Friday, February 04, 2011

Invictus

I watched the film Invictus the other day and there was one line in the movie that really made me think. It's a line so memorable that I actually can't remember it word for word, but it's the scope of meanings it had that struck a chord. Nelson Mandela is meeting the Springbok Rugby team and he's tried to learn all their names and faces before he went. Their is just the one black player on the team and when they meet, Mandela says first, "Ah, you are easy to recognise!", but the line that is interesting is the next where he says (and I paraphrase), "one day that will not be so"
At face value, now that the apartheid system is done away with this refers to the possibility that more and more blacks will have the opportunities to be in the team, or that with the country getting behind the team in the up coming World Cup more blacks will take an interest and want to play what was up until then the sport of the whites.
But the double edged meaning could also possibly be that Mandela was looking forward to a time when it wasn't just that there were equal opportunities for all, but more that perhaps the colour of your skin would no longer be a person's most distinguishing feature. If so (and if Nelson Mandela even said this - after all I'm basing this on a film script), then the inspired vision makes the line almost as momentus as that most famous speech which I'm sure you all know...."I have a dream....."

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