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Ep 10 - Ernst Van Zyl, AfriForum - South Africa's New Expropriation Law And What It Means
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On this week's episode of the Sphere Podcast, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Publisher of Sphere Media, interviews Ernst Van Zyl, who, in addition to being head of public relations for AfriForum, the biggest civil-rights organization in Africa, is a well-known blogger and YouTuber under the name "Conscious Caracal." Ernst and Pascal-Emmanuel discuss the expropriation law that was recently passed in South Africa and what it means for the future of the Afrikaner community there.
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Donate to AfriForum: https://friendsofafriforum.com/donations/
Follow Ernst on X: https://x.com/ConCaracal
Ernst's channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ConsciousCaracal
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Subscribe to the Sphere Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB2gs2TBXeP7vyn9QUaaxjQ
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Transcript
Introduction from the Hindu Kush
00:00:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Hello everyone and welcome to the low production value sphere podcast, which is shot from my terrorist hideout in the Hindu Kush. ah I have a very special guest with me here today.
New Controversial Law in South Africa
00:00:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Usually we talk about American policy and politics, but ah like many of you, I care about what happens around the world. I follow what happens around the world and.
00:00:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I saw recently, maybe I misunderstood, but that's that's why we're going to that's why we're going to have this conversation, that in South Africa the government passed a new law which looks very scary and frankly makes me makes me and not just me on social media think of Zimbabwe. It seems to be the kind of law that's designed to essentially expropriate ah the white minority in South Africa. ah Maybe I'm exaggerating.
Interview with Ernst van Zyl from AfriForum
00:00:57
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
We'll see. But to explain that, I have with me ah Ernst van Zyl, who works for a great organization which is called AfroForum. So first of all, can you introduce yourself and what AfroForum is and does?
00:01:10
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Good afternoon or evening whenever this this is Ed. Thank you very much Pascal for having me on to discuss I think something that's very pressing to me because in my backyard, but I think something that has caught a but topic that has caught the attention of many and especially the Western world. um My name is Adans Fonsail. I also post under the the brand Conscious Caracol on X and YouTube.
00:01:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And um yeah, um i'm the my my main professional focus is under the head of Public Relations for AFRI Forum. And AFRI Forum is the largest um civil rights organization on the African continent, particularly focusing on minority rights and the rights of Afrikaners.
00:01:53
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and also ah the largest community-based solutions organization um the in the southern MS field, in the African continent. And that's all based on the membership base that we have. ah We have about 315,000 donating members, and that's what gives us our power. that's what That's what makes what we do possible. So no donations from massive multinational organizations, no billionaire donations,
00:02:18
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
just the power of the people that we serve. And it gives a ah welcome and refreshing alternative to a lot of minority groups and particularly Afrikaners in South Africa that just can't really rely on party politics to save them anymore. And the pushing through of this bull into an act ah kind of proves that that central point just once again. So sometimes people ask us, why don't you just become a political party? And our answer is,
00:02:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, if you you're asking that question, then you underestimate our ambitions.
00:02:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right.
Post-Apartheid South Africa
00:02:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah so lets So first let's talk a bit about the background because if you ask the sort of average European or American ah you know they about South Africa, they remember that there was apartheid and apartheid was very, very bad. ah And then apartheid stopped and there was Nelson Mandela and Nelson Mandela was very, very good and everything was wonderful. And then South Africa just disappeared from the news.
00:03:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah because then it became somewhat less wonderful.
00:03:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, the fairy tale ended.
00:03:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah they may they mean
00:03:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I mean, it was ah it ended with, and then everyone lived happily ever after. Why would you want to go check back in?
00:03:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. Yes. ah Well, they probably know that, you know, if you're driving through Johannesburg, you should you you probably should like drive very fast and not stop. ah and and And they may have heard about ah Jacob Zuma's comments about AIDS. But Putting all of that aside, basically my understanding is that there's been a sort of narrowing and winnowing of ah minority rights in South Africa. And and you can and ah one of the things you can tell is whether minority rights is just a euphemism for white people or whether it's all minorities. I honestly don't know. um
00:04:14
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah But yeah, could you could you describe that process?
00:04:18
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right. So South Africa is actually a country full of different minority groups. um It is by far not a a country that is exclusively just ah a black and white issue or a black and white country. It's filled with many cultural groups. There's not really one ethnic group that is the majority, um but at the same time,
00:04:38
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Also, you should take into a account, ah I don't expect a lot of people on the outside looking in to look at South Africa and immediately grasp all its nuances and complexities.
00:04:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I mean, South Africa is ah is not for beginners in political science. ah for
00:04:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
but
00:04:54
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah But when it comes to particularly ah minority rights in South Africa, South Africa, as more as ah my ah my friend and mentor, Professor Cois Malan says, has a status individualist constitution.
00:05:02
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
sorry
00:05:07
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So there's no room for minority rights or group rights within that constitution. Everything revolves around the individual and individual rights. ah But then also there's this weird very ah aggressive ideology of what we call transformationism.
00:05:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And that is the fact that the government is constantly pushing that every facet of society, whether it be sports teams, um organizations, the corporate sector, the government itself, everything needs to be 100% perfectly demographically representative.
00:05:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
on the market.
00:05:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And if it's not, then the hammer of the state comes down on your whatever the target is that is not perfectly transformed.
00:05:48
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's the word that they
00:05:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Well, certainly Americans know nothing about that idea.
00:05:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's it's it's totally unknown.
00:05:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:05:55
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah yeah i means Anyway, okay so okay so that's the official ideology. that's It's an interesting way to put it. Officially in the law, there's individuals, there's the states.
00:06:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
racial minorities are not recognized as such positively or
Transformationism and Racial Policies
00:06:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
negatively. But in practice, the government says if there's what in US law is called disparate impact, which means for whatever reason, ah there is not enough ah black people on the board of a company, for example, or whatever, we will come down on you. Okay.
00:06:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah. Well, we've seen many egregious examples of that. I mean, do you, do you, your audience know why South Africa is the only Southern African country that doesn't have a Starlink deadline?
00:06:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Oh, what is that? why is that
00:06:46
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Because Starlink is not 30% black owned. So it's being black blocked in South Africa.
00:06:52
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's fascinating. ah Well, okay. So that's that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about. So the the first day the first step of this sort of process of gradual ah ah anti-minority efforts is BEE.
00:07:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So can you explain what BEE is?
00:07:10
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right. So BEE is the flowery language of black economic empowerment policies. but it is pretty And the the other term that's used is triple BEE, which is just broad-based black economic empowerment.
00:07:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But it's just euphemisms for racial discrimination, racially discriminatory laws. But in in quotation marks, positive discrimination. So there for some reason, because the intentions this time around are noble, it's for some reason justified while
00:07:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:07:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah Racial discrimination in the past by the state is one of the most cardinal evils that has ever beset the world I mean you try and juggle those two assumptions, but at the same time when it comes to South Africa I mean it's a country where When I tell people how many race laws are on the books in South Africa people think I'm trolling they think I'm joking
00:07:45
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:07:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
or they think I'm exaggerating and then they go check for themselves and they realize, oh well, no, actually that that's the truth. South Africa has over 141 race laws currently on the books and the hundred and sixteen more than 116 of those 141 were passed after 1994.
00:08:16
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So that's the that's the reality in South Africa.
