In my book The Tiger Trilogy: The Songs of Sophia, you meet a magnificent tiger, in the first poem The Tiger is Here, who finds his life’s purpose in solving what causes Sophia’s tears—Sophia being the ancient symbol of wisdom.
In the poem the tiger declares:
Now blessed
With one tear
I bound forth
Purposeful
Using my power
To end a drop of suffering
But who is this tiger?
Meet one of the real tigers: Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Winner.
In December 2022, I went to have tea with President Santos at his home in Bogotá. We were planning to discuss how to integrate poverty zero and net zero statistics to ensure that climate change adaptation is socially beneficial to as many people as possible. When he greeted me, the first thing he said was, “How is Professor Sabina Alkire at Oxford University?”
He had worked with Professor Sabina Alkire as she helped develop Colombia’s official multidimensional poverty measure—a measure that would not only reduce poverty in Colombia but become part of the peace negotiations that ended the Colombian Civil War. The Colombian government offered the FARC rebels a guarantee that they would reduce poverty using this multidimensional poverty measure, and that commitment was written into the peace agreement.
I told President Santos that I had recently spoken to Professor Sabina, and that she had been crying when I spoke to her. She had been reading the latest multidimensional poverty statistics that enabled her to imagine clearly what people’s lives must be like living in such wretched poverty. He replied, “I will do everything for that woman that she needs.”
President Santos had served as Minister of Defense in President Uribe’s government, placing him in the middle of actually fighting Colombia’s civil war. When he became President of Colombia, he focused on poverty reduction and ending the Colombian civil war, with much encouragement from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government had negotiated the Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland.
As Wikepedia notes: On June 23, 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC rebels signed a historic ceasefire deal … the same month, the then Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end.
In 2024, President Santos launched a book in Spanish and English: The Battle Against Poverty: Colombia A Case of Leadership, published by Oxford University Press. The book explains how he used Professor Sabina’s multidimensional poverty index methodology to tackle the interconnected problems of poverty, conflict, and climate change.
A couple of months after I had tea with President Santos, I was on a retreat meditating when I sensed this incredible tiger, and I wrote the poem “The Tiger is Here.” I had the opportunity to read the poem to President Santos, who sweetly said that he thought the poem was a nicer depiction of him than he really is.
You can follow President Santos’ current work through The Elders. The Elders was founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007 as are an independent group of global leaders working for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet.
The Tiger Trilogy: The Songs of Sophia explores how wisdom emerges through compassionate action in the face of suffering—just as President Santos demonstrated in his remarkable journey from war to peace.
If you are a tiger I hope you adore wisdom! Please share your stories.
The Tiger Trilogy: The Songs of Sophia is available at RugidoMagico.com