#379 Rob Hersov - An Honest Conversation About South Africa — Real Talk with Zuby

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Rob Herzog, welcome to Real Talk with Zooby. How are you doing?

Zooby, so great to be on here. I'm in Cape Town, South Africa. And, uh, you may be wondering why there's no books in my bookshelf. Um, we're moving, we're, we're getting renovations done and we're moving houses for 3 months this weekend. And so, you know, everything's packed.

Awesome. Well, Rob, I know you've been on a lot of podcasts all over the world recently, but for my listeners who are not familiar with you and who you are, please introduce yourself to my audience. Okay.

I'm a fifth generation South African and, uh, I was born in Johannesburg. Um, turning 65 in October and, uh, I was born into a very wealthy, um, family, uh, every privilege imaginable. And I was born into apartheid South Africa. And at age 25, having done school, university, and military service here in South Africa, I left the country in 1985 to seek, um, fame and more fortune. It's probably the right answer, uh, around the world. And I went to the US for 6 years. I was Goldman Sachs, Wall Street, Harvard Business School, and I worked for Rupert Murdoch in New York. And then I went to Europe and for the next, um, 25 years I worked, uh, in the media business. I founded businesses. I made money, I lost money. And in 19— in 2017, after 31 years living in America, Europe, in the UK, I came back to South Africa where I've been, uh, with my New Zealand wife and 2 of my 4 children in back in my beautiful, uh, troubled homeland, South Africa. And, um, you know, I have had pretty much every privilege known to man or woman. And I, every day, thank the Lord and thank my lucky stars and think I've made the most of my opportunities. But I'm back in South Africa building businesses, investing, and trying to save my beloved country. Awesome.

Well, there's so many things I want to talk about today, but first of all, let's, let's go way back because I've heard you talk a little bit about your childhood and growing up. What was it actually like growing up in South Africa during the decades that you did, because for people of my age, I mean, I was born in '86, so I have some vague recollection in 1994 when the whole apartheid thing ended. Obviously being an 8-year-old, I didn't really know what it meant and I wasn't avidly watching the news or aware of all these sort of concepts, but I knew that something was going on in this country that, uh, I'd never been to before. But I'm curious what it was like for someone who actually grew up in that situation, what it was like, what were the dynamics, how aware of it were you? And then also what was that transition like? Because you were out of the country, as you said, for quite a long time. And then obviously by the time you came back, lots of things have changed. Not just that, but also, you know, some things for the better, some things for the worse, but the entire country must have gone through many, many different changes during your own lifetime. So can you just walk me through that a little?

Sure. You know, born in 1960, you know, for the first 8, 9 years of your life, you just assume that everything is normal. You know, that, you know, you live in a big house, you have staff, and, uh, there is a difference between the, you know, the whites and the blacks and everyone else's because that's how it is. But at a certain point in your life, you know, particularly If you come from a wealthy family and you travel the world, you realize, no, you know, it's not all normal in the state of Denmark, or there's the expression, the Shakespeare expression. And I had a butler, a house manager, Mr. Pete, who I adored when I was a little boy. He taught me to play football, you know, we'd go and make ice creams together. And I loved him. I loved him. He was part of the family. And at age 8, I, 8, 9, I wanted to go to the movies. And I said to my parents, can Mr. Pete and I go to the movies? And they said, well, you can't. And I said, why not? And they said, well, Mr. Peter's not allowed to go to the movies with you because those are the rules. It's whites only in these cinemas. And I burst out crying. And that's when I realized that this was kind of, I knew it was different, but I assumed that was my life. But that's when it hit me, you know, that this wasn't right. That somebody I loved that I felt was part of our family couldn't come and see the movies with me. And apartheid, if you translate it directly, means separateness, separateness. There's not hate in the word, it's height, H-E-I-D. And the concept of apartheid was separate development. You know, your culture, your tribes over here, your cultures, your tribes over here. But the fundamental basis was that black people had to carry passes to enter certain areas and white people didn't. So there was a major difference in opportunity in the budget that was spent on people. And it got out of control. It was unsustainable. On the macro environment, which is worth reminding people, you know, Africa was a battle between the West and communism and colonialism was collapsing, you know, in the '60s in East Africa, in the '70s, the Portuguese colonialists pull out of Mozambique and Angola, and those countries fell to communism. And in Rhodesia, they were fighting as, you know, independently against terrorism. And so on our borders, there was this kind of encroaching fear of communism moving south. And we had a lot of military psychology going on, you know, give your national serviceman, your soldier a lift. There was all this kind of patriotism. We are fighting against communism. We are allied with the West. So there were this internal dynamic of this weirdness and unpleasantness of apartheid that you became very aware of, and you either believed in it or you didn't. Our family didn't. But you still had this sort of threat of communism moving south in Africa and us fighting on the borders. So on the one hand, you, you, you knew apartheid was wrong and had to end. On the other hand, you, you feared for what came next. And, uh, you know, in 1983, I joined up as a national serviceman, became an infantry officer in the apartheid army. And it was the first time in 1983 when we were becoming officers that they used the military in the townships, in the black areas, because it was the first time that, you know, South Africa used our military, which was meant to be defending our borders internally. And that created a real schism in hearts and minds in South Africa. A lot of the boys like myself who'd been called into the military said, no, this is wrong. This is really wrong. You know, we're prepared to fight communism. We're not prepared to fight fellow South Africans. And in 1985, just to get a little bit of politics and the Afrikaner government, which was running South Africa that had implemented apartheid, came to the conclusion apartheid was not sustainable internally. They could have kept going despite sanctions and international threats, but they said internally, this is not sustainable. And in 1994, Nelson Mandela had been released from 27 years of jail. And in 1994, we had democratic elections and the ANC government was elected in a, in a landslide majority. And they've pretty much been in power until May 2024, which was last year. So that was, you know, my life, me growing up. And the fact that I left the country in, in 1985 to having finished the military to go to America was nothing to do with leaving and leaving South Africa forever. My parents, brothers and sisters were still in South Africa, and I thought I was probably going to return at some point, but I wanted to go and see the world and do my thing. And then in America, and when I was in there in, in, you know, '85 to '92, you know, we knew what was happening. There was gonna be a transition. I moved to Europe and in 1994 the big political change happened. And then, you know, I was loving being in America and Europe and building my life and career. I married an American girl, my first wife, and my plan was never to come back. But in 2016, those pains, those hunger to go back to my home country, which I love, you know, I said to my wife, I want to go home. And we came back and here I am back in South Africa.

