Big Screen, Big Crucibles VII: Invictus

Warwick Fairfax:
Mandela knows he needs what? White South Africans. He tells his Black Cheetah staff something that’s very pragmatic. He says that, “The White minority still control the police, the army and the economy.” He says, “If we lose them, we cannot address the other issues.”

Gary Schneeberger:
This week in the seventh episode of our summer series, Big Screen, Big Crusibles, we take a look at the movie Invictus. It’s the story of how after apartheid, President Nelson Mandela uses the national rugby team to unite a deeply divided South Africa and win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, transforming the nation through the universal language of sport, it would prove to be a crucible riddled pursuit that requires all of Mandela’s intelligence, charm, and ingenuity.
Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond The Crucible, another episode of our summer series, Big Screen, Big Crucibles. Warrick, it’s hard to believe, this is the seventh episode of the series.

Warwick Fairfax:
Indeed.

Gary Schneeberger:
It’s gone by very, very, very quickly and we hope folks, seriously, that you’ve both enjoyed it and that you’ve learned some things from it, and I think we both think that you will enjoy and learn some more things from what we’re going to talk about this week. Just to level set you on why we’re doing this, we had so much fun last year when we did our summer series on classic films from the American Film Institute’s list of the top 10 or the Top 100 films of all time, and we examined what these films can teach us about our crucibles and how to bounce back from them.
This time, this year, we came back to the cinema to drill down and really focus on movies in which there are the title says, on the big screen there are big crucibles in these films to extract some learnings for you to apply to your own crucible experiences. And our film this week, folks in Big Screen Big Crucibles is Invictus. Invictus came out in 2009. It’s always funny Warrick when we do this and I say, what year the movie came out and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m so old. It’s just funny. This came out in 2009. I’m not even going to do the math. That was a while ago, but it’s really good movie.
And here’s the synopsis of that film. After Apartheid, President Nelson Mandela uses the national rugby team to unite a deeply divided South Africa and win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, transforming a nation through the universal language of sport. Interesting that as I’ve said a couple times in this series, I worked in Hollywood in publicity and it’s unusual for a log line, a summary of a film to just give away the ending. So don’t run away even though you know that South Africa wins the Rugby World Cup. Lots of good information and helpful insights for you as we get there. So, before we dive into the crucibles that were experienced in this movie by Nelson Mandela and others Warrick, let me do what I do on every one of these episodes and ask you this, why movies again? This is the third time overall that we’ve done films as a learning ground for us in moving beyond our crucibles. What are you hoping our listeners and viewers get from our discussion of these movies? What are you hoping that they’ve gotten from the six that we’ve already talked about?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, both you and I love movies and we’ve enjoyed looking at them from a Beyond the Crucible perspective because often, when you watch a movie pretty much always, you’re not saying, “Gee, how can I learn how to bounce back from my worst day?” Typically, when you’re watching a movie, you just want to watch it and enjoy it.
And so, movies typically portray a protagonist that is facing significant challenges that they seek to overcome. That’s really the point of many if not most good movies. We’ve covered movies superheroes, sports heroes, and as you mentioned last year, we’ve also covered historical heroes. And last year, we did a great series from the American Film Institute’s Top 100 movies, incredible movies that we covered. So this year, we thought we’d look at movies where we thought were some of the best ones that showed people overcoming incredibly significant crucibles to lead a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. And these are a great series of eight movies with people overcoming challenges that are hard to believe anybody could overcome. So there’s huge learnings that we believe in these eight movies that we’re covering in this summer series.

