“Reporting from the Frontlines: Humphrey Hawksley on Geopolitics, Conflict, and the Future of Glo...

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Powered by CJ Moneyway Entertainment and the Believe Network. On this episode of The CJ Moneyway Show. CJ sits down with Humphrey Huxley, geopolitical analyst, author, international broadcaster. Perception shapes power. Information shapes influence. Narratives shape nations. This conversation examines the forces shaping today's global landscape: strategy, media, influence, and the story is driving it all. What's up, my good people? This your boy CJ Moneyway. Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show. Today I got my man Humphrey. He's an author up there in London. He says kind of cold there, a little rainy, but, uh, we gonna get this started today. Hey, Humphrey, man, welcome to the show. How you doing?

CJ, it's really good to be on your show. Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it, man. I appreciate taking time out your day, man, to come join the CJ Moneyway Show. So, Humphrey, man, let me ask you, man, story plus insight. You know, you got this trilogy, you got these books going on, man. You got a lot of books, you got a lot of things, man. So let me ask you this. The reporter behind the headlines, you've reported from crisis on every continent. Which assignment changed you personally the most?

I think in today's world where our politics are all upside down, and all the morality is gone that you and I might have grown up with and the right ways of government and that sort of thing. I think what changed me most was working in China and in Asia. And there are other things that changed me, like the first time I saw somebody shot in front of me. You know, that changes somebody. Or walking into a massacre site and seeing all the bodies there, and that changes you and sort of instills— you have to deal with the trauma. But in long-term thinking, in trying to understand how the world works, how wealth is distributed, how politics works, it was being in Asia and in China that I understood. And the reason, C.J., I understood it is that in the West, as we say, in Washington and New York and London and places like that, we have been set for 30, 40 years in the way we think the world should be run.

Mm-hmm.

And in that 30 or 40 years, there have been other countries coming up— South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, China particularly— and they haven't quite agreed with what we've been telling them.

Mm-hmm.

And now we're getting to a stage where everything seems to be falling apart a bit. And I realized that because I worked in Asia from Basically the late 1980s through to '97, and then a lot in the Middle East and everything like that. But that period in Asia, when I came back here and talked to my editors in London about this thing or that thing or whatever happening, they didn't quite understand what I was saying, didn't agree with me. Because I was actually telling them how people were thinking in the Philippines and how they were thinking in China. And that's not how they were thinking in the West. And I'll tell you why. It basically came home to me when we went into Afghanistan, which was understandable after 9/11. But then when we went into Iraq, and you thought you could just strip away a dictator and everything would fall into place and be absolutely fantastic. Well, one of my first assignments was in the Philippines. Where they stripped away a dictator called Ferdinand Marcos, put him on a plane to Hawaii. And during my year or so there, I covered 7 or 8 coup d'états, where the military or other people tried to overthrow the government. And that set me in a sort of thing. So, well, Iraq's not going to work. Afghanistan, as we know, didn't work. Then we had the Arab Spring. That didn't work. And because, you know, all of these think tanks and universities— Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge— and all these brilliant minds there, and they don't get a really, really simple thing, that it takes time to build something that works. And you can't just— anyway, I've talked for too long.

I'm sorry. No, no, no, you shoot nuggets. You know what I'm saying? Like you say, there's certain things that we don't know or don't understand because We just don't have the insight. And so when somebody come through with some insight that we don't have, man, I'm all ears. Let me ask you this though, Humphrey, on that. Not, you know, I don't want to get too deep into it or whatever, but like you say, Afghanistan, it didn't work. The Philippines, it didn't work. With this that just happened in Venezuela, do you think that's gonna work?

Uh, well, I mean, that's a really interesting one because, you know, whenever you have these big stories in these countries, you know, dictator falls or whatever, you tend to get lots of reports coming out of there for months on end of how it's going. Have you seen anything about what's happening in Venezuela?

No, not really.

I mean, clue what's going on there.

I mean, I've heard some things where they say, you know, they tired of taking orders from DC or whatever, but behind the scenes, like you say, really don't know what's transpiring.

I mean, we know more about what's going on in Iran at the moment than we do about what's going on in Venezuela.

Ain't that something?

Do I think it will work? I think it won't be a complete disaster like Iraq and Venezuela. It's a different sort of place.

Take it from a man that's been, that covered every continent, and don't say— match your wits against Humphrey's wits, man. I think I'm going to come out on Humphrey's side, because I don't know, if people went all around the globe, you know, just reporting stuff like this and the insight and the knowledge that you have, man. I'm glad that you brought it on the CJ Moneyway Show. And so let me ask you this, Humphrey, man. Can you share a moment where being on the ground reveals something that never made the headlines?

