Latest / UK Column Radio / Make Africa Great Again | Jerm Warfare

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Make Africa Great Again | Jerm Warfare · UK Column Radio

0:30
Speaker 1: My name is Jim.
0:31
Speaker 2: This is Germ Warfare The Battle of Ideas. Mike. I
0:35
Speaker 2: spoke to you a little bit earlier.
0:37
Speaker 1: I was chatting to you about episode that I did
0:41
Speaker 1: with p Lawton recently about a high speed rail network
0:46
Speaker 1: being built across the African continent and pretty much nobody
0:51
Speaker 1: anywhere knows anything about it. It doesn't get reported on
0:53
Speaker 1: in the Western media, and she was making the point
0:56
Speaker 1: that it's deliberate. And I just want to say here
1:02
Speaker 1: in front of YouTube genes not being African, that I'm
1:05
Speaker 1: going to continue bringing African orientateed topics to UK column.
1:10
Speaker 1: I know that they don't get much attraction, but I'm
1:12
Speaker 1: hoping that there will be a few people in time
1:15
Speaker 1: who will appreciate this kind of discourse.
1:23
Speaker 2: I mean, from my point of view, you know, one
1:27
Speaker 2: of the things that I really enjoy is discovering things
1:30
Speaker 2: about parts of the world that I haven't been to
1:33
Speaker 2: or I don't otherwise know that much about it. I mean,
1:36
Speaker 2: I know from a geopolitical a certain of mind, from
1:39
Speaker 2: a geopolitical perspective, but I know almost nothing about what
1:44
Speaker 2: it's actually like to live in countries in Africa, and
1:50
Speaker 2: I certainly know almost nothing about the development that has
1:55
Speaker 2: been going on in Africa, particularly since the beginning of
1:58
Speaker 2: the Belton Road initiative. And this is just something I
2:02
Speaker 2: want to understand a lot better. I want to understand
2:05
Speaker 2: what impact is actually happening on the ground. I was
2:13
Speaker 2: speaking to a guy who's no longer with us from Chad,
2:19
Speaker 2: what probably nearly ten years ago. He was involved in
2:22
Speaker 2: the in the project to try to refill Lake Chad
2:29
Speaker 2: by building various water projects and so on, and I
2:34
Speaker 2: remember him telling me, you know that the migration issue
2:39
Speaker 2: of people coming from that part of Sub Saharan Africa
2:42
Speaker 2: into Europe and the UK and so on, it's only
2:45
Speaker 2: part of the picture that as many people were being
2:48
Speaker 2: driven to the south, and this was causing problems in
2:53
Speaker 2: countries south of this hell as well. This is something
2:59
Speaker 2: I'd never heard before and no particularly understand understanding of.
3:04
Speaker 2: And so you know the implications of whether it's China
3:09
Speaker 2: or Russia or whatever country is getting involved in building
3:15
Speaker 2: infrastructure projects in Africa. This is something I'm fascinated in
3:20
Speaker 2: and fascinated what kind of effect, what kind of impact
3:23
Speaker 2: it's having on people's lives in those countries.
3:27
Speaker 1: I mean, Charles, you've been to Africa, so you do
3:30
Speaker 1: understand a bit more than Mike does. But I mean
3:34
Speaker 1: the point here is you mentioned Belton wrote initiative, Mike,
3:39
Speaker 1: and I think that's probably one of the reasons why
3:42
Speaker 1: people don't know much about this particular talking point. I mean,
3:45
Speaker 1: this is a very uplifting story, and the nature of
3:49
Speaker 1: consumers on the internet is to doom scroll and this
3:52
Speaker 1: is this is a good news story. So this this
3:55
Speaker 1: doesn't get much traction by virtue of that fact, but
3:57
Speaker 1: also because this project is lot of the Belton Road initiative,
4:02
Speaker 1: and that of course therefore is you know, China maxing.
4:07
Speaker 2: Hang on.
4:07
Speaker 3: So sorry, you're saying the high speed rail is a
4:09
Speaker 3: good news story? Yes, is that what you're saying? Okay,
4:13
Speaker 3: I haven't listened to that yet. How are you qualifying
4:16
Speaker 3: that as a good as a good news story?
4:19
Speaker 1: Because there's a high speed rail network blueprint that is
4:25
Speaker 1: connecting all of the African countries together for the purposes
4:29
Speaker 1: of trade and freight and then as a byproduct passengers.
4:33
Speaker 1: So it will be possible for me here and Cape
4:36
Speaker 1: Town to take a train all the way up to
4:39
Speaker 1: say u Gander at high speed.
4:43
Speaker 3: Mhm. Okay, I'd say i'd say that's a qualified a
4:49
Speaker 3: qualified positive. I'd need to listen to what was said
4:54
Speaker 3: and and specifically look at this aative. But I think
5:01
Speaker 3: this is first of all, to go back to your
5:03
Speaker 3: original point. I absolutely applaud more content on Africa and
5:10
Speaker 3: what's going on in Africa. I think also this our
5:14
Speaker 3: triumvirate here is good in that you live in Africa.
5:18
Speaker 3: Mike hasn't been there, and I occupy some by having
5:25
Speaker 3: having lived and traveled in luckily quite a lot of
5:30
Speaker 3: parts of it, and therefore I have seen bits of it. Also,
5:34
Speaker 3: I think it's worth saying that my response to the
5:37
Speaker 3: parts of Africa that I have seen has been entirely positive.
5:41
Speaker 3: And this is this is just an element to introduce
5:43
Speaker 3: into a conversation about another place. Is that simply to say, well,
5:49
Speaker 3: I've been there, so I know what it's like. It's
5:51
Speaker 3: never really good enough. It's you know, I've been there
5:54
Speaker 3: and seen this and thought that. And Africa does this
5:58
Speaker 3: to a certain extent. But I can think of particular
6:00
Speaker 3: places that I've been to that I came away with
6:03
Speaker 3: a very positive impression of or at least someone that
6:05
Speaker 3: I enjoyed. And I will absolutely be able to bring
6:10
Speaker 3: somebody out of the woodwork who has been to exactly
6:12
Speaker 3: the same place and seeing the same things and decided
6:14
Speaker 3: that they didn't like it, but it was a negative
6:16
Speaker 3: experience for them. And I think that's always that's always
6:19
Speaker 3: worth inserting for context. And I think Africa absolutely does
6:25
Speaker 3: do this for people that visit from countries that would
6:29
Speaker 3: be described as Western. I'm afraid to say some people
6:33
Speaker 3: go to parts of Africa, probably particularly Subsaharan Africa, and
6:38
Speaker 3: decide that they absolutely hate it. They can't stand the
6:41
Speaker 3: way that it operates and the you know, the sort
6:46
Speaker 3: of cultural clash. But to go back to the railway,
6:53
Speaker 3: the reason I ask for qualification is that we've talked
6:57
Speaker 3: a lot about the way in which the the corporate
7:03
Speaker 3: and corrupt West exploits Africa and continues to exploit Africa,
7:09
Speaker 3: and so that any of these things are always a
7:13
Speaker 3: very very double edged sword. You mentioned Uganda. In fact,
7:16
Speaker 3: Uganda is somewhere that absolutely springs to mind as a
7:20
Speaker 3: place where the last time I was, okay, it was
7:23
Speaker 3: a while ago, what was it fifteen, let's say fifteen
7:26
Speaker 3: years ago driving through western Uganda, and it was very
7:31
Speaker 3: interesting driving along a road a perfectly good dirt road
7:35
Speaker 3: and then suddenly hitting tarmac, and the change was immediate.
7:40
Speaker 3: The dirt road section, and this, by the way, was
7:44
Speaker 3: effectively a major route heading back roughly in the direction
7:49
Speaker 3: of Kampala. I can't remember exactly where it was, but
7:52
Speaker 3: everywhere along that dirt road there was you know, thriving
7:57
Speaker 3: sort of subsistence agriculture. People were not wanting as it were.