Gary Schneeberger:
And I like what you said there about watching these movies through a Beyond the Crucible perspective because I’m going to date myself here folks, so I apologize in advance, but Warwick and I aren’t doing this because we’re Siskel and Ebert, right? We’re not trying to be film critics. We’re really trying to be elucidators of the lessons of moving beyond crucibles that these movies touch on. That’s the reason that we’re doing this. So it’s not to be film critics, just so you know.
So let’s get going here on Invictus. The movie set, the year is 1990 when the movie opens and the nation of South Africa, which is still under the rule of apartheid, is shown to be deeply racially divided. We see White South African high school kids playing rugby on nice fields while Black South African kids are playing soccer on dirt fields. It’s really quite a contrast and very jarring as the movie starts. We then see a series of news reports that Nelson Mandela has been released from prison after 27 years in captivity. And as he is driven through the streets cheered by Black South Africans and spurned by White South Africans, we get a powerful glimpse of how divided the country is. Warwick, in this scene, Mandela’s motorcade passes by a high school where the kids are playing rugby and there’s an exchange between a coach and a boy on the team or in the school, we’re not sure which, that spotlights the depth of the racial divide in the country. What happens in that scene?

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s an incredibly powerful opening scene. Here we have Mandela’s motorcade that’s going by. He has been released from prison, it’s 1990 and you see on one side, there are these White South African kids. It looks like a high school team, nice fields, green fields, and on the other side of the road, it’s basically dirt with a bunch of Black kids playing soccer. And so, the coach of the boys’ rugby team, the predominantly I think, exclusively really, White team, this coach says to one of the boys, “It is that terrorist, Mandela, they let him out. Remember this day, boys. This is the day our country went to the dogs.” I’m sure on the other side if the Black kids knew it was Mandela, they would be cheering. It would be a stark contrast between those two sports fields.
It’s really that road symbolized the divide in the nation and it’s a sad commentary on the division within the country of South Africa. The White South Africans and in particular, the Afrikaners who are White South Africans of Dutch descent, they were at the heart of apartheid and they view Mandela as a terrorist who they may well believe belonged in prison from their worldview. He wanted to overthrow their way of life, they liked their way of life, and they put him in prison because he was opposing apartheid. The Black South Africans view Mandela very differently. They view Mandela as a freedom fighter who will help end the scourge of discrimination of apartheid.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And that “terrorist,” if you’re not watching on YouTube folks, I’m making finger quotes, terrorist, that terrorist we see four years later is elected the first Black President of South Africa. His presidency faces enormous challenges in the post-apartheid era, including rampant poverty and crime. And Mandela is particularly concerned about racial divisions between Black and White South Africans. So Warrick, he makes a bold statement. It’s a proclamation really, in his inaugural speech after he is sworn in. What does he say and why is it so inspirational to the people of South Africa?

Warwick Fairfax:
So here’s President Nelson Mandela. It’s 1994. He is the first Black President in South Africa’s history. Before apartheid ended, Black people couldn’t vote, so obviously, he never would’ve been a president. So here he is and the words that he uses are moving and they’re surprising. He says, “Never will this beautiful land experience oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.” But what those words mean is that Mandela had a vision, not just that the oppression of White South Africans to Black South Africans would end. He also had a vision where the two races would live in harmony. And moreover, that South Africa would once again be invited back into the World of Nations because during the period of apartheid, especially in I guess ’70s and ’80s when pressure from the world really ramped up, South Africa was excluded from trade deals, from international sports, from really the world was trying to put pressure on the apartheid system to end.
But to have this vision where two races would live in harmony, especially the White South Africans, the Afrikaners who had spent many years, decades oppressing Black South Africans and then somehow, Black South Africans would forgive the beating, the torture, the oppression, this vision of two races living in harmony, it’s a bold vision.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And it’s also pretty incredible. And this is the first glimpse we get of it in the movie and it happens throughout the movie. The line that he says about, “Never suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.” There’s something to be said. This is the first time we see it I think, here in the film, Nelson Mandela does not… He gets put down a lot in this movie. He gets attacked a bit by… And his countenance is always happy. He’s got extraordinarily high perseverance that he demonstrates in this film, doesn’t he?

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. He gets attacked on all sides. Now, it will be understandable if the White South Africans would be concerned about what he’s going to do, but as we’ll see, even as he starts to enact his policies, Black South Africans were like, hang on, we thought we were getting revolution, payback. Mandela is more about reconciliation than he is about payback. So there are people from all sides that are unhappy, and when he talks about South Africa being the skunk of the world, the South African government and apartheid were despised by most of the world, which means from Mandela’s perspective, the country South Africa is really looked down upon as one that’s in a mess and it’s just depressing its people and will be excluded from the world of nations. He wants to bring South Africa back so that it’s part of the world of civilized nations, if you will.

