country in union

11 February 1990, the day before I turned seven years old, marked a critical turning point in the history of the country I called home. Back then I was too young to realise the significance of a man called Nelson Mandela being released after twenty seven years imprisonment. Today, exactly twenty years later, I do. The reality hits even closer to home when I consider that as of tomorrow, my lifetime to date equates to the same amount of time that Mandela was behind bars.
To mark the occasion we went to watch Invictus, Clint Eastwood’s latest film that details how Mandela used the white South African’s favourite sport, rugby, to unite the nation. Many will know that it doesn’t take much to get me choked up but this film did more than just make me cry – it made me swell with patriotic pride, reminisce about a childhood naive to the instability surrounding me and hope for a nation that has come so much further than most give it credit for.
Five years after his release from prison, Madiba walked onto the rugby pitch at Ellis Park stadium, his typical African shirt replaced by a Springbok rugby jersey, to welcome 62,000 fans to the final of the Rugby World Cup. I was twelve years old at the time but I can remember almost every detail of that match – the Kiwi’s doing the haka, the drop goal that won us the Cup, the final score and the whole team gathering in a circle to pray at the end of the match. I think God knew that the country needed a win and I think he smiled that day. At the time I had no idea what that game represented. I was just happy we won. My friends and I ran down to the main road screaming and shouting, waving our new multi-coloured South African flag at passersby who waved back just as madly, screamed just as loud and beeped their car hooters. Perhaps it impacted me more than I realised. The World in Union anthem ended up being the song I used to walk down the aisle on my wedding day. There was no raucous shouting and cheering, however, for which I am grateful. I see now how extraordinary it was for our nation to set aside their differences for that one day. And a man who had spent most of his life dreaming of such a day, even just for one hundred minutes, got to see the people of his country, regardless of colour, all on the same side, cheering for the same team. That sort of spirit can not be crushed, it is unconquerable, it is invictus.

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
”Invictus”, William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)