8:04
Speaker 3: That was that was obvious. Was it wasn't it wasn't
8:08
Speaker 3: an impoverished situation in so far as people had what
8:13
Speaker 3: they what they needed. The tarmac started with a great
8:17
Speaker 3: big billboard thing saying that the funding had been provided
8:22
Speaker 3: by the European Union and I think somebody else. And
8:26
Speaker 3: then you saw brand new bicycles, you saw Coca Cola signs,
8:32
Speaker 3: you saw pharmacies, you saw that the change was absolutely immediate. Now,
8:39
Speaker 3: in geography textbooks, that would be a positive. It would
8:43
Speaker 3: be like, oh, look look at look at what this
8:46
Speaker 3: infrastructural development has has offered the population. You know, they're
8:50
Speaker 3: being pulled out of poverty and this, that and the other.
8:53
Speaker 3: That's not my view of it. That that is the
8:57
Speaker 3: tentacles of an fairarious actors immediately seizing hold of those people.
9:05
Speaker 3: And I don't mean this to sound in any way patronizing,
9:08
Speaker 3: because this doesn't this is not exclusive to Africa. It
9:11
Speaker 3: absolutely would apply to anywhere. But the moment you make
9:14
Speaker 3: those sort of sophisticated communications or infrastructural connections, you enable
9:20
Speaker 3: all this to come. And Coca Cola what a great example,
9:24
Speaker 3: absolutely all over the sort of developing parts of Africa.
9:27
Speaker 3: But but who needs who needs coca cola? And that
9:32
Speaker 3: might sound trivial, but it's not that trivial. I mean
9:34
Speaker 3: that that that drink is. It's highly toxic and full
9:40
Speaker 3: of sugar and all this kind of thing. So so
9:42
Speaker 3: I'm not I don't mean to sort of bowl down
9:44
Speaker 3: the idea of a high speed thing into oh, well,
9:48
Speaker 3: that means people are going to drink cocla when they shouldn't.
9:50
Speaker 3: There's obviously much much more to it than that. But
9:53
Speaker 3: I but that's the that's the line of thinking that
9:55
Speaker 3: I'm going down.
9:56
Speaker 2: No, Okay, so I got to say sorry. I'm just
9:59
Speaker 2: going to say, charl I absolutely understand that perspective. And
10:03
Speaker 2: you know, we we the four of us have a
10:05
Speaker 2: mutual friend who I realized is controversial to name, but
10:10
Speaker 2: we'll just name him anyway, And that's Marcel who who
10:13
Speaker 2: has commented on how he used to love the old China,
10:18
Speaker 2: the the pre sort of modern China with the chaos
10:23
Speaker 2: and and all that kind of stuff, and that he
10:27
Speaker 2: enjoys the modern China a lot less because it's it's
10:31
Speaker 2: a lot more because of all the concrete and steel
10:34
Speaker 2: and and and it doesn't have the same feel about it.
10:39
Speaker 2: And I don't want to put too many words in
10:41
Speaker 2: his mouth, but that that's my understanding of what he's said.
10:46
Speaker 2: And and so you know, I think I think that
10:50
Speaker 2: I am, as a matter of principle, all for infrastructure development,
10:55
Speaker 2: and and because you know, while I absolutely take your
10:59
Speaker 2: point Charles about the kind of lifestyle that the people
11:03
Speaker 2: that were on living on this side of the dirt
11:05
Speaker 2: road were experiencing, of course, what they what they don't
11:09
Speaker 2: have the capability of doing necessarily if they're if they're
11:12
Speaker 2: simply subsistence, if they're you know, they're running a subsistence
11:16
Speaker 2: kind of existence, is dealing with shocks of some kind,
11:21
Speaker 2: some kind of natural issue where where that that that
11:26
Speaker 2: destroys a harvest in it in one particular year. At
11:32
Speaker 2: the same time, you know, if if countries in in
11:35
Speaker 2: Africa or countries that are fundamentally different in terms of
11:38
Speaker 2: their their ideologies and the right looks on life. If
11:43
Speaker 2: if those countries just get turned into, you know, replicas
11:48
Speaker 2: of what we have in Europe or the United States,
11:51
Speaker 2: I would consider that as a feel, a bit a
11:54
Speaker 2: massive feel, because as countries developed, they've got to they've
11:58
Speaker 2: got to maintain their personality, I think. And if all
12:05
Speaker 2: that happens is alongside the high speed rail and the
12:09
Speaker 2: economic corridors comes the same types of corporations that we
12:14
Speaker 2: all have to deal with on a daily basis, then yeah,
12:18
Speaker 2: that I can't put another word on it other than Phail,
12:22
Speaker 2: So I would. I completely get your point. At the
12:25
Speaker 2: same time, I'm in favor of seeing these countries build
12:31
Speaker 2: an independence that they have never had from the Western
12:35
Speaker 2: corporations that are in there exploiting the hell out of
12:37
Speaker 2: them at the moment.
12:39
Speaker 3: Yes, I agree, it's just a very very difficult line
12:42
Speaker 3: to draw.
12:43
Speaker 1: Yes, let me stop you and just quickly give you
12:46
Speaker 1: some more context, because this is something that I didn't mention,
12:49
Speaker 1: and this is something that PD Lawton talks a lot
12:52
Speaker 1: about in the discussion the purpose, and this is something
12:57
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't know the purpose of
13:01
Speaker 1: the railway network is ultimately trade. So in other words,
13:06
Speaker 1: it's it's not going to be like the railway networks
13:10
Speaker 1: we currently have. If I take a train right now
13:12
Speaker 1: and go up country, the actual line has nothing to
13:19
Speaker 1: do with with passengers. That has everything to do with
13:23
Speaker 1: western colonial mining. We now use it obviously for for
13:27
Speaker 1: for passengers, but the original route, I mean, it's not
13:30
Speaker 1: a it's not a you know, as a crow flies,
13:32
Speaker 1: fastest route to another destination.
13:35
Speaker 2: It's based on mining.
13:37
Speaker 1: What the new rail network is going to do is
13:41
Speaker 1: it's going to bypass that.
13:43
Speaker 2: It's not.
13:43
Speaker 1: It's not about mining, it's it's about the fastest way
13:47
Speaker 1: to move trade between countries, uh which is actually a
13:52
Speaker 1: better way of doing it. Because you've been to Africa,
13:57
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to get around, it's not it's not easy.
14:00
Speaker 1: The infrastructures is most most of subs are in Africa
14:04
Speaker 1: very broken. We here in South Africa thankfully have a
14:06
Speaker 1: much better sort of road infrastructure, but our trains are
14:10
Speaker 1: are very dangerous and certainly not not anything that people
14:15
Speaker 1: should be taking lightly, so an upgraded network and by
14:20
Speaker 1: the way, though, starting the Cape Town portion of that
14:23
Speaker 1: high speed network now, the Johannesburg portion has already been completed,
14:28
Speaker 1: and in fact they're now extending it. And the idea
14:31
Speaker 1: eventually is to is to connect the network right around
14:34
Speaker 1: the country and will go all the way up the
14:36
Speaker 1: west coast and the east coast, and it'll go through
14:39
Speaker 1: the various countries. It's a huge project, I mean absolutely
14:44
Speaker 1: ginormous continent, and it takes a long time obviously to
14:49
Speaker 1: get the agreements between the countries. But China is involved,
14:52
Speaker 1: and as P. D. Lawton was saying, this is probably
14:56
Speaker 1: why it's very suppressed, because Western media don't like the
15:01
Speaker 1: idea that we have upgrades to the continent coming.
15:09
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I think there's a few things say. First
15:17
Speaker 3: of all, and I've said it already. When I offer
15:23
Speaker 3: words of I don't know, caution or I appear to
15:28
Speaker 3: have reservations about it, I don't. Just to clarify, I
15:30
Speaker 3: don't mean that from the perspective of looking from without
15:36
Speaker 3: and just thinking, oh, it's so quaint how it is.