Oh, a lot. I mean, as a reporter, you are frustrated about how much you cannot say and cannot tell. And for two reasons. One is that the slot that you've got to tell the news is— so if a bomb goes off, okay, and there are a number of people killed, you report that the bomb goes off, there's a number of people killed, and what people are saying about it. You might have the pictures of that, but you also know why that bomb went off and what was probably going through the minds of the people that set that bomb off. And if you lay that out, that might be quite a reasonable thought, but that won't go into the news report. A lot of my earlier stuff that I did, you know, back in the '90s and that, the reason I first started writing books was to put down these bigger themes that come out of these things that happen. So you think President Putin goes into Ukraine. And that's a really dreadful thing to do, and what he's doing there is absolutely horrific. But do we ever think why he's doing it, or do we try to explain why Russia is doing it? And then we're getting back to what we were saying before, is that we had, you know, what was it, a couple of weeks ago, that America was going to invade a European nation called Greenland, and that would have broken up all the various things that keep us safe, or we think keep us safe. But I don't think we ever got from that, it's off the front pages now, as to why America wanted to invade Greenland. And this is why the news, CJ, sort of, because you see a flash of something and a flash of something and a flash of something, and you never quite know what's beneath either that pretty dress or that dark dress that the people are wearing. Yeah, you know, you never get to meet them, you never get anything like that, and then we move on. So now we don't know what's happening in Greenland, we're somewhere else. I don't know, where are we at the moment? We're in Minneapolis, aren't we?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they keeping us all around the board, you know what I'm saying? And I call it smoking mirrors because everything that you say is just not lining up. But you make a good point, it may not line up to us, but somebody know the answers to why, you know what I'm saying, they're doing this or doing that, and they just giving us smokescreen on why, but somebody know the truth, and that's just the bottom line. We just don't know the truth.

Well, that's because they tell a good story. It's all about the storytelling, isn't it?

Yeah, I like that. I like the storytelling instead of just lies. You know what I'm saying? That's exactly what it be. Hey, so let me ask you this, Humphrey, man. You said something about reporters and all this don't get reported, certain things or whatever. Made me think about an article I was just reading the other day. He just signed an executive order, I want to say I read that yesterday, about whistleblowers, that people that's whistleblowers, because they trying to get rid of 50,000 people in the federal government, but the whistleblower protection is going out the window. What do you think about that? How much is that going to hinder reporters actually being able to do their job? Because now, especially here in America, because now if you put something out there, you liable to go to jail.

Yeah, I mean, I think this, you know, whistleblowing— I think it was sort of during the Clinton era, a little bit before that, that we found that whistleblowers were almost being encouraged in government— not in government so much, but in big corporations— or protected, so that, you know, there was a stream that they could go through. And then there were whistleblowers I know when I was covering some of these wars, the Bosnia War, for example, of the collapse of Yugoslavia, there were dreadful things going on and whistleblowers were sort of coming out. And now, as you say, that they're not protected because some administrations like 100% loyalty. And if you're not 100% loyal, you damage whatever that administration's doing, and therefore you don't have any protection. I think the whole element at the moment that's going on in the United States, to a certain extent here in Europe, is actually changing the game for how journalists operate. I don't think in the States you have a constitutional right to report, and that's being dented and damaged if you're afraid that that's happening. And there are a number of things that I look through and sort of parallel up as to, do you feel, you know, as a foreign report, not that I've done it, if you go into the States, do you feel safe taking your iPhone in there, your phone in there, you know, or would you strip it like you do when you go into China if people are going to take the phone? And all of these elements are changing the nature of what's happening in America. Having said that though, under this so-called democracy, it is the democratic system that has delivered this administration. And the person at the top of that administration has been delivered not once but twice by the voter. And by ripping into the whistleblowers or cutting the federal funding and closing USAID and all of that sort of stuff that's been going on there is because enough people thought that there was a boil that needed lancing. And because the incumbents didn't do the work necessary. It meant that an outsider, in this case, you know, the president of that administration, were voted in to do that job. Now, we had similar in Britain over our leaving the European Union, and we had charismatic populists, they call them, people coming in to do it. They didn't actually know how to govern or run the country, but they knew how to capture the imagination of the of people, and that's why I talked about the storytelling. So the storytelling from the current administration is much more powerful than the storytelling from the other side. So the Republican storytelling is much more powerful than the Democrat storytelling. And over here in Britain, we have the populist right, and it's mainly on immigration as it is in the States. Their story is far more powerful than that of the moderate Labour left-wing government that's in at the moment. Therefore, if you have a democracy and the purpose of that democracy is to persuade people to vote for you, those who don't like the current administrations, either in, you know, the rising ones in Europe or the current one, need to come up with a better story. They need to go, they can't just keep complaining. They need to come up with a better story and they need to come up with it fast. Yeah, because this stuff has happened, you know, many times before in many places. Vladimir Putin has a good story that he tells the Russian people. Xi Jinping has a great story that he tells the Chinese people about China. We in the West have lost our power of storytelling.