Yeah, I, I get the gist from even you just talking now and hearing you in a lot of interviews. And I get the same thing with many South African people that I speak to where they have this very deep awareness and concern about the state of the country, and they have many complaints about it, but at the same time, they have a very strong love for it. I've met actually quite a lot, I know quite a few South Africans, white, black, colored, Indian, just 'cause I know that's how you, how the categorizations are over there. Yeah, exactly. Of sort of, of all these different classifications, both within South Africa and outside of it. As you know, there's lots of South Africans in the UK where I'm from. And it, it's fascinating. I mean, I've met people from South Africa who lived abroad for a while and then actually decided to move back. I've met people who went the other direction who had been living in South Africa from all of their lives and then things got to a level where for themselves and/or for their families, they just thought, you know what, it's, it's too dangerous. There's too much heat here. It's too unpredictable. And they decided to migrate elsewhere. And so there's so many directions we can go here, but what are the things that you love about the country so much that made you want to move back there almost 10 years ago? What was it that was drawing you back despite all of the flaws and the struggles and the issues with the segregated history and things like that.

So I'll, I'll tell it another way. Okay. I was in 19, what was it? 1985, 1985. I'd left the country and I was traveling through Asia with a friend and my brother, and we ended up on a, on a boat on the Irrawaddy River in Burma, chugging along. Okay. It's a weird way to tell you, it's a weird way to answer your question. and there was a Belgian guy and we were sitting, you know, drinking on this ferry in the middle of nowhere in the de— in the jungles of Burma. And this Belgian guy said, you know, I grew up until I was 7 years old in the Congo, in the Belgian Congo. And then we left and we went back to Belgium. And from the day I got back to Belgium to today, all I can think about is cobblestone, rain, and a bicycle. But I can almost remember Every single moment of my 7 years in Africa, I could smell the rain on the ground, that beautiful rich smell of the earth. I could, I remember walking on sandhills and being bitten by ants. I remember the excitement and fear of when, you know, some, when a snake was found in the house and we had to chase it out or kill it. He said every single day there was something extraordinary, amazing, you know, good and bad. but it was vibrant. I lived my life. It was like eating fruit with your hands, you know, and the fruit runs down your face. Whereas living in Belgium was like rain and cobblestone, nothing going on. And my wife's from New Zealand, you know, you know, Lord of the Rings, you know, the great story, Lord of the Rings. So the hobbits are from New Zealand in my view, because there's no pollution, racism, environmental issues, no threats on from the border. It's nothing going on. The hobbits are there. We in South Africa live on the edge of Mordor. Every day there's exhilaration, there's fear, there's threats, there's excitement. It's, you live life 24/7 in South Africa, good and bad. And you know, we live in paradise in Cape Town. You've been in Cape Town. We're rich. We have beautiful home, paradise. And then all of a sudden, like 4 days ago, A family 5 minutes from us held at gunpoint by 5 robbers in balaclavas at gunpoint, kids tied up, everything stolen, 5 minutes from our house. 2 weeks ago, you know, our neighbor walking with their dog up in the, in the beautiful Table Mountain forest, 5 minutes from here, dog goes under a bush, comes out 5 minutes later, it's limping. 10 minutes later, it's dead. Bang. Snake goddess. So, you know, it's paradise and it's terror and it's excitement and it's fear. You're living life every day. And I could explain it with the scenery and the magnificence and the madness of the people and the colloquialisms and bunny chow. Do you know what bunny chow is? People take a loaf of bread, take off the top, carve out the middle bit and they put curry in it, and that's a meal for the family. So you, you take a bite off the top. I mean, where else do, no one else has bunny chow but South Africa. And I can go on and on and on. It's just, it's madness and wondrousness, but you're living life to the full every day. And that is all I can explain about it. And all my buddies who left and who've come back, just say we miss this place too much. We miss it too much. I drove into the desert last weekend for 3 days with 4 4x4s, 12 friends, all boys. We had 2 nights, 3 days, and just that openness of the desert and the, and the, the macro daisies coming out in the spring in the desert. It is, and I can go on and on. You asked a question that's getting tears in my eyes and that it's Alan Paton wrote a book called Cry the Beloved Country, and I think that says it all. Cry the Beloved Country.

That's such a fascinating, such a fascinating answer. As you were, as you were answering, I was on one hand, I understand it. On the other, I was like, man, this is confusing me even more, especially when you were talking about the situations going on with your, with your neighbors. And I think, you know, as a man with a wife and children, why would you want to move back into an area where that type of thing is feasibly possible.

And we're one of the safest parts of South Africa. The rest of South Africa is, is properly edgy. I mean, we really, we have the high, one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Yeah. I think almost every South African I know has at least been like robbed or mugged or something at some point. It's almost like a given that if you're there for long enough, that's going to happen. And I don't know, I like, I live in Dubai, which as you know, is one of the safest cities in the entire world where those types of stories are pretty much unheard of. And in my case, yeah. And in my case, like one of the big things I was thinking was actually about my, you know, future family and children and things like that and thinking about their safety and where their wellbeing, 'cause I think it's different, you know, it's different if you're a, I don't know, if you're a single man or just with a bunch of guys and you're traveling around and doing whatever, the sort of calculations in your brain are quite different to if you're considering, okay, well, what about wife and children and this and that and that. And so I'm curious as to what the decision-making process is because obviously there are a lot of people, regardless of what country or city they live in, most people are kind of just, they're born somewhere, they live somewhere, they don't have a lot of resources, they don't particularly have a lot of opportunities. Everyone they know is in the same place. So they're kind of born, live, and die in the same place just by default. Whereas obviously in, in your situation, you, yeah, that's what I mean. You have, you have the opportunity to live wherever you want. So I'm curious as to, you know, what's the decision-making process having gone on these multiple decade adventures and spent time in Europe, spent time in the USA, all of these great places. And then you circle all the way back and decide very consciously.

