There seems no reason to question E. Michael Jones’ sincerity. By current standards, he is brave, courteous, and he is willing to debate anyone. Few commentators have such a comprehensive understanding of the threats posed by Jewish supremacism, and fewer still discuss the issues in such an articulate and engaging way.

The problem arises with his understanding of identity as a means of resisting and eventually reforming Jewish-dominated power structures. To begin with, identity is a slippery concept. Identity can be imposed externally or constructed from within, and it can be based on immutable human traits, ideology, behavior, and any number of other factors. Identity can also be fleeting. Catholics can become atheists and vice versa. It should also be noted that people need not be schizophrenic to simultaneously hold multiple, and even conflicting identities.

It might be easier to simply discard the notion of identity when discussing solutions to Jewish supremacism. This would be a bad idea for the following reason. Jews have steadily increased their international dominance precisely because they identify as Jews. Jewish identity cannot be defined according to language spoken, religious practices observed, or even physical characteristics. Yet Jews create networks and collaborate based largely on identity. It follows that any movement that is to successfully counter Jewish power will need to develop its own identity or form some sort of coalition of existing identities. Given Jewish skillfulness at infiltration and divide-and-conquer strategies, one or two unified identities may achieve greater success in resisting Jewish power than a smattering of well-informed interest groups.

Jones argues that Catholicism is the only identity suited to this endeavor. His arguments in favor of Catholicism and against White identity are that 1) Whiteness is an artificially constructed identity; 2) individuals must decide upon whether they identify as White or Catholic because they can’t be both; 3) Catholicism affords critics of Jewish behavior a layer of protection against Jewish persecution.

Jones argues that Whiteness was imposed as an identity upon European indentured servants who provided labor in the Virginia colonies. The term ‘White’ was assigned to the European workers as a divide-and-conquer tactic, giving them a relatively higher status than the African slaves next to whom they toiled. Although this initial White identity may have been artificial, it has little bearing on current day Americans and, for example, Australians whose ancestors came from Europe.

Jones describes himself as bi-racial, meaning that he is German and Irish. This description may have resonated with denizens of American White ethnic neighborhoods prior to the ethnic cleansing of those neighborhoods in the 1960s. At present, however, most Americans who appear White have ancestors whose origins lie in disparate parts of Europe. It is therefore natural that, if they identify themselves according to race, they might say that they’re White rather than providing a (possibly inaccurate) list of the regions from which their ancestors came. This, incidentally, applies both to Whites who are proud of having European heritage and those who are ashamed of it. Perhaps if America were a White only country, no one would identify as White. If it were White only but still dominated by a tiny Jewish minority, its citizens might identify as gentiles. We have no way of knowing. What is important is that Whiteness is not a ‘category of the mind’ as Jones would have us believe. It is a category of reality simply because White people know who they are and can recognize each other—and because it is rooted in the evolutionary trajectory of the European peoples. To the extent that it is important, non-Whites can also recognize us as White, usually not as Irish or German or Italian, but as White. It is therefore irrelevant whether Whiteness is only 500 years old—as Jones asserts—or more than 20,000 years old.

There is little doubt that language and culture play an important role in identity, but languages, cultural practices, and cultural perspectives can be learned. Jones may describe himself as half German, but he acquired his knowledge of the German language and culture because he lived in Germany as an adult. He was not born German, but he was born White.

Jones claims that White identity is a trap set by Jewish interests and that Americans (and presumably other Whites) who identify as White are internalizing the commands of their oppressors. On this point, he is partially correct. Among some White nationalists, there is a tendency to view all non-Whites with disdain or hostility. Naturally, this might hamper universal efforts to combat Jewish supremacism. Whites are not the only adversely affected group. Arguably, meaningful change will not happen without the type of multi-cultural coalition that is incompatible with ardent White identitarianism.

But at some point, the issue of whether Whites are internalizing the commands of their oppressors becomes irrelevant. Prior to arriving on American shores, Blacks would have identified themselves as Fulani or Mandingo or any number of other ethnicities. None of these identities would have been useful to the American Black Power Movement of the 1960s, however. People can argue about the movement’s propriety, but there can be little doubt that it resulted in an increase in Black power. In the long run, Whites may have no choice but to identify as White, particularly in areas where they are outnumbered by hostile non-Whites and have no option to relocate. If, on the other hand, White identity can be normalized sooner rather than later, Jewish efforts at ethnic cleansing will become less successful and most Whites can look forward to a more secure future.

Before the Modern Period, most Western people’s identity was fixed at birth. These identities encompassed religion, sex, locale, language, vocation, social status, and so on. Urbanization and its concomitant social and geographic mobility have left a vacuum and people in industrialized countries, if they even contemplate identity, construct their own identities. In part due in part to Jewish denigration of Whiteness, many White Americans manufacture for themselves frivolous identities determined by their sexual practices, or the brand of motorcycle they favor, or the music they listen to. Jones argues that Catholic identity affords some protection against persecution by Jews. Certainly, in the past the Church often effectively prohibited predatory Jewish practices like usury. But with the rise of the nation-state and globalism, the Church has neither the power nor the will to dismantle Jewish power networks. If every White American were to convert to Catholicism tomorrow, there would still be a staggering amount of consciousness raising to do. A direct development of White identity based on recognition of collective White interests, and a shared understanding of how these interests are threatened, seems the most effective approach.

This is not to say that the Catholic Church and other churches have no role to play. Networks of White advocacy should build strength and legitimacy in all institutions. Jones’ assertion, however, that Catholicism is incompatible with White identity makes little sense. Scholars universally accept that people hold multiple and often conflicting identities. The issue of whether Catholic Church doctrine discourages White identity can be left to the Magisterium, but surely White identitarians won’t be excommunicated based on thought crime.

Many Whites now recognize and resent the ethnic cleansing, wealth extraction, denigration in academia and the popular culture, perversion of history, and other assaults their people have been subjected to. They also understand the source of these assaults. Jones may be correct that the Catholic Church provides protection. Moving forward, however, we shouldn’t need protection when we point out lying, cheating and stealing. It has yet to happen, but the time must come when the perpetrators are shamed for their behavior rather than truthtellers shamed for antisemitism.

Also of interest: US Halts Aid To South Africa ‘Immediately’ As Trump Offers Fast-Tracked Citizenship For Persecuted White Farmers | ZeroHedge

This is an interesting interview. Lots of good stuff on the failure of post-apartheid South Africa—crumbling infrastructure,  incompetent government unable to provide electricity and water on a regular basis—or even carry out anti-White measures apart from taxation (“virtually every sphere of society is collapsing, with the exception of taxation”), that it’s unrealistic to expect Africans to respect or develop democratic institutions, the threat of mob violence, the need to hire private security services because the government protects neither property nor lives, and a law allowing land seizure from Whites given to Blacks without compensation (and if a Black South African sells his land to a White, the land can still be seized without compensation; but wait! The media claimed that there was compensation—null compensation, so just relax). And, as throughout the West, there is anti-White hate in high places based on American Critical Race Theory (“which essentially boils down to a theory that justifies the targeting and extermination of the white minority” because they “are not truly human”; “so they would say, no, [“kill the Boer”] is just a metaphor, but it’s preceded by a speech about how white people are criminals and should be treated like criminals, how everything they have is illegitimate and stolen, in which people are encouraged to go and invade their farms and so forth. And then they chant, “kill the Boer”). It goes without saying that The New York Times et al. would be thrilled if in fact there was genocide against White South Africans.

But despite all this, the commitment of White South Africans to stay in South Africa and their attachment to the country remains, and Roets predicts few Boers will take up Trump’s offer of refugee status and expedited path to citizenship. According to Roets, Trump would contribute far more if he had the U.S. pressure South Africa to ensure self-determination of different groups, including for the Boers. Roets’s solution is for communities to band together against the hate and violence and eventually develop a state of their own. He cites examples where armed Whites have stood up successfully against threats of mob violence and against murdering White farmers to the point that farm murders are declining. But Roets realizes this is not a long-term solution and that the Boer-descended people must have self-determination.

What’s frustrating is their discussion of why all this is happening—why so much anti-White hate that is applauded or ignored in the Western media. For example, Tucker asks this question and never has anything close to a satisfactory answer. They discuss the Whites-only town of Orania:

A neighborhood, a community of 3000 people, which is tiny even by South African standards, has received unrelenting negative media attention in the West. Why is that? Such a moral crime, such an outrage to have a community like that? …

Why, why, why the hostility. And that’s true globally, by the way, there’s not any White majority country. There are very few left. Very few left. But they’re just suspect because they exist. What is that?

 Various possibilities are tossed around—affluence, World War II, nationalism are rejected. The closest they come to getting it right is when Roets hints that there is a hostile elite that dominates all the high places in Western societies, in politics, the media, and academia, but they don’t make a serious analysis of who constitutes that elite and why they hate White people:

Ernst Roets [00:50:18] I’d like to believe, and I hope that I’m right, that it’s it’s a minority within the Western world that really believes this stuff [i.e., the idea that Whites are evil and don’t deserve a homeland].

Tucker [00:50:24] I think.

Ernst Roets [00:50:25] But they have significant power and influence.

Tucker [00:50:27] They do that.

Ernst Roets [00:50:28] They are the editors of newspapers. They are the prime ministers. They are professors at universities and so forth. And those are the people who are promoting this type of idea.

In other words, Roets has listed the three main sources of Jewish power in the West: The media, politics, and academia. They mention World War II, but neither try to come up with a serious theory of why the Western elites changed after World War II. My theory of course is that the post-World War II era saw the rise of a hostile Jewish elite in the media, in the universities, and—via donations enabled by Jewish wealth—in the political culture (e.g., the power of the Israel Lobby enabled by instilling fear in politicians). In other words, it has been a top-down political and cultural revolution enabled at least partly by Western individualism but motivated by Jewish fears of a homogeneous White society (paradigmatically National Socialism) and atavistic Jewish hatred toward the West that’s been festering for 2000 years because of the expulsions, pogroms, attempts at forced conversions, and most recently, the holocaust.

Re individualism, I have emphasized that a powerful mechanism of social control in individualistic societies is the creation of moral communities. Tucker seems to realize this:

But I actually think that the only thing the people currently in charge of most of the world, certainly of the West, are good at, is seizing the moral high ground. And they don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. They’re rotten. Their ideas are rotten, and they don’t deserve to lecture the rest of us about our moral inferiority. While they’re endorsing the murder of people for how they were born. Sorry.

Later, Roets seems to understand this:

So, I think what the Afrikaner people need to do is in a large, to a large extent, built their own self-determination. And I think that that’s what we what we intend to do. But it would help a lot if we can get recognition for this pursuit as a legitimate pursuit.

The problem, of course, is that self-determination for any White group is seen by our hostile elite as completely illegitimate.

They mention Elon Musk:

Tucker: But we were required to talk about South Africa in a very specific way and to repeat certain cliches really at gunpoint. And that’s changed in the past couple of months, and it’s really changed due to a South African émigré called Elon Musk. This is my perspective. You tell me yours. But he has made it possible through X, but also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority …, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel about that?

Ernst Roets [00:51:53] Yes. So I don’t know how much of what is in his biography by Isaacson is true, but it does seem from his biography that he’s had some bad experiences growing up in South Africa, which is unfortunate. [In the Isaacson biography Musk describes how brutal South African schools and summer camp were—he had to learn how to fight. So it’s not surprising he hasn’t donated much to them. And no, he did not receive money from his father, a  common myth on the left; he designed a website and sold it. And although he did not found Tesla, when he got involved they had produced no cars and were really more of an idea than anything else.] And we’re still not sure quite how attached he still is to South Africa as a country. But looking at his X and his comments, it’s very clear that he’s interested. And the strange thing is, even though some people are very angry with him for speaking about South Africa, the only thing that he’s really doing is he’s picking up a mirror and he’s saying, look at what’s happening in South Africa.

Finally some good advice for all of us.

Roets:  And I honestly think in the situation we are in, it’s better to on the side of being too bold than to be on the side of having not enough courage or trying to find some form of solution through appeasement. And so we make mistakes in the process. And, and you know, sometimes you say something wrong or you do something wrong, but I’m very much convinced that if we’re on this course and we try to pursue what we are trying to pursue, rather on the side of having too much boldness and too much courage and facing the consequences, then having to face the consequences of having a lack of courage.

In the following somewhat rough transcript provided by TCN I have bold-faced passages that I think are of general interest.

*   *   *

Ernst Roets: Attacks on Whites in South Africa, Attempts to Hide It, and Trump’s Plan to End It

Tucker [00:00:00] So, I think for most Americans, news about South Africa ended in 1994. Both literally. We stopped getting a lot of news from the country, but also people’s views about it stopped evolving. Then that was the year that that apartheid ended, I guess officially you had elections. Nelson Mandela, still a hero in the United States, often referred to by politicians. And it’s only been, I think, in American media in the past couple of months that stories have come out of South Africa that have, you know, a lot of Americans have read that actually, the country seems to be falling apart and that the government is kind of genocidal racist. Yeah. And and then President Trump in the past month has basically said the same, the same thing. And it’s shocking to a lot of people, I think, how bad it is and how just how racist it is, you know, far more than apartheid ever was. And so I’m wondering, since you’ve just landed from South Africa, you live there? What? Describe the state of the country right now, if you would?