00:08:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. So somebody shared a chart on X that showed, and and so you can confirm this is true, ah because everything on the internet is true.
00:08:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah huh
00:08:22
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah, that's ah that's a chart that was ah
00:08:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
There are more race laws on the books now than under apartheid.
00:08:30
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yes.
00:08:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's correct.
00:08:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And, uh, yeah, that, that chart kind of shows it very, uh, very brilliantly. It's this chart chart that was set up by, uh, my friend, uh, Martin van Staden from the free market foundation here in South Africa.
00:08:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
He did all the research. He crunched the numbers because nobody was willing or brave enough to do it. So he's like, fine, I'll do it myself. So he set up and built an entire index of all the race laws in South Africa to see actually how many are there because nobody else wants, nobody wants to touch that topic.
00:08:57
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So he did it. So I take my hat off to Martin for doing that.
00:09:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. And so for those who don't know that I don't know how to put a chart in a video because I'm, I'm an income poop. Uh, so I'll just describe the chart and basically it shows it's the number of race laws every year.
00:09:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And it shows a slope going up during apartheid, apartheid ends and there's a cliff. And then it just starts going back up and eventually goes higher, uh, than it was under apartheid.
00:09:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right. There's pretty much just a V shape.
00:09:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's very striking.
00:09:27
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It just goes into a V.
00:09:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:09:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
All these race laws get abolished and then they immediately come back in a different form.
00:09:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:09:32
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:09:34
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So um yeah, that's the reality. There's so many examples. I mean, we could sit here for an hour and I can just mention all the examples of these racially discriminatory laws being enacted. The most egregious but
00:09:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I mean, give ah give us a few examples to give us a sense.
00:09:46
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Sure. um So, yeah, so the the most egregious example would be a few years ago, there was ah the the major pharmaceutical corporation called DISCAM.
00:09:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah
00:09:56
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in South Africa. And an internal memo leaked from the the company that said, a memo went out internally that said, we are going to have to freeze any ah any hiring or promotion of white people.
00:10:10
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Otherwise, we're going to be fined massively by the government and it will ruin us financially. um That's one example. um Another example would be the Tourism Relief Fund. so During COVID, the government set up tourism a relief tourism sector relief fund for any businesses, small and ah small ah businesses in the tourism sector that were struggling or going under due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. But there was a catch. you can only but you can only successfully apply for funding to save your business if your man the management of your business is not too white.
00:10:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah if your If your management is too white, COVID relief here.
00:10:46
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So this is, this is covid this is COVID relief. So this is not, this is not a handout that would be nice to have. It's like, it's money that you need to survive because of government policy.
00:10:53
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No, it's like this is this is what's standing between your business going under or not.
00:10:57
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah Yeah. Okay. Wow.
00:10:59
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So ah yeah, that's the other thing. Luckily, AFRI Forum and our sister organization Solidarity were able to challenge this ah discriminatory ah fund in court and we won. um So that fund was then never enacted, the racially discriminatory element of it.
00:11:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:11:14
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um but the government did attempt it. Another a very prominent example would be the Starlink example that I just mentioned, and then also the TIRS Foundation, ah which is an organization that fights gender-based violence in South Africa.
00:11:27
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They applied for funding from the government because the government funds many of these types of organizations, and the the government refused to bard funding to them because their management is too white.
00:11:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:11:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
An organization that fights gender-based violence.
00:11:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah Yes. Well, ah yeah. So the the ah my favorite B fact, and you you you will confirm that that's true, ah is that Chinese nationals count as black under BEE. So one of the stories that's been going on in South Africa is that as in most places in Africa for the past 10 years, China has been investing a lot and this is not But not an investment, it's not just financial investment, it's an investment that seeks political influence. And so the Chinese and so chinese national, and so B says you you need to have a minimum number of black you know shareholders, directors, blah, blah, blah. And so Chinese nationals count as black.
00:12:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
and So it just shows that the entire thing is a sham.
00:12:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right.
00:12:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And it's just, I mean, from, from what I see, it seems directed just at just white people. It's like, it doesn't care. It doesn't really even matter if you're helping like people who suffered under apartheid, which, okay, that's understandable.
00:12:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
But if if you're just like, you know, if it's just naked anti-white racism, that's, that's something very different.
00:12:50
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah, well, BEE or ratio discriminatory policies by the South African government really just serves two purposes. On the one side, it serves the purpose of punishing white people for things that people did in the past that looked like them.
00:13:03
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And the the second the the second thing that it accomplishes is that it creates a ah system of patronage for those who are yeah they have the right political connections.
00:13:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:13:13
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
it's BEE and Black Economic Empowerment Policies are an exclusive club in South Africa and 99% of the population is not in it.
00:13:22
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right. that's that's That's also an important point, which is that the the black people, even when they're black, the black people who benefit from BEE are not like some broad representative segment and of the population. They're like a small politically connected class.
00:13:40
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's just a new ethnic elite or racial elite basically that's been created.
00:13:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. ah Another issue that's related to this ah that people have, have ah or you'll tell me if it's related or not, is the the issue of so-called farm murders.
Farm Murders and Ancestral Land Claims
00:13:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
All right.
00:13:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And when when people you know hear about this at first, they they think, well, you know, I know that there's a lot of crime in South Africa, farms are isolated, people get attacked.
00:14:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Uh, that's very sad, but it's, it's a crime problem. Uh, but, and there may be a racial element to it because many farmers are white, but that's not the same thing. But what I learned speaking to somebody, um, and again, you can correct me if this is wrong, um, is basically there's, there's a kind of.
00:14:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
legal pretext, which is essentially like anybody can say, oh, you know, my great great great grandfather used to own this land. Therefore, this land is now mine. And you can just make it a make up the claim. And so if the farmer doesn't allow himself to be expropriated, you can kill him. And then there's no legal recourse because I'm I am I understanding this correctly?
00:14:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, I mean, that's a that's more on the off the record side. So I think it's a lot of it is more speculation than anything else when it comes to um'm I mean, we get i'm I'm going to try and not speculate too much.
00:15:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:15:10
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But when it comes to what we actually have the most proof of when it comes to the
00:15:11
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:15:15
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
the farm murder connection to the land debate. ah When politicians in South Africa constantly just frame farmers as like these descendants of rapists and thieves and the ah genociders and whatever you want to call them.
00:15:29
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I mean, they've been called everything under the sun and they are cool and they are constantly referred to as land thieves residing on land that was stolen. Then know i don't I'm not surprised but
00:15:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And of course, African tribes you know never engaged in warfare or land theft hundreds of years ago.
00:15:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, it's funny that you say that because um ah it's funny that you put it that way because that's literally how a lot many politicians in South Africa describe the pre-colonial past.
00:15:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
that that's only Only white people have ancestors who who who engaged in warfare centuries ago.
00:16:00
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They describe it as this utopia, Eden, where everyone, there's no strife, there's no conflict, there's advanced technology.
00:16:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:16:08
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's all this like ah ah ah ancient aliens level, but just Afro nationalism. but When it comes to particularly the the again that connection to farm murders, i mean I'm not surprised when high-profile politicians with millions of followers are constantly villainizing and antagonizing farmers as these evil descendants of evil people.
00:16:30
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
that all ah that need that deserve ah retribution,
00:16:30
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:16:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
then in a population of 60 million people, you're going to get people that are just going to say, well, um I just hate these ah these people so much, I'm going to take it into my own hands to enact justice.