The person you should be asking is probably not me, 'cause I'm from here. It's my wife, 'cause she's from New Zealand. And, and you know, we moved here in 2017, only planning to be back for 2 years. 'Cause I honestly felt under Jacob Zuma, our then president, the country was finished, was heading into the abyss. And then he got ousted and this new guy, Cyril Ramaphosa, came in and my wife said, what does this mean? And I said, we just kicked the can down the road. The problems are still coming. We've just bought ourselves more time. But in the process of being here, after about 2000, about 2019, 2020, I remember clearly she looked up at me and said, I'm not, I'm not gonna swear on your show, but she said, I love this effing place. I really love South Africa. I don't wanna leave. It's worth fighting for. and for a New Zealander from one of the safest countries in the world to come here and say that says something about this country. And I said, okay, then let's stay and let's fight for this country. And that was the beginning of a whole new world for me.

What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about South Africa?

That's a great question. Look, you know, you look at the stats and you look at the murder rates and you look at, you say it's dangerous, but the reality is it's still one of the greatest tourist countries in the world. You know, I went to Australia 3 months ago on holiday in the winter to see my wife and kids, to see her in-laws from New Zealand. And if you'd go all the way up the east coast of Australia, the coastline looks the same the whole way. In South Africa, you drive 1 hour, it's different. We have, South Africa is one of the 7 floral king— Cape Town is one of the 7 floral kingdoms in the world. A floral kingdom is where the plant DNA is, is similar from the original, you know, DNA. I think the whole of North America is one floral kingdom. The whole of Europe and Western Russia is one floral kingdom. Cape Town is a floral kingdom. There's 16,000 species of plant, more than the whole of North America in Cape Town. So the diversity that, that, you know, geographic, topological, whatever this is, and in the geodomes. I don't know, I'm using the wrong words. We have savanna, we have desert, we have, you know, forest land. We have, it's beyond your wildest imaginations. This place is the tourist mecca. So people go, it's dangerous, it's avoidable. Back. They've got that wrong. It's actually just be a bit careful. You'll have no problems. They also think there's serious racial issues here. They're not. Our government, our ANC government, is trying to create identity politics and racial divisions to stay in power. But the vast majority of South Africans of all colors and creeds get on very, very well and have done for a long time. You know, most of our country is Judeo-Christian, conservative, and want the same as everyone else. They want a better life for their kids and an opportunity to to thrive. And here's another interesting thing. You know, the white population of South Africa in 1994 was 20% of the country. It's now 7%. And our population's grown from 25 million to 60 million. And most people, you know, look at it and say, you know, South Africa's never gonna have a white president. Well, they did a research poll 6 months ago where most South Africans said they didn't actually care what color the president was. They don't care if it's white, green, blue, yellow, but they want someone that's actually going to do a good job. So the racial issues are manufactured by the ANC government to stay in power. They're not real. That's another misconception. Um, I guess a misconception in South Africa is that we think the rest of the world take us seriously. You know, our economy is the size of Louisiana. You know, we think, you know, we have this, we're really important, you know, we're not that important. Most people don't know what the hell's going on here and don't care. And that's why I went on the podcast too. That's why I'm thrilled to be on your podcast, because I'd like to explain the misconceptions, tell people what's going on, and, you know, get people a little bit interested in South Africa. So thank you, Zebu.

No doubt. I'm so happy to have you here. I find South Africa is such a fascinating country. I went there twice in 2023. Prior to then, I'd never been to the country before, but I've now spent, I guess, a total of about 2.5 weeks there between Johannesburg and Cape Town. So I'm very far from, from an expert or someone who's super knowledgeable about the country, but I feel like over the last couple years I have gained some insight into it because my entire life I'd always heard two very polar opposites about the country of South Africa. It's like you'd ask one person about it and you get the statistics, you get the robbery rates and the rape rates and the murder rates and the, you know, stories of apartheid and racism and this and that. And then you talk to someone else and they're like, oh gosh, I went there on vacation. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Table Mountain's amazing and the water and the people are so friendly and this and that. And I've learned, you know, as someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia and now lives in the UAE, like needless to say, the Middle East is a very misunderstood part, part of the world, particularly in the West. I always have the opinion of, okay, I'm gonna, I, I'll talk to people, I'll research, I'll learn about places, but I'm always gonna form judgments of nations and cities based on my own experience. And ideally not just going there for one day, but spending at least a few weeks there, being on the ground, talking to people, taking in the energy, experiencing things, and just seeing, okay, what really, what's up? Because I know there can be so many misconceptions. And sadly, we live in a world, and just due to the way human nature is, negative spreads a lot further and faster than positive. I mean, I meet Americans who are afraid to go to the UK because they think they're gonna get stabbed or they think they're gonna run into a grooming gang or some terrorist activity or something, right? And I'm there trying to sort of tell them like, guys, like the UK is not some, you know, hyper dangerous country. It's okay to, it's okay to travel to London and other cities. The probability, you know, but then I, but then I, I know people in the UK, I have British friends who are afraid to step foot in America because all they hear about are mass shootings and out of control police officers. Just murdering Black people willy-nilly and this and this and this. And I'm just like, man, it runs in all sorts of directions. You meet Mexicans who are afraid to go to the US, Americans who are afraid to go to Mexico, people here who are afraid to go there. And you're just like, and I think it gets worse with social media. It's a bit of a double-edged sword. In one way, people can spread more information and dispel some of the myths, but at the same time, I just feel like now people see everything. If something horrible happens in Cape Town and someone gets a video of it or a photo, it's gonna be on my social media feeds tomorrow, right? Whether, no matter what country you're in, someone's gonna see it and they'll be like, ah, look, this is South Africa, this is what's happening. And it, you know, millions and millions of people see it. And I always say that normal doesn't go viral. So you're never gonna have, oh, look, it was a nice sunny day in Cape Town and people got on well with each other and lots of nice good deeds were done to each other and everyone was friendly and cordial. That's not news. That's not interesting. But as soon as someone goes out and does something horrible or something psychotic, then everybody knows about it. So we live in this weird world where something can be— I feel like we live in a time where something can simultaneously be true and false. As in, it can be true that this thing did happen and these types of things do happen, but the falsity is it can be made to look as if it's a a very common occurrence, whereas actually it's a 1 in a million or 1 in a billion circumstance.

