Slave to the Wage

"Slave To The Wage"

Run away from all your boredom

Run away from all your whoredom and wave

Your worries, and cares, goodbye

All it takes is one decision

A lot of guts, a little vision to wave

Your worries, and cares goodbye

It's a maze for rats to try 

It's a race, a race for rats

A race for rats to die

It's a race, a race for rats

A race for rats to die

Oh boy did I try to run this race…….until I realized that even if I would be one of the lucky ones to win it….. I would still be a rat……so….after having lived in the Netherlands for  a few months…. I realized that I had to give up doing what I was trying to do…. I had to listen to my heart …and focus the rest of my life on what my soul told me to do…. all it takes is one decision...

Mmm… a big step for a not-so-confident guy with a not-so-impressive brain and oh-so-very-many-vulnerabilities.  But …what the heck…we only live once... And even though my list of weaknesses seem longer than the advertisements in the Snuffelcolumn of the Snuffelgids, I know there is one thing I can do very well… and that is to make big dreams come true. This lifetime is also just way too short to do all the things that I want to do, so I really hope that I can come back one day (even if it is just to see and experience the latest version of the iPad).

I therefore seriously believe (and hope!) that there is a Greater Power … I call it the Universe… or even God if you like… NOT the kind of god I find Christians and other religious groupings trying to convince me of…I like the simple things in life, so I hope God is an omniscient all knowing god who doesn’t give a sh** about what religious franchise I belong to…but a God who is a God for everybody….

The more I travel the world the more I realize that any ONE religion cannot be THE right religion…. Would God really be that stupid to condemn billions of people forever and ever?? I am prepared to risk eternity on the fact that I believe and hope there is a God …but an intelligent and great God… Not the vicious guy in the sky the Dutch (sorry Dutchies) Reformed church tried make me believe in…. and the more I travel, the more I realize how many people out there know that the bullsh** indoctrination by many churches are fairy tale stories to fill their own pockets.

Yeah... I am sure even the God of the Dutch Reformed Church will laugh (come on...he would at least smile!!) at this guy!

When I observe two of the most powerful religious groupings in the world…the Christians and Muslims…. Both of them preach respect and peace…. But they can’t even take hands on a leadership level…where does this leave you and me? Us, the common people…..huh….and lest me not forget the uncommon ones amongst us. Ordinary people who are in a much lesser position to try and make a difference and make change happen here… Hell …hell, somewhere some pranksters are just bul*****g us for their own egos and money in their pockets. And so many of us fall for it??  Luckily we all have the power of choice… and I respect this choice you make… even if I may not agree with it. At the end of the day we are responsible for our own souls…. And only I (you) can decide my (your) own destiny. All of life, and death, it seems, is a choice.

The one thing I have learnt as an entrepreneur was that you can never give up… NEVER ever! I have also learnt that you can blame no one but yourself if things don’t turn out the way you wanted it be. A big part of my decision to follow my soul, was a decision AGAINST the things in my life that stopped me from reaching my dream….I had to walk away from the things that drained my energy. (At some stage I had the urge to publish “the finger” in the Sunday Times in South Africa …with one word beneath it….SETAS…haha…. luckily I never had the money to do it… )  For our non- South African friends …the SETAS are government bodies who regulate education and training in South Africa on a sectorial (sectarian?) basis. I mean this would get my company into deep trouble….

And still today some of my companies and some of my dearest friends are trying to build their entrepreneurial businesses on this circus… whoooof….The day I walked away from the SETAS evoked a similar emotional ecstasy as the day I walked out of formal employment sixteen years ago. Orgasmic! How many times have you considered giving your boss the middle finger? Shit on his desk?…and just walk out to start your own business…. Far too few of us eventually do this….

Well, I must admit…. It takes effort and craziness (not guts) to run away from bosses.... An even bigger turn off for me are banks… those elephant institutions that milk you for every cent you have worked for….and then wallow in their bonuses (sic)… Somehow Banks and Bosses conjures up a similar uncomfortable feeling in my soul (and uneasiness in my stomach).  Looking at some prominent bank slogans really make me smile:

Lloyds TSB banking - You first. Banking worth talking about

Lloyds TSB -  The bank that likes to say Yes

AIB - Allied Irish Bank - Your Life. Anything is possible. Be with AIB

Barclays bank - Fluent in finance. It's our business to know your business

ING Direct bank. Save Your Money!

ABN AMRO bank - Making more possible

Do we dare mention the slogans of South African banks? Hehe… First National Bank?? How can we ....what?? Pe- LEASE ....

Yes, I have a few turn-offs ( my tongue is always firmly in my cheek) ...and irritants in life:   

Bosses...  
Arrogance...  
SETAS... (I diligently support my government, but....) 
Banks, 
the words ”dat kan niet” (it can't), 
Burocrats...  
Human Resources (sorry guys, I love you,  but I think if we could fire all HR people the world will be a much better place… and then get all of them to focus their energy on Sustainability), 
Rules and regulations….  
Visas (Zwervers ... nomads... and World Citizens just do not fit the little “allochtone” (yuk!) hokje/ box /doos (?),  

Religion…. 
The pope,
The engee church (ouch for another Dutch invention)….
….and Judas people

But, on a  serious note. Over the past five years I have had three heart attacks … two major heart operations and seven operations where they had to put stents in my veins to keep me alive…you don’t have to be a statistics boffin to work out the odds…hehe… I better enjoy every second of my life….it is then that material things move way down on the importance scale.... and you really have to decide where you wanna be one day. (This afterlife thingy is upfront in my mind) I have to do what I love with all my heart with people whom I WANT to be with….and with people whom I want to work with…

In Amsterdam I have lots of time to think…. During my life I had the opportunity to meet the most wonderful people …. Friends who have influenced me in very unique and profound ways …. Some of them have been in my life for many years….some great people have recently became friends but I know I will keep them as friends for years to come…some have disappeared… some never really became friends... and some whom I thought have disappeared, miraculously re-appeared on Facebook. Incredible! 