I mean, that, that right there is powerful in itself. It gives you a whole different insight, you know, because Yeah, yeah, I, I don't, I don't want to get into it, but yeah, yeah, that's deep. And so let me ask you this, man, storytelling. And it's because they telling the people what they want to hear, you know what I'm saying? And then in the same sense, a lot of them take on the same mentality because they feel the same way about certain things. And so the more and more you push this, whether it's, you know, come on, man, some of y'all know that a lot of this is lies, you know what I'm saying? And what they doing because it's not just affecting, you know, these people or whatever. And a lot of people that voted, it's affecting y'all too now. But see, a lot of people didn't know that it was going to affect them. They just thought it was going, oh, there's certain people or whatever, whatever. But then come to find out, no, it's much deeper than that.

Yeah, I mean, it's much deeper than that. And I just think, yeah, it is. And we had a politician here in Britain, and he failed. He was standing up our Parliament the other day saying that there should be a law put in place to stop politicians from lying. So that if you're caught out lying, you get completely voted down because some—

have you ever met a politician who doesn't lie?

Come on, man. So, you know, it just shows how people are struggling because when we did what we call Brexit, which is our leaving the European Union, it was a referendum. And we now know that what was told to the voter was lie after lie after lie by the people that wanted to leave the European Union. And that choice has made us poorer. It's given us less power in the world because we're not attached to any— we're torn between— we're sort of having to be nice to the United States, having to be nice to China, having nice to anybody that can do a trade deal with us. And yet, strangely, it hasn't resonated with the electorate. There's something, CJ, at the moment, because you're called Moneyway, so let me ask you. Something at the moment whereby even if your wealth drops or your standard of living drops, if whatever's happening improves your dignity or your relevance in the world, you're going to vote for your dignity over your wealth.

Yeah, yeah. And man, it's just so much stuff going on. You just depleting everything. Social Security, food benefits, you know, for people to eat and things like that. So you're taking everything that's our pipeline, you know what I'm saying, money pipeline sort of, and it's just, what are the people gonna have? You know, people losing jobs, uh, like 40 Going North and things of that nature. It's just so much adding on top of— but you know, I go back to what you said earlier, Humphrey, man. Somebody know the truth, you know what I'm saying? Somebody know, somebody is under that skirt. They know what's under that skirt. We just try to figure out what's under the skirt, but we can't see the skirt. So let me ask you this, man, because this is a good one, but I can go, we go on and on about that one, but I don't want to get in no trouble though, Humphrey, man. And I don't want you to get over no trouble over that with the Brits either, because there's some stories coming out of that. This Epstein thing, man, this Epstein thing have blew roof off of a whole lot of stuff, you know what I'm saying? And it exposes a whole lot of people as well, you know. It's crazy.

What do you think of that? Is it— it's a big story, man.

Yeah, because they got some people implemented from, from over that way. And I was just reading something the other day about the daughters, you know, like, wow, it gets deeper and deeper.

I think they haven't got any big Americans yet, have they?

Well, you know, the Clintons go on, uh, they got to go to Congress on the 27th of this month. They got to go before Congress. Yeah, they was going to get what they call a contempt if they didn't go. So I mean, you know, I look at the Clintons like I was telling my mother, I look at the Clintons like, I don't know if you really wanted to put them in front of Congress. Not because who knows what they know, you know what I'm saying? Like, y'all trying to get them like, you know, like in a haha moment But these not no stupid people, you know what I'm saying? These ain't no running mess around and be like Jack Smith, but we going to leave that at that. So let me ask you this, Humphrey, man. Your documentaries like The Curse of Gold and Bittersweet uncover hidden systems. What's a lesson most people miss about global trade and human rights?

I think it's that basically whatever gets to you, whether it's an iPhone or the shirt, somewhere in that supply chain, there's likely to be human rights abuse. The first time I came into this story, I did a lot of them, was when I visited the Ivory Coast and Ghana on the west coast of Africa. And we went to an NGO, a charity that was actually helping poor people. But within that charity, there were children that had been rescued from cocoa plantations where they make cocoa and the cocoa actually makes chocolate and that when we get to Hershey's or Mars or Cadbury's that you're eating that stuff. And I came back to London, I said, I think we should look closer into this story. And some of the editors said, oh, you know, don't bother about that. It's just another slavery story. I said, no, I think we should. And they sent me back down there once or twice. And what we found was that these big companies that are family names like Hershey's and Cadbury's and then Kraft and those sort of people, their business structures actually encouraged child slavery. And that these children were being trafficked by their families— trafficked is an overused word, but basically they were being sent by their families to cutting cocoa and with machetes. These are 10, 11-year-old kids, you know, with these very sharp knives. They had bruises all over place. They weren't going to school. They were kept, some of them, in sheds, shackled up, sent out to do that. And that the chocolate companies knew all about this and they were doing nothing about it. And I got quite angry, you know, this was about 20 years ago now. I got quite angry that they weren't doing anything about it. And we reported so much that eventually there was Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Eliot Engel did produce a protocol where these companies said that they would get rid of child slavery and clean the act up by such and such a date. I think it was 2003 or 2004 at that stage, and they just didn't do it. And it still goes on today. And this has actually gone up to the Supreme Court, this case. 5, 3 or 4 child slaves who are now adults took it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled that Nestlé was perfectly entitled to use children in its supply chain because these children were not in the United States of America. Now, this ruling— we were talking about whistleblowers and all that early on— this ruling goes completely against what the United Nations have been putting in place over the past 20 or 30 years about human rights abuses in the supply chain. And various governments put in that companies had to report it and that there had to be checks on everything like that. But now with the way that the US is going on this is that this is being ripped away. So the countries that sort of oversee this, there's, I've done Paraguay, I've done India, I've done Indonesia, you know, Africa, lots of stuff in Africa. I think that now companies and the middle people and the organized crime and that will feel that they can do it. They can resurrect again any sort of human rights abuse in their supply chains because there is not going to be, you know, the granddaddy of the United States coming down on them to check it out.

