288: Angel or Devil? We choose.

Good morning, dear friends

You may find today’s letter a little heavy, so we’ll start with two babies to make you smile: a Cape leopard cub and a rescued orphan hippo.

If they don’t work, then Bouwer Bosch and Themba Robin’s tale of South Africa through movie titles will — if you’re outside SA, this is a quick way to understand this country’s quirkiness – we are as likely to laugh you out of power as vote you out (Thank you Nonkululeko Britton for sharing this with us).

And if you need a glass of wine after reading, you won’t go wrong sipping some of the spectacular Leeuwenkuil Heritage Syrah.

/strategy
Good strategy depends on three things. Imagination. Choice. Intentional action.

Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders’ recently released latest novel, Vigil, tells the story of powerful oil tycoon K.J. Boone.

Boone is on his deathbed, and spirits hover around him. Some wish to celebrate him; others wish to show him the error of his business ways.

Boone is unrepentant. In his telling, he just did what needed to be done. He came from humble beginnings. He built a successful life. And yes, he ran an oil company. And yes, sometimes running that company required making hard decisions and sometimes those decisions affected people, or rivers, or forests and sometimes, to protect the company, he needed to make certain things happen or certain people made certain things happen that he didn’t want to know about, but knew needed to happen and so they did, without anyone saying that they did.

The spirit charged with shepherding Boone into the afterlife reflects, “My charge had been born him. But had never chosen to be born him. That had just happened to him. Then life had happened to that him, exerting upon it certain deleterious effects, including but not limited to: the powerful nature of his early desires, which had led him to strive, which in turn, led him to accomplish, and in accomplishing, he had brought about harm, even as the mind he’d been given, from the start, bloomed forth, just as it must, causing him in the face of that harm (and the accusations made against him due to that harm), to suppresses and deny the reality of the harm and become, over time, averse to even acknowledging it”.

At 44, Jack Bogle was fired from the Wellington Management Company. At 45, he founded Vanguard, which brought into the world the low-cost index fund.

Jim Collins, in his latest book What to Make of a Life, observes, “Bogle likely contributed more to individual investors than any other person in history, championing the promulgation of low-cost mutual funds that favored the individual investor, not the fund manager”.

Vanguard ultimately had trillions of dollars under management. However, Bogle had deliberately set it up as a mutual fund.

Collins tells us, “Bogle could easily have been a member of the multibillionaire club if he’d set up the firm to channel the profits to himself. But he did not do that, for the simple reason that the mutual structure better aligned with his self-chosen responsibility to best serve the interests of the individual investor”.

Strategy: imagination, choice, intentional action.
 
//self
In April Donald Trump told Pope Leo to “focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician”. South Africans who had lived through apartheid shuddered. We know that formulation all too well.

Apartheid architect, Hendrik Verwoerd called Rev Beyers Naudé, “a traitor to his people”. The apartheid regime labelled Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, “a meddlesome priest”. The list goes on.

As Trump trumpeted, I was reminded of Archbishop Desmond Tutu 1988 open letter to apartheid enforcer, PW Botha who also wanted the priest out of politics.

The Archbishop started, “I want to state quite categorically that I stand by all that I have done and said concerning the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the situation of injustice and oppression and exploitation which are the very essence of apartheid, a policy which your government has carried out with ruthless efficiency.”

Of his activism, he said, “What we are doing is no innovation when we bring the Word of God as we understand it to bear on the situation in which we are involved. The prophets of old… spoke about the need for religion to show its authenticity by how it affected the everyday life of the people and especially by how the rich, the powerful, the privileged and the rulers dealt with the less privileged, the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan and the alien”.

As I read the Arch’s letter, I was reminded that for all South Africa’s failings, we have been blessed with giants who fought for a world that embraces all who live in it.

We have known the voices of Tutu, Huddleston, Naudé, of Imam Abdullah Haron, Rabbi Ady Assabi and many other religious leaders of integrity – they, amongst others, are South Africa’s voice.

///soul
Last week, I introduced you to Flea’s album Honora. On it is a song, Plea. The lyrics include these words:
Everyone just wants to be loved
Everyone wants love
See the god in everyone
Everyone leaves out, no-one
And everything besides love is cowardice
You wanna be brave, you wanna be tough?
Peace and love is the toughest, hardest thing you can do

Build a bridge, it’s where the courage is
Build a bridge, it’s where the courage is
Shine your light
Shine it true

In contrast to Bogle and Tutu, Flea’s words may feel almost trite, and yet they are the foundations of their revolutions.
 
With much love
 
Karl
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