00:16:46
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:16:46
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and But on the other side, it's almost impossible to prove what the motives are of people that do a lot of these farm murders, because if when you're in a court case, the only way to prove what someone's motive is, is to really
00:16:52
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:17:00
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
hear them say this is what motivated me, but when they're in the, wid or when they're being cross examined in their court case, the last thing they're going to do is say, yes, I was motivated by like pure hatred and a desire to murder, because that's going to ensure that you at first you lose your case and say, can you get the heaviest sentence possible?
00:17:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right, right.
00:17:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So no, the the vast majority of of farm attackers and farm murderers are obviously going to say, oh, I was motivated by, I was, the the farmer was racist to me or it was ah it was a labor dispute or I was just looking for, it was a robbery gone wrong.
00:17:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:17:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's always going to be a sympathy ah trying to gain sympathy through the story.
00:17:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:17:40
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So unfortunately, when a car I wish we could get the statistics on what the the motive for majority of farm owners are, but it is, I wouldn't say near impossible, it is impossible to get to get those statistics because you can't extract the motives from the majority of people due to the the incentives.
00:17:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:17:52
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right Right. Right. And what about the other side? What about the enforcement? like is it Is it the case that I i honestly don't know? like i don't know how many you know is Is the police 100% black? And if so you know if if you go you know and you say, my my father was murdered,
00:18:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah you know I need you to investigate this today do they actually investigated if they don't investigate is it because they're incompetent or is it because there is a political will to serve look the other way.
00:18:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm. Hmm. I think again, it's very difficult to discern exactly what's going on in people's hearts. When it comes to the South African police service, what we do know, yeah, what we do ah do know for a fact.
00:18:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah ah You can get a sense, right? And you and and ah so some crimes are investigated more more and more thoroughly than others, right?
00:18:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:18:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And partly that's just because people are human and bureaucracies are are flawed, but sometimes it's also deliberate, or you can get a sense that it's deliberate.
00:18:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:18:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, so the two factors that I think stand out here that's ah that that are the the most mature of factors is firstly the fact that the South African Police Service refuses to classify farm murders as a priority crime.
00:19:05
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So a priority crime is a class of crime in South Africa that gets special attention, that gets its own task force, it gets a special amount of resources, it gets
00:19:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:19:14
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
because it is a unique crime with unique with unique in a unique context with unique ah effects and ah uniquely devastating effects on the community.
00:19:15
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:19:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um Examples of priority crimes in South Africa are gang-related crimes, rhino poaching, cash introns, and heists. But the South African police service refused to...
00:19:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
i'm so i'm sorry I'm sorry for laughing. I mean, rhino poaching is very bad and should be stopped, but the idea that rhino poaching is a priority crime and farm workers aren't is just...
00:19:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No.
00:19:42
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
yeah and ah yeah so i mean that that That gives you enough information about how seriously they take the the issue.
00:19:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. Yes.
00:19:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah ah they were The South African Police Service refuses to classify it as a priority crime.
00:19:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay. and Okay.
00:19:54
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and then Also, to add to that, the the prosecution or the successful prosecution rate is horrendous. ah I don't have the stats here in front of me, but it's a vast minority. of farm murder cases, there's actually a ah successful conviction.
00:20:09
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um But I mean, that can that can also just be down to incompetence here, you wouldn't know.
00:20:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:20:13
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But I mean, I think the most the most glaring fact is is the fact that the police just refuses to classify farm murders with the the label and the severity that it deserves.
00:20:21
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:20:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah A general rule of thumb is that if your country becomes internationally known for a specific kind of crime, that should be a high priority. And I say this, you know, I live in France.
00:20:33
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right.
00:20:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's not it's not like we don't have reputation problems when it comes to public safety. um But um although the the the the Brits are beating ah at this,
00:20:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um Uh, it's, it's a strong, you know, they, they, they, they sort of, they were way behind us and they've overtaken us at great speed. Um, so I guess, so we you want to, you know.
00:21:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I guess I should have said this at the time, I want to try to strike a balance when we have this conversation but on the one hand, not hiding, not refusing to see what's there when you're naming realities of race, when somebody is targeted because of their race and so on and so forth.
00:21:11
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah.
00:21:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
But on the other hand, you don't want to raise the racial temperature, or you don't want to incite conflict. so the ah A lot of the background for this is that in a country in any country, when you have minorities, particularly when those minorities tend to be sort of more socio-economically successful, there's a political incentive for the majority group, the politicians of the majority group to sort of demagogue those minorities and sort of say, oh, we're going to, you know,
00:21:38
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:21:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And that's that's a phenomenon you see throughout history in every country. It's not a specifically black thing. It's not a specifically anything. It's just the and the way the incentives of the politics works. But unfortunately, that's what we've seen in South Africa. Would you would you say that's a correct assessment?
00:22:15
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, in South Africa, that's that's the easiest scapegoat to help you get away if you're a politician with all your other failings, is just to blame the the very visible and very disproportionately successful ah minority groups.
00:22:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:22:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And in particular, Afrikaners are a ah highly visible minority group that is disproportionately successful. And so it's very easy to scapegoat that type of minority. But when it comes to particularly the type of rhetoric that we see from or hear from politicians, it's it can't be more explicit in regards to our anti-Afrikaner.
00:22:46
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:22:47
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It is anti-Afrikans, the language of Afrikaners. It's a lot of them don't even hide it. I mean, a politician like Ies Malema, the head of the EFF, he'll chant
00:22:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:22:57
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:22:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Kill the boor, kill the farmer. I mean, that's that's the most direct call to violence that you can imagine.
00:23:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:23:04
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And then ah the rest of his ah his friends and allies in parliament just shrug it off and say, oh, he's just it's just a metaphor. But my one of my favorite ah political cartoons to ah to explain ah the the failings in this in this argument is just these two farm murderers run the pictures, all these these two farm murderers running out from a crime scene.
00:23:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And the one looks at the other one and he asks him what's a metaphor?
00:23:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah
00:23:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
There's a famous scene in a French movie where ah ah one guy says something and he says it's a metaphor and and his friend says, oh, that's not a metaphor, that's a simile. And he says, shove it. And the first guy says, that's a metaphor.
00:23:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah Okay, so i i just we spent some time talking about this, but not everybody follows South Africa, but I think it was important to sort of set the stage and explain that you have a political system where you have an incentive, political, economic, to sort of demonize minority groups, and you have a sort of background where there's a sense of ah you know the the the the boiling frog, right?
00:23:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Now.
00:24:01
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Mhm.
00:24:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
You have a sense of sort of slowly climbing temperature in terms of the either direct state or state abetted hostility. And that's that's the sort of background. So that's that's where this law comes in. And so now you can explain like what the law is, what it says specifically, and so on and so
Threats to Private Property Rights
00:24:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
forth.
00:24:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right. So I think if you've ah been anywhere on X in the political spheres, especially with ah international news and international politics, you would have definitely noticed that there's some some ruckus going on in South Africa. There's some some noise being made.
00:24:59
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And it's with good reason, seeing as the the government here has ah signed into law ah a bill that three very, very seriously threatens private property rights in this country.
00:25:12
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And ah expropriation about compensation is nothing new. It's not the first time you hear that term. It's not the first time that policy is tabled. ah We saw it happen in Zimbabwe, just in the neighboring country in South Africa.