100%. So the people that got robbed 3 days ago, which is very rare in our suburbs, Constantia, Bishop's Quarter. So the wealthiest suburbs in South Africa, security and everything. You know, it's one family got robbed this year that I've heard of out of 50,000, 60,000 families. I mean, making up the number in this area. It's nothing. It's nothing really. I mean, I know it's a lot worse an hour from here in other areas, but you know, every day has been a good day other than that for that family. So that is what, if you look at things positively, I heard a statistic which is clearly wrong, that 92% of people are pessimists and 8% are optimists. Okay. And I've tried to be at that 8%. I think, by the way, it could be 50/50, but I said 92/8 sounds about right. And you know, we die of tooth decay 150 years ago. Now we have dentists to bonk, you know, like nice white shiny teeth, et cetera. You know, it's amazing how I think every day is a better day than the day before for the world. You know, yes, you've got issues in Israel, Gaza and whatever, and you know, whatever is going on in the world and you go, oh my God, it's terrible. You know, why isn't the Ukraine war over? But most countries are at peace. Most people are actually having a better life this year than last year. There's the 8%. And South Africa's the same.

Yeah. Rob, why do you think it is that what you just said there is— I, we live in a time where I'd say that what you just said is actually quite controversial. People really like the negativity and the outrage and the of fear and maybe it's always been this way, but I get the sense that so many people now thrive on that. And being someone who's a creator myself, who's a, you know, a podcaster, someone who does things on social media, makes music and so on, I know darn well that I can frame this podcast in a way to get more views by leaning very, very heavily into all the negative stuff. And we will talk about some of the negative stuff in the—

And the title you put, the title you put on the show too, could you could say—

I'm very aware. So it's kind of strange being strange being in this world because you get this understanding of why the media operates the way that it does. But at the same time, it then becomes this kind of cycle and this self-fulfilling prophecy where it's just anger, division, controversy, drama, violence, and everything is framed in that way and people get very addicted to it. That when you actually try to cover things in a bit of a more balanced way, I found, I don't know if you've experienced this, but, um, you know, there are people who actually get offended by it or at a minimum, you know, they just don't want to click because it's not, uh, you know, they don't want to click or listen because it's like, no, no, no. Just give me the, give me the stuff that's going to make me angry. Give me the, don't, don't tell me that the races are getting on. Tell me about the, anti-Black racism and the anti-white racism. Let's just talk about that. Tell me about the murders. Tell me about this. Like, I don't want to hear that actually daily life in South Africa is good. And it's the same in the UK. If I put, you know, the UK is falling, why the UK is burning, you know, there's 5 years left for the UK, boom, that'll get lots of clicks. It'll get lots of attention. But if I'm like, actually, you know what? Yeah, there's bad stuff in the UK and there's things to be concerned about and we can really talk about that. But for the most part, I mean, the UK is not collapsing. It's not like in 5 years, you know, the UK is going to be a pile of dust.

Like, so I'm going to give you 3 answers to that. I might have forgotten one of the 3 on the way. So my favorite unknown newsletter and podcast, which gets no views, is the Rational Optimist Society. Go and check these guys out. It's kind of a nerdy, geeky guy and an Irish guy. His accent's quite strong. So sometimes, you know, I can't tell what he's talking about. And all they talk about are unbelievably good things that are happening in the world. Okay. And I dig it. It's like, this is what small, medium nuclear reactors can deliver. This is the new type of aircraft that's going to save the world. And it's really cool developments, tech, manufacturing, industrial, amazing things that are happening around the world. Their podcasts get no views. You know, I was thinking of stealing their information, putting it to AI, and then having it as my own. Here's some good news for the world. You know, just nicking the information because you and I'd get so many more views. So check out the Rational Optimist site. I love it. I get a weekly newsletter and I read it cover to cover. Second, this friend of mine, made a couple of billion dollars. He was the first guy in the world to invent the conference business in the '70s, and he had conferences all over the world. And I asked him what was the key to this, to success of conferences. You know, he'd do conferences on investing and politics and transport, whatever, all over the world. He said, my title for every conference, this is something we could learn for podcasts, has to have fear or greed in it. You know, unless you come to my conference, you're going to lose all your money. Or if you come, you're going to learn the secrets of making a billion, you know, and in every title he'd have fear or greed.

And I thought about that.

It was genius. It's so simple and so genius. So for our podcast, you know, we should, instead of having scary clickbait, we should have fear or greed, you know, in the title. Now, what is the third thing I was going to tell you? I knew I'd forget something. But it's so true, you know, people thrive on fear and bad news because it's, oh, here's the third thing. You know, when people talk badly behind your back, like, you know, backstabbing. I read an article in The Economist, must have been 8, 10 years ago about gossip. And the article said that if you only say nice things about people, the people to whom you're speaking lose interest and lose trust. So if I could say, say, Zubi, did you, do you know Joe Smith? And you go, Joe's a lovely guy, great guy. You know, conversation's over. But if I say, Zubi, do you know Joe Smith? And you go, I know Joe, he's a great guy, but let me just tell you a little bit of, you know, and you tell me a little bit of gossip about him. You know, we're engaging in a conversation. You're sharing information with me. I'm sharing with you. In many cases, you probably don't mean what you're saying and you don't mean it badly, but it's, it connects people. And this Economist article said it's fascinating. And I tried it out, not because of the article, in London for about 3 months. I said, I'm gonna say no bad things about it.