Ernst Roets [00:01:25] Yeah, well, perhaps I can start with your reference about the 90s, because it’s absolutely true. South Africa and America was very involved with the setting up of the political system in South Africa during the 90s. And it was, of course, the end of an historical era. Everyone is excited about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the whole world’s going to be liberal and democratic, including African countries. Yes. And Samuel Huntington actually cautioned against this in 1996, saying, you know, when you wrote The Clash of Civilizations and he said, don’t expect of African leaders and African liberation movements to suddenly become Western when you give them Western constitutions because they are still African, so they will use it’s the democratic paradox. They will use democratic institutions to promote non-democratic ends. And that’s what we see in South Africa. We have a parliament, we have a very liberal constitution. But if you read the Constitution and you compare that to reality in South Africa, it’s two completely different worlds. The de facto [image] in the diaspora [and] reality in South Africa are irreconcilable. And so what has been happening in South Africa is firstly, there was this major excitement about the new South Africa, Nelson Mandela, the miracle story. You know, Oprah was spoke about this and Charlize everyone and and but the reality on ground level was in many ways the opposite. And I think a lot.

Tucker [00:02:42] From the beginning.

Ernst Roets [00:02:43] And gradually so so they started for example, with these be as they call it, its black economic empowerment, which of course has nothing to do with economic empowerment. They started with that in 1996. And so they actually said initially in the 90s that that’s the ruling party’s strategy. They still call it that, the national democratic revolution, which is about using democracy to promote socialist ends. And so the revolution, they say it goes in two phases. The first phase is present yourself as being liberal and democratic and get support, especially international support and local, and then use multi-party democracy as a way of promoting the goals of taking the country down the road to socialism. And so recently, they even went as far as publishing a document saying, we are now ready for the second phase of the revolution. We now have power. We have control of the state. We now you need to use this to become much more aggressive in our socialist policies. And we seeing this in a plethora of new laws all of a sudden in South Africa, which I think, I think it’s gotten to the point where it’s just not possible to maintain the view that people have had of South Africa for the last few decades and look at what’s currently happening in South Africa. It’s two completely different worlds, and hopefully or happily, at least a lot of people are starting to to wake up to this.

Tucker [00:04:03] So you said Samuel Huntington wrote that in 1996, two years after the election. I kind of thought that from day one, simply because I knew people there, and I was more familiar with the details of the mandelas. Yes. So but I think most Americans, I don’t think, had any idea, like, what was Nelson Mandela on Robben Island for? What was in prison for, well, for being black. Was there another reason?

Ernst Roets [00:04:31] Well, literally. So I have I have children and they are taught in schools. And the government prescribes what children should learn in history. And so the the official version is he went to prison because he was a good leader and the government didn’t like that. I should say that he certainly was the best that the ANC has ever had to offer. Yes, but the reason why he went to prison is because they started to contour his way, which was the military wing of the ANC, which became involved with military actions in South Africa with an attempt to overthrow the government. And actually and this is, this is I’m quoting from the ANC’s own policy documents that’s on their own website, so that this operation, when they started, which was used in the Rivonia Trial against Nelson Mandela, it was a strategy called Operation Miyabi. And the slogan of this operation was shamelessly, we shall attack the weak, and shamelessly we shall flee from the strong. So those were the circumstances in the 1960s.

Tucker [00:05:30] Pretty noble policy statement there will attack the weak and flee from the strong…

Ernst Roets [00:05:35] And it’s still on their website. You can find it there. So that was it was an attempt at an armed uprising. Now we can talk about everything that is wrong with the previous political system in South Africa. There was a lot wrong. But but it’s simply not the case that he went to prison for being a good leader.

Tucker [00:05:52] Well, I think that most people would acknowledge a distinction between military action, which is, you know, a a a fight, a war, a battle between militaries. And attacks on civilians, which is the something we call terrorism. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:06:08] So in 1985, the ANC had a conference in Kabwe in Zambia, and they took a formal decision that in their so-called military operations, they would not differentiate between hard and soft targets. So it was officially a policy that says we can kill innocent people. And a lot of innocent people died in the political violence in the run up to 1994. And 90% of the people who died were black South Africans.

Tucker [00:06:34] Right.

Ernst Roets [00:06:35] It was.

Tucker [00:06:36] But noncombatants, women, children.

Ernst Roets [00:06:37] Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Women and passers.

Tucker [00:06:38] By, you know, people had nothing to do with anything.

Ernst Roets [00:06:40] Yes. Yes, especially.

Tucker [00:06:42] And so during that time that Mandela was in prison. I’m 55. So I remember this very, very well. His wife was effectively his spokesman, Winnie Mandela. Yeah. And she was lying, I said. United States, she was a hero. She was the mother of an emerging nation. You know, a woman of of peace and decency, really, a transcendent figure, a holy thing. And and then it turned out that actually, she was a murderer who had, you know, burned to death or supervised the murder of a bunch of different people. Tell us about that.

Ernst Roets [00:07:12] Yes. So let me firstly say that I have a lot of respect for Nelson Mandela, I think in terms of, of his efforts and and as I say, he’s I think he’s the he’s the best the ANC has ever had to offer. Winnie Mandela, his wife. Not so much. So she famously I mean, she’s been involved with a lot of things, including what what was called the Mandela Football Club.

Tucker [00:07:31] Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:07:32] [The Mandela Football Club] was a gang that was involved with violence and killings of innocent people. And she famously said at a political rally with necklaces and all matches, we will liberate this country. Yes. Which, of course is a reference to the necklace murders, which was very popular in South Africa and still happens in South Africa. That’s when you take and a rubber tire, you fill it with petrol or gasoline, and you put it around someone’s necks so that it’s bound around the arms and you set it on fire, and then you stone that person while he’s burning to death. And that happened. They were, I think 500 or 700 people were killed like that during political violence in South Africa. And she encouraged this. Initially, she denied it. And then it came out that it was recorded of her saying this. So, yes, it’s very bizarre that someone like Mandela is a hero today.

Tucker [00:08:21] And was a hero then. And so that to me was a sign that these are these are not, you know, liberators that their oppressors. Yeah, yeah. And so but no one in the West wanted to think that it was like a really simple tale of white oppression, of noble black people and by definition, the black. But I mean, there were oppressed by people, of course, and there were no black people. But the leadership always struck me as evil.

Ernst Roets [00:08:46] Yeah. So? So there were some better and some worse people in the leadership. I think an important component here that is very well documented. It’s not a secret, but a lot of people don’t seem to want to know this or recognize this is the very strong alliance that the ANC has always had and still has with the South African Communist Party and the extent to which they were supported, and not just by the Soviet Union, also by the Vietnamese and by multitudes as well. Implementing a what they call the people’s war strategy that they got from from Mao Tse tung. So, yes, it was very much the ANC saw themselves as being the African or South African frontier of promoting a socialist or a communist revolution.

Tucker [00:09:30] So how did it turn out?

Ernst Roets [00:09:33] Well, if you mean you mean in terms of where we are.

Tucker [00:09:36] Let’s let’s just follow different threads. So let’s just start with I don’t know. Technology and infrastructure. What did in 1993. South Africa was famously the most prosperous society in Africa by far right and up among the most prosperous in the world. Correct. They had nuclear weapons in South Africa? Yes. Yeah, yeah. What is it like now, 30 years later?

Ernst Roets [00:10:02] Well, the reality is that that virtually every sphere of societies is collapsing, with the exception of taxation, of course, in tax collection, that’s still very, very efficient. Maybe I can explain it this way. So America has a somewhat skewed tax system with, if my information is correct, about 85% of tax income tax in America is paid by about 10% of the people.

Tucker [00:10:28] I think that’s correct.

Ernst Roets [00:10:29] So 1 in 10 in South Africa, 85% of income taxes paid by 1 in 30 people. So it’s a very small number of people, a very small portion of of society that pays tax that is heavily taxed. And then about almost half of the population in South Africa get money from the government in the form of social grants. If you add government employees, conservative estimates say that 50% of people in South Africa get money from the government. Some estimates say it’s up to 60% of adults voting age. Adults get money from the government each year. So then this money, of course, is then used. It’s given out to social grants. But what’s left is used to set up these programs that are actively discriminating against taxpayers. Like, I mean, there are so many examples. One of the most recent ones is this is this blacks only fund that the government has set up whereby they give money to black entrepreneurs exclusively. So so this is happening. And then on top of that, so after you spend your tax money to fund these government programs that are discriminating against you, you have to spend what is left to do the things that the government was supposed to be doing. So the classical definition of a government is that it should protect life, liberty and property. The classical liberal view we’re a bit cicerone in, so we think a government has to do more than that. But but if we use those three things, the government’s not protecting our lives. There’s about if this interview that we are about to have is two hours, it’ll there will be about seven murders in South Africa in this time. Government does not protect liberty. It’s actively targeting schools of minority communities [i.e., Whites\, actively denying the identity and the rights of minority communities. And it’s certainly not protecting property. It’s actively involved with the program to empower the government to expropriate private property without compensation. So, so and then we have to use the money that is left to pay for our own private security, to become involved with organizations to for the things that the government was supposed to be doing with the tax money that we paid in the first place.

Tucker [00:12:34] One of the reasons that I find this story so fascinating is not simply because, you know, it’s like the classical, you know, irony of history. This, you know, group comes in with one aim and then achieves exactly the opposite. We’re going to have a, you know, we’re going to end racism and then make racism much worse, but also because they have gone about it in a way that’s almost like American with the same language, the same is our strength kind of sloganeering. And it’s had the same result, which is to basically kill whites. And I mean, this is true, and I, I, I wonder if you see that it’s almost like you imported our kind of intellectual class framework for this project.

Ernst Roets [00:13:17] That’s absolutely the case. So so there’s a theory. There was this video that just went viral on social media of this guy talking about how white people are subhuman and all of that, and they get, well, this is taught at universities in South Africa. There’s a theory called Azania critical theory. Azania is a Ben African word for South Africa. And they actually get this from Americans like Robin D’Angelo. Who’s this? Ibrahim? It’s the Ta-Nehisi Coates, these people, they get it from them. And then they put an African flavor on it, which essentially boils down to a theory that justifies the targeting and extermination of the white minority. And and so the theory, to summarize, goes more or less like this. There’s an African term called ubuntu, which means brotherly ness, or it’s about your internal humanity. It’s a Zulu term. And the theory goes that white people are incapable of having ubuntu. But ubuntu is the essence of humanity. So if you don’t have it, you’re not truly human. So it boils down that the logical conclusion is that if you kill a white person, then you did not actually commit murder. So this is not widely believed in South Africa, but this is taught at universities by university professors, and it’s certainly believed by radical elements.

Tucker [00:14:34] It’s a predicate for genocide. I mean, it’s always the same in every I mean, we’re watching in a part of the world now. They’re not fully human, right? So we can kill them because they’re fully human. Then it’s a, it’s a, of course, a grave sin to kill them.

Ernst Roets [00:14:44] Yeah. Well, well, we’ve always been saying that there’s not a genocide in South Africa looking at what happened in Rwanda and so forth. It’s not the same thing, but it is very alarming to look at some of these claims that are being made and to compare that to what was made in Rwanda.

Tucker [00:14:58] You know, and well, every country and, you know, genocide broadly defined in an attempt to eliminate a group of people on the basis of their race or ethnicity.

Ernst Roets [00:15:07] Yeah. And we have these political parties chanting, I mean, you’ve seen this, you’ve reported on this chanting, kill the bush, kill the farmer to a stadium filled with people. And it’s not just rhetoric. So they would say, no, it’s just a metaphor, but it’s preceded by a speech about how white people are criminals and should be treated like criminals, how everything they have is illegitimate and stolen, in which people are encouraged to go and invade their farms and so forth. And then they chant, kill the Boer, kill the farmer and they make these hand gestures. Of course, the book is a reference to the Afrikaner people. And and but reality is also that the farmers are being attacked and killed on their farms. So it’s not just a metaphor. And and our attempts at researching this has found that there is an increase in farm attacks when obviously when the political climate becomes heated or warmer. And these type of statements are made in a way, in a way that’s highly publicized. You do get an increase in farm attacks. And it and it’s very brutal and very horrific farm attacks that we see.

Tucker [00:16:04] So the farmer texture attacks against white farmers, not.

Ernst Roets [00:16:08] Not not exclusively white farmers, but it’s attacks against farmers in South Africa of which the majority is.

Tucker [00:16:12] White. Right. Okay. So this has been going on a long time. I think it’s been well documented. I believe you wrote a book about it, which has become very sold, a lot of copies on Amazon, I notice. Yes. And so none of this is like a secret and all of it’s verifiable because, you know, dead people are pretty easy to track because they’re dead.

Ernst Roets [00:16:33] Yeah, we have the names of the people who’ve been murdered. Exactly. Yeah.

Tucker [00:16:36] But in the United States, the country that inspired the revolution that you’re living through, our media have ignored that and then gone beyond ignoring it to attack anyone who brings it up as a white supremacist. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:16:51] Well, well, I can tell you so many stories about this.

Tucker [00:16:55] Please do.