There ain't gonna be no consequence.

Yeah, yeah. So I think when, you know, there's a lot of stuff— you have it here, we're getting it here— about historic slavery and whether Britain should pay reparations for historic slavery. And I say to these people who are putting a lot of energy into that, I said, this is all in the past. Can you not put your energy and concentration into stopping modern-day slavery? What's actually happening now? Yeah, I don't get much traction with that, CJ, because it's too difficult. You know, it's quite easy to try to change history. It's It's difficult to actually change what's going on at the moment.

You know what? What you saying that you was talking about, you made me think about something with the kids. You say they wasn't going to school, they was being shackled and things of that nature. So just let me ask you this question real quick. With taking away education, you dismantling education on every level, you know what I'm saying? You just dismantled the whole education system. That's what our kids learn from. That's something that we went through to school to get an education. So when you dismantle that, in your thoughts, where you think that that's taking us? You know what I'm saying? Because I'm looking at it as if you don't have any education, then what you going to do? You're going to be a slave to the system. And so in the way that things going, it's like they're taking us back to the 1950s, the 1960s, you know what I'm saying? To where you're going to have to depend on— because it's only going to be the elite that's going to be striving and everybody else is going to be struggling and hunting. So you're going to have to do what you have to do, just like they say jail is a form of free labor where they go work on roads and things of that nature. I don't want to get into it, but they say how jail is— people make big money off of people being in jail by the beds and the cells and things of that nature. So with the education part, Well, just your thoughts, Humphrey, man. Where you think we going with that?

Well, the less people are educated, the less they can think for themselves, the less they can make decisions, the less they can understand their own individual power. And that means, just as you said, that that means that the elite has got more control over them. There are various graphs that have been done, CJ, about this. Haile Selassie was the Ethiopian king, was quite clever on this. He said when you have your monarchy and your very poor people, you're in a very good place because the poor people are too hungry to rebel and to think about to do anything except get food. If you educate them and feed them, they have the energy and the mind to think for themselves, and that's when you start getting a problem. And I think there was another report done that was quite interesting some years back at Oxford University that If you have a GDP per capita of, I think it was below $2,000 a year, then it is too dangerous to implement full democracy. But if you then go above that, i.e., people are better fed and better educated, then it's dangerous not to give the people some sort of say in their government. So the more you strip away an education, another element into that is the religion. So you can instill religion into communities and then you can also control them through the religion. So there are all these elements of control. But I mean, what I've learned in my reporting on the big events that, you know, have happened, like the Berlin Wall coming down or the Iraq Wars and that sort of thing, is that you can have all these advisers and all these think tanks and everything like that that I mentioned, all these papers and all these documents and all these facts. That the key decisions—

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Going to impact everybody are usually made by 2 or 3 people in a closed room.

Mm-hmm.

And those people would not have read that stuff. Check out the movement, family, real quick.

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Just search @simoneyway. That's where purpose lives. That's where the next level starts.

And that's what we leveling up together. Now let's get back to the show. Ain't that something, man? Wow, it gets deeper and deeper. So let me ask you this, Humphrey, man, moving to, you know, your radio talk show. Like we said, you've reported from war zones and humanity, uh, humanitarian crisis, but in your Care Vision professional talk show, you turn the lenses toward childhood trauma and its ripple effects. What made you pivot into that space?