00:25:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And we saw with the devastating effects in Venezuela as well.
00:25:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:25:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
of this type of policy. And when it comes to the Zimbabwean case study, all government, the ANC, does not see Zaunu PF, the leading party and in in Zimbabwe, as the bad guys.
00:25:42
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They see them as applaudable. They see them as as the good guys. They see them as the heroes and people that they want to emulate.
00:25:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:25:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And it's not it's one of those things where you don't even have to go dig in the archives to find those quotes. like They say this explicitly very regularly. um They celebrate Robert Mugabe as a hero.
00:26:02
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So not that's not that's the first thing that really doesn't ah reassure people in South Africa when it comes to the the whole debate around land.
00:26:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:26:11
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So what did the government do here? Well, firstly, there is a bit of a timeline that's important, but I'll keep it as condensed as possible. So in 2018, the government pushes for the amendment of the South African constitution, the more particularly Section 25 of the constitution.
00:26:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So Section 25 of the South African Constitution protects private property rights and prohibits expropriation without compensation. um And then the government pushes to try and amend it.
00:26:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
as does the constitution of every democracy on the planet and every, every just country. I mean, I was, I was reading the French declaration of human rights recently for something else.
00:26:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And, and like, this is one of the provisions, no expropriation without compensation. This is like, cause otherwise it's just state theft.
00:26:54
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No.
00:26:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
no
00:26:58
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Anyway, go on. So, so in 2018, they amended the constitution.
00:27:01
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They try to amend it, yeah.
00:27:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Oh, they tried.
00:27:03
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So in 2018, they push to amend it.
00:27:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:27:06
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They fail in parliament for the funniest reason ever.
00:27:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:27:09
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So they have enough support in parliament from their own party plus the radical left-wing parties in the in the in the parliament to be able to push this through with ah with a two-thirds majority.
00:27:20
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But they fail because the radical left-wing parties in parliament say that the the amendment does not go far enough, so they refuse to vote for it. And in the end,
00:27:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
South Africa and particularly land owners and property owners in South Africa are saved by the hubris of the the Marxist-Leninists. So i'm I'm very grateful for that. um But then in the wake of this defeat, so now the attempt to amend the constitution fails.
00:27:48
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
In the wake of this defeat, the South African government very clearly communicates, all right, this this has now failed. we are going to We are now going to immediately start pursuing the alternative ah tools at our disposal to make expropriation of our compensation possible.
00:28:02
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
What is the first back door that they that they try? They table the expropriation.
00:28:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay, it hang hang on. So for many, many years since 2018, the government has at least stated the intention of ah making expropriation without compensation a reality.
00:28:21
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So this is, this is not just something that dropped out of the sky yesterday.
00:28:21
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yes.
00:28:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No, no.
00:28:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
For many, many years, the government of South Africa has been saying we want to do this.
00:28:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah.
00:28:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay, carry on.
00:28:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah. So the next phase is then they're like, all right, we're going to try ah the the next backdoor that they trial alternative avenue to the same ends as they table the expropriation bull.
00:28:43
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So the expropriation bull is not a very covert attempt at all to do the same thing. It just says it wants to it it wants to make expropriation with no compensation possible.
00:28:56
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's what we call a synonym. That's what we call a euphemism. for so they they replaced with out with null zero.
00:29:00
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So am I understanding this correctly? They replaced the word without by the words with no, and they thought that that was different. Oh, I see. Okay. So you get compensation and the amount of the compensation is zero.
00:29:16
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yes, ah because the government has done its sums very responsibly and came to the conclusion that you're they're not going to compensate you.
00:29:22
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Ah, I see.
00:29:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So it's not tyrannical at all. It's not.
00:29:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Very, very clever.
00:29:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
to And so that's what the bull does.
00:29:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Very clever. um All right.
00:29:29
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It enables expropriation with no compensation. And that bull then passes through Parliament. and then it ah it passes through Parliament and it goes to the President's desk and he just needs to sign it to turn it into a law and ah then in December he signs it and ah it's announced a week ago.
00:29:37
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That bill passed.
00:29:52
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So the the bull is now signed into law but yeah there's still a very long process or a fight that's that's still going to unfold now but to to just some
00:30:03
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. So the, so the bill passed, but they failed to amend the constitution.
00:30:06
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
huh
00:30:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So it's plainly unconstitutional.
00:30:08
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yes. Yes. That's why there's a very strong chance that a very strong legal ah ah grounds to take it to test its constitutionality in court, which Afro forum will be doing.
00:30:11
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:30:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
okay Okay. So, uh, not an expert on the South African constitution.
00:30:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:30:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So how does, how does, how do you have, I assume there's some form of judicial review, but how does it work?
00:30:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So there's many routes, but I think the most conventional one which AfriForum will be taking is first you take it to the High Court. Do you constitutionally test it in the High Court? But the High Court cannot.
00:30:43
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah but high quote ah when it If the High Court finds it to be unconstitutional, that has to be uh supported or what would be the the right verb be it has to be confirmed or that judgment needs to be confirmed or backed by the constitutional courts as well if the high if if your challenge in the high court fails you can take it to the supreme court of appeal if it fails in the supreme court of appeal you can take it to the constitutional court which is the highest court in the land it's pretty much the south african supreme court and ah that's the final the final arena where your your case is heard
00:31:14
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:31:17
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um But AfriForum's challenge is going to start in the High Court and we're going to see where it goes from there. But yeah, there's a very strong ah constitutional challenge to be made, seeing as ah the government failed to amend the constitution, which really ham hamstrings the ah the they are the opportunity to get away with expropriation, without compensation, without a very serious and legitimate legal challenge.
00:31:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:31:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay, so and and I assume that would strengthen the case because at first they said, we need to change the constitution to do this.
00:31:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right.
00:31:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah
00:31:51
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah.
00:31:52
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And then when they couldn't, they were like, oh, no, we don't need to change the constitution. like but that ah Anyway.
00:31:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah. Yeah. The argument will boil boil down or boils down to that the the Constitution already implicitly allows expropriation without compensation. But it's ah it's a very shaky argument. But I mean, I understand why they make that type of argument in South Africa, because in South Africa, it the The South African case proves a very important point, and that is that no constitution is supreme.
00:32:21
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
it is The sovereignity or power does not lie within the constitution.
00:32:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yes
00:32:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
The documented lies within the hands of whoever is interpreting the constitution.
00:32:28
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah yes
00:32:30
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So, and in South Africa, I mean, the ANC has done very, a lot of horrible and and destructive things, but they have given us one term that I think is very useful in South Africa. The ANC talks about the the balance of forces.
00:32:44
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So everything is determined by the balance of forces. If the balance of forces are in your, on your side, you win.
00:32:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:32:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
If they're against you, you lose.
00:32:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:32:51
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And if the balance of forces are not in your favor yet, you wait and build up the balance of forces until they are in your favor, in your favor, then you move forward.
00:32:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:33:00
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So when it comes to the challenge here with this expropriation bull, they are clearly signaling that they think even though the Constitution does not allow expropriation of our compensation, the ruling party is signaling that they think they have enough balance of forces on their side to push it through anyway.
00:33:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's that whole idea of de facto reality versus de jure reality. In South Africa and many other countries where you have deteriorating state power and deteriorating sovereignty of the Constitution, you see this manifest where if there's enough real world force in a certain direction, it can almost override the Constitution without any amendment being made to the Constitution itself.