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It's interesting because, you know, as someone who's, for my own entrepreneurial purposes, has done some study of, you know, human psychology and sales and marketing is, yeah, it's, it's, I know that it works. Like I know, I know how to do it, but I have an ethical I have an ethical issue with leaning too hard into it because then I feel like you just end up feeding the problem and becoming the thing that you set out to oppose. If you ask a lot of people what their problem is with mainstream media, whether it's online or it's newspapers or it's the television, it's that it's so divisive. It makes them feel angry. They focus on all the negative all of the time. And I'm like, that's true, but it's also your own psychology, and that is the thing that people are clicking on. That's the thing people are watching. That's the thing that's driving revenue. But then as myself, as an independent creator, if I then start a podcast or I start a YouTube channel that I'm like, okay, well, let me just run the exact same playbook. Then over the course of time, how am I any better than these same things that I've been, you know, complaining about and I always try my best to be part of the solution more than, much more than part of the problem. And so I think it's not, I don't think it's unethical to like occasionally use tapping into fear or occasionally use tapping into, you know, outrage or concern or something. But I think when it becomes the one-trick pony where it's like, okay, every single thing I do, I'm going to, you know, put the fire and the red in the thumbnails, and I'm gonna have, you know, the faces like, you know, the most extreme.

Here's a good one. Piers Morgan.

Ready?

Piers Morgan. I've met playing golf and I got on really well with him. And I kept saying to him, Piers, I've becoming quite well followed in South Africa. Why don't I come on your show? And he'd say, yeah, well, you know, I like to do stuff that's of interest to America. So South Africa's nowhere. But you know, he suddenly called me out of the blue. And he said, okay, I'm inviting you on my show. I got a message from his people inviting you on my show. And I got really excited. I said to my wife, at last, Piers has invited me. I'm super excited. My wife said, you shouldn't do it. I went, what? She said, look what Piers does. He gets 4 people, 2 on this opinion and 2 on this opinion, doesn't let them speak long enough to make a point, and he gets them all shouting and screaming at each other. Basically everyone's just clickbait for the Piers Morgan Show. Okay. And I thought, I looked at her, I thought, she's right. I'm being set up. So I sent a video message to Piers. I said, Piers, I think you're great, buddy. If you want me one-on-one, I'm available anytime, but I'm not going to be clickbait for you because I saw the other 3 people on there. The one guy was kind of in my camp. The other 2 I would have wanted to strangle after about 15 minutes. And sure enough, I got a friend of mine on instead of me, Gareth Cliff, who's an important podcaster in South Africa. And he and this, you know Gareth, yeah. So he and Ernst Rütz, yeah, versus Gareth and versus two other people. And it ended up being a shouting match. And I ducked the bullet there. You know, I do get, there are gotcha moments. I'm sure you've had them and you've given them. And that's fair enough. You know, somebody says something in the past, you go, well, why did you say that? Or why did you do that? And they've got to have an answer for it. But I find that I can deal with that because if people say, well, Rob, you, you know, you say these things and you're from a rich, white, privileged South African family. So, and I go, yeah, I am. And they said, I said, yeah, I would say that, wouldn't I? And then they go, okay, next, uh, you know, just, you know, own yourself, own what you say and get on with this. Yeah.

Amen. That's important. So with that said, obviously there are issues going on in South Africa that you are very concerned about. I've heard you speak about the violence. I've heard you speak about the actual racial discrimination policies which have, you know, sort of inverted and come back around the other way. You are talking about the— actually, I did have a question on something you said earlier. I wanted to drill into it a little bit because it sort of popped a question mark popped up in my head when you said it. You said the white South African population has dropped from 20% to 7%. I was curious, what's the main thing driving that? Is that predominantly birth rates or is it migration or what's, what's the main reason for that?

It's birth rates.

It's the fact that.

You know, the white youth in this country are leaving in droves because of policies like black economic empowerment, you know, DEI. A lot of young white people who finish their high school or graduate have less opportunity of getting jobs than children of other races. And so they say, well, what's the point? I might as well go overseas. And if they can, they leave. So we're losing talented graduates of all colors, but primarily white in droves. There's a mass immigration of these sort of people because they just don't feel there's an opportunity in the country or in their specific career. That's one. Two, we have completely porous borders. You know, our military's collapsed and is useless. Our home affairs has been, is a disaster and people are just pouring across our borders and our population is now 63 million, but I think we've got an additional 7, 8 million illegal foreigners in our country from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, places like that. And they've poured in and are overwhelming our public services. So that's added to the problem. But, uh, also there's their birth rate issues. You know, the highly educated people of all colors, black, white, Catalan, whatever, tend to have, like anywhere else in the world, 2 children. The poorer people or less educated tend to have a hell of a lot more children. And you know, you'll see, you saw that in Asia. I mean, Asia in the '60s, '70s had very high birth rates. Now the birth rates have gone down to, you know, 2. And in some countries they're going backwards. Japan more, do you use the word nappies or diapers? What do you, Okay, so in Japan, more adult nappies are sold now than children's nappies. So the population's going backwards. In South Africa, amongst the educated population, white, black, colored, and Indian population growth is down. In the less educated, it's going through the roof. And that's a problem. So it's, it's those, though, that's what's happening. So the racial breakdown in South Africa is 7% white, 7% colored, which you know is a mix. Of mixed race, uh, 2% of Indian descent. Um, so it's about 20%, I don't know how to put this without sounding South African, 20% non-Black. But of the Black tribes, there are 26 different languages. There's Xhosa and Zulu and Tswana and Venda. And, you know, that's a 60 million, 60-something million people, complicated country. Twice the size of France. Not easy to manage.

No, no. I mean, South Africa is, my family background's originally from Nigeria and these are both countries that probably should not be a single country.

100% agree.

Right. I mean, in Nigeria, over 400 languages.

But you've got Christian and Muslim. Those are the main splits. We don't have a religious breakdown like that. We have more of a racial, cultural, linguistic breakdown. And you know, the Western Cape is like a completely different animal to, to KwaZulu-Natal, to Mpumalanga, which is 3 different provinces. They have nothing to, nothing in common really. Could easily be separate countries.

Yeah, man. So what is going on in terms of the in terms of the racial policies now in South Africa? Because from what, from what it looks like to me, it looks like there's been obviously through the 1900s up until 1994, I mean, you for the most part of it, you had the apartheid regime where obviously, you know, white people were favored and blacks and others were discriminated against. And there was the, you know, just very open and outright segregation. And then the ANC have come into power. From my understanding, uh, from yourself and other people, there was a time period, maybe, I don't know, I could be wrong, maybe— okay, I was about to say about 15, about 15 years where things were, things were generally considered good by people regardless of their background. Um, and then in the last I don't know, 10+ years, it's shifted more towards, I guess, what people there might call black empowerment if they're in favor of it, but others would call anti-white discrimination. And you talked about BEE, and then you've got the appropriation of land and other private property, quite similar to, I think, what happened in Zimbabwe under Mugabe. and that looming threat is still hanging on there. So what, what can you, can you tell me some of the details of what's actually happening there as well as what people think about it? Because I'm curious to know what percentage of the population actually supports these ideas and thinks it's good versus the number who are against it in the same way. I'm curious as to you know, what that would've been like prior to the breakdown of apartheid.