Well, it was a company that I worked for for some time, and they asked me to do this particular show that I thought might resonate with what you do, because I talked to professionals about techniques and systems for identifying trauma and problems with children that then become young adults and trying to fix those problems before they become adults. And what has come through this is that if you have a child that has come from, say, a broken home, and you've got abusive parents or drugs or whatever is there, and that that home is not a safe environment for them, they need a safe environment to go to. Now, that might be an institution. It might be a home or, you know, a sort of institutional home. But even once they're there, they need an adult who is going to be there for them all the time for many years. And what we have here, you can tell them what it's like over there, is what we have here, which is a problem, is in the care industry like this, you have shift workers. So somebody will come in at 8 and they'll knock off at 6 and they'll think their job's done. But that's not about the child. That is about the shift pattern. And, you know, I've talked to dozens of people about this. There are ridiculous rules that we have here in that if you're a social worker dealing with a problematic person and trying to get them out of the gangs, out of the drugs, out of the resentment, out of the fear, and give them confidence that they can push through, then you have to actually get quite close to them as a professional, but there's a rule here apparently in our government that you're not allowed to attend their birthday parties or send them a birthday card because that means you're getting too close to them. So these are the debates that in Cav Vision's professional talks, we have these debates all the time. And there's one issue, one element, one word that I'd never heard of before. Have you heard of something called social pedagogy?

No, no, can't say that I have, hardly.

I'm so glad I called you out. It's something that's used in Europe. And it's precisely about this, but it talks about therapeutic care. Therapeutic care means that you understand the person. You don't just feed them and clean them. You understand them as a person, and you let that person trust you. It's about building trust.

Mm. Yeah. You know, here, I think, like what you're saying, we do have groups like that, especially, you know, men groups, women groups, and like you say, that that take men in and try to teach them and help them because you do, you know, you got to show care. It can't be shift work, like, because that's a job, you know, I'm just doing it for a job. It ain't that I really care about you per se, you know what I'm saying? Or, you know, care about your well-being. This is just a job. But there are places and people, you know, that I've interviewed some. I got a guy coming up pretty soon named Robert Brewer, his name Brewer, Healthcare for Men, you know what I'm saying? Got an organization. So it is certain things, things that people do, you know what I'm saying? Matter of fact, we got one here and I don't know how that really is called Brothers Keepers, you know, where people don't have place to go and, you know, saying different things. But I've never been in there, so I don't really know. And it's been around my whole life. I would like to interview the person that— matter of fact, thank you, my friend, I'm gonna interview that person, that brother's keeper, to see what goes on and how they do things. So let me ask you this, Humphrey, man. How do you see storytelling, whether in journalism or fiction, as a vehicle for healing or giving voice to young people navigating trauma?

Ah, you've left me speechless. It was the navigating trauma that I was about to ask you, and I thought, uh-oh, right. I think I would advise them to listen to the story, find out what the overarching story is. So, you know, Cinderella has a little story about the golden slipper, but you have the overarching story about a very poor, discriminated against girl who actually jumps over all her ugly sisters and horrible godmothers and meets the prince. So what is the Trump story? And so you have what is going on at the moment, you know, the invasion of Greenland, as we said, or the ice in Minnesota. And these are the scenes within the story, but then take it up to the top, the prime mover, or the people around him, and ask what that story is. And that story is the direction of where the United States is going. And then I think I would ask, tell them to go right back to, I would argue if they can travel or go online and go to the Philadelphia Constitution Museum and look at the issues that went through all of those decades and hundreds of years that produced the American Constitution. And the greatest country in the world, most powerful country in the world, which the US is, undoubtedly, went through and fixes its problems often by violence. You know, the Civil War, all of that stuff, you know, then the 1960s, Kent State, all of that. These are very violent episodes that actually determine issues. And I think that is the story of America today. It's trying to determine an issue, and that issue isn't just immigration. It's a bigger issue of that. It's where, what is its place in the world and that sort of thing. And then I would have them write it, go down and write me 300 words of that story. You know, write a synopsis of the story. So in my youth, I don't know about you, CJ, I had lots of stuff in the classroom coming at me and that, but the real stuff that I learned, say, about the creation of Israel was from a book called Exodus by Leon Uris. I learned how an airport operated by Airport by Arthur Hailey. And I learned about Alaska and Poland from James Michener. These were all fictional novels about storytelling that brought to me, brought a compelling image and narrative of what that place was. And right now, the most compelling narrative in the world is the Trump administration.

Humphrey Froese.

And it is showing so— Nursery rhyme. Yeah. So I would ask them to, yeah, like I said, look at the little things. Well, not the little things, they're huge things if you're there, but look at what's happening in Minnesota, particularly with ICE, and particularly when you have a vice president who says they can act with impunity. What does that mean? Look at a nation that says it's going to invade another nation for its own security, and then track that up to the top. And I would also advise them not to make Trump or anybody either a villain or either a good guy or a bad guy. Can I just tell you a little story I got in Liberia, Africa? Or, um, I was doing it, there was an author we had called Graham Greene, and I was following, and I was tracking a book. He did a book called Journey Without Maps, and I was tracking what he was doing through Sierra Leone and Liberia. And they had a thing there called the Stilted Devil Dancer. And this is some guy that's on stilts and he's this high and he's all dressed up and everything. And he comes out in a sort of parade thing around a bonfire in a village in the middle of nowhere. And they do it all over the place. And I said to a guy there, I said, what's your name? He said, my name is Pastor Jacob Smith. This is the middle of Liberia. And I said, you're a pastor. And he said, yes, and we're about to worship the devil. So I thought, well, that's a contradiction because the devil is this stilted devil dancer. As all the drums banged and the music and the flames went up and everything, I said, well, how come you're a Christian pastor and you worship the devil? He said, yeah, but it's different where we are. He said, the devil or a demon is just somebody with the power. And our job is how to handle that person with the power. And because they are so powerful, they are neither good nor bad. They are just something that has to be handled. And that stayed with me for a long time because the amount of time we have, you know, we moralize, don't we? And we have the good guy, you know, Clint Eastwood goes into town and shoots the bad guys and goes out again.