00:33:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:33:37
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Indeed.
00:33:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah, I mean, i this is this is a very different ah very different issue, but it' it's sort of famous that in the United States, the Supreme Court, and especially the Chief Justice, ah chose not to strike down Obamacare because on on on legal grounds that were so, ah he justified his his decision with a legal reasoning that was so flimsy that it hadn't occurred to anybody. So for these big constitutional cases in the US, you don't just have an oversight for and against, but you have ah ah amicus priests, which means third organizations can write and say, oh, this is what we think about this case. So you had like 30 different legal arguments for and against, and like he found something that nobody had thought of.
00:34:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um and And it's a sort of open secret that the reason why he did that is because he believed that if he did, if he hadn't the political backlash against the Supreme Court, because it would have been seen as a partisan Republican decision, ah would have been too great.
00:34:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And so it was essentially a political and this is one example, but of course, there's countless because judges are perfect.
00:34:57
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
yeah And the the message that is sent there or the reality that is proven there is that the institutional individual that can override the Constitution is the person to which the Constitution or institution to which the Constitution is subordinate.
00:35:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. so okay so i'm Since your organization has this case pending, i'm I'm not going to ask you to evaluate the equality of courts in South Africa.
00:35:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um so we'll we'll We'll just push side push that aside. A different question is, okay, so governments, you know, politicians, they'll say all sorts of things that they don't plan on doing, right? They do <unk> or that they plan on doing in only a sort of superficial way, right? It's like, you know, it's like, ah again, in the American context, the president would say, oh, you know, ah we don't like ah criminal immigrants. So they
00:36:02
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
you know they pass a law and then and they they go and they grab you know five guys with lots of cameras looking at them and they throw out five guys. But in reality, everybody knows the border is still open or something like that. like I guess my question is about the political situation. Is it the government just pandering and they don't really want to do this? Or is do they do they want to take take white people's property to just steal it through ra raw estate power because they've decided to do that.
00:36:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Mm.
00:36:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I think the most accurate assessment would be to say that they want the power to be able to do it. How far they will take it, how quickly they will use that power. I mean, that's up to that's up to speculation.
00:36:48
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
There's no way to say. But what you can see for ah for a fact is that it's that power that they want, the option to want.
00:36:50
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:36:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They want that weapon in their hand.
00:36:55
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:36:57
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Whether are they're going to swing that weapon, that's a different issue. That's a different piece of speculation.
00:37:01
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But I think the best, yeah.
00:37:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
So ah this raises another question, which is about the law itself.
00:37:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Is it the law that empowers the government? Or is it a law that empowers, you know, individuals or groups to say, Oh, you know, ah the, the, the example I took earlier, Oh, you know, your farm is on my ancestors land.
00:37:21
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And, you know, therefore I can, I can ask the court to give me your farm and they probably will.
00:37:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hm.
00:37:30
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
The law itself empowers the government and ah many ah levels of it to to expropriate. So it doesn't i empower private individuals or groups or organizations to, it empowers the state to do it.
00:37:43
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But as we saw in Zimbabwe, they sometimes the line between land grabs and expropriation by the state just blurs and becomes the same thing.
00:37:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:37:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:37:53
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
You can't really see where the state has a hand and where it's just organic land grabs going on. So that's that's the thing. And I think the best way to look at it metaphorically would be you have a room full of people, a crowded room, and a terrorist walks in with an AK-47, an Afri forum and the other organizations that are taking this bill on or this law on
00:38:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:38:16
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
or the guy that shouts, look out, he has a gun.
00:38:18
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:38:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And this guy is shouting, I'm going to kill everyone.
00:38:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:38:22
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And then the the government and their lackeys or the people that say, don't worry. I mean, what you're just overreacting, he hasn't shot anyone yet. He's just a security guard.
00:38:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right. Right. The analogy to a hostage situation is ah is an interesting one because you can say, oh, you know, he doesn't, you know, ah if he just gets what he wants, he's not going to shoot everybody and it's going to be fine.
00:38:44
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right.
00:38:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
But, now you know, you you go into the bank. OK, I'll just I'll just stay here and watch and also sometimes.
00:38:52
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, that and the the law stays on forever if it's not challenged, which means that maybe, I mean, I don't believe the current South African government is moderate by any means.
00:38:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:02
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But let's say it's possible to even go even more extreme than the current one, because the ANC is a very explicitly leftist party.
00:39:04
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
You can always have worse. right
00:39:10
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But there's like far left parties that are even more extreme than the ANC that are not in power.
00:39:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:16
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
If one of them were to gain power, they would absolutely use this law as well to the maximum extent that it can.
00:39:21
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right.
00:39:22
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So even though I do believe the ANC is definitely not the moderate party that's not going to use this law, it's absolutely in them to use and abuse this law.
00:39:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:30
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:39:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
the the option is still there that if they don't do it, someone else might also. I don't want the state to have that power ever, whether the state is managed by my favorite party or the worst party on the planet.
00:39:43
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I don't want it to have the power to take any form of property with without compensation.
00:39:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:39:48
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right ah i get I'm going to ask an extremely naive question, ah which is, ah why would ah anybody think that's a good idea?
00:39:54
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Sure, go for it.
00:40:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Because like you have you know you have a population of people in your country, they're they're productive, they they start businesses, they run businesses, they pay taxes, they make they make your country's economy better.
00:40:14
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
why Why would you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? I mean, i it it is purposefully an extremely naive question. I guess the less naive version of it is like, do they understand that if they just like completely drive white people away from from South Africa, like the country's going to fall apart?
00:40:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So my two answers, there's the one answer. First answer is definitely even with a quote from my AfriForum colleague, Bart and Ace, who says, I think there's still a lot of people out there that don't realize that ANC are willing to destroy the entire country to hold on to power.
00:40:51
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's the one thing.
00:40:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:40:53
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And the second aspect is the fact that this is not a popular policy in South Africa. The vast majority of South Africans um don't have a hunger for land. They are not looking for a piece of land to farm on.
00:41:02
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:41:05
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And the best example to prove that is the fact that when it comes, so there has already been a lot of restitution of land. So a restitution process has been in place in South Africa, where if you can go to the government and prove that you were dispossessed by the previous regime, your family were dispossessed by the previous regime, you can and you have the prove you can prove it, you get that land back.
00:41:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But the person who is in current possession of that land gets compensation. It's not expropriated without compensation. They get fair compensation.
00:41:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Got it.
00:41:35
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But the people putting in the land claim get their land back.
00:41:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:41:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
In that process, since 1998,
00:41:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
and and And what happens to the productivity of the farms that are then redistributed?
00:41:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ninety nine ninety according to the government statistics, 90% of them fail and don't then't become productive. So according to the the government the government statistics, when it comes to the the restitution process, and these statistics were released just a few months ago,
00:42:05
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah Since 1998, there have been thousands of successful land claims and land restitution. Out of those thousands and thousands of successful restitution claims, 87% of those who made successful claims took money instead of the land when given the opportunity.
00:42:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So when you you have a successful application for to get your land back, um the government says, all right, you've been successful.
00:42:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I see. Right.
00:42:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
You cannot choose. You get either get the value of the land in cash now, or you can get the land itself. And 87% of land claimants chose the money rather than the land.