Ernst Roets [00:16:55] For example, I was on your show a few years ago to talk about the farm murders and the extent to which we were attacked by American media as a result of that. I had someone from CNN come see me in my office in Pretoria and to interview me about farm attacks. And the entire interview was about you. So you would put things to me and say, did you know Tucker Carlson said the following? Do you agree with this statement? And did you know that Donald Trump said this? And are you comfortable with this? And so I paused them at one stage and I said, what are we doing? I thought we had to talk about farm murders and what’s happening in South Africa. But the only. So. The argument was that because Trump made that comment about farmers in 2018, it has to be a non-existing issue because Trump is a liar and everything he says is false. And the same with you because you spoke about it. That means that the problem doesn’t exist, and we have to prove that it doesn’t exist in order to get to you.

Tucker [00:17:48] But not only doesn’t exist, you’re not allowed to complain about it existing. Yes. Yes. So it’s somehow a moral crime to notice and to not like it when people are murdered for the color of their skin.

Ernst Roets [00:18:04] It’s bizarre. It’s.

Tucker [00:18:05] Well, it’s not bizarre. It’s it’s a they’re telegraphing genocidal intent when they’re telling you, no, you’re not getting killed. And yes, it’s a good thing that you are.

Ernst Roets [00:18:13] Yes and no. You’re not getting killed.

Tucker [00:18:15] What are they [saying?].

Ernst Roets [00:18:16] Saying? Yeah, it’s no, you’re not getting killed. And if you are, you deserve it, right? Because of a variety of things. Because the attackers are poor or because remember all the horrible things that white people have done in South Africa and outside of South Africa. So so there’s always a justification. And so another example, just in 2018, again after you spoke about this and after Trump spoke about this, the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, came to America and he spoke at an event in in New York. And he said there are no killings of farmers in South Africa. And he just flat out denied the existence of the problem. And he said this on an international platform. He said it’s not happening, it’s not true. And and the worst of it all was how the media knew this was wrong, especially mainstream media and South Africa. They knew that it’s not true. And so they immediately rushed to his defense, writing articles like this is what the actually meant to say. And then they sort of justify what’s happening. And so it’s we really do sometimes feel that our biggest battle is not primarily against what the government is doing, but against how the media is.

Tucker [00:19:22] But just consider this. I mean, if, you know, if Trotsky’s in Kalgoorlie in 1994 said, boy, I you know, I lot of us seem to be getting hacked to death by machetes and reporters or political figures said, shut up. You know, you’re a Tutsi supremacist for saying so. I think we could fairly say the people shouting them down are pro-genocide of Tutsis. Yeah. I mean, what what’s the other explanation? I don’t really get it. I mean, what honestly, what’s the other explanation?

Ernst Roets [00:19:53] Well, the the explanation that is used in court cases. So by the way, this kill the Boer chant was found in quote, not to be hate speech according to South African law.

Tucker [00:20:02] Not hate speech. Killing people don’t hate speech. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:20:04] Chanting about killing people.

Tucker [00:20:06] You know why it’s not a hate speech? Because it’s not speech they hate. That’s why.

Ernst Roets [00:20:09] Well, maybe that’s.

Tucker [00:20:10] Because they approve of.

Ernst Roets [00:20:11] So the arguments that that is used or are used to defend this type of rhetoric would always be something like you need to see it in context. You need to remember the apartheid system. You need to remember what these people went.

Tucker [00:20:24] Through that they deserved to be killed. You need to remember that.

Ernst Roets [00:20:27] That’s. Well, so the argument is that the actually commemorating the historic struggle, and that’s why they are still chanting this.

Tucker [00:20:33] I would disagree with you. I think what they’re saying is the people getting murdered deserve to be murdered. So stop complaining about it.

Ernst Roets [00:20:39] Yeah, well, I few people are saying that out loud, but it does seem to be.

Tucker [00:20:43] I mean, look, at some point, you know, I don’t need you to explain your motive. If I have a clear glimpse of your actions. If I know what you’re doing. I don’t have to hear you explain why you’re doing it. I already know because the motive is displayed in the action. Did you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So, in other words, if I pulled out a gun and shoot you and somebody said, did you not like earnest? Yeah, I can say whatever I want, but I just shot you. So I think it’s kind of fair to infer that I didn’t like you. Yeah, right.

Ernst Roets [00:21:11] Yeah, but. But the motive is also explained in the words. So they’re trying to defend the word. It’s a famous story of Chamberlain and Churchill. You know, when Chamberlain came back from meeting Hitler and he say, no, well, I met him. And, you know, I think we’re going to find peace. And then Churchill said, no. Well, I read what he said and I believe them. Yeah. And so you can just read what they’re saying. If you read the policy documents of the ruling party, they say they want to convert South Africa into a communist society. They want to have a revolution in South Africa. And if you listen to the more radical parties to the left of them, they openly chant about killing white people. So so they say these things out loud.  And now they are obviously more to the fringe. You find the more extreme rhetoric in South Africa. But but it’s very alarming and and how people just rush to their defense all the time.

Tucker [00:21:58] So that’s the part that bothers me. Like I’m not surprised. I’ll just I’ll just say it. I’m not surprised at all. I watched what happened in Rhodesia when it became Zimbabwe in 1980. And, you know, something identical happened. There was a lot of killing, and they drove it, you know, to the bottom rank of nations, the poorest country in the world. And following exactly the same script, I always thought that what happened in South Africa, I want it to be wrong. Turns out it wasn’t. What really bothers me is that the West has allowed this and cheered it on. Because I live in the West, I live in the United States. So like, I don’t want to think that my leaders are for killing people on the basis of race. But watching how they stood by and applauded Barack Obama’s applauded all this stuff. It tells you everything about Barack Obama and other American leaders, doesn’t it?

Ernst Roets [00:22:47] Yes. And this brings us back to the 90s. So during the 90s, it was again after the Cold War, and the world and especially the West was high on ideology. And this idea that, you know, the world will become liberal and everyone’s going to become like us, and everyone in the world is just an American waiting to be liberated, and we just need to go and liberate them from their own traditional beliefs and so forth. And so it really is the case that that America and many Western countries played a very significant role in creating the South Africa that we have.

Tucker [00:23:16] I’m aware.

Ernst Roets [00:23:17] And so it’s we we don’t want other people to fix our problems on our behalf. We want to solve our own problems. But you can certainly make the case that that the West has a moral responsibility towards the people in South Africa.

Tucker [00:23:29] First, the West forced through sanctions, boycotts, the change of government that put the ANC in power. So, absolutely, in the same way the West is armed, Ukraines, they have an obligation to make sure. Yep. You know, to at least know what’s happening and to be honest about it, not to hide their own. Yes, responsibility for the crime.

Ernst Roets [00:23:50] Yeah. And so there’s this false dichotomy in South Africa, all with regard to South Africa, that if you are against what’s happening in South Africa now, that means you want the apartheid system. So you have a choice. And there’s one former judge recently said this who’s retired. He said that we have a choice in South Africa between a moral system that is dysfunctional, which is the current system, or an immoral system that is a functional one, which is the former system. And so the problem is, if you criticize what’s happening in South Africa. Now you get accused of wanting to return to the apartheid system, but the truth is you can reject both. You can say, we don’t want the apartheid system and we don’t want what’s happening in South Africa at the moment. We want to govern ourselves. We want freedom. But but it seems that a lot of people are incapable of making that conclusion or leaving any room for saying that both these systems are wrong and we need a better system, a system that is much more decentralized, a system in which the various nations who live in South Africa, because South Africa’s very big. It’s almost as big as Europe. The various nations living in South Africa should just govern themselves. And that’s not what’s happening in South Africa. And I think it’s a worthy cause to pursue.

Tucker [00:25:00] So can I. I think I’m hardly an expert in South Africa at all, but I am American, so if I can, I just give my overview of what of the different groups in South Africa and you correct me. But just so people following on because I think it matters for reasons I’ll explain. So. So the Africa, they’re basically two big white populations in South Africa. Historically, they’re called the Boers. They Afrikaners who are were religious, basically religious refugees, a mixture of Dutch and French Huguenots, Protestant, Dutch, probably the French who moved to southern Africa for reasons of religious liberty. Okay. And then you had the English with, I think were after the Boer War in power. Yes. Who mostly were there for economic reasons and had in many cases passports back to Great Britain. And then you had a couple of different African black groups, the largest of which, I think to this day are the Zulus. Yes. Who like the Afrikaners, the Boers and the English, were not native to the area at all. They were newcomers who arrived, I think, just right before the Boers did.

Ernst Roets [00:26:11] Yeah, not long before.

Tucker [00:26:12] Okay. This is true.

Ernst Roets [00:26:13] Yes. Yes, yes.

Tucker [00:26:15] And they, you know, as invading groups [Zulus] often usually do kind of exterminated the native population who were what we would call the Bushmen or.

Ernst Roets [00:26:24] Yeah, the Khoi in the San, as they’re also called. Thank you. Yes.

Tucker [00:26:27] Okay. So that’s my, like, dumb foreigner overview. Is that roughly true? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:26:31] So. So just can I tell you a story from. I hope you will. Yes. It’s some people call it the origin story of the Afrikaner people. And it explains a lot about who we are today. So we were settled in the Cape, the Prato Afrikaners, who were still the Dutch, the French and the Germans. We were then colonized the Cape in, I think 1810 by the British. It was during the Napoleonic.

Tucker [00:26:55] When when did the Afrikaners for the Boers first get there? 1652 1650.

Ernst Roets [00:27:02] That’s what, 150 years before the Declaration of Independence or something. Wow. Something like that. Yeah.

Tucker [00:27:07] So it’s a long time ago. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:27:08] So? So my great great great grandfather, Nicolas Roets, who was the first Roets who came to South Africa. Came more or less the time when George Washington was a teenager. So he was eight years older than George Washington. So. So my family has been in Africa since, you could say, since George Washington, since the time of George Washington, just before.

Tucker [00:27:30] The United States was a country.

Ernst Roets [00:27:31] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So so the Cape.

Tucker [00:27:34] Do you have another passport?

Ernst Roets [00:27:35] No, no, no, I don’t I don’t really want one.

Tucker [00:27:39] Right. And do most Afrikaners have other passports.

Ernst Roets [00:27:42] No most don’t.

Tucker [00:27:44] Yeah okay.

Ernst Roets [00:27:45] But but this goes to the story I want to tell you. So. So we were colonized by the British. And we, you can call it the proto Afrikaners then said, you know, we don’t want to be governed by anyone else. We want to govern ourselves and to they opted to move into the interior of South Africa, which was called the Great Trek, and they didn’t know what they would expect. They said they reject slavery. They want to foster good relations with local tribes, which they did. There were many treaty signed, an agreement and so forth.

Tucker [00:28:11] And they did not hold slaves.

Ernst Roets [00:28:14] They were slavery in the Cape Colony before that. But when the Great Trek, that was around the time of the abolition of slavery, and they also rejected slavery, they explicitly said so. So they then went into the interior. And the leader of the Great Trek was a guy called Retief.

Tucker [00:28:29] Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:28:30] Who went to negotiate with the Zulu king, then gone. And so he said, what can we do to buy land from you for our people to live? The agreement was they had to return cattle that were stolen by another tribe with a king called Sekunjalo. So they went. They retrieved the cattle. They brought it to the zoo, looking at the Zulu king, then gone. King then says to them that we have to celebrate. So leave your weapons outside the logger, come inside and we’ll have a celebration. During the celebration. At one stage he chanted Bull Lani about which means kill the wizards! So they took Retief and his commando, his group, to a nearby U and they slaughtered him. They had. They slaughtered him. Lost because they wanted him to see. They want to make sure that he sees his people and his son murdered a few months later before so. So after that, they went on an extermination mission. They killed women and children in the loggers and so forth. A few months.

Tucker [00:29:24] No longer is a group of wagons pulled into a.

Ernst Roets [00:29:27] Circle. Yes. Correct? Yes. And so a few months later, his body was found with the treaty on which the Zulu king signed, giving them some land. So they then started a initiated a punishment commando, a group of 3 to 400 men to to counter attack the Zulus, which eventually led to the Battle of Blood River, one of the most significant battles in our history, where they found themselves completely surrounded. They were about, let’s say, 400.

Tucker [00:29:57] Before numbers.

Ernst Roets [00:29:58] Yes, surrounded by 12,000 Zulus. And so they had this wagon, and my great great great great grandfather was was in that lager, and he was the religious leader. His name is Sorrell Sally-ann. So, Sorrell.

Tucker [00:30:11] And what was their religion?

Ernst Roets [00:30:13] Christian.

Tucker [00:30:13] Dutch. Reformed.

Ernst Roets [00:30:14] Reformed, yes. So he said to them, listen, we need to make a vow to God. And so he wrote a vow which they all made. And the vow said that we standing in front of the God in heaven and earth, to make a vow to him, that if he protects us in the battle that lies ahead, we will commemorate this day in the years to come, as a day of thanksgiving and a Sabbath. And we will also tell our children their story, and we will build a church, and we will make sure that the honor of the victory goes to God and not to us. So they made this vow and the battle took place. And the result was that not one of the Afrikaners were killed. 3000 Zulus died in that battle.

Tucker [00:30:56] Not one was killed.

Ernst Roets [00:30:57] Yes. Yeah. And and so the reason why I’m telling the story is not because. Not to point to the Zulu people. We have good relations with the Zulu, and we’ve worked with him. This was, of course, the one major battle, but we’ve had good relations with him over the years. But it just it says something about, firstly, why the Afrikaner people are so patriotic. It says something about why we are so attached to African soil and why why we are still religious with a very religious community. We have some problems in terms of belief and so forth. But broadly speaking, the Afrikaners are compared to Europe and compared to some parts of America, still a very religious people. And it also says something about why we are so attached to the country and why we don’t want to leave. We want to stay there because our ancestors have been there for hundreds of years, and we fought and died for our our space there. And we’ve gotten used to it to to a certain extent.