Gary Schneeberger:
So almost immediately when he arrives into the president’s office, he hasn’t even really met his staff. He calls a staff meeting, he assembles the staff together and he tells them a little more about his vision that you were just talking about and enlists them to be his fellow travelers in helping him make that vision. Which is still taking shape in terms of what his staff knows, even in terms of what moviegoers know. But he encourages his staff to become his fellow travelers to help make that vision a reality, doesn’t he?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, absolutely. When Nelson Mandela enters the presidential offices, there are his Black staff that are moving in, his team and then there’s the White staff who worked for the previous White president. Now, all of the White staff assume, well, this is the first Black president, he’s not going to want us here and we get it. And so they’re just packing their boxes and Mandela calls a meeting of all the staff because he sees what’s going on and he tells the outgoing staff that if they’re leaving because of the color of their skin or their language, some of them who are Dutch South Africans will speak Afrikaner, that they’re leaving because of the color of the skin or their language or who they worked for before, and that they feel that this disqualifies them from working there, they should have no such fear. He says they can stay so long as they feel they can work with him.
In other words, so long as they don’t mind working for a Black president in particular, Mandela. He went on to say that the past is the past. They need to look to the future and he wants their help. He says to these White staff who are thinking of leaving, if they would stay, he says, “You will be doing your country a great service.” So this shows, from Mandela’s first day in office that he has a vision to unite the whole country and he wants the best people working for him regardless of their background.
Now, Mandela is a smart guy. He’s an idealistic guy, but he is also pragmatic. The White members of his staff, the ones who stay on, they have a lot of experience in government. The people that he is bringing on board his team by definition, because they’ve been excluded from the political process, they don’t have any experience in terms of governing. Why wouldn’t he want some of the White staff to stay that can really help him work the leaders of government to accomplish his vision? It’s not only an idealistic way of looking at life, it’s a very pragmatic one. And we’ll see throughout this movie, Mandela is both idealistic, but he’s also pragmatic. The two can go hand in hand.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And there’s an ingenious subplot that follows to get the main story that gets introduced after that meeting with the staff, to spotlight the ill will between Black South Africans and White South Africans. We get a close up look at how the tensions play out in Mandela’s own security detail. We see that the relations between the established White officers who had guarded Mandela’s predecessors and the Black African National Congress, ANC additions to the security detail are frosty. That’s a charitable word. Are frosty and marked by mutual distrust. These early scenes with the security details show how much distrust exists between the races and what an uphill battle that President Mandela has on his hands, don’t they? But they also show the way he plans to win that battle. It’s very interesting. It’s an uphill battle, but it gives us peaks behind the curtain of how he plans to win it, doesn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. So true. So you’ve got the Black security staff led by a guy named Jason who seems to be the head guy there. He says, “Well, we need more men.” This is the first Black president. They realize there might be people that want to hurt him and we just need more men to be able to guard President Mandela.
But then we see that these White security officers, the ones that used to guard the previous White president that they’re reporting for duty to the Black head of security, this guy Jason. Mandela signed orders saying that these White security officers will stay on. And one of them hands this piece of paper to Jason, the head Black security guy, and Jason goes directly to Mandela to protest. So in walks Jason to Mandela and Mandela tells Jason that these White security officers have lots of experience. They’ve been trained by what the British refer to as a Special Air Services, the SAS. This is equivalent to the U.S. Navy SEALs, Rangers. These are the best of the best. So these White security offices, they have some of the best training in the world to protect the president of South Africa. And so, Mandela says that in a rainbow coalition, reconciliation starts here with how his bodyguards look.
Jason says to Mandela, “Not long ago, these guys, maybe even these very people, these White Security officers tried to kill us.” Mandela says, he knows and says, “Forgiveness starts here, now. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” Mandela has this vision that his security team will represent the rainbow coalition that he’s thinking of for South Africa, White and Black security officers. Now, Jason, the head Black security guy, he’s not happy, but Mandela says, basically, try, make it work. Is basically what Mandela is saying.