15:40
Speaker 3: You know, I really like it to stay like that,
15:43
Speaker 3: because when I go there and I drive my four
15:46
Speaker 3: wheel drive whatever through, I can, you know, I can
15:49
Speaker 3: sort of look out of the window and think, oh,
15:50
Speaker 3: this is Africa as it should be. I don't mean
15:53
Speaker 3: it like that at all, because I would say exactly
15:55
Speaker 3: the same thing about what's happened in the United Kingdom
15:57
Speaker 3: over the last thirty years, which is that the vast
16:00
Speaker 3: majority of villages have absolutely been stripped out of all
16:05
Speaker 3: their their own sort of economic independence or sovereignty. And
16:12
Speaker 3: in large part this has happened in a way for
16:17
Speaker 3: similar reasons, in that the improvement of transport links, let's say,
16:24
Speaker 3: enables the corporatization of the landscape. And therefore people who
16:30
Speaker 3: and I the first village I went to school in
16:35
Speaker 3: had you know, in the sort of mid eighties, had
16:39
Speaker 3: had had a really lovely uh self sufficiency is not
16:44
Speaker 3: quite right, but you know it had it had a butcher,
16:46
Speaker 3: had a baker. I can't remember if there was a
16:48
Speaker 3: candlestick maker, but there might well have been. And you know,
16:52
Speaker 3: all over the over the decades, that has all changed,
16:55
Speaker 3: which has turned the turn the village, and this has
16:57
Speaker 3: been the story across Dana Land, has turned the villain
17:00
Speaker 3: into a classic dormitory settlement where people live there they
17:04
Speaker 3: go everywhere else to get their goods, you know, they
17:08
Speaker 3: will go to the supermarket to get this certain the
17:09
Speaker 3: other because they can because the roads have improved, because
17:13
Speaker 3: the economies of scale have made it not worth the
17:15
Speaker 3: while of people to do stuff on that scale. And
17:18
Speaker 3: I think that is enormously regrettable, and I think that
17:20
Speaker 3: has bled an enormous part in the the deculturalization of
17:28
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. It's that there's been a complete loss
17:31
Speaker 3: of cohesion running concurrent with that, and I think that's
17:34
Speaker 3: left people in a parlor state as to as to
17:38
Speaker 3: what they think about the country they inhabit. So it's
17:42
Speaker 3: very complicated, and I don't mean to oversimplify it, but
17:46
Speaker 3: that's just my take on the whole thing. I'm not
17:51
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to treat Africa differently. It's just that
17:55
Speaker 3: we can look at places where this has been done
17:59
Speaker 3: and that the benefits have not been universal.
18:02
Speaker 2: Well well exactly right, Yeah, that was sorry, charm That
18:05
Speaker 2: was That was one of the fascinating things about China
18:10
Speaker 2: because every you know, going through the cities. Yes, in
18:14
Speaker 2: the centers of the cities that were the big chains
18:17
Speaker 2: of course, and the huge hypermarkets and stuff like this,
18:21
Speaker 2: but equally there were the small, the small traders exist
18:24
Speaker 2: as well. And and my understanding is that that that's
18:28
Speaker 2: something that wasn't the case twenty years ago. It's something
18:33
Speaker 2: that's happened since then, because clearly there's been a decision
18:36
Speaker 2: taken there to to encourage these types of small businesses.
18:42
Speaker 2: And you know your your comments about about the way
18:47
Speaker 2: that our villages times have been decimated, the high streets
18:52
Speaker 2: have been decimated, Charles, in this country. A lot of that,
18:55
Speaker 2: of course has to be is as a result of policy.
18:59
Speaker 2: It's not just it's not just that it's because of
19:02
Speaker 2: the transport links and the fact that it's easy to
19:04
Speaker 2: get to the big Tesco supermarket or whatever it happens
19:07
Speaker 2: to me is it's the fact that the business rates
19:09
Speaker 2: have been in high streets right across the country have
19:12
Speaker 2: been shelved through the roof, and so the small trader
19:15
Speaker 2: actually cannot compete. If there was if the policy was
19:20
Speaker 2: put in place that actually allowed these people to operate
19:25
Speaker 2: and compete, I suspect we would find that the majority
19:29
Speaker 2: of people would choose not to travel and would choose
19:32
Speaker 2: to use the local provider because they very much I
19:38
Speaker 2: know I certainly would very much to enjoy that local
19:41
Speaker 2: connection and the local service that you get from a
19:46
Speaker 2: small shop rather than going to a supermarket.
19:51
Speaker 3: Yes, possibly, but okay, so I suppose really we shouldn't.
19:55
Speaker 3: We can't just consider this in isolation the idea of
19:58
Speaker 3: a high speed rail network. Yes, there could be enormous positives,
20:02
Speaker 3: but yet.
20:05
Speaker 1: Right, okay, And it's electric and it's electric, so it
20:07
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't require fuel of all, I mean combustion.
20:13
Speaker 2: Okay, but well it does ultimately depending on unless they're
20:17
Speaker 2: unless they're well.
20:18
Speaker 1: What I mean is it's not. What I mean is
20:19
Speaker 1: it's not diesel trains for example.
20:22
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, sure, certain, So who's saw the Chinese sorting
20:26
Speaker 3: out the power?
20:27
Speaker 1: Therefore, you see, Now this is where this is not
20:31
Speaker 1: where the conversation.
20:32
Speaker 3: Sounds a little bit like a stock star journey.
20:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is one of the major talking points.
20:38
Speaker 1: But this is I mean, this is a whole different discussion.
20:41
Speaker 1: But Africa is an absolutely massive continent, and I mean
20:47
Speaker 1: Europe is so small. I mean you can fit like
20:50
Speaker 1: twenty countries into one or two African countries, so you're
20:53
Speaker 1: talking very very big distances. Also, and the amount of
20:58
Speaker 1: energy required.
21:01
Speaker 2: Is huge.
21:02
Speaker 1: Now, this is, as I was saying, a very complicated
21:05
Speaker 1: discussion because we have western well not just western foreign
21:12
Speaker 1: interest in shutting down our coal power stations. The Obama
21:16
Speaker 1: administration as well as the Trump administration don't want us
21:21
Speaker 1: to use coal. I think ninety percent of South Africa
21:23
Speaker 1: is still power ber coal and a little bit of
21:27
Speaker 1: solar and whatever and nuclear. But coal is what drives
21:32
Speaker 1: the country and they are telling us to shut it down.
21:35
Speaker 1: So can you now imagine what happens as a result.
21:37
Speaker 1: I think this is deliberate that they do not want
21:41
Speaker 1: progress to occur because it's easier to extract mineral wealth
21:46
Speaker 1: from the continent if you keep all the countries in
21:49
Speaker 1: a state of not just lawlessness, but in a state
21:53
Speaker 1: of hunger for power. We constantly have roting blackouts.
21:58
Speaker 2: Currently, we well a literal hunger because because if you
22:01
Speaker 2: can keep people, if you can keep people in a
22:04
Speaker 2: stead where they're only considering where they're getting the next
22:06
Speaker 2: meal from, then they don't have time to consider whether
22:09
Speaker 2: somebody's stealing the diamonds and the gold and the rare
22:13
Speaker 2: earth minerals and so on. So I believe that's absolute policy. Well,
22:17
Speaker 2: she points out, also there's a there is a high
22:19
Speaker 2: speed rail. I don't think it's high speed.
22:22
Speaker 1: I big your pardon, but there is a rail corridor
22:25
Speaker 1: that was built by US and I think British interests,
22:27
Speaker 1: and it's it's somewhere on the west coast, Angola some
22:32
Speaker 1: way there. But they claim that it's that passengers you
22:36
Speaker 1: use that network, and they do. But that corridor was
22:40
Speaker 1: specifically built for mining, specifically because of the oil and
22:45
Speaker 1: other resources there. So that's not very helpful. And that's
22:49
Speaker 1: what you are referring to, Charles, where it's messy, it's untidy.