Tucker [00:31:47] What’s the only country that you have, isn’t it?

Ernst Roets [00:31:49] Exactly. We don’t have any other country. It’s like we can’t go to. We can’t go back to England. We’re not Dutch anymore. We you know, we have there’s a slogan in South Africa, let’s go back to Holland. But, I mean, I’ve been to Holland, I’ve been to Amsterdam. It’s a beautiful city, but I don’t feel like I’m like I’m at home when I go there. It’s no foreign city that I’m attending. We became a people in Africa, which is why we are called the Africans. We named ourselves after the continent and our language. Afrikaans is named after the country.

Tucker [00:32:19] But you’re being called invaders by people whose ancestors were also invaders.

Ernst Roets [00:32:22] Yeah, well, who came from the north of Africa? Yes, from. From where Cameroon is and so forth. Who came down firstly towards the east of Africa and then along the Great Lake Lakes, eventually ending. Ending in South Africa? Yes.

Tucker [00:32:38] I think it’s what you said is really important because I think from the American or the Western perspective, there’s this idea that the Afrikaners, the Boers, are worse. They’re the worst whites, they’re worst. The English.

Ernst Roets [00:32:51] Yes.

Tucker [00:32:52] English, by the way, created the concentration camp during the Boer War. Yes. Yep, yep.

Ernst Roets [00:32:57] That’s true.

Tucker [00:32:57] Winston Churchill was there and kind of behave pretty dishonorably, I would say, on many, many levels for hundreds of years in South Africa. But that’s just my opinion. Yeah, but that the borders are somehow the worst and that they have no right to be there. And I think history suggests something different.

Ernst Roets [00:33:16] Well, absolutely. So on my mother’s side, I descend from the British. My great grandfather fought in the First World War, fought for the British. And so in many ways, culturally, we’ve become very close to the British because of the influence over the years. And I don’t think there’s friction today between the Afrikaners and the British, but it certainly is the case. I mean, the concentration camps were horrible. I recently read The Gulag Archipelago, and Solzhenitsyn writes in there that the first concentration camps were invented by the Soviets, but that’s actually wrong. The first concentration camps that we know of, of at least this type of concentration camps were during the first during the Anglo Boer War, where about 30,000 women and children died. But there was a lot of the great thing about the Anglo Boer War was that it was in many ways a of first for the world. It was, some people call it the first international propaganda war, because it was in a time when newspapers became popular. So there was this propaganda war in Europe with regard to the Boers or the Boer War, with a lot of people saying the Boers are boorish, and that’s where the word comes from. Evidently, if someone told me that’s where the word British comes from, it’s to be sort of, you know, very old style and, you know, not very sophisticated. Rough. Yeah, rough around the edges. And so there was a lot of propaganda like the book is being compared to, to Wild Hogs and things like that, but that’s okay. The word butcher was actually used for a long time as an insult, almost like Jew, like calling someone a Jew. It’s like, oh, you’re a typical butcher. But I mean, we’re very proud of that word. It’s, it’s it’s something that we take pride in. It’s meat in many ways. There’s some debate about the difference between poor and Afrikaner, but it’s broadly speaking, synonymous. But I mean, we’re very proud of our history in South Africa. And we’ve become a very sophisticated community with an immense treasure chest of literature, of poetry, of philosophy, all of it in our own language that we did over the last, especially the last 100 years, which of course is under threat now.

Tucker [00:35:14] Your language not spoken by anyone else in the world?

Ernst Roets [00:35:16] No, it’s some it’s it descends from Dutch. Yes. And so if you spend some time as an Afrikaans person with some Dutch friends, eventually you start to follow. But it’s not Dutch anymore. There’s been influences about other languages and so forth. So? So it’s they are people who speak it all over the world because. But that’s only because people who have left from so many people have left South Africa. Some estimates say it’s about a million people, white people who have left South Africa over the last few decades.

Tucker [00:35:45] How many are left? How many whites overall in South Africa and how many of them are African?

Ernst Roets [00:35:50] So? So it’s more or less about 5 million who are left? The Afrikaner communities, about 2.7 million. And the total population is about 60, just over 60 million.

Tucker [00:36:01] And now it looks like you’re, as you said, entering some kind of final stage where they’ll be. I mean, they’ve been expelled from a bunch of different African countries, as you know. But it sounds like the the plan is to force them to leave or kill them or what is the plan, exactly?

Ernst Roets [00:36:19] So, so. Yann Smuts, the famous general who worked with Churchill, also famously said that South Africa is a country where the best never happens and the worst never happens. And so we sort of believe that, and we hope that the worst outcome is is an unrealistic outcome. We do know that the most important thing that we need to do now is to be very well organized in terms of our own communities, to be very well connected to each other. And, you know, there’s this whole debate about the individual and the community in philosophy. And we’ve realized that if you’re just an individual, you are completely helpless. If you if you’re not part of a community, if you don’t have if you if you’re not given meaning by the community of which you are a member. You, you just you. You’re completely helpless against this. The Leviathan, the state. So? So we need to be well organized. We need to be armed. We need to have well-functioning communities who look after each, after look after the poor, do all the things that the government supposed to be doing, but also look after our safety. So we drive patrols at night. We are involved with tens of thousands of volunteers, involved with patrols, looking after our own safety and so forth. But but I think the bigger question here is the future of South Africa. And this is a controversial thing to say, but it’s so obvious that it’s not sustainable. It’s it’s not going to work and it’s just getting worse. So the only possible solution is not simply to say we need a different party in power, because the underlying foundations is still it’s problematic. The only possible solution is to move toward a system with subsidiary authorities, which could imply something like a republic for the Afrikaner people, it could imply a kingdom for the Zulu people. It can imply different types of authority depending on the community. But South Africa is a country made up of a long list of minorities. It’s a list. If you look at it from a racial perspective, you can say there’s a black minority, a black majority, but the black majority also consists of a variety, as you mentioned, a variety of nations and tribes and so forth.

Tucker [00:38:16] And plus massive immigration into your country. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:38:19] Yeah. It’s that’s a it’s a very serious problem. Yeah. We virtually don’t have borders in South Africa.

Tucker [00:38:23] Right. But and a problem of course, for the country, but also a demographic fact that it’s not as if there’s this like monolithic black majority there all kinds of different components of the black majority. Right. Yes. Don’t necessarily get along. Yeah, yeah. And but a lot of Zimbabweans murdered in South Africa phobic violence.

Ernst Roets [00:38:41] Every now and then there’s this upsurge in violence against foreigners. So they get accused. What typically happens is people come in from the north or the north of South Africa, like Malawi, Zimbabwe and so forth, Zambia and so forth. And then they work and they accept jobs for lower wages. And a lot of them work really hard. Yeah. So that leads to friction because there’s very high unemployment in South Africa already. And so it leads to friction within among the local communities. And then every now and then we have this upsurge in very, very brutal xenophobic violence. And so yeah, it’s the border is it’s virtually non-existent. The border to the north of South Africa.

Tucker [00:39:17] So what would it look like to have autonomous republics? And is that allowed under your 94 constitution? I thought there was some provision for that.

Ernst Roets [00:39:28] Well, it’s interesting that you know this. Yes. So there’s a section in in the South African Constitution, section two, three, five that provides for self-determination for communities. Now there’s some ambiguity in terms of how to interpret that section. But it is there is some constitutional provision for that. And so during the 90s, the negotiations for a new South Africa, the more conservative groups who were white and black, who were arguing for self-determination, were made fun of by the ruling party at the time, the National Party and the ANC, of course, and also some Westerners. This is just backwards. This idea of governing yourself is somehow an old, ancient thing that we should move away from. And part of the problem, part of the reason why they were made fun of is the question is, how do you do that practically? And the only way to practically do that is to have areas where people have concentrated where where people form a de facto majority, and they are such areas like, for example, when you talk about the Zulus and so forth, the Afrikaner people are pretty much dispersed, although there are some areas where we live more concentrated. But this, for example, and there are some initiatives to get Afrikaners to move closer together. And I think I think that’s a solution that, that we need to really focus on is getting the Afrikaners to move closer.

Tucker [00:40:41] Clustered in Pretoria, was my understanding the majority?

Ernst Roets [00:40:44] Yes, Pretoria and in the Western Cape and the south of the country. And then they were on your initiative in the Northern Cape.

Tucker [00:40:52] So tell us about that. What is Orania?

Ernst Roets [00:40:54] So Orania is a is a cultural communities and Afrikaner cultural community. It’s fairly small. It’s about 3000 people, but it’s growing rapidly. It’s growing by about 12 to 15% per year. And the idea is like it’s a culture. It’s privately owned. It’s a community where the Afrikaner culture can survive and flourish, and it has been growing at quite a pace, even though it’s from a small base. But the idea is to say this is an area where we are the majority and we make our own decisions, we make our own laws, we govern ourselves, we make our own decisions in terms of what happens with our tax money, what happens, you know, with our streets, what type of money.

Tucker [00:41:32] Murder other people, repress other people. And then then why? Maybe you have an answer to this. A neighborhood, a community of 3000 people, which is tiny even by South African standards, has received unrelenting negative media attention in the West. Why is that? Such a moral crime, such an outrage to have a community like that?

Ernst Roets [00:41:57] Yeah, it’s it’s bizarre the extent to which Orania has been attacked, especially in the international media. So I spoke with a friend in Europe recently who said to me, I’ve only read negative things about Orania, but that’s why I like it. Because. Because I know who’s right.

Tucker [00:42:12] A lot of us have reached that conclusion. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:42:15] And so? So in South Africa there are many traditional.

Tucker [00:42:17] Lying is just guys pause and just say the lying is unsustainable when you know you’re up. But open up the New York Times and it’s a safe bet that whatever they’re telling you is the opposite of the truth. Then you’ve reached a point where it’s like, why even have media coverage at that point? You know what I mean? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [00:42:33] Also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority on the, you know, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel that?

Ernst Roets [00:42:33] So in South Africa, there are many cultural communities, like Zulu communities, different, let’s say there are many black cultural communities. And when they are reported on by the media, they would say, this Zulu cultural community, so-and-so or this close our cultural community is doing this. But when it’s raining, they say it’s a whites only enclave. That’s that’s the term they use, even though it’s a cultural community. So so black communities. What has.

Tucker [00:42:55] That? What is that? Why, why, why the hostility. And that’s true globally, by the way, there’s no any white majority country. There are very few left. Very few left. But there’s just suspect because they exist. What is that?

yre has a as a, an explanation of how to make sense of what how how we how we derailed in trying to make sense of the Second World War. I mean, obviously, you know, Hitler was evil and all of that. I mean, no one disagrees with.

Tucker [00:46:09] That, obviously.

Ernst Roets [00:46:09] But so so the wrong lesson from the Second World War is that nationalism is evil or a sense of pride, and your identity is evil. And there are a lot of people who would really like us to believe this, that we need to abolish communal identities.

Tucker [00:46:24] MacIntyre’s line only when they’re white.

Ernst Roets [00:46:27] Yes, yes, yeah, of course, it’s.

Tucker [00:46:28] Actually I don’t think anyone thought the lesson of the war was that nationalism is evil, only that nationalism, when whites do it.

Ernst Roets [00:46:33] Yeah, when whites do it. Yeah. So McIntyre’s line is that that a sense of communal identity and pursuing what is good for your people is a good. And what went wrong with the Second World War was that Hitler was trying to pursue this good at the expense of all other goods. He was detaching this one thing from everything else. And in the end, you cannot do that without committing evil and inflicting evil. And so I think it’s a bizarre situation where we are in currently.

Tucker [00:47:01] But so I thought and think that the lesson the Second World War was that targeting people for violence and discrimination, but especially violence on the basis of their immutable genetic characteristics was wrong. Like I that’s what I was taught.

Ernst Roets [00:47:17] At in here in that.

Tucker [00:47:18] Even I believe that now as much as I’ve ever believed it. And but it’s just crazy to see people say that on the one hand. And then for a lot of people, a lot of our leaders, the lessons the Second World War was no. That’s good. Yeah, actually, you need to target more people on the basis of their immutable ethnic characteristics, their whiteness.

Ernst Roets [00:47:38] Yes.

Tucker [00:47:39] And kill them. Like that’s the lesson. No, that’s the opposite. Yeah. Right.

Ernst Roets [00:47:45] Yeah. Of course. Well, well, so in South Africa and this is part of the bizarre part of it is the ruling party in South Africa. They would write in their own, in their own policy documents. They say our ideology is a blend of race, nationalism and socialism. That’s literally what Nazi means. Now, I’m not saying they’re Nazis, but in some sense they’re calling themselves Nazis. If they say we promote a combination of race, nationalism and sex, I don’t.

Tucker [00:48:10] Think people can hear themselves. I mean, I think even this conversation’s be like, oh, that’s a Nazi. Conversation was like, no, no, we’re arguing. I wanna speak for myself. I’m arguing against what I thought the core idea. Was it or the core bad idea in the Second World War, which is that you should attack people, hurt people because of how they were born.

Ernst Roets [00:48:30] I’m just based on who they are.