00:42:40
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah. and And it makes sense. like if you know If I won a farm in the lottery or something, ah i I would just sell it for the money.
00:42:50
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
yeah
00:42:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I'm not a farmer, and I don't particularly want to be a farmer.
00:42:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
right
00:42:57
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I i admire farmers, ah but i'm I'm not a farmer. i I never wanted particularly to be a farmer. I think every man dreams of being a farmer occasionally. but ah ah so So it does make sense.
00:43:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um Okay, so I wanna go back to a thing you said, which is the ANC will destroy the country rather than lose power. So the ANC is Mandela's party.
00:43:22
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right.
00:43:26
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
We're not gonna go into the whole thing.
00:43:27
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:43:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
like but Like what are the origins of the ANC and what it did ah historically, but it's been the the party that's been in power in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
00:43:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah And of course, again, trying to sort of de-racialize this. It's not healthy in any country with any sort of racial configuration for the same party to be in power for 30 years and to have a kind of electoral monopoly.
00:43:52
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It breeds complacency, it breeds corruption, and so on and so forth. So it is that why this is happening now? Is the ANC rule threatened? is like what's what I guess the question I'm asking is why now? What's the political context?
00:44:09
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right, so you're absolutely correct. Since ah the end of apartheid, um the ANC has been in power until the elections of 2024. So in the elections of 2024, the ANC lost their majority support, but then they formed a coalition ah with other minority parties and they formed, ah as they call it, a government of national unity.
00:44:20
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Ah.
00:44:28
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:44:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It sounds very beautiful. And ah now that that government of national unity is ruling, but the ANC is still getting everything that it wants. It's still pushing through. It's still ruling as of it's in charge.
00:44:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
is the dominant party in the coalition.
00:44:46
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's a 40 percent party in ah in a coalition with other with one 20 percent party and other like five percent parties now.
00:44:46
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:44:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. So, okay. So, okay. So that's, So essentially the ANC is pushing this bill to be like, look at us, we're the most black nationalists and and sort of trying to
ANC's Populist Strategies
00:45:06
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
We're still a revolutionary party of the people, yes, a race populist and and economic populist party, but not in the best way, no.
00:45:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
regain authority.
00:45:09
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:45:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay. Okay. And so yes, and so they don't care if it destroys the country as long as it's sort of restored your image.
00:45:18
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No, that they are just desperate to regain their grip on power because they've been seriously weakened. They've been weakened from a 60% party to a 40% party.
00:45:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes, that's a big difference.
00:45:29
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um So they have to get back but above 50% as quickly as possible.
00:45:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
and and
00:45:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
and what's what is Is it just general dissatisfaction with, I mean, the the state i mean again, like you know this, I don't know if people watching this know this, but the state of infrastructure in South Africa has been sort of con...
00:45:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
consistently declining the state of public services, public safety, certainly. And so and it is it just general dissatisfaction? And if so, ah where are the votes going? I imagine they they're going to other black nationalist parties. Are they going so the the the sort of The party that's, you know, and again, you will correct me if I'm wrong, but there's there's the party called the DA, which is ah they are very at pains of point of saying they're not the white party. They're certainly the most Western party. They're sort of European style, moderate party that wants sort of race neutral policies and so on and so forth. But they're they're de facto.
00:46:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
the white party. I assume they're not the beneficiaries of the ANC's electoral woes.
00:46:42
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
All right. So well again, it's actually a fascinating story what happened then. We can maybe talk about it in more detail on another day. But summed up what happened is it's not, and I'm i'm pretty sure about this. You won't hear this from a lot of analysts, because it's not a very popular analysis of what happened. But it is absolute. I'm almost 100% sure this is what happened, just based on this and on seeing with my own two eyes. it's not People didn't stop.
00:47:11
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
voting for the ANC because of their failures in regard and their corruption and the rolling black arts and the out of control crime and the infrastructure falling apart. If that was the reason their downfall would have come a lot earlier, they were dropping in support every ah so we have elections every five years.
00:47:29
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um Which means ah when it came to the a c support between elections they were dropping support in about at about a rate of three percent per every five years.
00:47:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And then suddenly they lose twenty percent but we've had rolling blackouts for more than seventeen years we've had corruption scandals for decades.
00:47:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:47:49
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
We've had crumbling infrastructure for decades. So what, did everyone just wake up suddenly in that mythical like the masses woke up moment in 2024? No, I don't believe in that very time.
00:48:00
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I don't think that's how the macro mass democracy works. um What happened was the ANC was on track to lose again about three or 2% in support. If you look at the graph or trends on how they were losing support.
00:48:12
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right.
00:48:13
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And then there was this massive like catastrophic fracture internally. where Again, as I said, there's a fascinating history around this, but our I'll have to condense it for for the sake of time. So the ANC is not an ethnically united party. They are COSAS and Zulus and many other different ethnic groups in there.
00:48:33
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And it's always been a traditionally COSR-dominated party.
00:48:37
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:48:37
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But then when Jacob Zuma, the previous president, came in, he was more of a Zulu nationalist.
00:48:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Mandela with Orto.
00:48:42
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So he filled the party top ranks with Zulus and made it more of a Zulu party.
00:48:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. Yes.
00:48:47
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
He gained a lot of support in KwaZulu-Natal, which is the province with the MoZulus in it. And then he was ousted in 2018. And so Ramaphosa, the current president, who is a vendor, took over.
00:48:59
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And vendors are like this tiny little micro-minority, ethnic-wise. um So the Zulus are not happy. there's The Zulu base of the ANC were not happy. And because as soon as Zuma gets kicked out, all the Zulus get purged again, from like an ethnic purge from the party.
00:49:15
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
they They lose all their positions and get replaced by people of other ethnicities. So what happens is, Zuma, now in exile from the ANC, he cancels his ANC membership and he forms his own his new but this new party called Imkonto Wesizue, or the Spear of the Nation, the MK Party, a radical like ah revolutionary ethno-nationalist party.
00:49:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
but not they this is Again, there's so much detail here, but i
00:49:42
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And the the name MK is a throwback to the ANC's armed wing.
00:49:46
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and That was the military terrorist wing of the ANC.
00:49:49
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:49:52
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So what happened was, ah so within the Zulu nation, within the Zulu people, there's this divide between the traditional Afro-nationalists or the monarchists, the Zulu kingdom.
00:50:04
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I mean, there's still a Zulu king who wields a lot a massive amount of power.
00:50:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yes Yes, there's ah there's a Zulu traditional king and so on and so forth, yes.
00:50:09
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, he's not just some figure. hey He's a genuinely powerful figure, ah commands the loyalty of millions of people.
00:50:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:50:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:50:16
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um And so there's that faction, which is then represented.
00:50:19
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Which, as a French you know quasi-monarchist, I totally respect, by the way.
00:50:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah.
00:50:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
that's That's the most respectable thing in the South African forget political system.
00:50:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I also don't have a problem with the. I don't have a problem with the Zundub monarchy either. um But when it comes to, and then their political representation is the Inkata Freedom Party, which is also the traditionalist, conservative Zulu ethno-nationalist party.
00:50:39
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:50:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Then you get the MK party, which the the The traditional comment comment class find it almost incapable to describe what they are. They just kind of describe them as just traditional.
00:50:54
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
like in in the ah In the Western lexicon, they'd just be called ethnofascists or zulu supremacists or whatever, but it's not that that loses a lot of the nuance.