You've nailed it. From '94 to 2008, things were pretty damn good. Like Mandela came out and it was the Rainbow Nation. It was meritocracy. He aimed at economic growth. And then Thabo Mbeki came into 2008 and those years were pretty damn good. We grew at 3 to 3, 4, 5% a year, added 400,000, 500,000 new jobs a year. It was meritocracy. We did have bleak black economic empowerment, but the, everyone accepted it, that it was a good thing. Let's empower the previously disadvantaged. Okay. And all of these things were trending in the right direction. And the Western world basically had a look and said, we've solved the problem. Rainbow Nation. Good luck. We're off to find the next problem to solve somewhere else in the world. And turned their eyes away. In 2008, a man called Jacob Zuma got elected, and Jacob Zuma was a world-class kleptocrat. His aim was to break democracy as much as he could, break our economy as much as he could so that they could steal. And as part Nigerian, you know what corruption and kleptocracy can do to an economy. But I think South Africa has out performed Nigeria in doing, in, in, in rampant corruption. They've been, South Africa's professionalized it at the government level.

What a competition.

I know what a comp, I know. So like what a competition, right? Oh, so you're right. It's not something you want to win at, is it? Um, and so what has happened is all our state-owned enterprises, Eskom electricity supplier, Transnet, our rail network, our ports, which used to be the best in Africa. Are now the worst in Africa. We get 6 hours a day of no electricity. I mean, it's, country's falling apart. And it was a coherent policy by Jacob Zuma to break so he could steal. And a family from India came in, the three Gupta brothers who must have stolen 500 billion from the economy, and they're hiding out in Dubai. So South Africa was shredded economically. And in 2017, at last, the ANC got rid of Jacob Zuma and brought in a man called Cyril Ramaphosa. If you've ever seen him on television, he looks the part. He speaks beautifully. He dresses in a suit. He pretends to be a businessman and acts it out. And he was head of the trade unions and he's a dollar billionaire and he's, he was much loved. He has been. Almost worse than Jacob Zuma. Jacob Zuma at least said, let's keep the economy ticking along so we can steal for a long, long time. Cyril Ramaphosa has just doubled down on race-based anti-white laws, socialist policies, and he has snubbed the West. He has poked the big American bear in the eye, and South Africa has voted against the United Nations consistently in almost every single United Nations vote over 10 years. Has run into the arms of BRICS, has sided with Iran. I mean, the ANC is almost an Iran proxy now and has pissed America off to the point where Donald Trump says we're coming in swinging. So what has actually happened is we got rid of apartheid, we got rid of racism, but it's been reintroduced by the ANC. But I'll give you a little important element to note. The ANC has had a majority over 50% from 1994 to 2024. Last year in May, they went from 65% to 40%. Their vote collapsed. And by 2029, when I have our next national election, same in Britain, by the way, same year, the ANC will drop below 20%. They are in ICU, but they're not dead yet. And you know the problem with it? You injure a buffalo, it becomes a very dangerous animal. And that's where the ANC is right now. They are wounded, but they're not dead, and they are at their most dangerous. So what are they doing? On every metric, education, health, safety, we are collapsing, falling apart. And they are now saying, where is the blame for this? It's not us, the ANC, it's Whiteness, it's apartheid, it's colonialism. They are reintroducing racism, anti-white racism, and fearmongering the population. However, the voter isn't stupid. The vast majority of ANC voters do not believe in what their current ANC leaders are touting. Anti-white, anti-West rhetoric. Anti-white rhetoric and socialist ideology. They will be out of power by 2029. We just have to survive till then. So this is the last gasp of a liberation army turned kleptocracy ineptocracy. How those two words. So if you ask, am I pessimistic or optimistic? I'm really pessimistic between now and 2029. Time. Some terrible things are gonna happen, but from 2029 onwards, I'm optimistic. There is light at the end of this tunnel. There is. We just gotta make it.

Is it the Democratic Alliance that's most likely to win next?

So the Democratic Alliance, along with 2 or 3 other centrist Judeo-Christian, pro-West capitalist property rights type parties, They need to come together. I mean, it's, it's really messy right now. You know, we have a coalition government, but the ANC being the lead partner is just trying to rapidly push through policies within the coalition government. Um, democracy is working. We still have free speech. You know, people, people go, Rob, you're always banging on about the negatives, but the positives are it's still the greatest country in the world. We got bunny chow and you guys don't. We'd love them, Ben. You know, we're not bad at rugby and cricket and, uh, and, and we've got free speech. You know, the things that I say publicly, you know, calling Cyril Ramaphosa spineless, calling ANC voters morons, I'd be in jail or dead in Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China. But here I'm saying it and, uh, here I am still alive.

I, I do have a question with the ANC and, um, their, you know, race-based policies and general race-baiting. I'm wondering, are they doing that in some type of populist appeal? I mean, are those types of policies— is there a big chunk of the population that is demanding those type of policies and they're just trying to go along with it? Or I'm wondering, where is that sentiment coming from? Is it a revenge thing? Is it a, hey, look, for decades, you know, the boot was on the other foot?

Sure.

I get that. I'm just wondering why. I guess I'm just wondering why they're kind of going for that target and those type of policies in particular. I'm trying to understand where that—

They think it's going to work.

They think it'll work as in they think it's going to make the country better or they think it'll work in order to get votes.