Tucker [00:48:32] I’ve always been opposed to that. I will always be opposed to that. But now it’s like complaining about it makes I don’t know. It’s also.

Ernst Roets [00:48:41] You’re not even allowed to say this.

Tucker [00:48:42] It’s also fake. It’s also fake. Like it’s actually this is all a cover for something much more sinister that is not really related to the Second World War. Like, I just don’t think it’s it doesn’t make any sense. As an intellectual exercise, you just, like, immediately hit a brick wall. Yeah. Like what you’re saying is nonsensical. Right.

Ernst Roets [00:49:00] Yeah. Well, it’s difficult to make sense of it because it’s completely irrational.

Tucker [00:49:04] It’s completely irrational. Therefore, I think it’s a lie because it doesn’t even like you don’t even I don’t have especially high IQ. And it’s super obvious to me that it doesn’t make any sense to like what? Really? I guess there’s no answer. I don’t know the answer, but there’s something very deep going on here where the leaders of every country in the world all of a sudden decide this one ethnic group needs to be killed, like, well, I.

Ernst Roets [00:49:28] Think one part of it is something that you’ve said before, which is affluence. The people, people in the Western world have become very affluent and unfortunately, as a result of that, very self-centered. And in many ways they’ve become disconnected from their communities, disconnected from from the tradition.

Tucker [00:49:45] So there’s no doubt about that. But I mean, I would, you know, spend a lot of time in the in the Gulf, in the Persian Gulf. No most affluent countries in the world per capita. I think I mean, they are. And, you know, whatever you think of them, you don’t see a lot of Arab leaders being like, we really were too Arab. That’s the problem where I hate myself for my Arab ness like that doesn’t even occur to them. To their great credit, by the way. I don’t think self-hatred is ever good. I don’t think hating anybody on the basis of race is ever good. It’s it’s only this one group. Yeah, that does it.

Ernst Roets [00:50:18] I’d like to believe, and I hope that I’m right, that it’s it’s a minority within the Western world that really believes this.

Tucker [00:50:24] Stuff, I think.

Ernst Roets [00:50:25] But they have significant power and influence.

Tucker [00:50:27] They do that.

Ernst Roets [00:50:28] They are the editors of newspapers. They are the prime ministers. They are professors at universities and so forth. And those are the people who’s. Promoting this type of idea. And I think most hardworking, ordinary people don’t fall for this.

Tucker [00:50:40] Well, certainly most authentic Christians reject it out of hand immediately.

Ernst Roets [00:50:45] It’s essentially anti-Christian. In many wayw.

Tucker [00:50:47] It is the definition of anti-Christian, I think. I mean, that’s my look. What do I know? Don’t take theology advice from me. But that’s certainly my truest, deepest belief that it’s this is immoral, you know, no matter who it’s done to. Yeah. So one, I should have said this is the answer. But one of the reasons there’s been this real change in people’s willingness in the West to talk about what’s happening in South Africa in an honest way, not with the false pieties of Desmond Tutu was so great. Whatever Desmond Tutu, you know, think of Desmond Tutu. Not much. But we were required to talk about South Africa in a very specific way and to repeat certain cliches at really a gunpoint. And that’s changed in the past couple of months, and it’s really changed due to a South African emigre called Elon Musk. This is my perspective. You tell me yours. But he has made it possible through X, but also through statements he’s made on X to say the obvious, which is this is a crime against a beleaguered minority on the, you know, this is racism against human beings and it’s wrong. What do you feel that?

Ernst Roets [00:51:53] Yes. So I don’t know how much of what is in his biography by Isaacson is true, but it does seem from his biography that he’s had some bad experiences growing up in South Africa, which is unfortunate. And we were we’re still not sure quite how attached he still is to South Africa as a country. But looking at his X and his comments, it’s very clear that he’s interested. And and the strange thing is, even though some people are very angry with him for speaking about South Africa, the only thing that he’s really doing is he’s picking up a mirror and he’s saying, look at what’s happening in South Africa. And he’s he’s just he’s retweeting videos from rallies in South Africa and. Exactly. He’s. He’s literally just saying to people, look at this stuff that’s happening in South Africa.

Tucker [00:52:36] Yeah. What do you think of this? Are you okay with this?

Ernst Roets [00:52:38] You know, I think what a lot of people I think I can speak for a lot of people in saying that we’re really, really grateful for what Elon Musk is doing to shed light on what is happening inside.

Tucker [00:52:48] It must be so weird to live in a country that has received so much attention from Western media, so much attention. I mean, there’s no other country in Africa where your average American knows the name of three famous people. You know what I mean? There’s no I’m not even close to the name. Three famous people from, you know, Congo. Yo, you know, but every American knows about Nelson Mandela, probably Winnie Mandela.

Ernst Roets [00:53:11] Desmond Tutu announcements was also very big. Who became this poor general who was a a advisor to Churchill.

Tucker [00:53:19] Who joined the English in the I think in the First World War, like. Right. You know.

Ernst Roets [00:53:23] Yes. First and Second World War.

Tucker [00:53:25] Right. But the first war was, you know, not even 15 years after the Boer War. So that was a pretty remarkable decision that he made. I don’t think most people are that in tune, but yeah, they know the bigger ones. But of what happened post 94 and they know all about apartheid and all that. But it must be so weird to be living in this country where all this stuff is happening and nobody is saying anything about it.

Ernst Roets [00:53:50] Yeah, it’s it’s crazy. It really is. And I have to say, the last few months has been quite a ride in terms of what we, you know, the, the executive order signed by President Trump and statements coming from the US.

Tucker [00:54:03] To tell us about that executive order, if you don’t mind.

Ernst Roets [00:54:05] So so the executive order is, is a very strong reprimanding of what the South African government is doing. It says that the South African government is well, as Trump said, is treating certain sections of society very badly. And and this and that the you ever.

Tucker [00:54:22] Call that’s it. That’s the Trump thing. Yes.

Ernst Roets [00:54:25] And ever.

Tucker [00:54:25] Said.

Ernst Roets [00:54:26] And the US will not stand for this. And so it boils down to the sanctions in an important way, which is not. And one part of it says that that they will grant refugee status to Afrikaners if they want to go to the US, which I don’t think, in all fairness, we really grateful for that, for the public stance taken by the US and in a certain sense they haven’t gone far enough. But in a certain sense, I don’t think the the granting of refugee status is is much of a solution. Some people will take that up, but that’s why I told you the story of the Battle of Blood River and The Vow. We are culturally very, very attached to to South Africa. And so most.

Tucker [00:55:07] Think your family got to South Africa around the time my family got the United States, and.

Ernst Roets [00:55:11] This is hundreds of years.

Tucker [00:55:12] Is my country.

Ernst Roets [00:55:12] I think I’m ninth generation. And and so.

Tucker [00:55:16] I also have a mother of English descent. And I’m also on, unlike you. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sorry. Just kidding. Sort of. Not really, but. But you know, of course, I mean, it’s your country. I mean, what? At that point. What? You know.

Ernst Roets [00:55:29] So I think I think what a better response from the US could be is to take a firm stance against what is happening in terms of what the South African government is doing. But then to say, how can the US support minority groups in South Africa who are really working for some form of self-determination? I think America should recognize that it does have part in the problem in terms of what happened. Historic. Are you.

Tucker [00:55:56] Kidding? Yes it does, big time.

Ernst Roets [00:55:58] Yes. And therefore I it’s it’s reasonable and I think it’s fair. And I’m, I’m hesitant to say this because I’m not an American, but I think it’s reasonable to say that America has some form of a moral responsibility not to fix South Africa, but at least to to try to rework this mess that has been created because it was involved in creating this mess.

Tucker [00:56:17] We’ve mobilized our State Department to defend, quote, trans rights in the Donbass. Okay. We’ve wade into every sectarian conflict in this world for the past 80 years. Yeah, I think we can certainly say that a minority group targeted for genocide in the country we’ve been involved in really intimately and for my entire life, that that group has a right not to be killed and to have some measure of self-determination. I think we can do that. Yeah. That’s not too big.

Ernst Roets [00:56:42] Absolutely right. Yeah. And the solution, I would say the most sustainable solution is to help such communities to to govern themselves, to have self-determination. And it’s not only obviously it would be in our interest, but but I think it’s also in the interest of the West and of America.

Tucker [00:56:57] So just on principle, like every other group in the world, has the right to its own homeland, except white people. Like what? Yeah. Like, tell me. Just explain to me how that makes sense. Either no group has the right or every group has the right. It’s really that simple. And if you want to say no, group has. Right. Okay. You might even convince me, I don’t know. I’m not a race guy, actually, by my temperament at all. I’d kind of like to ignore it, but as long as some groups have a right to self-determination, then every group has a right. It’s that simple. Yeah. And if there’s a special carve out where one group doesn’t have a right, you have to explain to me why that group doesn’t have that right. Yeah, absolutely.

Ernst Roets [00:57:30] No, it’s absolutely fair. Well, I think South Africa is a I mean, what the hell is.

Tucker [00:57:35] Why are we playing along with this nonsense?

Ernst Roets [00:57:38] Yeah. It’s this this narrative has become this massive stream that it’s turned into a rapids on a river that just pulls everyone along. And this narrative just says, if you’re white, then there’s inherently something wrong with you.

Tucker [00:57:50] It doesn’t make any sense. And it’s leading toward a really bad conclusion, obviously, as it as it has for every other group targeted in this way has really suffered in a bit. And there are a lot of them. Okay. It’s not you know, there are a lot of them. Yep. And it never ends up well. And I just don’t know why we’re playing along where you’re not even allowed to say how you haven’t been. I don’t care anymore, obviously. But again, either every group has a right to self-determination or no group does. You can’t have this system where, you know, some groups do or all groups do, but one. No, no, no, it’s all or nothing on this.

Ernst Roets [00:58:27] Yeah, well, I can tell.

Tucker [00:58:28] Me how I’m.

Ernst Roets [00:58:29] Wrong. No. Well, I can guarantee you that. That when I get back home, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble for this interview. It’s.

Tucker [00:58:36] I don’t know why, though. I mean, like, what’s the what’s the kind of argument? I don’t I don’t really get it. Like, what is the kind of argument? There’s only one group on the entire face of the planet that doesn’t have the right that every other group has. Like, tell me how.

Ernst Roets [00:58:47] It’s it’s it’s it’s really like.

Tucker [00:58:50] Maybe there’s a good answer. I’m waiting for it.

Ernst Roets [00:58:52] No. Well, we don’t know what the answer is.

Tucker [00:58:53] So there is no answer. And so because there is no answer, the way that uniformity is maintained is just through threats like shut up. Yeah. You’re a bad person for saying that you’re a Nazi. It’s like, no, no, I hate the Nazis. I must speak for myself. Yeah, the Nazis, of course. I hate the idea that people are attacked for something they can’t control, like how they’re born. Yeah. Their genetics. I just don’t believe in that. I never will. I’m a Christian. I don’t believe in it. You can call me whatever you want. I’m actually making the opposite case. And I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. And if defending the right of people not to be murdered because of how they were born is a crime, then I’ll plead to it. Yep. But I actually think that the only thing the people currently in charge of most of the world, certainly of the West, are good at, is seizing the moral high ground. And they don’t deserve it. They haven’t earned it. They’re rotten. Their ideas are rotten, and they don’t deserve to lecture the rest of us about our moral inferiority. While they’re endorsing the murder of people for how they were born. Sorry.

Ernst Roets [00:59:52] It’s a house of cards, you know.

Tucker [00:59:53] So it’s not this house of cards. It’s exactly right.

Ernst Roets [00:59:56] Yeah, it’s built, and it’s a very shining house of cards, and it’s very proud of its accomplishments, but it’s not sustainable. So South Africa has been a victim of waste and imperialism.

Tucker [01:00:07] I’m aware in.

Ernst Roets [01:00:08] Many ways ideologically currently ideological imperialism. But also but and this is interesting, the ANC that’s governing South Africa today was founded just after the unionization of South Africa in 1910. And they said that this this was one of the major triggers that sparked us to start this movement. And the unionization was after the Boer War, before the Union. South Africa was a a variety of different republics and colonies. Yes, governing themselves and unionization effectively meant that all of these different subsidiary authorities were combined into one big South Africa as we know it today. The borders of South Africa were actually drawn pretty much by the British in 1910, and the ANC were vehemently opposed.

Tucker [01:00:51] A long history of border drawing. Yes.

Ernst Roets [01:00:54] You see this when you have this completely straight, you know, that’s that’s artificial. But and so the borders we have for South Africa today was a product of Western imperialism. And now those in power with love very much like to maintain these borders because they have control. And so if we are truly anti-colonialism and anti-imperialist. We should we should return to a position where people govern themselves. We should rethink the borders.

Tucker [01:01:19] You’ll never be allowed to do that. I mean, let’s just cut right to the the knobs part of this that will not be allowed is never been allowed. You will need either to get to force, which I pray you don’t because I hate that I hate killing. Or you will need the assistance of a powerful outside force, that force that makes it happen. That’s just a fact. Is that fair to say?

Ernst Roets [01:01:42] Yeah. No, I think it’s fair to say.

Tucker [01:01:43] I mean. Right, so anyone who says I want to kill you, you know, kill the boar, you’re subhuman. Those are not people are going to say, yeah, go ahead and create your own independent state and not bother anybody because you’re going to be way more successful and prosperous than they are, and they’re going to hate you on the basis of envy. Of course, that’s already happening.

