker: It's impossible.
Speaker: So more people need to get involved.
Speaker: And again, I'm not saying I'm a hero.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: I'm one of many, many individuals who are out there making a difference in the same way I am.
Speaker: I'm just blessed enough to have
Speaker: a social media presence that allows me to show people what I'm doing.
Speaker: What are the biggest gaps in terms of like, is it material?
Speaker: Is it manpower?
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.
Speaker: What would you ask for?
Speaker: Artillery.
Speaker: Send me all the mortars that you can possibly send me.
Speaker: If you can't, if you can't send a fucking battleship, I'll give you grid coordinates.
Speaker: You can level it.
Speaker: I'm
Speaker: Send me an aircraft carrier.
Speaker: That's what I want.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Christmas isn't too far away.
Speaker: I want, listen, American listeners, I want an aircraft carrier.
Speaker: Send it, baby.
Speaker: If all else fails, send the bloody Marines.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Something.
Speaker: No, look.
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.
Speaker: People aren't getting involved.
Speaker: They'll quickly call you for help.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: They know exactly where to come for help, but they themselves won't go out Friday, Saturday, Sunday night, 10 p.m.
Speaker: to 4 a.m.
Speaker: in the morning.
Speaker: just to try and make a difference.
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.
Speaker: Do you think that if they had access to equipment and training, that that would be helpful?
Speaker: What do you think would get people over that hump or close the gap, make it less of a...
Speaker: Is it because they're afraid?
Speaker: Is it because they don't see it as a problem?
Speaker: What do you think is stopping them?
Speaker: Tough one, eh?
Speaker: Very tough one, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, very tough one.
Speaker: I think that it must be a combination of factors.
Speaker: A lot of it must be not my problem, firstly.
Speaker: I find a very common one is actually I pay my taxes.
Speaker: And then the next thing is, but my taxes go nowhere.
Speaker: And they say they're in the same breath.
Speaker: And it's like, come on, guys.
Speaker: The other side of the coin is complacency.
Speaker: And I don't care attitude.
Speaker: Or why should I?
Speaker: So exceptionally difficult question to answer.
Speaker: If you ever get someone on the chat one day and they can figure that out for you, just let me know.
Speaker: Are you hearing that primarily from black South Africans?
Speaker: Or is it the white South Africans that are saying that as well?
Speaker: Everyone, everyone.
Speaker: I can tell you right now, I have patrolled in Alexander Township, one of the biggest black townships in South Africa.
Speaker: They've got a whole group of dedicated individuals who are trying to make a difference there.
Speaker: I've been inside Deepslurt, another big black township.
Speaker: Also, they've got individuals.
Speaker: Tembisa, same thing.
Speaker: They also have groups that are trying to make a difference.
Speaker: And they have nothing, hey?
Speaker: As I sit here and talk to you, I have my plate carrier.
Speaker: I've got this fantastic thermal that was sent to me.
Speaker: I've got my pre-packed jump bags and stuff for whatever may or may not be needed.
Speaker: I've got...
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
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.
Speaker: And not only that, but like, it's getting worse and it will impact you and your family.
Speaker: It absolutely, absolutely will.
Speaker: Anyone, I mean, even in the high end is security estates.
Speaker: They're literally called security estates.
Speaker: People are getting, the houses are getting knocked.
Speaker: People are getting robbed, raped, murdered, kidnapped.
Speaker: So it's only a matter of time in my eyes before someone experiences something crime related in South Africa.
Speaker: Well, Kanan, this has been a great conversation.
Speaker: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker: Where should we send people?
Speaker: If they want to, they're more than welcome to view my Twitter page.
Speaker: It's at kanine underscore reaper.
Speaker: That's essentially the only place where I am at the moment.
Speaker: I will hopefully be making usable content soon.
Speaker: It's just difficult on patrols.
Speaker: Some things you can't show and whatever, but we'll work around that.
Speaker: But above and beyond that, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
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.
Speaker: But this was great.
Speaker: I actually really, really enjoyed this one, and I appreciate your time.
Speaker: Thanks so much, man.