00:51:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:51:07
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
As i say they they are the traditional like zulu nationalist the i fp in the monarchy and then you have this mk party which is the best way i can describe them if i have to give them a label is like the secular if no nationalist so they're not traditionalists they're not monoculars they like the they're pretty much the,
00:51:27
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
A strand of these left-wing, if no nationalists that you see throughout history that are not don't have a religious connotation, they don't have a connection to the the the old history of the country or to the the traditional monarchy or traditional centers of authority.
00:51:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They're almost like a ah ah subversive force that that parasitizes like cultural nationalism or ethnic nationalism. And I would say that's what the MK party is. But anyway, long story short, this MK party or this Zulu revolution within the ANC breaks away and they immediately gain like 14% of the votes, which is unheard of in South Africa. I mean, we've had many breakaway parties from the ANC, but they've never gotten more than 5% of the support, and then they disappear.
00:52:17
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But this party comes onto the scene immediately within a few months, just gains 14% of the vote, and they force the ANC to drop to 40%.
00:52:28
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's my diagnosis, what happened. It's not because people got fed up with the ANC, not because people say, well, this is now and enough is enough.
00:52:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Okay.
00:52:35
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
I'm not going to vote for the ANC this time. No, they just the the ANC, the zulus within the ANC voter base defected. It's like, for example, the Texans defecting from the Republican Party and the ah yeah and being wildly successful.
00:52:47
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, to some sort of third party. Uh, and, and, and in Germany, you know, the Bavarian party is the CSU, like they have their own party.
00:52:51
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
so yeah
00:52:57
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It's de facto in an alliance with the, uh, the, the national, uh, sort of center right party, but it's, it's a different party. It's their own party. Theoretically they could make up their own block.
00:53:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Uh, okay. So, uh, and by the way, if you have time, we can sort of go slightly over the hour. Um,
00:53:15
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Sure.
00:53:16
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah So the the the next question, the the most important question is what happens now, but that's sort of indeterminate because it depends on this constitutional challenge. And again, like I'm i'm sort of, again, asking the naive questions, which is like, if I'm like a political advisor to the ANC, I will say, you know, pass this ridiculous law, it's gonna get struck down in the courts. And that way you get the political benefit. You can say you tried, but you don't destroy the economy.
00:53:44
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um and and And that's good. So, is that what's going on? If that's not what's going on, like, if you if you if you win, you know, it's like, okay, play another game. If you if you lose, what happens?
00:54:03
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So if we win, then ah our challenge against the expropriation act, then we go fight it with then we can focus all our resources on fighting all the other destructive policies of the ANC that they're forcing through. Then we have some extra resources lying around to go redirect.
00:54:20
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
if we lose that means that the government gains the the power to be able to expropriate property any property without compensation or no let's use the the language with no compensation not the same thing right um so yeah that's ah that's the the two scenarios and i think.
00:54:34
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right right
00:54:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
yeah
00:54:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Again, this is what makes AfriForum such a robust organization because we would we were created within that political milieu of the idea of the balance of forces that I talked about earlier.
00:54:52
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
everything Reality is dependent on how much force you and influence you can wield, not necessarily on ah whether you are the ruling party or not, whether you are in government or not.
00:54:56
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right. Right. Right. Right.
00:55:04
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and That's how politics works in South Africa.
00:55:04
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
right
00:55:06
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It's how politics works, on I think, on the African continent in general. is ah If you create a de facto reality, the UAE reality kind of follows.
00:55:17
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:55:17
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's the the the model that AfriForum follows, and it has we we've been ah applying that philosophy to great effect and great success.
00:55:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
00:55:25
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um
00:55:25
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
I mean, I, I guess there's, I mean, I don't, I don't want you to say anything that you don't want to say publicly, but I guess, you know, a question that I kind of want to ask is like, if the government like actually starts to just like take people's property, like,
00:55:36
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Mm hmm. Hmm.
00:55:43
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Are people going to take it? There's a level like of injustice in a government that legitimizes resistance. like My great grandfather was the leader of the French resistance in our area of of Burgundy and i' I'm very proud of the fact that he resisted a unjust tyrannical government. ah And speaking of expropriation, we now live in the house that was the local Wehrmacht headquarters.
00:56:18
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
so i mean i Again, I don't want you to ah to sort of get ahead of your skis, but you know there're i mean you know if if if some totally undemocratic, corrupt government decides one day that it can just take my house, I'm not going to let them.
00:56:38
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
So there's ah there's two facets to that. On the one side, if the government starts expropriating ah property with without compensation, Baffery Forum will be the first organization to defend those property owners in court and they will not have to ah stand ah ah go at it alone.
00:56:56
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
If that fails, if the core challenge fails, then know we i mean then we follow the the porcupine approach. we We're not an aggressor, we're not an attacker, but if you mess with the porcupine, you're going to get a face full of quills. And I mean, that's that's how it works in Africa. that's the That's the only way to really keep off predators is to have a very, very strong defensive strategy.
00:57:18
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And I think when it comes to every forum in particular, we're not just ah an organization that fights in the courts. We're also one of one of the largest community-based security networks in South Africa, if not in Africa.
00:57:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um We've got 177 neighborhood watches all across the country. And it's not your grandma's neighborhood watch with pepper spray and whatever. It's highly ah welltrained it's well-trained,
00:57:41
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
i'm i'm sure I'm sure it's not. I'm sure it's not. I'm sure people can check out the videos. They're a lot more exciting than this one, I can tell you.
00:57:50
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah, so we've got a network of neighborhood watchers all across the country, community safety structures, as we call them. They're highly equipped, they're highly trained, and the they are they're ready to to oppose tyranny if it were to come to that where the government just throws law and order to the wind and say says, well, we're just going to start confiscating property, doesn't matter what's right or wrong. um It comes down to that idea that The whole essence of law is the fact that it is rooted in justice.
00:58:18
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Therefore, an unjust law cannot be a law that should be followed.
00:58:18
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:58:21
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:58:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And I mean, that's that's the thing.
00:58:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
00:58:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
If the government just starts confiscating property, ah no matter what, then ah then people will follow the porcupine approach, the porcupine defensive strategy. And there we all know who started it.
00:58:36
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Right, right. All right. Well, the real message received, you know, and, you know, I mean, I...
00:58:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
we were We were talking before we started recording and I met and i mentioned um ah that I used to travel to Africa a fair amount. They're never so South Africa. I mean, I think, you know, um there's a lot of people who left and it's difficult to blame them, ah but I also understand like people, I don't think people who have never been to Africa can understand just how achingly beautiful it is and how it's a continent that you can just fall in love with.
00:59:29
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um And especially if your ancestors have been there for centuries.
00:59:30
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah, I mean my
00:59:33
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:59:33
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um you know So ah yeah, there's plenty of Afrikaners who are doctors or whatever, and they can get much better jobs, much better and much better paid, and they don't have to drive around in an armored car when they get home from work, although in London that may be changing.
00:59:39
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Hmm.
00:59:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
ah but But there's also people who have been living in New York land who who have been there for centuries and their ancestors were not purely evil by the standards of anything else, certainly not by the standards of African tribal warfare.