Ernst Roets [01:02:03] And we have to ask them nicely to make certain concessions.

Tucker [01:02:06] Now, I guess it’s not going to happen. So. So what is your plan?

Ernst Roets [01:02:11] Well, I think the, the plan is to to firstly to be well organized communities, to have a very strong sense of community, a sense of pride in who we are, to remain Christian and have a strong faith, strong family ties and so forth. That’s where it starts. And then other than that, the second step, you might say the plan is to to just create certain realities on ground level. So it’s one thing to say, you know, we want more authority or more self-determination, but you have to, in a sense, create that so that what you have created can be recognized. It’s there’s no point in saying, well, you guys can have your own place, but that place doesn’t exist. So, so I think, I think what the Afrikaner people need to do is, is in a large, to a large extent, built their own self-determination. And I think that that’s what we what we intend to do. But it would help a lot if we can get recognition for this pursuit as a legitimate pursuit.

Tucker [01:03:04] So you don’t think I sort of just didn’t ask you to pause? I should have you began this segment of the conversation by saying the current scheme, the current arrangement, is not going to work. Yep. I think most people I’m certainly I as an outsider, instinctively kind of want it to work.

Ernst Roets [01:03:23] Well, it’s a good story. It sounds like a good story.

Tucker [01:03:25] Yeah. It is. I mean, I’ll admit to being kind of a dopey liberal in some ways. I really prefer the idea of, you know, people living together in harmony. It’s just. I just feel that way. I can help it. That’s my enlightenment legacy or something I think you should do with reality. And I definitely don’t think you should be allowed to kill people because the way they look. Period. Oh, so by the way, why how did these people why did they go on TV? Like they’re on the right side? They’re like endorsing genocide. Like I don’t understand. I don’t understand how they’ve been allowed to get away with being on Winnie Mandela side and feeling self-righteous. I just don’t get that. I think it’s disgusting. Whatever. I said that five times, I can’t say enough. But how do you know it won’t work? Like ANC obviously isn’t a criminal gang. Totally incompetent. You don’t have electricity on the dam. It’s not working. They’re just stealing everything. Got it. Stealing the copper out of the wires. But there’s not another political coalition that could run it effectively.

Ernst Roets [01:04:24] Oh, so. So you mentioned electricity in Johannesburg. The mayor just a few days ago announced that people should just wait seven days and then they will have water. So it’s not just an electricity problem. There’s a water problem.

Tucker [01:04:36] It’s waterproof. You’re gonna have a food problem at some point.

Ernst Roets [01:04:38] Well, if the farmers are targeted. Yes. So so there are many reasons why it’s not working and why it won’t work. And well, everything you can think of points to that direction. One is just the data, as I said, like you can look at the levels of how crime is increasing, how unemployment is increasing. Our government service delivery is increasingly failing. Everything, everything. I honestly health how health is, is deteriorating everything except tax collection. That’s one aspect of it. Another aspect of it is just the extent to which people in South Africa are turning their back on politics. There’s this political vacuum in South Africa, and you can see it, for example, with the extent to which people have stopped voting, how voter turnout has dropped significantly in elections. People just don’t get interested. They vote reluctantly, those who do. So that’s one aspect.

Tucker [01:05:29] Interesting.

Ernst Roets [01:05:31] Even so.

Tucker [01:05:31] Why do you think that? Because they feel hopeless.

Ernst Roets [01:05:33] Because they feel the political establishment is completely disconnected. They don’t. It doesn’t resonate with him. They don’t. People vote for parties even though they don’t really like them. But they think this is of all the parties. I don’t like any of them, but this one is the least bad, so I’ll vote for that one. So there’s a complete disconnect between the politicians or the political elite in South Africa, even the opposition parties and the people. And so there’s this political vacuum that has developed and this vacuum is filled. As my friend Aronson settle in South Africa says, either by the good guys or the bad guys. It’s filled by the bad guys in terms of organized crime. So we have these mafias and gangs coming to the fore with significant power, and to such an extent that the government is afraid of them. Or it can be found.

Tucker [01:06:17] That is the story globally, isn’t it?

Ernst Roets [01:06:19] Yeah. Well, yeah.

Tucker [01:06:21] The drug cartels are one of the most powerful governments in the world, or they’re not even in government.

Ernst Roets [01:06:24] It’s incredible. Yeah. So we have a construction mafia, for example. If you if you build a shopping center, the construction mafia turns up and they tell you you need to employ our people, or else we’re going to sabotage your building and, you know, stuff like that. And it’s it’s a regular.

Tucker [01:06:38] Thing and you can’t fight.

Ernst Roets [01:06:39] Them. No, you can’t, you can’t fight them. And but the vacuum can be filled by the good guys. And that’s well organized communities who take control of what is important to them. And so the future is very and that’s what analysts and scenario analysts and so forth have been saying that the future is one of deterioration, where you will have communities who will be much worse off than they are today because of the bad guys filling the void. And you might have flourishing communities because of good guys filling the void. And so that’s another reason. But I think the most important fundamental underlying reason why it’s not sustainable is it’s a political system that is detached from the reality in South Africa. The reality is the distance from Cape Town, the south to the north, or South Africa is the distance from Rome to London. So it’s a big country number one. But it’s not homogenous by any means. It’s very diverse. Yes, 11 official languages.

Tucker [01:07:36] It’s not just just to restate. It’s not just black and white at all.

Ernst Roets [01:07:39] No no no no no, it certainly not. Indian communities is what we call colored communities and Africa. And they are various different tribes. You could say all cultural communities within among black South Africans and among white South Africans. So it’s very diverse, different languages, different cultures. There’s a and and now we have this political system that just says you have individual rights. And, and in some ways the Constitution, even though it was very much celebrated when it was adopted, it was called the Constitution in the world, and the most liberal, most democratic, and so forth.

Tucker [01:08:11] The Constitution guarantees everything, but you get nothing.

Ernst Roets [01:08:13] Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. So we have what they call third generation rights first, second and third. It’s a very vast network of rights that you have in theory and but but then the question is, so there’s this idea that the highest authority is the Constitution, but it’s not possible for a written document to have the highest authority. The highest authority is with the person who gets to interpret it. So if, if say so.

Tucker [01:08:37] Boy, is that true. So then.

Ernst Roets [01:08:39] So for example, section 25 of the Constitution in South Africa, which the government is trying to change, it’s a private property rights clause. They want to change it, but currently it says the government can expropriate your property if it’s in the public interest. Now, if you ask me as a Westerner, when is it in public interest to expropriate property? It would be something like they have to build a big highway, Or maybe there’s a military emergency or something like that. If you ask one of if you ask a judge who is founded in this ideology we’ve just spoken of, they would say it’s in the public interest for white people not to own land. So so it’s a question of interpretation. You can have a wonderful document, but it boils down to how do you interpret it. And so and that’s why I’m saying it’s not compatible with with realities on ground level. And you know we can. And then there have been many lawfare in South Africa, many, many, many South Africans, a very good example of political court cases. And we’ve won many and we’ve lost many. But it’s it’s, it’s it’s a it’s a ship that is sinking. That’s the.

Tucker [01:09:37] One. It all seems fake. I mean, it seems like and I again, one of the reason I’m so fascinated by your country is I think it’s it’s on a trajectory that I recognize as an American. So you have these legacy institutions that sort of go through the kabuki of dispensing justice. But it’s not justice, actually. It’s totally disconnected from justice doesn’t mean anything.

Ernst Roets [01:09:57] Yes.

Tucker [01:09:58] And you have this Constitution which is beautiful, which is, you know, ignorant. The only power resides in the people who interpret it, as you said. And so then you reached kind of the endpoint or the most recent endpoint, which is the idea that whites can own land. Can you explain this?

Ernst Roets [01:10:15] Yes. So they have been trying to change the South African constitution, the property rights clause, to empower the government to expropriate private property without compensation. That’s the buzzword. It’s just just.

Tucker [01:10:25] Steal the land.

Ernst Roets [01:10:25] Yeah, it’s they call it it’s expropriation without compensation, but it’s confiscation of property. That’s what it is.

Tucker [01:10:31] Well, how is expropriation without compensation different from stealing?

Ernst Roets [01:10:34] No, exactly.

Tucker [01:10:35] But shoplifting.

Ernst Roets [01:10:37] It’s just it’s it’s flabbergasting to see the extent to which, again, academics and analysts and journalists are rushing to the defense of the South African government in South Africa. Yes. So, yes, one of the many bizarre things that they would say, they would say, this is all a lie. You guys are lying. It’s not expropriation without compensation. It’s expropriation without compensation. But compensation can be null. So it can be zero compensation.

Tucker [01:11:03] So it’s not happening, but it’s a good thing than it is. Yeah. That’s it. That’s it as always. Right.

Ernst Roets [01:11:07] And so the president has just signed the expropriation bill in South Africa, which is now which they now. Oh he signed it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. So so and so there’s still an attempt to change the Constitution and there’s now a new bill in, in, in process. It was just announced, I think a week ago that they want to pass through Parliament that says that 80% of that’s what it boils down to. That 80% of land or property in South Africa must be owned by black people. So because it’s it it must be racially representative. And so I want to tell you a quick story about this, because it sort of highlights the ideology. I was at a land summit in South Africa, and a spokesperson for the Department of Land Reform spoke, and it was very clear from his speech that the problem is white people owning land. It was a racial thing. It was very clear. But it’s, it’s it’s colored with words like restitution and and correcting historic injustices and so forth. And so I asked him at this summit, I said to give here’s an example. And what would the government’s position be on this? The example is a white guy owns a farm. The government takes it from him to correct historic injustices, and they give it to a black guy, and it’s a black farmer. And maybe a year or two down the line, this black farmer decides he doesn’t want to be a farmer anymore. He wants to sell this land. And the buyer is white. And now there’s a white farmer again. What’s the government’s position on this? And the spokesperson for the department says in that case, the correction of the injustice has been reversed. So it’s it’s it’s completely bizarre.

Tucker [01:12:41] And then what’s interesting is we’ve seen this exact movie frame by frame, right next door in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, which was one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, one of the big tobacco producers in Africa.

Ernst Roets [01:12:54] It’s a it’s very sad what happened to that.

Tucker [01:12:57] Well, it’s shocking, but it’s again, it’s, you know, like organized government sponsored racism doesn’t work. And I don’t care how often The New York Times defends it. It’s always the same. And what that is like right next door to you. And you have a refugee crisis in your country because of it.

Ernst Roets [01:13:15] And our government are willing. So what do.

Tucker [01:13:17] They say to.

Ernst Roets [01:13:18] That? No, they say that Robert Mugabe is a hero and that Zanu pf the party’s party.

Tucker [01:13:23] Yeah, yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:13:24] Is is a good party and it’s a liberation force and we respect them. Okay.

Tucker [01:13:28] So again no one wants to use the term. But this is this is genocide. I mean that’s what that is. It’s like targeting a group of people for extinction elimination on the basis of immutable characteristics. Like I don’t know what is there another genocide, a genocide definition I’m not aware of.

Ernst Roets [01:13:45] Well, you I think I think you can say they are threats, threats of that happening. I there’s not a genocide happening.

Tucker [01:13:50] And I’m not saying there is I’m saying that’s what’s going like. What’s the other end point here?

Ernst Roets [01:13:55] Well, well.

Tucker [01:13:56] You’re not human. You can’t own land. You should be killed. What am I?

Ernst Roets [01:14:00] And yeah, if you own land, by definition, that’s illegitimate. Regardless of whether you bought the land, it doesn’t matter how you got the land.

Tucker [01:14:06] Because of your race.

Ernst Roets [01:14:07] Because of your race? Yes.

Tucker [01:14:08] Okay, if we can’t say that’s wrong, then you know anyone who can’t say that’s wrong and you want to make excuses for that as a dangerous person? I don’t know what else to say. Put another group in there. I don’t care what group it is.

Ernst Roets [01:14:21] So? So the ANC in South Africa wanted to. They have this process of name changes. And by the way, this targeting of statues came from South Africa. It’s happening in America. It started in South Africa, you know, burning down statues and so forth. So and they’ve had this long process of name changes. And one thing they wanted to do change the street in which the US embassy is in South Africa to Fidel Castro Avenue. And that’s one story. The other one is they wanted to change one of the main streets in Pretoria to name it of the multitude. And then some of the opposition parties said, are you crazy? Do you know what Mao Tse tung did? And the response was, remember, Mao was never convicted of any crime.

Tucker [01:14:58] So it’s so I say it does seem not only like one of the worst governments in the world, but one of the dumbest also.

Ernst Roets [01:15:08] Well, so I think I think there’s but there’s some explanation as to why the South African government has gone so off the rails, and it’s that they’ve gotten a free pass for decades.

Tucker [01:15:18] Yeah, that’s right.

Ernst Roets [01:15:18] Because of this narrative, they could do and say whatever they want. They got no criticism or very little criticism, no very careful criticism. And that’s why I think they they they’ve gone ballistic after the recent comments by Trump and people like Elon Musk and so have that.

Tucker [01:15:33] I’m sorry, I don’t I don’t follow it that closely. Have they. Those comments were noticed and.

Ernst Roets [01:15:37] Said, oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s a it’s the biggest story in South Africa at the moment really.

Tucker [01:15:42] And what are they saying?