Good, bad, and ugly.

Good, bad, and the ugly. At that level in Liberia, they don't have the luxury of thinking of good and bad. They have the luxury of how are we going to deal with this thing?

Man, that's a good way to think about it. It ain't no good and bad. We just got to tackle this situation, you know what I'm saying? Regardless of how it may look, we just got to handle it. We can't say that it's good or bad. I like that. Yeah, that will stick with you. It's going to stick with me. But before we get out of here, man, I got to talk to you about this. Humphrey, man, we gotta talk about your books. Your thrillers like Dragon Strike and The Third World War read like geopolitical forecasts. How does fiction help explain truth?

I think it's more accessible. I think that fiction is storytelling. So what I did with those books, they were the first ones I did, some time ago now. Is that I looked at the countries that were involved in these, these geopolitical countries— Russia, China, India, America, Britain— and I treated them as characters in a story, like Red Riding Hood or something like that. And what fascinates me as I look back on them now— and the books, Dragonstrike is about China and US having a war in the Pacific and that sort of thing. Dragonfire is about Pakistan, China, and Pakistan and China on the same side and India having a war. And Third World War, I thought I'll just put it all in together and lay the— as you write it, your mind gets things, is that the leaders, I started off with the leaders of all of these countries being reasonable people. All of them wanted to get on. They were just wanted to, you know, make sure that their countries had dignity and people had a roof over their head. That was it. But as the issues escalated, they all got pushed into their respective corners, and they couldn't get out of those corners until they started sending missiles against each other. And there were things that happened, like a terror blast would be a sort of, you know, catalyst to something happening. But then I look back on these books now— we've just republished them, actually— look back on them now, Russia hasn't changed. China hasn't changed. America hasn't— well, America's probably changed more than any of them. Europe hasn't changed. And China particularly, I mean, it's a top-down authoritarian government, but it's handled its authoritarianism very well because it's dragged everybody out of poverty and given them dignity and given them money. Yet we see it as a threat. So they're pushing each other into corners. So by, I think, telling it as a story, you get more readers. You get more readers from the grassroots. You get more mass market readers. You can do it as a history book and then you get the academics and the historians. But I mean, that's just my view. And I couldn't do a history book anyway.

I couldn't bury myself in a library for 3 months making footnotes and so on.

I don't know, could you, CJ?

So let me ask you this, Humphrey Madsen. You had all this insight and what we call it, the spiritual discernment, so long ago, man. So how long ago was this book published, man, that's actually about things that's going on today?

Those ones were published— the first one was published in 1997, so we're getting on for— and then I think the last one was published, it was after I was covering Iraq, so I think we're 2004, so that's 20 years ago. And then the one that I'm doing at the moment came out of a reporting assignment because it was after the Crimea thing in— when Putin went and took Crimea. And I decided to go to the US-Russian border off Alaska. And I didn't know what this border was. And I kept reading there's 50 miles apart or 55 miles apart, but actually there are two islands there. And those islands are less than 3 miles apart. And one of them is a native Alaskan village with about 80 people on it. No cars, no roads, no hotels, no restaurants, just 80 people that live off fishing and hunting and that sort of thing. And on the other side is the Russian military base, and through the middle of that goes the border. And I went out there, took some to get out there. Now, it's meant to be an overnight trip, but the weather closed in and I couldn't get out for another week. The helicopter couldn't get in. So I thought, okay, what am I going to do? And there was, you know, there's not a lot you can do with 80 people and the TV crews, everything's done. And, uh, and, and I sort of sketched out this thriller scenario. What would happen if Russia came in and took this island, which it could do?

Yeah.

Yeah. There's nothing to stop it. There's no military there. There's no police there. And the border's unmarked. It's a weird border. I mean, there's lots of satellites and that sort of thing. There's no actual sort of military presence there. So I wrote a book, which was the first Rayko Zenna book, and it was meant to be just a one-off book about— Rayko Zenna was— is an islander from there. So he's a native Alaskan islander from there. But those guys, the reason I put him is that those guys on that island had joined the Alaska National Guard. And had actually been out and deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they were one hell of a lot of fighters. I mean, they knew how, and they also knew how to judge the environment. You know, they could judge weather and all that sort of thing. And that began the series that I'm sort of concentrating on at the moment, is the Reiko Zenna series. So we've had him there on the US-Russian border, we've had him on the Norway-Russian border, we've had him with Japan-Russia, we've had him anywhere that's cold, CJ. Andrey Kozenna, yeah.

