PREMIUM: Meet Michael Charton: SA’s practical, storytelling historian with a message of hope

LONDON — Former chartered accountant Michael Charton epitomises the dividends which flow from following your passion. His second career as a practical, storytelling historian is booming, with a diary so heavily committed he often spends less than half his week at home in Cape Town. I caught up with Michael in his Johannesburg hotel room to find out more about the man whose message draws from the past to offer hope for the future – one resonating with South African audiences. What transpired is a discussion ranging from his empathy with #RhodesMustFall supporters through to insights on SA's turbulent modern era. Charton also offers sensible advice for each of us to help make SA a better country. Fascinating. – Alec Hogg.Crossing to Johannesburg now and it's a warm welcome to Michael Charton who is making a huge name for himself in not just the city but all over SA, for taking an unusual approach towards the country's history. Looking at the past and finding ways that perhaps there are lessons we can learn to apply to the difficult times the country is going through right now but let's find out more about Michael himself. What drew you to this line of work, Michael? .___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Alec, it's really like most South Africans, I'm curious about our country and I think it's a fascinating place. I came through a traditional corporate background, as I mentioned in a previous chat, that I'm a chartered accountant. It was more standing around a braai or at the dinner table increasingly coming to realise that well educated, tertiary educated South Africans know very little about our past. Having studied history on the side I came to realise that there was an opportunity to try and make our history more accessible to people. There's some beautifully written books but unfortunately, most of them catch dust so, my big idea was to try and find ways to try and make it accessible, and that's where my project is focused on. .It's an interesting point that because Jacques Pauw's book, The President's Keepers, which has taken SA by storm has also evoked some criticism on Twitter on 'who is this propagandist?' 'Why is he writing such rubbish?' If they just thought of a little bit of the history of the guy, who exposed the whole Vlakplaas apartheid death squads you wouldn't have that question. It's a malaise that people just don't read anymore. .Yes, I think there's a couple of parts of that but certainly, our history allows us to look at our current and our future with a lot less emotion. We can look at it in a manner, which I think is more rational. I suspect and believe with more hope. We get a barrage of news about the current and it seems to bog people down, and I think that's a big part of SA's challenge. It always has been but we're faced with terrifying news every day and I think our history helps us put that into some good perspective. Again, that's a part of what I try and achieve with my story..How do you make a living out of this?.Look, my plan changes quite rapidly, as I guess is the case with most entrepreneurs, but I originally wrote the story for a tourism market. The idea being that if tourists come into SA – it's a complexed story, and how do you make it accessible to them? I like the market because they're a new market every day but through the process of writing the story increasingly I found this new South African interest and I guess a lot of it is linked to the same reason as Jacques Pauw's book has found so much interest. The South African story of South African politics has really reached a fevered pitch so, increasingly I see South Africans interested and more interested in working out how we got to where we are right now. Through that I started picking up occasional corporate gigs and now my diary is pretty full with just corporate sessions, which would involve telling the story and then having discussions about where we're at and how our past is relevant..What kind of questions get thrown at you by these executives at big corporates?.The most frequent question I get is, 'when are you going to do a story about now?' My story, 'My Father's Coat,' which is a story I tell most frequently, really comes to an end in about 1996, with the signing of the new constitution. I haven't delved into the current political scenario for a couple of reasons but to be honest, and the most practical reason is that to play in that space I think you need to build your reputation over a long period of time. It's a very sensitive space, SA politics, and even Jacques Pauw who, as you mentioned, has been writing for decades, and he's finding his work challenged. So, for commercial and practical reasons I don't venture into a political space but the first question that comes out is, 'what do I think is going to happen next,' and 'what is going on in the current?' To be honest, I try not to go into that space. I avoid it. I will chat to people openly over a glass of wine afterwards but in a public space I don't do that yet because I haven't had the opportunity to build my own reputation for being balanced. That said, my story, I think, is hugely relevant in that I think there are many lessons and parallels in the past, without having to look at the current or the future, are very relevant. .A good friend of mine who used to be the dean of GIBS Business School, Nick Binedell, tells me that what is happening today is almost a replay of the way that the National Party handled things from 1948 onwards. He says, it's almost like somebody has picked up the play-book and said, 'right, we'll change the approaches or the messages,' but it's a very similar kind of strategy that's being employed politically. Without getting too involved in that, do you think he's telling the truth?.Well, I think in a sense that's logical. Having spent a fair amount of time looking at history as a study it makes sense. Human beings faced with certain challenges and certain scenarios generally act in the same way. We're human beings and we incentivise in