There is one more story about the Rebbe that I would like to share — this story is about his behind-the-scenes influence on South Africa, which has been well documented.
In 1990, I was contacted by Nelson Mandela’s organization, the African National Congress (ANC), which was looking for an advertising agency to help reposition the organization from being a liberation movement towards being a political party. Furthermore, they then wanted to hire us as their ad agency for the upcoming general election, the first democratic elections held in South Africa. It was a difficult decision for me because although I was left-leaning and had been brought up in a vehemently anti-apartheid family, it was a challenging situation since many senior members of the ANC were still ‘banned’ under South African law.
The first time I went to the ANC’s Department of Publicity offices, I literally came face-to-face with a massive poster of Yasser Arafat, which covered the wall facing the entrance. This immediately made me question the wisdom of what I was doing, so I decided to ask the Rebbe’s advice. I was able to do so with the help of Rabbi Levi Wineberg of the Torah Academy, whose father, Rabbi Yosef Wineberg, lived in New York and had a close relationship with the Rebbe. Rabbi Wineberg immediately went to inform the Rebbe that I had been working with the ANC and stressed that their connections to the PLO were making me question my decision.
The Rebbe didn’t hesitate to give me a blessing for success and advised that I should use my influence “to focus on the good.” There was a condition, however — that I should keep silent and say nothing about his blessing until after the elections.
I had many opportunities to convince the ANC publicity team to eschew all negative messaging and to focus on building a vision of hope, a vision of a better future, for all the people of South Africa.
At the time there were members of the ANC leaders who were inclined otherwise. I remember a specific ad they had suggested. It read, “They stole your dignity, they stole your land; now they want to steal your vote.”
Bearing the Rebbe’s advice in mind, I was able to convince the decision-makers at the ANC that we should not be wasting our resources looking back at past wrongs, but forward to a better future. Without much further debate, the ad was rejected as a bad idea.
For the next four years I went into every meeting with a clear and powerful conviction of how to approach the campaign — “to focus on the good.”
Source: Slightly modified by Yerachmiel Tilles from a weekly email of "Here's My Story,” a part of JEM’s superlative “My Encounter with the Rebbe” project. Mr. Louis Gavin is partner and Chief Creative Officer at The Open Collaboration, a company based in Benmore, South Africa. He was interviewed in August of 2014.