But if I have to narrow it down to the five people who have influenced my life and my being in a very profound (?) way… it explains a little bit about my fascination with the Netherlands?

Jan van Riebeeck…

I  owe my whole life to this oke….I mean if it wasn’t for him, The first Frenchman (funny enough also a Pierre du Toit) wouldn’t have set foot on South African soil back in the 16 hundreds. Yes, Jan van Riebeeck…. The dutch guy who founded the Cape of Good Hope! It was only later on in life when I realized that he wasn’t REALLY the founder of South Africa and that there WAS actually a history before he came. Back then, JvR was the head of the VOC trading post in Vietnam. However, he was called back from this post as it was discovered that he was conducting trade for his own account. ( Later I had to learn that this is very much part of the Dutch way of doing….. and we even see the implant of this in the dna of many South Africans today)

In 1651 he was requested to undertake the command of the initial Dutch settlement in the future South Africa. He landed three ships Drommedaris, Reijger and Goede Hoop at the future Cape Town on 6 April 1652 and fortified the site as a way-station for the VOC trade route between the Netherlands and the East Indies. The Walvisch and the Oliphant arrived later, having had 130 burials at sea. (The symbol of the Elephant continued to play a role in future.... isn't it strange that the crocodile only featured later in the 1970's)

An interesting fact about Van Riebeeck is that two of his sons completed their law studies at the university of Leiden in 1673…. Leiden…a beautiful city about half an hour by train from Amsterdam… the birthplace (some sources say Amsterdam) of the next most important guy in my life….

Hendrik French Verwoerd…

The founder and architect of Apartheid….in fact his apartheid policies impacted the lives of many millions of people here on the southern tip of Africa. Klein Hendrikkie was the second child of Anje Strik and Wilhelmus Johannes Verwoerd. His father was a shopkeeper and a deeply religious man (Oh sh....) who decided to move to South Africa in 1903 because of his sympathy towards the Afrikaner nation after the South African War. Hendrik Verwoerd had an elder brother named Leendert and a younger sister named Lucie. In 1913, the family moved to Bulawayo (Rhodesia), the elder Verwoerd became an assistant evangelist in (Mmm...wait for it...yeah...you've guessed it) ...the Dutch reformed Church.(Where else?)

The day groot Hendrikkie died is one of my earliest memories. On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was assassinated in Cape Town. A uniformed parliamentary messenger named Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed Verwoerd in the neck and chest four times before being subdued by other members of the Assembly. Members who were also trained as medical practitioners rushed to the aid of Verwoerd and started administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Verwoerd was rushed to Groote Schuur Hospital, but was declared dead upon arrival.

Tsafendas escaped the death penalty on the grounds of insanity. (Insanity?) Judge Beyers ordered Tsafendas to be imprisoned indefinitely at the "State President's pleasure." Who ever thought then, that some day way into the future, we would have a real President… a President for everybody.

Verwoerd's funeral, attended by a quarter of a million people, was held in Pretoria on 10 September 1966….almost exactly 44 years ago. He was buried in the Hero's Acre (hehe!) in front of the Union Buildings. But he left a legacy…..

"Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?" Urgh! Bleh!

(Having had the pleasure of observing the duck and dive politics in the Netherlands it was and is quite interesting to watch a new clown.... "geert wilders" trying to achieve a similar agenda … Dutchies ...please... please....please learn from South Africa.....)

The Lion & the Elephant. As Minister of Native Affairs, Verwoerd palavered endlessly with tribal chiefs, endlessly exhorted the Africans: "We should live apart, as the lion and the elephant live apart." (Remember the ship "Elephant" in the Van Riebeeck years?! 130 buriels at sea... mmm...elephant thinking .....)


"Because Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd was an immoral man. I decided to stab him; so I killed him." Tsafendas....a modern day Judas Iscariot? Or maybe he should get his place next to Verwoerd in the Hero's Acre one day...)

And then he came… A man with the most interesting beautiful hands I have ever seen… a symbol of HOPE… Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela…a living legend… an example to the rest of the world….

A man who shares one value in life, with what another very important person in my life, my mother, Rina du Toit, taught me.  The value that no one person is more important than the other… And that we can only be because of other people. “I am because you are”

It took me a year or two to realize that I am definitely not European…. I am way too different to be a  Dutchy in Dutchland…once an African always an African…and apart from a few French songs and movies, I know very little about the French culture (so the only thing French about me is my name and surname... and what's in a name?)


However, I know we as South Africans must (?) take hands with the Dutchies… there are so many things we can learn from each other… so… I have started in my small way to build a bridge … and I hope more of you will join me on this incredible journey…

Speak to you soon!