Oh man, you know, they say some straight warriors, huh? Put me in the mind of the warriors David raised up when he was in that cave, man. You know what I'm saying? Some straight warriors. Get out there. Touché, Tom and Jerry. Touché, Mr. Pussycat. Hey, so let me ask you this, Hoffrey, man. What do you hope readers take away from these stories beyond entertainment?

Understanding and moderation, I think. So that is a really interesting question. I mean, I do it because it's what I do. So you'd like, say, asking an airline pilot why they fly.

Fly.

And I don't know what to do much else, but why do I do it? Why do I keep doing it? I think I've always feel that there's a story to tell in a different way. And in the case of this particular series that I'm doing with this Greenland thing, the Arctic is now becoming a bit of an issue.

Mm-hmm.

So Reikazenna is becoming, you know, quite a bit of a hot character, not only because the stories are based there, but also because the people that live in the Arctic, the natives that live in the Arctic, and that's not just in the States, through Canada, through Greenland and that, they have a special survival skill. You can't really put your head on it, but in Greenland language, for example, I'm told that there is no word for war. It doesn't exist because up in those communities, the weather and the cold is so horrific and hostile that you don't have time to even think about fighting somebody else. Because that person that you might want to be fighting is that person who's going to be saving you if you're caught out there in the wrong thing. So you have a whole different mindset there that fascinates me, um, particularly now, I think, CJ, as we are all, you know, looking for someone to blame, looking for someone to fight, you know, blaming whatever issue it is and this and the other. And then you go up the north out there, they're looking how to hunt and how to get their next food in, how to keep warm. And maybe you just got me thinking, I've never thought of— maybe we should get back to some of those basics, you know.

Let me ask you this, Humphrey, man. You said something in the last question made me think about it. You said that you had the Russian military on this side, then the 3 miles, then you had the 80 people that was living on this one island here you guys went there to do what you do, and you said you was only supposed to be there for a day, but the weather got crazy. Just tell me, man, in your own opinion, what was your mindset when you realized that you couldn't leave at that time and that you didn't know when you was going to be able to get out of there? Like, what was the adrenaline rush that you went through besides reading that book?

Well, it was, it was, uh, after the first, you know, that you realize the weather's in, and of course those guys know all about it, so they're fustered. You know, they had appointments with their families and they were doing this, but it happens to them all the time. And I was saying, can't we get a boat to here, or can't we get— can't we do this, can't we do that? And they would just say, no, you can't. The helicopter will come when the helicopter can come. Yeah.

Oh man, I don't know how I would have been. I probably— anxiety would have kicked in, you know, like you say, who's to stop the Russian military from coming in? You know, it is They got guns and everything, and it's just any of y'all, no police or nothing. They could just come overtake us. So I guess it's a mutual respect. It got to be a mutual respect between those lines. Yeah.

Do you remember Sarah Palin, who ran as the vice president?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She said once that Americans can see Russia from their backyard.

I remember that.

And she was completely trashed for it. But actually, she was telling the truth because I got up every morning and looked out and saw Russia. And that was from Alaska. And, but tell me this, CJ, because when I was researching this book, when the first one, I said, supposing the Russians did take this island. I was in Washington at the time. I said, what would America do? Half the people I talked to, who was in at the time? I think it was moving from Obama to Trump at the time. And the first Trump. I said, what would America do? Half of them said, oh, they just let it go.

They will let it go. Now, that's what I believe. I believe they will let it go. That's because, that's because you don't want to really get into nothing with Russia on a, you know, say a small thing like that, because now, you know, things escalating, just like with, you know, with Venezuela. It's just so much stuff going on because you get different entities being involved, just like with Iran now, got China involved, you know what I'm saying? Because it's taking a lot of stuff from them. But my humble opinion, uh, let's let it go, you know what I'm saying? Like, we ain't gonna make no big stink out of it, you know, whatever, whatever. That's just my personal opinion, Humphrey. So, Humphrey, man, really enjoyed you, bro, man. You brought some very, very valuable insight. Let me ask you this, man, before we get out of here, man, last question. What's one piece of geopolitical wisdom leaders should carry into the next decade?

Understand your enemy.

Mm.

Understand him.

Mm.

I was going to say, the reason I paused there, CJ, is because I was going to say cut a deal, but that, of course, is the Trumpian line, isn't it? So maybe he's right. No, understand why countries and why leaders do things. And if you understand them, then there's less of an enemy. I mean, one of the things I'll sign off on this is that America loses the wars that it starts. And the big wars that it started in recent 50 years or so have been started on false pretenses. The Vietnam War was started on a fabricated event. It never happened. The Gulf of Tonkin. And the Iraq War was started on these weapons of mass destruction, which weren't there. So I would be worried about America starting another war. So as you're a voter, I'm not a voter in America, you know, make sure that doesn't happen. Yeah, just don't, don't just go to war with somebody because there's this, this sort mob cry that there has to be justice or there has to be something happening.