22:53
Speaker 1: They don't really care about the environment.
22:55
Speaker 2: Uh.
22:55
Speaker 1: And people don't really benefit ultimately.
23:01
Speaker 3: Yes, or they benefit or they appear to benefit, or
23:06
Speaker 3: they think they're benefiting in the short term and the
23:10
Speaker 3: next thing they know, the hammer has come down and
23:13
Speaker 3: it's too late. And that just to go back to
23:15
Speaker 3: Mike's point, Yes, I mean, I think I would completely
23:18
Speaker 3: agree with you that now in twenty twenty six, the
23:22
Speaker 3: majority of people who do live in villages or small
23:25
Speaker 3: towns would prefer to be able to have their needs
23:29
Speaker 3: satisfied by that that vicinity that they would rather go
23:33
Speaker 3: out to the local shop or this, that and the other.
23:36
Speaker 3: But the problem is that at the time, and I
23:39
Speaker 3: totally accept your point about policy, but I think my
23:43
Speaker 3: sort of memory of it is that as supermarkets became
23:46
Speaker 3: bigger and as they began to be the sort of
23:49
Speaker 3: you know, out of town shopping centers or whatever it was,
23:52
Speaker 3: there was such enthusiasm. And of course that this followed,
23:56
Speaker 3: you know, followed the Sunday trading of it, but the
23:58
Speaker 3: whole the expanse of just being able to shop all
24:02
Speaker 3: the time and to go to these places and then
24:05
Speaker 3: and then with cinemas and places where you get kind
24:08
Speaker 3: of you know, ice cream and all that stuff, and
24:10
Speaker 3: there was there was such a there was such a
24:14
Speaker 3: response to that at the time that suggested that no
24:17
Speaker 3: one had really given any due consideration as to where
24:19
Speaker 3: this was going and what the consequence is going to be.
24:22
Speaker 2: Uh.
24:22
Speaker 3: And so I think it's only now in retrospect that
24:25
Speaker 3: people have those sorts of thoughts and feelings on what
24:29
Speaker 3: you're describing, which is just so so regressible. I mean,
24:32
Speaker 3: you know, So that's that's again that that's the sort
24:34
Speaker 3: of the caution to be sounded to Africa. It is
24:38
Speaker 3: just just you know, kind of steady as you go.
24:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry for jumping in, but there is also a
24:44
Speaker 1: profound truth in what you're saying, Charles. When when we
24:48
Speaker 1: were in the south of France, where you know, where
24:52
Speaker 1: the towns are still very quaint and very kind of
24:57
Speaker 1: old fashioned and vintage. There isn't absolute beauty that you
25:02
Speaker 1: don't want, you know, damaged by sort of commercialism. And
25:06
Speaker 1: we've we went into the little bookshops. There's a little
25:09
Speaker 1: town called the Bond, which I absolutely loved. You know,
25:13
Speaker 1: Bond's that little Oh well, I thought it was. But
25:21
Speaker 1: obviously you have chain stores and whatever else.
25:25
Speaker 2: But we.
25:27
Speaker 1: Deliberately avoided them, and we try to find the what
25:31
Speaker 1: the butcher, what did you say, the baker or the butcher,
25:34
Speaker 1: the baker and the candlestick maker what does that? But
25:38
Speaker 1: we went we went looking for those. So I get
25:40
Speaker 1: what you're saying about that authenticity. But at the same time,
25:44
Speaker 1: you are able to get around fairly easily. Mobility is
25:47
Speaker 1: not really a problem because of the way those places
25:51
Speaker 1: are designed. Mobility here, on the other hand, is very difficult.
25:55
Speaker 1: So so it's a whole different kind of way of
25:58
Speaker 1: thinking to get Just to get out of the country
26:03
Speaker 1: if you aren't using an aeroplane is remarkably difficult. I've
26:07
Speaker 1: done it I've driven into Zimbabwe and crossing the border
26:11
Speaker 1: was a painful process, absolutely terrible. I mean almost five
26:16
Speaker 1: hours just to just to get over the border.
26:19
Speaker 2: To Dodge. Come on, this is this is it's ten
26:23
Speaker 2: hours to get from Breton to Front At the moment,
26:25
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're complaining about. No, but I mean, Alden,
26:29
Speaker 2: I don't understand. What do you mean? Is it? Is
26:31
Speaker 2: it a border issue? Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's another
26:34
Speaker 2: punishment for for braxits.
26:37
Speaker 1: I didn't know that all ten hours is quite bad.
26:43
Speaker 1: But I mean so I think what I'm saying, what
26:45
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get at, Charles, is that you're right,
26:47
Speaker 1: there are pros and cons and you have to kind
26:50
Speaker 1: of you have to future battles. Yeah, way way up.
26:54
Speaker 1: What what is it that you want and what is
26:57
Speaker 1: it that you don't want? I must be honest, I
27:00
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind having safer trains to be able to get around.
27:03
Speaker 1: Flying everywhere is expensive and using rails certainly cheaper. Uh
27:10
Speaker 1: and and with fuel costs going up because of you know,
27:13
Speaker 1: horn moves and et cetera, and the the the attempt
27:16
Speaker 1: to stop any kind of internal combustion engine makes life
27:22
Speaker 1: even more complicated. We can't really use eve easier because
27:26
Speaker 1: we we have we have an energy issue, so where
27:29
Speaker 1: do we charge the cars? So it is a psychical problem.
27:34
Speaker 1: But I still see it as a good news story. Ultimately,
27:38
Speaker 1: I'm not sorry that the purpose of this discussion is
27:40
Speaker 1: not actually whether or not it is a good news story,
27:42
Speaker 1: but more about the fact that these kinds of stories
27:46
Speaker 1: get get memory hold and and they kind of shouldn't.
27:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a fascinating one. Do you know when the
27:55
Speaker 3: I may have asked this before. Do you know when
27:57
Speaker 3: the record was set for driving from London to Cape Tone?
28:03
Speaker 2: Is it even possible? How do you do that? How
28:05
Speaker 2: do you how do you get across the ocean? Oh?
28:07
Speaker 2: I suppose you take a theory?
28:11
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, you take your crossing straight to Gibraltar. That
28:15
Speaker 3: that yeah? Sorry, And but anyway, okay, so you've got
28:19
Speaker 3: two short ferry crossings. But otherwise it's snove bland trip.
28:21
Speaker 3: Do you know when that record was set?
28:24
Speaker 2: I'd land to.
28:24
Speaker 3: Need what it is?
28:25
Speaker 2: What would you guess that in nineteen thirty six?
28:29
Speaker 1: All right, no, can't be dead long ago. Okay, wait,
28:32
Speaker 1: I'll say I'll say nineteen seventy.
28:36
Speaker 3: I will I will be jumped on if I get
28:37
Speaker 3: this wrong. I'm pretty sure it's nineteen sixty two and
28:42
Speaker 3: it was the same there somewhere I think it was.
28:46
Speaker 3: It was certainly no more than nine days. I think
28:49
Speaker 3: it might have even been less than that.
28:51
Speaker 2: What that nine days?
28:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, But my point is that that at that moment,
29:00
Speaker 3: as the colonial period was was wow, changing rights. Say
29:08
Speaker 3: what do you mean you think that's too long or
29:10
Speaker 3: too short?
29:11
Speaker 2: From London? Did you say landon to Cape Taran?
29:13
Speaker 3: Is that what you say?
29:13
Speaker 2: Yeah?
29:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes it takes me two days to drive
29:17
Speaker 1: just to the Krugan National Park.
29:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
29:20
Speaker 2: That.