certain ways and we'll do things to control the world that's in a way that's the best we can so, in many ways it's not a surprise that we're seeing it. I think what the world has got to try and do is find ways to change the greater environment whereby people are allowed to behave in a particular manner and that we force our leaders back into a situation where they're acting in the best interest of the people. Without those changes and controls humans will act in the same way and that's proven itself over many centuries. Yes, we see a lot of that happening and I think the parallels go further back than just 1948 onwards. We see South Africans consciously dividing themselves for political purposes. Certainly, around the unions into the emerging of the National Party from 1950 onwards, and as I say, these are just human instincts..It's almost a little like the Dutch disease, isn't it? Here we have an incredibly rich country with lots of mineral wealth, with lots of potential, and lots of opportunity and when you have that human beings or human greed tends to get in the way, whether that's greed from a political sense or from entrepreneurs as well. If we were just a barren piece of land I suppose, SA's history would be nowhere near as rich as it is..Yes, I had that exact question last night, and that exact question was, 'what do you think SA would have been like if we hadn't discovered or weren't blessed, or cursed, with such a tremendous wealth that we do have?' It's an incredibly difficult question to answer but I can say, with some authority that we would not have had nearly as traumatic a history as we do and have experienced. I think that is pretty much without doubt but I feel like what I'm saying is also doom and gloom. The one thing, which I feel very strongly about is that we've never been in a better position to enforce our leaders to behave in a responsible manner. To put yourself into their shoes for a moment, I don't think there's ever been a worse time to try and be ruthless or criminal, or whatever it might be because it's just so difficult to cover up information. Jacques Pauw is one example but we've seen the whole concept of leak. It's not something that's ever going to go away. You can't lock anything away on the 7th floor of the BJ Vorster Building anymore. It's a difficult thing to do and I think young politicians, if I imagine myself as a 50-year-old politician climbing through the ranks of one of our SA political parties – I think they'd be thinking differently about getting involved in corruption as they might have 5 or 10 years ago. .We're seeing it around the world, aren't we, as the internet age becomes more prevalent and more understood that a leak is a keystroke away? .Yes, it is and these things will follow you for the rest of your life. I just feel that, both in SA and on a global level, as scary as the news sounds I feel like the noises are right. We're starting to feel a change in tide and I think or believe that in 20 or 50 years' time, we're going to look back and say, 'geez, these guys got away with a lot but thankfully that's not something that can happen anymore. It may be blind optimism but I just think it is going to be increasingly difficult to get away with stuff, and with people having so much information easily accessible..Read also: Stephen Mulholland: History offers SA hope from ravages of Zuptoids.So, in the old days stockbrokers would send you research reports in the hope that you were going to give them business by trading in the shares but that's shown to have not been a perfect model. .Correct so, there're a number of issues with how that works and how the incentives stack-up between where you trade and where you receive research. So, what the regulator is trying to do here is unbundle the two. What they're fundamentally saying is, 'you need to treat clients as fairly as possible in both domains.' So, you need to seek best execution when you trade so, you go and trade those Anglo shares with whoever is going to get you the best price, the best liquidity and all those things. Then by your research, from the research providers, who are best placed to give you the insight you need to make your trading decisions. That, in a nutshell, is essentially what's happening. .It seems like practical realism to me but going back to the SA story. How did we get here? How did we get to where we are at the moment, that we have this incredibly complex history? But on the other hand, different mindsets that have been built over decades, or even centuries, that stop people from maybe understanding the other guy's' perspective? .It's a good but it's a long answer that. That's why my story is about 90 minutes but I think if I can extract the essence of my story, which kind of answers that question. It's the way that humans have thought about the world is heavily influenced, both by your immediate surroundings, your community, 'My Father's Coat,' which is the title of my story is a subtle reference to the fact that we all wear our father's coats, or our parents' or our communities, whichever way you want to think about it but our attitudes are driven heavily by that. Paul Kruger, who had very strong attitudes on the world driven primarily by the Bible. His father was a senior member of a very conservative church, the 'Doppers.' Paul's views on the world were shaped very carefully by his father and his church. In a sense, he was always going to have the attitudes, which he did show. It would be very unlikely that he had different attitudes to the ones that he did show..https://twitter.com/bassetzoo/status/862355552684388353.While that's a fairly extreme example, all of us are subject to that so, on the one hand, our attitudes are driven by the people we are close to. Then the other elements of that is those attitudes have changed fairly dramatically, over time so, as recent as the 19th Century, which I used to think was a long time ago but as I age, it seems to creep closer and closer. People believe, well certainly Europeans believed, that they had a racial superiority and that was hardly ever questioned. It was a