Invictus

     Tonight we watched, once again, with a friend from Saskatoon, the 2009 movie 'Invictus' - starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It is the powerful story of Nelson Mandela's early years as the first democraticlly elected President of the Republic of South Africa. Mandela and his newly elected ANC government are challenged on many fronts with an inherited economically bankrupt society, major political transition, multiple cultures that are very alienated from each other and fear and uncertainty on many fronts. In the midst of that Mandela seeks every opportunity to meld a new relationship between the black, white and coloured races and create a new society where the dignity of all is upheld.
     "Invictus" protrays, with all the passion of the new South Africa, a journey of forgiveness, conciliation and mutual learning of what it means to embrace the other. The Springboks, their green and gold colours and their game of rugby, had been the exclusive zone of the white community, and were hated by the rest of the country because of the apartheid they represented. Mandela uses that very symbol to forge a new identity and build towards a united South Africa. The movie, Invictus, is based on the book by John Carlin: "Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made A Nation."
     In the story Mandela reflects on and shares a Victorian poem that it gave him courage when he was at his lowest while imprisoned and seeing little hope. The title of the poem is 'Invictus' and was written by William Ernest Henley. It reads as follows:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.