29:20
Speaker 3: This is my point that at that time the road
29:24
Speaker 3: network that ran through from North Africa all the way
29:28
Speaker 3: south was was absolutely first cast.
29:33
Speaker 2: I mean what you're saying.
29:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the idea that now this this is
29:39
Speaker 3: you know, high speed rail, it'll enable this, that and
29:41
Speaker 3: the other that that time has already been I mean,
29:44
Speaker 3: you know, the the last time okay, years and years ago.
29:47
Speaker 3: But but taking the train from Johannesburg or Pretoria rather
29:53
Speaker 3: up into Harari or but Away or wherever it stops,
29:56
Speaker 3: can't remember actually, and even on up to Victoria Falls
29:59
Speaker 3: you know, it's brilliant. I mean, and I still remember
30:01
Speaker 3: it cost to do that train journe interesting to nearly
30:04
Speaker 3: twenty four hours, cost four pounds sterling to being a sleeper. Anyway,
30:10
Speaker 3: it was, you know, incredible, It all worked. It was
30:12
Speaker 3: absolutely like clockwork. And actually the border crossing was again
30:16
Speaker 3: brilliantly managed. So so what I'm saying is that there
30:19
Speaker 3: you just said it. You know, all this stuff is cyclical.
30:23
Speaker 3: We go through these bizarre periods where things really do
30:27
Speaker 3: work and then they don't. But it's the what happens.
30:31
Speaker 3: What are the consequences of the times when stuff really
30:35
Speaker 3: does work? What will the consequences be of the of
30:39
Speaker 3: the high speed rail network? You know, it's going to
30:41
Speaker 3: be very interesting to see.
30:44
Speaker 1: You're setting yourself up because you know, from what you've
30:47
Speaker 1: just said, are you going to get people responding in
30:50
Speaker 1: the various comments going well that that means that the
30:52
Speaker 1: colonial era was better?
30:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, this is it? Yeah? So so how this is?
31:00
Speaker 3: I think? Really my point is how are we measuring
31:05
Speaker 3: success or positive outcomes? What actually determines that? So Mike
31:11
Speaker 3: talking about shocks to say food supply, I was having
31:18
Speaker 3: a telephone conversation earlier this morning about exactly this point.
31:22
Speaker 3: It is a very odd world to live in, really,
31:25
Speaker 3: when as a consumer you're supposed to have the impression
31:30
Speaker 3: that you have in a way the right to a
31:37
Speaker 3: reliable supply of food all the time, and we look
31:41
Speaker 3: at that in logistical terms, we think about it as
31:47
Speaker 3: a as a sort of score of efficiency because the
31:53
Speaker 3: cold chain works as it does because the pricing is
31:58
Speaker 3: as it is. And the one thing we don't consider
32:02
Speaker 3: is what nature might have to say about this. And
32:07
Speaker 3: it's again, it's another it's another decision making process, but
32:11
Speaker 3: I think it's it is so vastly overlooked. The challenges
32:15
Speaker 3: of farming as we know it today are absolutely enormous,
32:20
Speaker 3: but in large part because people are not working with nature.
32:24
Speaker 3: Should we really be regarding our place in the world
32:30
Speaker 3: in nature as one where we don't have to sort
32:34
Speaker 3: of yield to the variables? You know? It's just it's
32:41
Speaker 3: an interesting one. It goes, it goes by the whole
32:43
Speaker 3: sort of why why are we're here? What's the point?
32:48
Speaker 2: I actually made a guy who.
32:51
Speaker 1: Rode I think around the entire African continent on a bicycle.
32:57
Speaker 2: He gave a tid talk.
32:58
Speaker 1: Actually I'm about that exact trip, and it was the
33:01
Speaker 1: most incredible story. It took him a long time. I
33:04
Speaker 1: think it took him a year or slightly long.
33:08
Speaker 3: Do you remember who? Do you remember who?
33:09
Speaker 2: That was?
33:10
Speaker 1: No, But now that I'm talking about him, I'm gona
33:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to look him up and I'll see if
33:13
Speaker 1: I can invite him onto my show as a matter
33:15
Speaker 1: of interest. But he actually broke a whole bunch of myths.
33:22
Speaker 1: That's what that's why, that's why I'm telling you this,
33:24
Speaker 1: because there's this idea that it's a dark continent and
33:28
Speaker 1: if you go, you know, if you travel, you're gonna
33:30
Speaker 1: you're just gonna end up becoming a victim of crime.
33:34
Speaker 1: He didn't experience any crime, and right around the continent,
33:37
Speaker 1: I mean, the hardest part for him was the sort
33:40
Speaker 1: of Saharan region. But he went through Morocco and he
33:44
Speaker 1: basically went around the entire outline of the continent and
33:48
Speaker 1: came came back to South Africa. And it's the most again,
33:53
Speaker 1: the most beautiful story and how he experienced all these
33:57
Speaker 1: cultures and and you know, hospit, brutality and so on,
34:00
Speaker 1: and it's not nearly what you would think it is
34:04
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you just open X or Instagram.
34:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think you can.
34:16
Speaker 1: You know the same Probably a prize applies for Latin America,
34:18
Speaker 1: Southern South America. What's the crect to Latin America. But
34:22
Speaker 1: it's the same. I think it's probably the same kind
34:25
Speaker 1: of thinking.
34:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, to an extent, but then you know, you can
34:30
Speaker 3: I don't know what am I trying to say. You
34:33
Speaker 3: you can have you can have a drama anywhere. I mean,
34:36
Speaker 3: I am one of the most ludicrous anecdotes. I can recall.
34:41
Speaker 3: A sort of weird happenstance in in Africa was having
34:46
Speaker 3: a friend through someone else's flip flop off the edge
34:51
Speaker 3: of a house in on Lamu Island up in northern Kenya.
34:55
Speaker 3: And by the time by the time the owner of
34:58
Speaker 3: the flip flop got this was like two floors up.
35:03
Speaker 3: By the time the owner had got down to the
35:05
Speaker 3: ground floor gone outside into the street to retrieve the
35:09
Speaker 3: flip flop, the strap thong bit I think it's called
35:13
Speaker 3: from the flip flop had been had been pulled out
35:17
Speaker 3: and someone had run off with it. So all that
35:20
Speaker 3: was left was the soul of the flip flop, I
35:23
Speaker 3: mean completely we're why why would anyone do that, not
35:27
Speaker 3: just take the whole thing if they wanted a flip flop.
35:31
Speaker 3: It was just bizarre. And this was this was within
35:34
Speaker 3: the space for a minute, and this is in a
35:37
Speaker 3: you know, completely sort of quiet little island. That happens.
35:42
Speaker 3: It's got one vehicle on it. The police had one vehicle.
35:45
Speaker 3: That's it. Anyway, My point is that is that, yes,
35:49
Speaker 3: that that is amazing to be able to buycle the
35:51
Speaker 3: whole way around Africa and not experience any crime. But equally,
35:56
Speaker 3: you could be the one person that sets off on
35:59
Speaker 3: day one and you you know, you happen to run
36:02
Speaker 3: into do you know what I mean?
36:03
Speaker 1: It's yes, yes, yes, yes, to be fair, had to
36:06
Speaker 1: be fair. He did do his homework because obviously there
36:09
Speaker 1: are war zones, there are very very dangerous areas. Yeah,
36:13
Speaker 1: I was going to make the joke now, which I
36:15
Speaker 1: forgot to do earlier. But to do the same thing
36:19
Speaker 1: around Europe probably wouldn't happen because there will be so
36:22
Speaker 1: much red tape and bureaucracy. Then they're stopping you the
36:24
Speaker 1: whole time, asking this and asking that I can't imagine
36:28
Speaker 1: it being as easy.
36:31
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe I've got it wrong. Maybe it's just maybe
36:35
Speaker 2: you could ride around Europe easily. I don't know.