They think it'll work in order to get votes and divert the attention of people who haven't got sewage, water, and electricity and going, hang on a sec, you came to power 31 years ago and we're actually going backwards. Maybe I was wrong supporting the ANC. It's not a football team that I support through thick and thin. It's a political party. Service delivery, they have failed on every count. And who can they blame? They don't want to blame themselves. Blame the white guys. That's the easy answer. But I don't think it's, it's, I don't think it's working. I think the ANC is disconnected even from its own voter right now, the ANC leaders and government. Um, and I think they're, they're gone. They're, they're heading into the, they're heading into the abyss, but pulling the economy with them. That's the problem. So, you know, we are the easy guys to blame. We've been, you know, white guys, the Afrikaners have been blamed for apartheid. And we're only 7% of the country. And, you know, until Donald J. Trump arrived, the world didn't seem to care or weren't gonna ride to our rescue. We were the easy, you know, punching bag. But I don't think the voters believe it anymore. I think they don't think white guys are the problem. We're not even in power. How can we be the problem after 31 years? So I don't think that excuse is going to stick. People are going to look at the ANC and say, you have failed. We're voting you out. We got to wait till 2029 for that. I hear that.

How much power or support or influence do the Economic Freedom Fighters have? Because I think they're quite famous online because their crazy rallies kind of keep going viral every few months where they're singing their kill the boer song, kill the farmers, Whiteness is bad and all that type of rhetoric. Obviously they have a very, looks to me psychotic yet somewhat charismatic leader. Are they a real concern, a threat, or are they too small?

They are too small. They're not a threat. They are dangerous. But they're only 7% of the voting population and the voting, let's say 50% of the people vote. So they're maybe, they're less than 5% of South Africa's population and they tend to be isolated up in the northeast of the country. That's where their power base is from and amongst students at university. Um, they are not a threat of civil unrest and yesterday, yesterday, Julius Malema yesterday was convicted of hate speech in the Cape courts. First time.

Oh wow.

Now he's in trouble. Yeah, it was a big breakthrough. And I'm tempted to challenge him to a cage fight because he's younger than usual, but he's lost a lot of weight. And I've been lifting weights and practicing. I've got to get Drikke Stoopersie to train me. Rob Herzog versus Julius Malema. Cage fight on UFC. What do you think?

I think in 2025, like, just given the past decade we've lived through, I mean, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were pretty close to, you know, having a cage fight. So unfortunately that one didn't materialize, but I've seen some pretty crazy things over the past few years. So I'd be down. I mean, I—

Dangerous what they say there. It's nasty and it And it creates a lot of problems. And we have farm attacks that spike after all of this kill the boer. But I think he's in serious trouble now. He's lost most of the top people in his party. And I think the EFF is on its way out. And it, and because South Africa's a pretty conservative Judeo-Christian country, a lot of people fear Julius. He'll never get ever above 10% of the vote. So at worst, he's a dangerous populist and opportunist, but there's no chance he can be a real threat. Thank goodness. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause I'm curious, I think to outsiders, I mean, it's because, you know, it's interesting because someone can have, you know, only 5% support, but you know, 5% in a country of 60 million plus people, it's like, well, you know, you see these rallies with tens of thousands of people and they're all sort of chanting and getting hyped up. I mean, the, and you're all wearing their red communist hats and whatever. I mean, it's a bit like, you could see how someone sees that and is like, holy moly, this looks like a gigantic movement that's sort of spreading through South Africa. So it's good to get some reassurance that, okay, this is not, um, this is not at the scale that I might see.

No one, there's no single party, single group that could do a coup d'état. Not even the military. Our military is a joke. While police are having infighting. Do you know that, um, I'm a friend with the, uh, one of the local police stations, head of firearms. And he said to me that the police budget allows them to go to the shooting range once a year and shoot at a fixed target. He said, you middle-class guys with guns are way better trained, have more ammo, and are way scarier than the police. And that's South Africa. There are 3 times more armed private security guards in South Africa than members of the police and army put together. So the real military are the security services protecting businesses and homes and, and nightclubs. That's the real military in South Africa. So there, there's not going to be real civil unrest. There's not going to be a coup d'état. And I'm not going into politics. I knew you were going to ask me that. I'm not going into politics.

I don't blame you. Look, I think it's best that people use their influence where they can make the most impact. I get that question a lot as well. You know, it's like, why don't you go? I mean, A, I just don't want to. I have zero, I have negative desire to go into politics, but also just given where my talent and skill set lies and where my interests lie, I think I can do more for the world in the various areas that I'm contributing sort of socially and culturally than I can, I don't know, trying to be a mayor somewhere.

Or if you weren't a podcaster, if you weren't being an entertainer, if you weren't being a philosopher, which you are all of those, what would you do?

Oh, just generally speaking. I'd be another type of entrepreneur. If I weren't a creative entrepreneur, I'd, you know, I'd be running a small business somewhere anyway. That's just the way that I'm wired. I don't see myself ever being in the sort of corporate world for decades and decades. That's just not my path. It's not my personality type and it's not where my interests lie. So I'd still be an entrepreneur or an investor, just more less in the public, less in the public space. A question I have, Rob, is I know you've, you've mentioned a few times of South Africa sort of having to survive and hang on for the next 4 years. Is there a particular thing that makes you worry that that might not be the case, that something could go so horribly wrong in such a short space of time that you sort of don't quote unquote make it? Until 2029?

No, we have municipal elections in the end of 2026, beginning of 2027, and that's when the big political swing's gonna happen from these mad leftist ideologues to the center. It's gonna happen in droves, and that's when the pendulum moves because then the ANC know they're doomed. And I think what'll happen is they'll either get more desperate But without the mandate, or they'll realize they have to reform in some way and move to the center and, and then they will be incorporated into a whole new coalition going forward. And that's a good thing. Our economy is damaged badly, but in 1994, we had more rail infrastructure than the whole of Africa put together. It's still there. Most of it's not working, but it's fixable. We elect, we exported 60% of our electricity to the rest of Africa. Now we import electricity, but we could still do it. We can still, things can get turned around relatively quickly with talent returning to South Africa, reverse diaspora that just happened in Nigeria. A lot of great entrepreneurs have returned to Nigeria and boom, look at your fintech businesses. The same could happen to us and a lot of foreign direct investment can come into South Africa and it'll turn very quickly. So we have hit rock bottom. I mean, the economy of course obviously can get worse, but we've pretty much hit rock bottom. And I, I say that because I've been calling for privatization of state-owned enterprises for a long time. It's happening by default now. So for example, there'd be a big mining operation where the rail link from the main railway to the mining operation has collapsed. The mining company is fixing that rail. The mining company is setting up its own electricity supply 'cause they can't do without it. And the government isn't resisting. So it's privatization is happening by default. And that's going to, that's happening all over South Africa. People are fixing their own roads and all of a sudden you're going to have a ground-up solution where top-down doesn't work. By default, 'cause human nature, people have gotta make it happen. And even though we've hit rock bottom and we're going sideways, there are little signs of life of good things happening in South Africa. And if we can just get through these next 3.5, 4 years, it'll take off like a rocket. And you know what, maybe in 2 years, 3 years' time is a very, very good time to invest in South Africa. Because like Nigeria, if our million South Africans that have left the country, All of them have made money, getting jobs, good experiences, building networks. If 10, 20% of those return, oh my goodness, we'll lift like a— this country will fly. So pessimistic today, but optimistic in 4 years' time.