belief and they believed that because Europe had developed so differently to much of the rest of the world but there was empirical evidence supporting that. Just that belief inspired certain behaviours, which contributed to this remarkable tragedy that occurred right here on the Southern tip of Africa. These attitudes, which are influenced both by our surroundings and by our time, all work together into a Shakespearean tragedy. Whereby very few people went to bed believing they were evil. Yet, at the same time, we saw this tragedy occur. .Where their perspectives made them act evilly or in an evil manner..Yes, exactly, or certainly when you look back at it from today. For what we understand as being right or wrong today, they were clearly immoral but again, in their time they wouldn't have believed that because they came from a different belief system. The interesting element of that is of course, what we believe is right and wrong now, will probably be well, history tells us, will be frowned upon or elements of our behaviour will be frowned upon in 100 years from now. Perhaps it's just flushing drinking water down the toilet or having pets, things which we consider to be normal will be considered or many of them will be considered to be evil or wrong, we just don't know what they are..Read also: "Rebalancing" SA's image: British film maker's inspirational project of Good Hope.I had a mail recently from a Trade Union leader, who dismissed out of hand, Jacques Pauw's book for instance, he said, 'it's complete propaganda.' It got me thinking about a saying that 'contempt before enquiry is the height of arrogance.' What you're doing is perhaps opening eyes so that the enquiry is not forced on people but that they enjoy understanding learning more but do you find that you have hardened attitudes in the audiences and sometimes someone will stand up and defend the old racially superior perspective that they believed maybe 100 years ago?.Alec, very rarely. I'd be lying if I say, I haven't had some resistance. I do and I genuinely have a great respect for all SA peoples and I hope that shines through in my story but I do, every now and again get challenged, and that's been a great source of learning for me. At times I've changed my story accordingly, once I've thought about what they've said and researched any facts that they've thrown at me. My story is not a script, as such. It is a constantly evolving, challenged to and I strive for that impossible perfect balance. Yes, I get challenged from time-to-time and my theory on it is, and I go back to my old accounting brain. What I think to myself is, if I speak to any 100 people or any 100 South Africans, there'll be a couple of people on the outside who disagree with certain elements, or certain things or attitudes that I show through my story. As an accountant I say to myself, well that leaves me with two choices. Either I don't offend anyone and I can easily do that by not trying to tell a story about SA history, or I tell it and I try to learn and I adjust accordingly, if I think I've been incorrect. Otherwise, I've got to accept that I'm going to offend some people and to me, I look at it and I look at SA and I say, 'there's two choices,' either we don't talk about our past, which I think has been a fairly common strategy. We're scared to talk about it. It's very painful – we feel guilty. People will tell you they just don't like our history – the Great Trek was forced down my throat. Or we go the other route and we say, 'okay, well let's try and talk about it,' because this is something we haven't spoken about and if we don't talk about it it's going to rot and fester, and in the words of Louis Brandeis, 'sunlight is the best of disinfectants.' That's the attitude I've taken. I've had to give myself a few stern-talking to because it's not easy taking criticism but that's been a logical response that I've taken..Just to take one of the areas that is quite a hot topic or has been over the past couple of years, and a man who's story you do talk to, Cecil John Rhodes – the whole 'Rhodes must fall' movement, which even got as far as Oxford University. Is that being shaped through ignorance or is it being shaped through something better informed? .I think a lot of it has got to do, as I mentioned earlier, with the way that attitudes have shaped over the last 100 years, and our attitudes have changed a lot in those 100 years. So, what we understand as right and wrong has changed a lot. I think that's the underlying concept and that's what I try and pull through in my story. That said, I think there's a very strong argument to say that the British Empire, much of which its strength was built on a new set of human values, or human rights, which allowed people to unleash human enterprise and innovation and propel Britain to the top of the world through these new freedom and human rights. When the British Empire then came up to SA, parading these noble new rights and values, and serving it, in their eyes, by setting up courthouses and missionary schools right across the colony. The reality was that if the British Empire looked back with retrospect unfortunately, those human rights were, in the end, selectively applied to white people..Read also: Mike McWilliams: CJ Rhodes was the original Gupta. History repeats itself..If one thinks about what happened when the mines emerged and labour was required so, I think even the British Empire in those days could have looked back, even with their old attitudes, and realise that they compromised themselves to the point that where they could expect to have a very bad wrath, in the long run. I think there's some value to the 'Rhodes must fall,' campaign in that Rhodes, who is a symbol for the British Empire. I think they did compromise on their own value system. That said, I don't hold strong opinions on what should happen to statues or not. I'm actually still trying to work it out in my own head but I want to live in a country where people don't feel offended. I'm still trying to work it out, Alec..Where do you get your information from?.I guess the value proposition