I saw the movie Invictus with my two daughters a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it. I am a pushover for sports movies like this, as a rule. But I was particularly taken with Nelson Mandela, as portrayed by Morgan Freeman. Now, I am not so sure how accurate the movie was with regard to all of his actions as President of South Africa, but his efforts to bring together the white, former ruling minority with the newly empowered black majority, were very impressive. He was not a newly elected Democrat trying to reach out to former Republican administration. He represented a truly persecuted class of citizens that was now in power, now in a position to take revenge on its former tormentors. Yet, Mandela realized that the real future of the country lay in cooperation and working together. This from a man who spent 27 years as a prisoner of the previous regime.
Not exactly many parallels to Michigan partisan politics, I am afraid. Democrats and Republicans can never work together, because the philosophical differences between them are really important, not something petty like apartheid. And so, progress in Michigan be damned.
I think Invictus should be mandatory viewing for all of our legislators, judges, and executive personnel. They might learn something, or they might be embarrassed.
By the way, the Invictus of the title refers to a poem Mr. Mandela often read while in prison, and which served as a source of strength and perseverance for him. It is by the English poet William Ernest Henley and was written in 1875. The title means "Unconquered". Here is the text.
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 strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
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