And that's, that's very important to hear. Uh, one of the last questions I wanted to ask, because I know that the youth unemployment and unemployment rate in general in South Africa is off the charts. Um, What's the, as far as you know, what's the sentiment amongst the youthful population? Are they feeling that sense of optimism or are they all just trying to get out? What's the general sentiment?

They're trying to survive. They're trying to make it day to day. You know, they're, um, you know, criminality is not an option. It's a career choice. You know, it's a necessity for some people and that's why we have high criminality, high murder rates, high, you know, not good. But we have, uh, there's a great quote, so I'm gonna get this wrong. We have deserts of despair and oases of opportunity. South Africa's kind of a mishmash of small areas of incredible things happening, little communities that are thriving of all races. And we have areas of complete desperation. And as long as the areas of opportunity can maintain themselves, once things start turning, that will spread to the neighboring areas and the country will thrive again. But for young people who haven't had an education, you know, there's a loss, gonna be a terrible lost generation. And that's very, very worrying. You know, what do they do? How do they thrive? How do they survive? So economic growth lifts all boats. If we get back to 3, 4, 5% economic growth, people get pulled into the workforce. You know, we start spending money effectively. You know, it'll take 10 years, but our country will come back strong.

I hope so. I'm rooting for you. When I look around the world in general, I do have, I'm someone like yourself who's naturally optimistic by nature. I consider myself an optimistic realist. But I do have some really big concerns for, I don't know, let's say people who are under 25 or so right now, like the current, you know, teenagers, people in their young adulthood. I, I'm concerned for them in the US and in Canada and in the UK, let alone in, you know, African countries and other parts where the, the battle was already uphill and there's just all of the additional challenges that I think are sort of facing Gen Z, Gen Alpha now. And yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it's going to— I don't know what's going to happen. Um, but I certainly hope and pray that for the most part, the outlook in the future is going to be positive. I'm not just rooting for— I'm rooting. I'm just rooting for the world. I'm rooting for humanity. I want to see South Africa. I want to see South Africa do well. Genuinely. I'm not, I'm not from there. I don't have like strong ties to the country or anything, but just as a human being, when I look at those nations, when I look at South Africa, when I look at, you know, my father country of Nigeria, the amount of potential you have such a, I mean, in Nigeria, half the population is under the age of 20. So as you know, there's so much potential, there's so many natural resources, there's so much human potential. There are so many smart and entrepreneurial people, but as we already said, you know, the amount of corruption and the collapse of just basic infrastructure, roads, electricity, all these type of things, it's just like this lid that prevents the society from going to where it could be. But I really hope that this century, um, you know, within the next few decades, we really start to see just some of these countries just start to hit their stride in a way that is sustainable. I went to El Salvador for the first time last year, and that was really fascinating. I'm sure you've seen what's going on there. Have you had a chance to visit?

No, but I'm fascinated. Their Bitcoin adoption, their murder rate's gone down to, I mean, amazing, man.

I actually went to, I got invited to his inauguration last year, so I got a chance to briefly meet him as well. And, um, I've never been to a nation where I've felt such a wave of like genuine optimism and so much genuine love of the leader because, you know, you see online, oh, 90% approval rating, da da da. And, you know, you wonder, okay, is that, is that like legit? It's no, it's real. It's real. Like taxi drivers, people at the barbershop, like women working in the stores, like I've never been to a country where like there was just so much love for the leader. I was, I was just having conversations with people and everyone has these like horrible stories of like what it used to be like and how dangerous it was. Almost everyone knows someone in their family or a friend who got murdered, who got kidnapped too. So, you know, like it's very real, like just how severe it was. Um, I mean, he's dropped their homicide rate by 99%. Like, like, like what? Like that? I've never, ever, ever even heard of that happening anywhere in the world. I mean, you've gone from the most dangerous country in the entire world to the safest in the Western Hemisphere in a matter of years. Incredible.

It can be done. It can be done. And what you're saying inspires me because I've been a big follower of Bukele and El Salvador from a distance and Malay and various others. And, you know, I'm 65 this year. I can sense in 5, 6, 7 years' time, South Africa's gonna be feeling as you've described. There's gonna be this surge of love and compassion and excitement and optimism and belief. And I can't wait. And there's a little example I wanna leave you with, and that is rugby. The Springbok rugby team, which is the last 2 World Cups world champions, If you look at the racial makeup of that Springbok rugby team today, it is seriously a true representation of South Africa. It's got all races, all sizes, all types, and we are world champions. So South Africa can be what our Springbok rugby team is, a united winning country. Where we believe and we're optimistic again. And I see it. I won't be in my rocking chair quite yet, but I'll be, I think my job is done and this country's on track. And I can't wait for that to have people with smiles on their faces. Awesome.

Well, Rob, I appreciate your optimism. I love listening to your insights. You've got such a good knowledge of the history of the country and what's going on now. And Yeah. Um, just thank you. Keep on speaking up.

Come visit, Subi. Come visit. Come as my guest.

Oh, I will. I'll be back. I will be back. Absolutely. Next time I'm in South Africa, I will absolutely let you know.

You're staying with me.

Okay. I'll take you up on that. Thank you so much, Ralph. I appreciate it.

Bye.

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