Ernst Roets [01:15:43] Well, they’re saying that we’ve the organizations that I was involved with at the time, they’ve committed treason that we’ve been charged for treason.

Tucker [01:15:50] You’ve been charged with treason? Yeah. For what?

Ernst Roets [01:15:53] For speaking well, among others. For me. Speaking with you about what’s happened to treason. Yeah, because it’s bad mouthing your country. That’s.

Tucker [01:16:00] That’s the argument I am.

Ernst Roets [01:16:02] So I don’t know if it was this one of the opposition parties.

Tucker [01:16:06] I wanted to go to Cape Town for Christmas. Just on vacation. I didn’t have time in the end.

Ernst Roets [01:16:10] But you left?

Tucker [01:16:11] Probably. I probably shouldn’t go without your saying.

Ernst Roets [01:16:14] No, no. You should come to South Africa now. You should definitely come, buddy. I don’t know if there’s going to as much as will come from the treason charges, but that’s certainly. Yeah, but you’ve.

Tucker [01:16:23] Been charged with treason. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:16:24] They were. They were official complaints filed at the police. Yes, yes.

Tucker [01:16:29] What’s the penalty for treason in South Africa?

Ernst Roets [01:16:31] It would be imprisonment. We don’t have the date. We don’t have the death penalty.

Tucker [01:16:34] No, they just as Nicholas. You. It’s informal.

Ernst Roets [01:16:38] Well, I’m. I’m honestly. Seriously, I’m more concerned if the questions about safety, about mob justice in South Africa than than the actual government coming off the horse.

Tucker [01:16:49] So what does that look like?

Ernst Roets [01:16:51] Well, we we have we I think you reported on this in 20 2021. I think when there was this massive riots in South Africa, when they just in.

Tucker [01:17:01] Durban.

Ernst Roets [01:17:02] In Durban. And then I remember that, yeah, it sort of spilled out to routing to Johannesburg to a lesser extent. And it’s just people it’s almost like, you know, smelling blood and becoming extremely violent. Oh yeah. And then people join in by the thousands.

Tucker [01:17:15] I’ve, I’ve seen that with my own eyes a couple of times. Yeah. It’s really scary.

Ernst Roets [01:17:20] So someone, a friend from Europe once asked me, are you not afraid that the government is going to come to your house and take your stuff? And my honest answer is not that much. I’m more concerned about a mob showing up.

Tucker [01:17:32] And so then what do you do?

Ernst Roets [01:17:34] Well, if if you are alone, you can’t do anything. If you’re a well functioning, well organized community, then the community, you can call people on the radio. You can you can get the community to take a stance. And I think I think that’s one too.

Tucker [01:17:46] So you don’t get lynched.

Ernst Roets [01:17:47] Yes.

Tucker [01:17:48] You got a lot of lynchings. And so I mean, that’s again added to the irony file. I mean, South Africa is like the world capital of lynching.

Ernst Roets [01:17:55] Yes.

Tucker [01:17:56] Oh I noticed.

Ernst Roets [01:17:56] Yeah. It’s not so much white people who are.

Tucker [01:17:59] Targeted, I’m aware know it of blacks.

Ernst Roets [01:18:01] Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah. That that certainly it has happened in the previous dispensation. It’s still happening to an extent. Not as much as in the past, but people don’t know that it’s still happening.

Tucker [01:18:10] And to people accused of crimes and. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:18:12] And it’s partly due to the fact that the police is absent. Right. So especially in townships, someone is a rapist and the police doesn’t show up, doesn’t do anything, and then the local community just deals with him. That type of thing happens.

Tucker [01:18:25] In a very brutal way. Yes, yes.

Ernst Roets [01:18:29] Yeah, it does happen in a brutal way.

Tucker [01:18:31] Yeah. Yeah. I I’ve noticed like pretty shocking. Like almost like I wouldn’t want to describe it.

Ernst Roets [01:18:37] Yeah. Yeah I mentioned the Nicholas murders before. So we, we have that and it’s the same with the xenophobic violence. It’s It’s very unfortunate. And if we had a well-functioning police service, maybe that would have helped. But we don’t. So. So in South Africa, the we can check the numbers. I’m pretty sure the private security sphere in South Africa is almost as big as private security in America. But America’s much larger private security in South Africa is more than double the police and the army combined. If you add the police and the army up together and you multiplied by two private security, the amount of private security officers in South Africa, security guards is, do you.

Tucker [01:19:16] Have the right of self-defense, the right to defend yourself and your family?

Ernst Roets [01:19:21] We do have the right to self-defense. We can own firearms, although it’s not as easy as in America. Yes, but you can you can do that. And you can get arms, especially through a private security company. You can there’s some room to make sure that you can protect yourself.

Tucker [01:19:34] And does it work?

Ernst Roets [01:19:35] Yes, yes. In terms of the farm murders, we’ve seen that statistically that that in communities where areas or communities where people are well organized with our videos, where they drive patrols, where they are trained, there’s a decrease in four murders. You can clearly see that actually, in the last few years, the phone murder numbers have come down a bit. And it’s not because because the the incitement has gotten better. It’s not because the police is more efficient. It’s because local communities have become much more involved with their own safety. And so that’s certainly one of the most important building blocks of the.

Tucker [01:20:12] So what now that the president I’m using air quotes again around president, I mean, the whole system is fake. Obviously it doesn’t affect justice. It doesn’t improve the lives of its citizens. It’s a no sense of legitimate government. And by the way, it’s not the only illegitimate government in the world. But but anyway, what happens when they try? The government tries to put this law into effect to try and act on it. You know, the government shows up your house as you can’t. You know, you’ve lived in the same plot for 100 years. You can’t have a because you’re white. We’re taking it like what? How do people comply?

Ernst Roets [01:20:47] No, no, people won’t comply. No, I mean, that’s partly why I told this story at the beginning is the Afrikaner people and the farmers are very stubborn. This in Afrikaans we say R2 hard hit it. So this I will.

Tucker [01:21:00] Farmers. You have to be stubborn to be a farmer in the first place.

Ernst Roets [01:21:03] Yes, and especially a farmer in private equity.

Tucker [01:21:05] I mean, it’s easier.

Ernst Roets [01:21:06] Yes, exactly. So it’s, it’s it’s a common trope among farmers to say that I would rather die on my farm than to hand it over to the government. And so I think if they really tried to act on it, which they haven’t tried, they are land invasions in South Africa, but it’s not so much the government, it’s mobs and gangs and so forth invading people’s land. But if they really tried to act on these attempts at expropriation, there’s going to be a massive backlash. And that’s there’s no doubt. So what they would say is this is actually what the government is up that that we need to do what happened in Zimbabwe, but without violence. But that’s how they would argue it.

Tucker [01:21:46] And that’s just how we need to. What happened in Zimbabwe?

Ernst Roets [01:21:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this time with it’s one of the.

Tucker [01:21:50] Worst crimes of my lifetime.

Ernst Roets [01:21:52] Yeah. Well, they say publicly. Yeah, you can find it online. And so the argument is but but we are we’re going to do it a bit better. We’re going to do it without violence. But what that means is we’re going to do what happened in Zimbabwe. And you are not going to resist. That’s what it means. But obviously people will resist when they try to do that. There’s no doubt about it. But I do think the government is very incompetent. You know, they have these very radical ideas. I don’t know if there is a competency competency to actually go through.

Tucker [01:22:20] That’s that’s the absolute. I lived in Washington, DC almost my whole life. And that was absolutely true there. You know, the government make all these local government make all these threatening noises, do this, do that, do the other thing. It’s against the law to do this. Whatever. And you just kind of ignore people. Just ignore it.

Ernst Roets [01:22:35] And so there are some business organizations in South Africa who now use the term maximum appropriate noncompliance. That’s what they encourage private companies to do. So it’s a form of civil disobedience. It’s with all these big that’s these black empowerment lawyers just say we’re just not going to comply.

Tucker [01:22:54] I know someone who had a thriving business. He built himself in South Africa. And the government shut up and said, you’re handing half your business to your new partner who didn’t do anything. Just show up and collect the money. And it’s just he stole half his business. Because it’s all theft. I mean, it doesn’t. I know that black South Africans haven’t gotten richer in the last third. No.

Ernst Roets [01:23:12] No. And the government owns the land. Most of the land that they expropriate, they don’t give it to people. It goes to the government.

Tucker [01:23:17] So what the government did say, like, how about no, look, you’ve no legitimacy and you haven’t been here any longer than I’ve been here. And you have, I mean, and I have guns too. So, like, I’m not participating. How’s that? Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:23:30] Well, civil disobedience can be a wonderful thing. And we’ve had some examples of successful civil disobedience campaigns in South Africa, where the government had this. They call it the e-toll system. It’s like a big tax system on the highways that just it’s an electronic text toll system that. But people just by the thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands just refuse to to comply to get the tags and so forth. And eventually they had to stop it because even though it was law, people just didn’t do it. And the same with Covid. Covid was a good example that a lot of. We’ve had a bizarre Covid. I mean, everyone has had a bizarre Covid, so we had these strange laws like you can’t buy flip flops during Covid.

Tucker [01:24:07] Yeah, those are deadly.

Ernst Roets [01:24:08] Yeah, yeah. And you cannot buy shorts, all that and stuff. You cannot buy cooked chicken. We had these really, really bizarre Covid laws. It’s a crime to buy cooked chicken or to sell cooked chicken during Covid. And so people just people just said, well, we don’t care. We just going to do what we want. And so there was a massive civil disobedience phenomenon in South Africa during the Covid lockdown. And so I think people have learned and the government couldn’t do anything about it. I think people have learned that and that that you can actually do a lot if you just don’t comply with these completely ridiculous, irrational laws.

Tucker [01:24:47] That sounds I mean, I I’m the one in South Africa. But again, I have lived in Washington, D.C., so that sounds totally right to me. I wonder, though, about what you said us, that when we first started with this, about the the mob justice. That does sound scary to me.

Ernst Roets [01:25:03] I think that’s that’s a bigger threat.

Tucker [01:25:05] What do you do about that? How do you live in a country where, you know, like your neighbors could rise up against you?

Ernst Roets [01:25:12] Yeah. So? So, so we’ve had some examples of this. It started with the Rhodes Must Fall movement. The it was a oh the roads. Oh this will John roads. So this one guy defecated on Cecil John roads. A statue at was a duke. What university was it in in in Cape Town. And then they started this movement dedicated on. Yeah, yeah.

Tucker [01:25:34] That’s attractive. Well, that’s kind of that’s kind of like the level actually that you’re dealing with.

Ernst Roets [01:25:40] Yeah. And so they.

Tucker [01:25:41] Jumped on it.

Ernst Roets [01:25:41] They started this movement of tearing down statues, which eventually boiled over to America. And that’s how it got to America. It started in and it boiled down over to Europe and so forth. But it started with that, the targeting of statues. I think it was 2012 or something. It was. Yeah, maybe before that even. And it became a mob. It and and they, they, they wore T-shirts with slogans like kill the whites, like on the t shirts. And, and it became very violent and very overtly racist. And it was students running around just, you know, setting things on fire, burning down buildings and stuff like that so that that is a real threat. And then later we had the Feesmustfall movement that was university students demanding that education must be free. You shouldn’t pay to go to university. And it was the same thing. And now we’ve had these more recently we’ve had political parties sort of taken up that thing, this kill the Bush and so forth. And so I honestly think in South Africa, the threat of mob violence is a bigger threat than the golf.

Tucker [01:26:43] Course it is. Of course it is. And, you know, that’s where you get killed in situations like that, I think. So what do you I mean, you have to be pretty well organized. Pretty well armed.

Ernst Roets [01:26:56] Well, the the thing is, there’s no silver bullet. There’s no one thing that we can do to make sure that we’re equipped to withstand that. But if there is a silver bullet, it would be or the closest to it it would be. What I mentioned earlier is well organized communities, communities that have a sense of community that that recognize that you have a sense of responsibility not just towards yourself and your own family, but towards your community, and that you have some form of a communal identity that is under threat, that is being targeted. And you have to protect yourself. You have to fulfill a bunch of functions that the government is not fulfilling, even though you’re paying them to do it. They’re not doing it. So you have to look after your own safety. You need to have a gun. You need to have a bulletproof vest. You need to have. Or if you don’t, in at least a significant amount of people in your in your community must, especially those who are more interested in this type of thing. You need to be well organized. You need to be prepared if something bad happens in your community, if the mob comes, if they set the shopping mall on fire, or if they come for people’s houses, that in a very short time frame, you can get a whole bunch of people mobilized to protect their community. And with these riots in 2021, that was a good case study because some communities were completely unprepared and they were virtually destroyed, and some communities were very well prepared. And when the mobs arrived, there was a bunch of people with guns waiting for them. And I saw.

Tucker [01:28:20] That video of the South Asian communities in type in the big South Asian, big Indians, his community there, and I don’t know if this is representative, but the videos I saw, man, they were not putting up with it at all.

Ernst Roets [01:28:31] Yeah, they were very well armed. Yes.

Tucker [01:28:34] Yeah. It’s like some heroic Indians out there. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:28:37] There was one, I think some guy with something that looked like a minigun on the back of a pickup truck. I don’t know where they got that, but I don’t know. But that’s, that’s an example. It was another.

Tucker [01:28:47] That I, you know, these videos are all out of context. I’m not. Yeah. I don’t know that I read this, but I just assume we have got some brave Indians and yes.