36:39
Speaker 3: I think you can. I mean, i'd say Europe in
36:43
Speaker 3: fact as distinct I mean mainland Europe as distinct from
36:47
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom. I think is bar note much much
36:51
Speaker 3: better for bicycling and people are much better.
36:54
Speaker 2: Could you ride around the UK? I suppose you could.
36:57
Speaker 3: You can. I mean I've ridden from one to the other,
37:01
Speaker 3: admittedly quite a while ago without without incident, which was
37:07
Speaker 3: absolutely fantastic. It's a really wonderful journey to to do
37:12
Speaker 3: and and I would, I would absolutely recommend it to anybody.
37:16
Speaker 2: You did it on a bicycle.
37:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing.
37:20
Speaker 3: John A Groats to Land's end. I mean it's quite
37:22
Speaker 3: it's quite a it's quite a well traveled route, not
37:25
Speaker 3: so much in March when it's blinking freezing, but that
37:29
Speaker 3: was when I chose to do it. So yeah, it's great,
37:33
Speaker 3: and I think it does. Yeah, it gives you, It
37:37
Speaker 3: gives you a very very different perspective. I think I
37:39
Speaker 3: would always encourage people to travel by different means because
37:43
Speaker 3: you get so used to you know, if you say
37:45
Speaker 3: you do habitually travel by train, you get used to
37:47
Speaker 3: the same views the same speed. If you if you
37:50
Speaker 3: make that same journey by you know, sort of as
37:53
Speaker 3: close as you can even in a car, you're going
37:55
Speaker 3: to get you're going to get a different perspective. But
37:57
Speaker 3: when you slow down and a bicycle is the sort
37:59
Speaker 3: of halfway house, you see so much more and also
38:03
Speaker 3: you get unless you're driving a high vehicle. I think
38:06
Speaker 3: in the UK, being on a bicycle is great because
38:08
Speaker 3: you tend to be able to see over the top
38:10
Speaker 3: of hedges that you can't see over from a car
38:13
Speaker 3: or whatever. It is. Obviously, ultimately the best way is
38:18
Speaker 3: to be on foot because you're not just seeing everything,
38:21
Speaker 3: but you're hearing everything. You hear much more on a bicycle,
38:23
Speaker 3: but you don't hear everything because you you've got sort
38:25
Speaker 3: of the rush of the wind in the way that
38:27
Speaker 3: you don't have when you're walking. But just the total
38:30
Speaker 3: transformation of perspective in how a journey can be and
38:35
Speaker 3: how you appreciate the landscape is totally totally different. And yeah,
38:41
Speaker 3: I mean to do that particular journey taking in the
38:46
Speaker 3: length of Scotland and England. I mean, sadly it doesn't
38:50
Speaker 3: you don't get into Wales, but yes, terrific exactly fantastic
38:53
Speaker 3: thing to do. And I think probably it's I don't know,
38:57
Speaker 3: to do it now. I mean they're not really be
38:59
Speaker 3: in any significant and is to those to those particular roads,
39:03
Speaker 3: So I think it will still be a great journey
39:04
Speaker 3: to do.
39:04
Speaker 1: Now, do you think the lack of interest in Latin
39:10
Speaker 1: America and Africa is by design?
39:21
Speaker 2: I don't think it's by design. Uh well, why why
39:25
Speaker 2: do you Why do you suggest that?
39:28
Speaker 1: Because if the media is not reporting anything, you know,
39:33
Speaker 1: like this, you know, they deliberately ignore certain topics and
39:37
Speaker 1: only present.
39:40
Speaker 2: War. Perhaps perhaps that creates.
39:43
Speaker 1: A weird kind of wiring in, you know, in the
39:46
Speaker 1: way in which people think and and perceive.
39:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I say I think that over
39:59
Speaker 2: the decades, there have been quite a number of documentary
40:09
Speaker 2: of a style series. I mean, if we if we
40:12
Speaker 2: even go back to Alan Wicker and Wickers World, and
40:16
Speaker 2: and and then you know, a whole bunch of other
40:19
Speaker 2: series of of people traveling from one end of the
40:22
Speaker 2: planet to the other, and Africa, Asia, South America. They've
40:25
Speaker 2: all at various times had a significant amount of coverage
40:29
Speaker 2: and and so I think there's definitely a an audience
40:33
Speaker 2: and an appetite for for that for those types of
40:36
Speaker 2: programs that are giving some kind of insight into into
40:39
Speaker 2: some of the culture. I mean, I'm not sure how
40:41
Speaker 2: much of it is is is real in a way,
40:46
Speaker 2: but it still gives some kind of picture of what
40:50
Speaker 2: of what it's like to be in those countries. The
40:55
Speaker 2: news is the news of courses is of course only
40:58
Speaker 2: ever going to talk about the the doom and disaster,
41:01
Speaker 2: because that's where that's that's what news is these days.
41:06
Speaker 1: But that's sorry, That's where I'm kind of pushing the
41:08
Speaker 1: question do you think if okay, how do I how
41:13
Speaker 1: do I ask the question if you have the same story,
41:18
Speaker 1: This is the thought experiment. One is a negative approach
41:21
Speaker 1: to the to the story, and one's a positive approach
41:24
Speaker 1: to the story. And you have them side by side,
41:27
Speaker 1: Which do you think is going to get more traction?
41:31
Speaker 2: And then why the one that gets more attraction is
41:35
Speaker 2: the is the the negative story? One hundred percent? Why?
41:40
Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to figure out, well, because that's
41:43
Speaker 2: that's what is most exciting for people, the doom scrolling.
41:53
Speaker 2: It is the doom scrolling, yes to some degree. And
41:55
Speaker 2: and the question is you know whether that is uh.
42:02
Speaker 1: Engineering First, let me ask you, but you and Chew's
42:06
Speaker 1: that exact same question, what what do you think you'd
42:08
Speaker 1: click on first the same story. One's negative approach and
42:11
Speaker 1: one's a positive approach.
42:14
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure that. I'm not sure that the
42:15
Speaker 2: type I mean, I'm looking at at two different types
42:20
Speaker 2: of content. One is the current affairs, what's going on
42:24
Speaker 2: in the world kind of thing. And I'm not sure
42:26
Speaker 2: that if we're talking about you know, SDAN, for example,
42:29
Speaker 2: that there's any way to put any kind of positive
42:32
Speaker 2: on that situation. Right, So, so clearly I'm not going
42:35
Speaker 2: to be looking for a positive story on that. But
42:40
Speaker 2: as I say, I'm personally hugely interested in discovering a
42:44
Speaker 2: lot more about the positive developments that are going on
42:49
Speaker 2: in parts of the world that I know relatively little about,
42:52
Speaker 2: and uh, and and discovering whether these positive stories are
42:58
Speaker 2: genuinely positive or not. And so so I think I'm
43:03
Speaker 2: not sure that it's possible to in all cases, or
43:08
Speaker 2: even in many cases, consider the possibility of the same
43:13
Speaker 2: story being presented in those two ways.
43:19
Speaker 3: Charles, I think, without wanting to sit on the fence,
43:25
Speaker 3: I'm Mike says, I think what one wants to know,
43:32
Speaker 3: I mean doing doing what we do. The critical thing
43:35
Speaker 3: for us is to understand, is to try to understand
43:38
Speaker 3: why there's a positive or negative framing to it. So
43:43
Speaker 3: Cobbon dixide is absolutely brilliant example. The climate change wallers
43:48
Speaker 3: will will bang the well, you know, combon oxides a
43:52
Speaker 3: problem because apparently it makes I mean, maybe it's a
43:56
Speaker 3: bad example because the science is just so ludicrous on it,
43:59
Speaker 3: but you knows, whereas, of course you could or should
44:04
Speaker 3: look at it as a as a mechanism by which
44:08
Speaker 3: the Earth is able to regenerate lost lost tractive vegetation
44:17
Speaker 3: because it provides more more of what it needs to
44:20
Speaker 3: be able to increase, you know, the greening element of it.