Yeah, because we got big toys, but there's some other countries out there that got big toys too. And that could be the end of everything, you know what I'm saying? Everything that we fighting for, even what you talking about in the Arctic, over there you got Russia, China. From something that I was reading, it's like a canal where the goods and stuff trade, where who, you know what I'm saying, they move through. So how you just going to stop some people from going? That's going to cause friction, you know what I'm saying? They got big guns too. I'm not ready to die yet, you know what I'm saying? I'm not ready. We start talking nuclear weapons and this and that, weapons, like you say, weapons of mass destruction, man, that can be the end of the day that we know, man.

Did you serve in the military at all?

No, I didn't. No, no, that's one thing that I never wanted to be all I can be. Two things I never wanted to do in life, Humphrey. Yeah, one, never wanted to go to jail, so therefore that's why I didn't do some of the things, you know, coming up, because I didn't want to go to jail. That wasn't for me. And I didn't want to go to the military, you know, not just to not fight for, you know what I'm saying, for my country or whatever, this and that. That's just something that I didn't want to— I wasn't the type that was going to be pretty good on the front line. I'm sorry, you know what I'm saying? I got anxiety.

I see you, seeing you there, CJ. I see that Robin Williams movie, Good Morning Vietnam.

Oh, you see me as Muhammad Ali.

I ain't going. You know, I interviewed him a couple of times. Oh yeah? Yeah, he was absolutely great. I interviewed him as a young cub reporter down in Australia.

Oh man, that's cool, man. That had to be the time. The greatest Muhammad Ali, man. So, so, uh, Humphrey, man, like I said, man, I really appreciate you coming on, man, giving us this, this knowledge, man. So, and gave us some things to think about, man. So if there's anything that you would like to leave us with, man, before we get out of here Well, if anybody wants to challenge what I've said or have a discussion with it, including you, CJ, just send me an email.

You know, Google Humphrey Hawksley, it's up there and you'll find me. And I've got a quick question for you, that the Money Way, that, you know, the show, because we haven't discussed money much, have we? What's the origins?

Where it came from? Actually, I wrote a book in 2015.

Yeah.

So when I wrote my book, I had characters, as you were saying, and I did a chapter in the book and I was doing an interview as if I was on a radio station. And so the interviewer was CJ Moneyway, but I actually was interviewing myself, you know, just telling my story or whatever. And so when I did the CJ Moneyway for the show and when I started doing a podcast, that name just stuck. And so now it's a household name, man. You know what I'm saying? Who would have known?

I love the name. Can I use it in one of my novels?

Hey, you think— of course you can.

Of course you can.

Hey, make sure it's CJ Moneyway because somebody just take Moneyway and be like, whatever, CJ Moneyway. I would love it. I would love it, Humphrey, man. Hey, so tell my— oh, Humphrey, where can we find you at, man? Social media? Where can we find your books? Where can we find you at?

It's www.humphreyhawkesley.com. So just Google Humphrey Hawkesley, the website will come up, the Twitter handles, LinkedIn handles, Instagram handles. I mean, what other— I'm not on Trump Social. Are you on Trump Social?

From what I was reading today, I heard he the only one on there. That's what I read, you know. I just read that today. That ain't come from me. Maybe it's fake news. I don't know. Don't come for me, but that's what I heard.

All the handles are on there, including the CareVisions Professional Talk podcast. I do another one called Democracy Forum, which I'm doing one tomorrow. We do those twice a week. It's all on there. And so if anybody wants to look at the Democracy Forum, it's about global issues. So tomorrow we're doing the rise of the European right. And then last we did the regulation of artificial intelligence, and then the week before that we did the scramble for critical minerals. So, and I don't choose those topics, other people choose them. I just chair the debate.

Okay. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one because that's one thing that they fight for in Greenland is these minerals, these earth minerals with China and everything. So it's a big thing, man. So, Humphrey, man, I really appreciate you again, man. So for So those listening to the show today, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got some insight from my man Humphrey. He said that it don't take much to find him, HumphreyHawkley.com. He said all his handles will show up. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your boy CJ Moneyway. Until the next time, we out of here.

Peace.

Hey, before you go, let me leave you with this. Every story shared here, it's a reminder that your story matters too. Keep your faith sharp, keep your focus steady, keep your vision clear. And if this episode gave you wisdom, hope, or a push forward, share it with somebody you love. Tap in with me on all platforms @shmoneyway and stay locked into the movement because God's not done writing your chapter. This is the CJ Moneyway Show. Brick by brick.

And always.

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