Ernst Roets [01:28:53] Yes I do. We have some brave Indians. We do. But and they were they were other examples. One was a the mob was approaching a town and the people were waiting for them on a bridge. And then they got there. They just couldn’t enter because the people had just cordoned off their own town and their own village or community, and they weren’t able to enter. So we’ve had some case studies of this. It’s South Africa’s a fascinating case study for a lot of things.

Tucker [01:29:17] It certainly is. It certainly is. There’s just a dumb question, a childish question. Why, if I’m the government of South Africa, it’s like, why are you going after productive people? For one thing, the most productive. And that would include the Indians, the Afrikaners, by the way, some of the black African immigrants here, Zimbabweans like these are like are some of the most productive people in America. Why not just live in harmony, actually. So what would it be better for everybody?

Ernst Roets [01:29:49] Of course. Of course it would be better. I think it’s because they have. When they took power in 1994, they explicitly said, we are not a political party. We are not a government in terms of what people think a government should be. We are a liberation movement committed to the promotion of socialism and committed to the promotion of black nationalism. And that’s that’s the idea.

Tucker [01:30:10] I said that 94.

Ernst Roets [01:30:11] Yeah, they even said that before 94. They published.

Tucker [01:30:14] So it’s just I know I’m going back to the same themes. I’m getting older. Sorry, but like, no, but I mean, I actually did know that because as I said, I’ve always been interested and I knew people there. But nobody in the American press mentioned that. Not one.

Ernst Roets [01:30:29] Yeah. There’s a well-known book that was an international bestseller, My Traitor’s Heart, by a guy called Ryan Mullen. It’s sort of his autobiography. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so there’s one section in that book. I know, Ryan, I know the author is a great guy, but in the book he writes.

Tucker [01:30:45] About these in English. I don’t know if he wrote it off originally, but it’s a beautifully written book.

Ernst Roets [01:30:50] It’s very well written, very nice. He speaks like he writes. Oh he does. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so there’s one part in the book where he talks about picking up the New York Times, and I’m sort of saying this from memory, from reading the book. But broadly speaking, what he says is he picks up the New York Times in, I don’t know, 1992 or something in, in New York or wherever. And there’s two stories next on the same page. The one is about the ANC and Nelson Mandela coming to save South Africa. And then the other story is a somewhat smaller story About a guy being Nicholas in a local community, a guy being viciously attacked and killed. And so he writing that book that what what concerned him was that The New York Times was not able to connect these two stories to each other. Yeah. They didn’t recognize that. It’s part of the same story. It’s presented as two completely different.

Tucker [01:31:40] I think they knew exactly. I think it was very obvious. So I was 25 and 1994 and it was very obvious to me. And I, you know, I don’t think I have any special powers of insight. I think you would have to be lying to yourself or lying to your audience not to acknowledge it. And by the way, it’s 1994. That’s less than 20 years after the cameras took power in Nam Pen in Cambodia.

Ernst Roets [01:32:04] That was while the Rwandan genocide was happening.

Tucker [01:32:07] It was the same years the World War two was later that year. So the same.

Ernst Roets [01:32:10] Month, even the the election at least was.

Tucker [01:32:14] In July.

Ernst Roets [01:32:15] April, may, may, may. Okay. Right.

Tucker [01:32:18] Right. Yeah. Yeah, I remember them both very well and I knew people in both places at the time. But I remember thinking, you know, obviously what happened in Kigali, we were in Rwanda is way worse than anything is happening in South Africa, thank God. But bottom line, when bad people with bad motives stated publicly take power, it’s not good. So like, I don’t know, that’s not hard.

Ernst Roets [01:32:41] Well, there’s a story from Rwanda and what is it I keep mentioning in the same, the same time? I think Linda Melvin wrote a book called Conspiracy to Murder, which is about, I think she lived in Rwanda and she’s a journalist, and she wrote about the what happened and she writes about a meeting. Must have been a party in Washington between American diplomats and government officials from Rwanda in the run up to, I think, to the genocide. And and it was just a big celebration. And everyone was happy because Rwanda was in the process of becoming a democracy. And then afterwards, someone asked one of the Americans, But did you not know what was happening in Rwanda? That they were on the verge of committing genocide? And he said the American diplomats said, yes, we knew. But we were so excited about democracy and Rwanda becoming a democracy. We didn’t want to spoil the mood by confronting them.

Tucker [01:33:34] That sounds like an American diplomat. Yeah. Wow.

Ernst Roets [01:33:37] That’s awesome. So, so that’s very, very alarming. This idea of being so excited about a potential idea that you are not willing to confront the realities that that’s happening or that could potentially unfold.

Tucker [01:33:51] We’re being unwilling to clearly define your terms, like what is democracy, actually?

Ernst Roets [01:33:56] Yeah. Well, that’s I think that’s an underlying.

Tucker [01:33:58] It’s an underlying problem. Yeah. Right. It’s an it’s a problem that’s only surfaced in this country.

Ernst Roets [01:34:03] And I give you an example, I hope you from the South African perspective. So I mentioned the name changes. It’s a big thing in South Africa.

Tucker [01:34:10] I’m sure that’ll fix your problems. Will that bring the electricity and water back north.

Ernst Roets [01:34:13] Obviously. So there’s a town called among them Toti which is on the east coast of South Africa. The main street was named Kingsway. They changed it to Andrews on Duke Street. Now, Andrews Zonda is really only known for one thing. He was a member of the ANC Youth League and I believe it was 1985. He planted a bomb in a shopping center and he killed, I think, five people and injured 40. All of the people who were killed were women and children. That’s the only thing he did. And he was a member of the ANC Youth League. The ANC regards that event as a something that they claim as a an act of heroism. So they named the main street after him and said, there are people in that town who drive to work in a street named after the person who killed their children, and now they would say that they need to do these name changes to make sure that they get rid of offensive names, offensive names, or Afrikaans names or names linked to South Africa’s past. And so I was at a again I summit with this was discussed and I mentioned this, I said, so you say that in Pretoria, Church Street is an offensive name and has to be changed in a man’s name. Toti. You changed Kingsway to Andrew Zondi and I tell the story and I said, so who decides if it’s if it’s offensive or not? And the guy said, oh, well that’s easy. The majority decides. And so but it’s not even the majority, it’s just the government. The government decides because they believe they are the majority. So we have these extremely offensive things happening under the banner of, well, they’re murderous.

Tucker [01:35:43] I mean, I see again, I just yeah, I think it’s the picture is really, really clear. You know, it’s it couldn’t be clearer. Yeah.

Ernst Roets [01:35:53] Yeah. Absolutely.

Tucker [01:35:54] How do you is you’re staying.

Ernst Roets [01:35:56] Yeah. No definitely. Yeah. We’ll stay.

Tucker [01:35:59] You guys must love your country.

Ernst Roets [01:36:00] Yeah, we really do. I mean, in South Africa, everyone who’s been to South Africa would say it’s an incredibly beautiful country and it truly is. And it’s a country that, unfortunately, has suffered so much under this current government and has suffered so much in the past. One of our Afrikaans philosophers, a man named in a fun way, Clough wrote. I think in the 1930s or something that you love AI people. Not so much for the accomplishments as for the hardships that they’ve had to endure.

Tucker [01:36:28] That’s right.

Ernst Roets [01:36:29] And and I think that’s true for South Africa. South Africa has endured many hardships and also for our people. The Afrikaner people, as with many other people all over the world, have endured many hardships. And it’s through these hardships and remaining, maintaining our sense of identity that we really love our history and our tradition.

Tucker [01:36:47] And, well, you came in the first place because you were an oppressed minority, correct? Yep. I know the French did. Yes.

Ernst Roets [01:36:52] The French, you know, it’s. Yes. Yes, it was the fleeing, the religious wars.

Tucker [01:36:56] Of course they were getting killed.

Ernst Roets [01:36:57] Yes. In big numbers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s that’s how that’s, that’s part of our origin story.

Tucker [01:37:02] How we what’s also actually true. Yeah. Part of history. I mean, it’s not a myth. It’s real.

Ernst Roets [01:37:07] Yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Tucker [01:37:08] Yeah. So do you think? I don’t know what the resolution will be? And I’m certainly rooting for all South Africans of every color, but fervently. But I gotta think that being able to say certain obvious truths out loud helps. Yes. Do you think.

Ernst Roets [01:37:29] It. Well, the problem is, if you do that, you really you get bashed quite aggressively and.

Tucker [01:37:35] Yeah. But like compared to what?

Ernst Roets [01:37:37] Yeah. No, they just said.

Tucker [01:37:38] We’re taking your land because your skin color.

Ernst Roets [01:37:39] The alternative is worse. It’s just living the lie. It’s, it’s it’s much worse than getting bashed for for telling the truth. Can I, can I tell you a quick story, a quick reference about courage?

Tucker [01:37:50] Of course.

Ernst Roets [01:37:51] So it’s somewhat philosophical, but I’ll make it practical. So Odysseus is on his way back from the Trojan War and and he has all these hardships, and he’s trying to get home, and he gets told that the only way for him to get home is to face Skyler and Charybdis. Skyler is this six headed sea monster, and Charybdis is a monstrous whirlpool that swallows ships whole, and the only way for him to get home is he has to navigate through these two monsters, which he eventually does. He decides it’s better for him to move to sail his ship closer to the monster sea monster than the whirlpool, and a whole lot of his people die, but he reaches his destination. And so Aristotle writes about this in the Nicomachean Ethics, and he talks about when he talks about the golden mean. And he says any virtue is about finding the balance between having excess of it and having a deficiency of it. And and so this goes to courage. And courage is a good example. If you have excess courage, you become reckless. Yes. And if you have a deficiency, then you are a coward. And so the point of having courage is finding the balance between cowardice and recklessness. And what’s great about the story of Odysseus is Odysseus discovers that he cannot simply go exactly in the middle between the two He has to be closer to the one threat than to the other, because if he goes too close to the whirlpool, these all ship gets swallowed up. And so the pointy end. Aristotle sees this as well. It’s not to find the exact middle point, it’s to find the appropriate balance between the two extremes. And so the one extreme is recklessness, and the other extreme is his cowardice. And I honestly think in the situation we are in, it’s better to on the side of being too bold than to on the side of having not enough courage or trying to find some form of solution through appeasement. And and so we make mistakes in the process. And, and you know, sometimes you say something wrong or you do something wrong, but, but I’m very much convinced that if we if, if we, if we’re on this course and we try to pursue what we are trying to pursue, rather on the side of having too much boldness and too much courage and facing the consequences, then having to face the consequences of having a lack of of courage.

Tucker [01:40:03] I love that, I got to say, in a lifetime of travel. The two. If I could just generalize the two most impressive groups I meet everywhere my whole life around the world, both groups living in exile in large numbers are the South Africans and the Lebanese are.

Ernst Roets [01:40:20] Really?

Tucker [01:40:21] Yes, yes. I’ve never met one of either group I didn’t like and didn’t admire. I don’t think I’ve met one in either group, and the thing that they have in common is they live in beautiful, volatile countries that they really love, but they’re very hard to live in. Yes. And so they’re they’re caught between that tension, you know, cowardice and recklessness. And they’re making that calculation every single day. And they’re they’re living so thoughtfully and so purposefully and in such a, I don’t know, just a admirable, noble way. I’ve noticed that.

Ernst Roets [01:40:49] Oh, I appreciate the comment of it.

Tucker [01:40:52] Let’s try. Right. Just an observation, but I’ve thought about it many times. Last question what where can and people who have made it this far into the interview and are interested in what’s happening in your country and happening to to your group. How can they follow it? How can they be helpful? How can they learn more and be supportive?

Ernst Roets [01:41:13] Well, I think there are many ways. The one way is just to follow what’s happening in South Africa and speak about it. Yes, because we’ve had this incredible barrage of of communications coming, just telling us again how wrong we are. You know, this narrative is this side. Geist in a certain sense, it’s it’s really like a monster that you have to fight this, you know, that you’re not allowed to say, speak certain truths, even though the truths are self-evident. So I think one thing is, if people just can help spread the message, help take some interest in South Africa, because what’s happening in South Africa is also of interest to the rest of the world.

Tucker [01:41:47] I think it.

Ernst Roets [01:41:47] Is in many ways, South Africa is the future of the Western.

Tucker [01:41:49] World.

Ernst Roets [01:41:50] I know in terms of the problem and the solution, I think. So so that’s one. And then the other is there really are some institutions in South Africa who are really focused on on building community based solutions. And I think if people can can identify these institutions and support these institutions, it really would help. And I think in terms of the US government, if the US government is willing to do something as it seems that they are, I think the most important thing that they could do is a combination of pressuring the South African government from away from these destructive policies, but also supporting communities, local communities or minority communities or nations, you should say, who are committed to finding some form of self-determination.

Tucker [01:42:34] Amen. Well, Godspeed. I hope to see you again. I hope you’ll come back.

Ernst Roets [01:42:39] I thank you, I will, I hope so, too. And and I have to thank you for not just for this interview, but also for the the focus you’ve been putting on South Africa in the past.

Tucker [01:42:46] It was just so it’s just so interesting and it reveals so much about us. I’m American and it reveals a lot about our leadership class. And I think it’s important to say it.

Ernst Roets [01:42:55] Yeah. Well, thank you very much.