44:24
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe that's a silly example, but you see,
44:26
Speaker 3: my point is that it's a sort of well why,
44:29
Speaker 3: you know, why are you regarding something as being positive
44:32
Speaker 3: or why why is it being said to be negative?
44:35
Speaker 3: Why is it? I mean, as the fundamental question, we
44:38
Speaker 3: know this I think as a as an objective truth
44:42
Speaker 3: that people are drawn to something being coached in negative terms.
44:48
Speaker 3: Exactly why that should be and whether it has always
44:54
Speaker 3: been the case, I don't know. I find that I
44:58
Speaker 3: find that I give you.
45:00
Speaker 1: I've given an anecdote that relates to the South having
45:02
Speaker 1: conversation just a few days ago with somebody here talking
45:06
Speaker 1: about the child grooming gangs and the rape gangs and
45:11
Speaker 1: so on and so forth that apparently happening in the UK.
45:14
Speaker 2: Right, it's in the media.
45:15
Speaker 1: And my response was, okay, but it's not everywhere. This
45:20
Speaker 1: is just part of the media hype.
45:23
Speaker 2: Right. I'm sure.
45:23
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's bad in concentrated areas, and I don't
45:25
Speaker 1: live there, so you're welcome to absolutely correct me. But
45:29
Speaker 1: what I was trying to say is it's not across
45:32
Speaker 1: the board. Just like here in South Africa, violence is
45:35
Speaker 1: not across the board. It's not everywhere equally, there are
45:40
Speaker 1: beautiful places, you know, in the UK that don't have
45:43
Speaker 1: any of these issues, and there are probably hotspots, and
45:49
Speaker 1: that's the nature of how these things go.
45:51
Speaker 2: Here.
45:52
Speaker 1: Crime is concentrated in certain areas and it's certainly better
45:55
Speaker 1: in other respects. No, but you see, we need to win,
46:00
Speaker 1: need to be aware of of of these of these gangs.
46:03
Speaker 1: You know they are they are taking over the UK.
46:05
Speaker 1: Now the problem comes what is actually true? Now I
46:09
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't live there, so I wouldn't know.
46:12
Speaker 1: But now this is where the whole, the whole filtering
46:17
Speaker 1: of negativity and positivity and of course neutrality or truth
46:21
Speaker 1: shall we say, comes in.
46:25
Speaker 2: Well, since since you brought that particular topic up, I
46:29
Speaker 2: think that that that is more of an example of
46:34
Speaker 2: how you limit a particular issue the discussion of particular issue,
46:45
Speaker 2: because you know, just just to give one example, very
46:51
Speaker 2: minor example in some respects uh, leader of the Democratic
46:57
Speaker 2: Union's Party and in Northern Ireland, Free Donaldson, former leader
47:02
Speaker 2: has just been sentenced or in fact he hasn't been
47:05
Speaker 2: sentenced yet the sentencing since September, has just been found
47:08
Speaker 2: guilty of sex crimes against two underage you know, two
47:15
Speaker 2: female children. And then you say, well, hold on a second,
47:22
Speaker 2: is that just a one off, a one individual. Well,
47:27
Speaker 2: let's look a little bit into his background. And then
47:29
Speaker 2: you discovered, well, he was mentored by Enoch Paul, who
47:34
Speaker 2: was absolutely involved in the the the Parliamentary pedophile rings,
47:42
Speaker 2: absolutely had allegations made against them with respect to Concora
47:47
Speaker 2: Boys Home in Belfast. And then you then you you
47:54
Speaker 2: head out from there and you discover that, in fact,
47:57
Speaker 2: you know, uh, the this particular problem is something which
48:03
Speaker 2: is endemic within the within establishment circles, the so called
48:09
Speaker 2: Epstein classes that has become to be known. And why
48:13
Speaker 2: is this the case. This is the case because if
48:16
Speaker 2: you want to become a significant player politically in Britain, you'll,
48:23
Speaker 2: at some point, assuming you make the right connections, end
48:27
Speaker 2: up at a party and you'll be shoved in a
48:30
Speaker 2: room and there'll be a young person there, depending on
48:36
Speaker 2: your particular proclivities, and it's there for the taking. You
48:42
Speaker 2: take it, photographs, videos taken, and from that point forward,
48:47
Speaker 2: because the person turns out to be underage, you are
48:49
Speaker 2: therefore utterly controlled individual. This is something which has been
48:55
Speaker 2: part and parcel of the British establishment for decades, hundreds
48:59
Speaker 2: of year. Who knows. It's something that if you remember
49:03
Speaker 2: the Perfumer affair, Christine Killer mentioned and one of her
49:07
Speaker 2: books being at I can't remember which stately home it was,
49:14
Speaker 2: but but you know she was there as as an
49:17
Speaker 2: adult entertainment, but as a prostitute. But but she discussed
49:24
Speaker 2: in in at least one of her books being aware
49:27
Speaker 2: of the fact that children were there and not wanting
49:29
Speaker 2: to get involved in that particular. So the folk that
49:36
Speaker 2: this this issue is something which is absolutely being uh
49:44
Speaker 2: at the center of British political life for a very
49:48
Speaker 2: long time. And alongside that has been the children's home
49:57
Speaker 2: networks because the issue with the grooming gangs with a
50:02
Speaker 2: lot of these children were being taken out of children's
50:05
Speaker 2: homes and they were in the care of the local
50:08
Speaker 2: authorities and so on, and and this is something again
50:13
Speaker 2: which is which was going on for decades before the
50:17
Speaker 2: wherever before a Muslim community ever appeared in the UK.
50:21
Speaker 2: So this isn't something that was that's somehow limited to
50:24
Speaker 2: that to that particular demographic and in fact, the people
50:31
Speaker 2: that effectively allowed the grooming gangs to take place are
50:36
Speaker 2: the same types of people that have been allowing that
50:40
Speaker 2: abuse to happen forever. So by by focusing on by
50:47
Speaker 2: turning it into a Muslim issue once again, people's attention
50:53
Speaker 2: has been distracted from the bigger problem, and it is
50:59
Speaker 2: absolutely massive problem in this country. It hasn't gone away.
51:02
Speaker 2: It isn't something that died with Jimmy Saville. It isn't
51:05
Speaker 2: something that has ended in any way. And as long
51:10
Speaker 2: as we continue to allow ourselves to think that it's
51:13
Speaker 2: just just that one issue and that if we get
51:16
Speaker 2: rid of all these immigrants, the problem is going to
51:19
Speaker 2: go away. Well, the problem isn't going to go away.
51:21
Speaker 2: And more than that, in my opinion, if we focus
51:24
Speaker 2: on that issue, we're doing a massive disservice to all
51:28
Speaker 2: the people that have been have had their lives destroyed
51:34
Speaker 2: through the much broader organized pedophilia, organized sex crime, organized
51:42
Speaker 2: human slavery issue that we have in this country. So,
51:46
Speaker 2: you know, there's lots of lots of positives about the UK,
51:50
Speaker 2: but there are there is a dark center to it.
51:54
Speaker 2: And and you know if we if we simply ignore
51:57
Speaker 2: that dark center, you know that we are we're not
52:01
Speaker 2: being honest with ourselves and we're not being honest about
52:04
Speaker 2: what this country is. Mm hmm.
52:07
Speaker 1: Well, in Uganda, there is a Christian group known as
52:11
Speaker 1: the l r A, the Lord's Resistance Army, and they
52:15
Speaker 1: are part of the Peter Fileer Ring, the larger geopolitical ring.
52:19
Speaker 2: They're not Muslim.
52:24
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's it's not that's that's that's that's that's
52:27
Speaker 1: not yeah.
52:28
Speaker 2: But I mean, this is this is the important point.