that I add is that I pull the SA story together so, in that way, it's nice for me in that I don't have to spend hours and hours in the archives. I take my information from readily available books, which have been written by academics, SA internationals, and really, my art is to try and pull that story together. As I said, considering my underlying idea is to try and make it accessible so, really just in all of the SA books, which you'll see on people's' shelves catching dust..There are some wonderful books that are catching dust, even in my own library, which you just never seem to get around to but it is a fascinating story, the SA story, and one that needs to be brought to be life because you can't wish away the white population, of which there are 5 million of them, there are more white South Africans than the entire Irish population in Ireland, for instance. There's almost as many white South Africans as there are Swiss people in Switzerland so, there's no simple solutions to all of this and perhaps the best solution is to find a way that everyone can live together and respect each other. .Yes, I'm a big believer in that and I guess, one of the challenges I faced as an individual was I didn't really know how to do that because I hadn't myself, understood the complexity of our story. I'm still trying to understand it better but without having that understanding of just how complexed, how tragic, and how amazing the SA story was – I think it's quite difficult to do that to reconcile in a meaningful way. We can always try and be nice, and it's in our human instinct is to be nice to people around us and to be empathetic but to be truly empathetic and to be truly respectful – I believe in SA considering our unique history. We do need to think hard about our past as a means to living a meaningful life in this country. .So, once you've thought about it, once you've sat through a Michael Charton 90-minute presentation, how do you think people's' lives will change or how do you think their approach would change? How would you like their approach to change? .I think that's easier to answer. I've had some amazing feedback. It's been an incredible journey for me and I'm excited to get out of bed every day because I'm learning and I think that's for most of us, we're always excited when we're learning. But what I hope people get out of it is not so much that they learn the facts during that 90-minutes. In fact, in my introduction I always used to say, 'you're going to get bombarded with so many facts here, don't worry about it.' Just try and imbibe the essence of the story so, what I really hope is that I provide a fairly basic framework of understanding, which inspires its own curiosity. That South Africans may just be inspired to go on their own journey to try and understand the country better. That's the best feedback I get, is when someone drops me a message or tells me when I see them later that they've just read the new Smuts' book because of what I had said, or they've just read a book about Rhodes because of what I had mentioned to them and that to me, is where I feel like I've made the kind of difference I'd like to make. I'm not expecting to change everyone's life forever but if there's a small proportion of people who take just a little bit of inspiration out of it – my life is a lot more meaningful now than it was 5 years' ago. .You would imagine that the white population would be able to see pretty quickly the issues or the baggage that they've got that they didn't even know that they had but what about black people in SA? How do they react to the story that you're telling, which really shows that their forefathers had a pretty rough ride? .To be honest, I wouldn't be able to differentiate the response I get. The most frequent response is, 'I had never thought about things like that before,' and that really transcends. I think it's an emotional story. I see a lot of emotion in my audiences across race groups that seems irrelevant. Yes, so to be honest Alec, I don't have 2, 3, or 4 different types of responses, depending on which group I'm speaking to, and I think that, I guess gives me some hope that I'm finding some balance. That I've found a story and I really and honestly don't cover it up. It's really not a rainbow and unicorn story by any means. I delve right into the deepest emotional parts and tragic parts of our story. Yet, I get a similar response from all South Africans and the other beautiful thing is, which I didn't really know I'd get, but being that people tell me that it gives them a feeling of hope. That our country's moments of stability have been very short lived in our past and the norm is that we live in a fascinating, fast moving, and often traumatic world, which I guess inspires what I believe can and should be a passionate existence. .Knowledge then should bring stability, which will allow room for growth. Is that the hope that comes through?.That's what I hope and I certainly believe, as I've said earlier, I think with technology I believe we are in a better position than we've ever been to educate our people about our past and even being able to speak on this concept of a podcast, which maybe 10 years ago was a foreign concept. What you say every day, your discussions with your various guests, can get out to many more people than ever before, and in the same way our history, with some time – I think in 10 or 15 years' time, there's going to be some incredible resources, which makes history very accessible, very understandable, and emotionally charged for our youngsters so that they can understand the complexities and understand what it was like to have been in the shoes of each of the different peoples of SA, who make up our nation. I guess, instinctively, I've always been a reasonably optimistic guy but I really believe that our South African past is going to be something, which our young people have a better understanding of than, let's say, my generation.

PREMIUM: Meet Michael Charton: SA’s practical, storytelling historian with a message of hope

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