01:00:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
um and they're very attached to it. And I i mean, i there's no question. i just i I guess the thing I'm willing to, I wanna communicate and maybe you can you can touch on that and we can end there unless you have something else to say. um But basically, like I deeply understand why people want to fight for South Africa as a land, as a place, which has amazing natural resources, beauty, ah was once a first world country and could be, again, and not not necessarily under an apartheid state, just competent government. if If South Africa just had competent government and didn't try to ah attack any race, it would it would be it would be a wonderful country. It would be like France, it would be like Switzerland, except even more beautiful. i mean
01:01:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Switzerland and France are very beautiful, but with its own specific kind of beauty. um Yeah.
01:01:13
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Well, I think then what I'll end on is just a ah personal note as well. I mean, my ancestors have been here since 1688. I'm the ninth generation ah in Southern Africa. My first ancestor was a French Huguenot that came here in 1688 called Paul Roux.
01:01:29
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And ah yeah, that's that's my story. And that's the story of all Afrikaners when you really dig beneath the surface. ah Most Afrikaners ancestors came to South Africa before the United States was a country. And yes, a lot of Afrikaners have left. There's a massive Afrikaner di Aspura out there.
01:01:48
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But the vast majority of Afrikaners still live in South Africa. They still millions of us here and they will always be millions of Afrikaners here because millions of Afrikaners have chosen either do not want to leave or cannot leave.
01:01:54
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
01:02:02
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
That's the other reality. To emigrate, you have to kind of give up everything you have and start from scratch in a new place, especially with how weak the rand now is our currency towards the the dollar or the euro.
01:02:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. Right. right right
01:02:15
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
When it comes to what the future holds, well, the future holds ah that Afrikaners are kind of leading the way in many ways. I mean, we had a visitor here, Thir Demirster from America that came to check out what we're doing here. And he observed that South Africa and Afrikaners are way ahead of the curve for two different reasons. South Africa Unfortunately, due to many of the problems that we are facing, might beef the same problems might start emerging in the Western world as Western countries South Africanise.
01:02:45
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But at the same time, Afrikaners are ahead of the curve because we're already developing and pioneering the solutions to the problems associated with South Africa.
01:02:45
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes. the That's a very good point.
01:02:53
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah One of those examples would be AfriForum and the associated solidarity movement where We're not relying on on party politics anymore. where It doesn't doesn't mean you should disregard party politics.
01:03:05
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
It doesn't mean you should just write off democracy. It just means you have to do more. yeah ah Just going to vote is is the bare minimum you can do to bring about change.
01:03:10
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah.
01:03:14
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
the You should be doing a lot more. You should be getting involved, building your own institutions, starting organizations, organizing as a community. That's what Afrikaners have been forced to do. And to this point, we've been very successful. We've pioneered many new ways of bringing about change outside of the party politics system. So when party politics fails, we're not we didn't put all our eggs in that one basket. I mean, just to take Afri Forum as an example,
01:03:41
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
We have 177 community-based security structures all across the country. We have 170 branches all across the country that fill thousands of potholes and paint street signs and plant trees and repair infrastructure and fix water leaks, everything where the government is failing.
01:04:01
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's wonderful.
01:04:01
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
And we are just one node within the solidarity movement the solidarity movement is ah an organized is an africaner movement that covers many different facets of of south africa so in the solidarity movement you have helping the hunt solidarity helping hand which is all welfare organization.
01:04:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
that helps ah children that can't go to school and have money to go to school or to go go to university. We have built Soltech, the technical college campus, where we crowdfunded ah millions of runs and then we built an Afrikaans technical college because the government doesn't care about Afrikaans tertiary education. So we built our own technical college with grassroots funding. ah We also are currently, this year, we're starting construction on our own university called Academia.
01:04:48
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
which is a 3.2 billion rand project, which also again...
01:04:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
And it's it's it's not like an online university, it's a physical
01:04:55
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
No. So it already exists, but it's currently renting a campus. So it already has thousands of students, but it's renting a campus, and we're currently building our own campus, which we start this year.
01:05:05
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
We already bought the land, so the project has already started.
01:05:07
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
that I hope it doesn't get expropriated.
01:05:11
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
They are all that i mean that's that's that reminds me of the quote from the base the head of the solidarity movement who always is. The only risk bigger than trying is to do nothing cuz when you do nothing defeat is certain right you might as well try and have a chance of winning.
01:05:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's true.
01:05:26
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
then just saying, well, whatever I do is always gonna fail, so I'm just gonna do nothing. Well, then you just doom yourself to certain and defeat.
01:05:31
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Indeed.
01:05:34
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um So yeah, that's the, I mean, that's just scratching the surface of it, but that's what Afrikaners are doing is were we're demographically concentrating and we're in in places where Afrikaners already live in high concentrations and then we're creating a de facto reality and the the The motto of the Solidarity, one the motto two of well we have two mottos. The one motto is, we're building to stay. And the second motto is, you don't ask you don't demand change, you build change. That's how it works.
01:06:05
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
That's great. All right. ah We end each of our podcasts with a traditional question. It's a very long-standing tradition from three weeks ago, which is recommend a book.
01:06:17
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
It can be any book outside your area of expertise.
01:06:21
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
outside of my area of expertise.
01:06:22
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
01:06:24
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
um
01:06:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Fiction, nonfiction, just not contemporary South Africa, I guess.
01:06:32
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Right. I would recommend... There's so many books I'd like to recommend, but they are in Afrikaans, so they're behind a language barrier. But if I had to, because all my favorite books are written in Afrikaans, unfortunately, because then I would... read if If for some reason you have an Afrikaans listener, I would definitely have done with Elias Liberale, Nationalism, the is definitely the book for Tech Software still.
01:06:58
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
But if I had to recommend an English work, I would recommend ah The Great Betrayal by Ian Smith.
01:07:06
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
so Okay.
01:07:08
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Because um because history is not my speciality and that's a fantastical historical account.
01:07:08
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
All right.
01:07:13
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yeah, i've i've ah I've read some of it. It's very interesting. ah I was not a fan of the prose. It's not an easy to read book. ah
01:07:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Yeah.
01:07:24
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
but but but but i So i didn't I never finished it, but the parts that I did read, I thought were very interesting. ah All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. I hope people watch this. Is is there a way for people outside South Africa to support Afroform?
01:07:43
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
ah Yes, so you can become an international member of AfriForum. The best way to do that is just to go to, I think the best way to find the link for that for international membership would be to go to my YouTube channel called Conscious Garlic and then to ah go to the description of my latest stream or latest video and you'll see there's a link in the description that says ah become a member or support AfriForum and you can go there.
01:08:09
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and you can either make a once-off donation but you can ah or you can become a member. but I'll also send you the link ah to you so you can put it in the description of wherever this will be published.
01:08:19
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
If people want to to visit it there, then there will be a link in the description.
01:08:23
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes, i I will put all of the links and everything in the in the description.
01:08:23
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
and
01:08:26
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Okay, they know so then yeah let me let me ah revise that then.
01:08:27
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Don't worry. All right.
01:08:31
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
You don't have to go to my channel. You can just ah find the link to become an international member of AfriForum in the description of this video.
01:08:35
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Yes.
01:08:38
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
All right, great. Ernst Renssel, thank you very much for your time. I hope people watch this and I wish the best future possible for all South Africans and all South Africa.
01:08:51
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Thank you.
01:08:51
Ernst van Zyl (C.C.)
Fantastic. Have a nice day. Goodbye.
01:08:53
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
Bye.