52:30
Speaker 2: It's not it's not a it's not religious, can be,
52:34
Speaker 2: it's not. It's what we've got to recognize is that
52:38
Speaker 2: people that are that way, inclined will find an avenue
52:44
Speaker 2: to to through which to express that desire. And and
52:49
Speaker 2: that's why, for example, we've seen over the decades so
52:53
Speaker 2: many people in and priests, priests, or ministers, or or
53:00
Speaker 2: teachers or you know, people, people will put themselves in
53:03
Speaker 2: a position where they're able to come into contact with
53:06
Speaker 2: what it is that they want and that you know,
53:08
Speaker 2: it's not it's not that it was it's not that
53:11
Speaker 2: it's a problem with the Roman Catholic Church per se.
53:15
Speaker 2: It's it's the fact that the people that were inclined
53:17
Speaker 2: that way went into the Roman Catholic Church or into
53:20
Speaker 2: the Church of England, and then the issue became that,
53:24
Speaker 2: of course some of those people end up in senior roles,
53:27
Speaker 2: and then it becomes an institutional issue because the cover
53:29
Speaker 2: up happens, and and without without that, there has been
53:33
Speaker 2: an institutional cover up within within these types of organizations
53:39
Speaker 2: for the behavior of the people that are working for
53:41
Speaker 2: those organizations because they want to protect their own their
53:44
Speaker 2: own pr and their own public relations. And also they
53:47
Speaker 2: want to because once once you get people into a
53:49
Speaker 2: certain level within organizations of that type, then of course
53:54
Speaker 2: they want to protect each other and that's that at
53:58
Speaker 2: that point it does become institution, but it's not institutional
54:02
Speaker 2: in the sense of the religion. It's institutional in the
54:06
Speaker 2: sense of the organization itself.
54:08
Speaker 1: And I was just about to say that Charles on
54:11
Speaker 1: my show has spoken about the institutional problem within the
54:14
Speaker 1: Church of England, for example, with funding pornography.
54:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
54:19
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But well that's quite a good example what I
54:22
Speaker 3: was going to say. On the wider point about the
54:26
Speaker 3: presentation of the information. I think there are broadly two categories,
54:31
Speaker 3: which would be the way I would put it is
54:34
Speaker 3: exposure or amplification, and they are definitely two different things.
54:41
Speaker 3: So going back to what Mike was talking about the
54:46
Speaker 3: grooming gangs, it is absolutely right that people should know
54:50
Speaker 3: about that, of course they should, but within the context
54:55
Speaker 3: that Mike has just described. But what we've seen is
55:00
Speaker 3: that is one of several stories or pieces of information
55:06
Speaker 3: or sort of complex networks of information that has been amplified.
55:12
Speaker 3: And for anybody thinking therefore that I'm down playing it
55:16
Speaker 3: to say that it shouldn't be is that's That's not
55:18
Speaker 3: what I mean at all. It just means it gives
55:20
Speaker 3: people a skewed idea of where that fits within what
55:25
Speaker 3: Mike has just been talking about and and I think
55:29
Speaker 3: this is this is the difference, and this is the
55:31
Speaker 3: This is the terrific danger presented by the mainstream media
55:36
Speaker 3: and by and of course by social media. And this
55:38
Speaker 3: is part of the point of the way in which
55:41
Speaker 3: social media can be controlled and manipulated, because it's possible
55:45
Speaker 3: to amplify some things and suppress others. So you get
55:49
Speaker 3: you can you can utterly skew the public's consciousness of
55:51
Speaker 3: a particular thing. And the classic example of this, which
55:56
Speaker 3: I have talked about before, is the what his storically
56:00
Speaker 3: was silly season during the summer, the British summer when
56:05
Speaker 3: Parliament was in recess and all the newspapers come out
56:08
Speaker 3: and there's absolutely ridiculous stories, and that that was amplification.
56:12
Speaker 3: So you'd have one of the classics was dangerous dogs.
56:17
Speaker 3: You know, somebody would get bitten by a dog or worse,
56:21
Speaker 3: clearly terrible, an awful incident, but the way it was
56:24
Speaker 3: reported gave the impression that every single dog around, every
56:28
Speaker 3: single corner was lethal, was a dangerous dog, and that
56:31
Speaker 3: you know, something needs to be done. So are those
56:35
Speaker 3: are the two different things? And I think unfortunately we
56:38
Speaker 3: do live in an age where an awful lot of
56:42
Speaker 3: the latter happens. Stories are cherry picked, handpicked and amplified
56:47
Speaker 3: for some other purpose. There is not a duty or
56:55
Speaker 3: a responsibility taken to expose certain things that absolutely should
57:01
Speaker 3: be exposed, but in an even handed sense. And I
57:03
Speaker 3: think you know, to bang the UK column drum. This
57:07
Speaker 3: is precisely what when Brian started this twenty years ago
57:13
Speaker 3: and Mike joined shortly after. This is this is precisely
57:17
Speaker 3: the point of UK column, not just UK column News,
57:21
Speaker 3: but the whole gammut, and still is today. It is
57:26
Speaker 3: to offer that sense of perspective, which is, you know,
57:32
Speaker 3: is a really difficult thing to do because to establish
57:35
Speaker 3: exactly where one story fits within the wider context is
57:40
Speaker 3: not always immediately obvious.
57:43
Speaker 1: Just before we come in for the final lap, right
57:46
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the conversation, Mike, you said that
57:50
Speaker 1: you haven't been to Africa, so I think you should
57:54
Speaker 1: experience our three great experts here in South Africa, wine, wildlife,
58:01
Speaker 1: and crime.
58:02
Speaker 2: So you need to come and visit which particular form
58:10
Speaker 2: of crime do you think I should experience? So I'll
58:14
Speaker 2: protect you.
58:17
Speaker 1: But but if if you've had enough wine, then it
58:19
Speaker 1: won't matter. Okay, but Charles, you've been yes, so it's
58:27
Speaker 1: it's just you left, Mike, so we need to change that.
58:30
Speaker 1: In the near future that would be and it'll be
58:34
Speaker 1: a flight. It won't be a high speed trained just yet.
58:39
Speaker 2: Charles and I can cycle from I don't know, from
58:44
Speaker 2: Egypt to right down the East coast or something.
58:48
Speaker 3: It's possible. You bring the puncture, a packet and a
58:52
Speaker 3: and a snack or two.
58:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. No, I'm sure we can. Well,
58:58
Speaker 2: I'm sure we can get our snacks along the way,
59:00
Speaker 2: you know.
59:03
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of people have done it.
59:05
Speaker 2: You know.
59:06
Speaker 3: The reason I was asking I was asking you who
59:08
Speaker 3: that was, because I can't remember what he went on
59:10
Speaker 3: to do. But I one certainly somebody who did bike
59:14
Speaker 3: through quite a lot of Africa a few years ago.
59:17
Speaker 3: Did he stopped off. He was a very good cricketer.
59:19
Speaker 3: He's biking to Australia for the Ashes series and he
59:23
Speaker 3: stopped off and played a game cricket for me and Nairabi.
59:26
Speaker 3: That was fun. Probably not biking to Australia. Yeah, he
59:30
Speaker 3: biked from London to Sydney. I think it was for
59:35
Speaker 3: the start of the Ashes series. Read a book about it.
59:39
Speaker 1: Half of the trip is floating on the ocean.
59:42
Speaker 3: Admittedly, he was not bicycling across the across the water,
59:46
Speaker 3: but I think you get you get the general idea.
59:48
Speaker 3: It's still quite a long way.
59:50
Speaker 2: All right.
59:51
Speaker 1: So this is a slightly more advanced conversation. So by
59:54
Speaker 1: the time this is you're not going to be around
59:57
Speaker 1: for a few days. Charles, I'm just winging that out
59:59
Speaker 1: in care is there are any kind of inconsistencies with
1:00:02
Speaker 1: with time, so I just want to clarify that, all right, gentlemen.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: I'll catch up with one of you soon, I think,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: and that'll be right all right, thanks guys, mm hmm.