Words under siege

I went to see Invictus last night and highly recommend it. The film is based on a true story involving Nelson Mandela and the way he understood the power of symbols, words and images. It is also about his incredible power to convey forgiveness and reconciliation to those around him.

Central to the story is the reference to the poem that kept Mandela's spirit strong during his times of deepest doubt and suffering. The poem is by William Ernest Henley and in the movie it is referred to as a "Victorian" poem. Henley wrote the poem while confined to a hospital bed, Mandela remembered the poem while incarcerated in South Africa. The power of words across time and space could not be more dramatically demonstrated than through this story. A white, sickly confined poet wrote words that strengthened a revolutionary black man more than a hundred years later, in another continent but under similar circumstances.

The power of words to move and inspire is further demonstrated as this poem becomes the source of strength for the captain of the South African Rugby team who then inspires his companions to perform high and above their capabilities leading them to the World Championship in 1995. This event helped unify South Africa and convey to whites there that their black president understood them, supported them and wanted to lead them to become a better nation in the same way that the rugby plaers became a better team.

Words are powerful but words, especially written words, are under siege. All manners of distractions prevent people from reading. I wonder how many children and youth commit poems to memory as Mandela did. The hope we memorize, the words we learn "by heart" can help us through difficult times. One of the hosts in Iran in the 70's was a Christian pastor who survived by remembering Bible verses he had memorized. What are we memorizing these days when words are under siege? Will remembering a movie or a TV show or a Nintendo game have the same power as remembering a poem like 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.