And so it’s such a powerful statement of having these two groups of people working together in light of the fact that these White security officers were part or very likely part of the apartheid system, they might’ve actually put people in prison, beat people up. We don’t know exactly what these particular people did, but initially, you’re thinking, how is this going to work? Because these two groups of people, they stare at each other and you’re wondering, how are they going to be able to… They have to work together to be able to protect President Mandela, but Mandela has a powerful vision of unity that he believes will prevail even with these two groups of people that really, I don’t know, really don’t like each other, they’re just staring at each other.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Before we move ahead, I want to put a pin in something that Mandela says that you quoted about forgiveness. He says, “Forgiveness liberates the soul.” If we went out, Warwick, and we produced bumper stickers for Beyond the Crucible, that’d be a pretty good one, wouldn’t it? Forgiveness liberates the soul. We talk a lot about that here. This movie talks a lot about it here, and that really is, as this movie plays out, that’s a linchpin, a turnkey to what Mandela is both doing himself and encouraging those on his team to do, forgiveness.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it’s such a powerful point, Gary. I’m reminded in the Bible, Jesus often says, “For those who have eyes to see, ears to hear,” and the same applies to this phrase. There are many Black South Africans, upon hearing that kind of phrase, would say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Forgiving these people? What they did to me, to my family, to those I love, to my friends? Forgiveness means we condone the evil that the Afrikaner South Africans did to us. Liberates the soul? I don’t know what you mean.” But for those who’ve managed to find a way to forgive, they would say it’s so true.
So it’s a concept that sounds very hard to understand by some, certainly the oppressed, and nobody was oppressed more than Nelson Mandela in prison for 27 years as we’ll get into in the feared Robben Island prison off of Cape Town, South Africa. So this phrase is not coming from anybody. It’s coming from Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned for fighting for freedom for 27 years. This is not said idly. These are not easy words for Mandela to say, which is why it has so much power. Mandela says that. It’s hard to just blow past that, ignore it. It’s a powerful phrase.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And forgiveness will play a major role in this film as we go forward and let’s do that now, let’s go forward. While attending a rugby match between South Africa and England, Mandela notices that the Black South Africans are supporting England rather than the mostly White Springboks, which is the name of the South African team due to the legacy of apartheid. He remarks that he did the same while imprisoned on Robben Island, and he learns that the newly Black dominated South African Sports Committee is voting on whether to keep the name Springboks and the colors of the Springboks as the name of the South African rugby team. He heads to a meeting to convince them to leave things as they are.
Not exactly the thing that you’d expect him to do, right? Or certainly the people who voted for him would expect him to do. But Warwick, it’s a moving and important scene that follows. Mandela is putting some major political capital on the line to encourage those, as I said, who voted for him, to maintain the traditions of those who did not vote for him. Talk about what happens at this meeting and how Mandela acts to prevent what he believes would upend his plans to build a unified South Africa.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s an amazing scene when you’ve got the Black dominated South African Sports Council, understandably voting to change the name and the colors of the South African rugby team from the Springboks. It was a hated name. It was beloved by the Afrikaners, the White South Africans of Dutch descent. It’s really incredible. And Mandela has a bigger picture. He has a broader vision. He has a vision of unity. So once he hears that the vote’s going down and what’s happening, he races to where this committee meeting is happening, and Mandela knows how important that rugby is, and the Springboks name to White South Africans, it’s a part of their identity. From 1981 until 1992, because of apartheid, the South African rugby team, the Springboks, they weren’t able to compete on the world stage. They couldn’t play New Zealand, Australia, England, World Cups. They couldn’t weren’t part of international sports.
And White South Africans, they greatly minded this, not being able to see their beloved Springboks play against some of the best teams in the world. So now, their beloved team could finally compete. As we’ll see, the World Cup was coming up in a little over a year in ’95. This is a huge deal, and Mandela realized how important it was not to lose White South Africans. They’re already suspicious of him. They’re already nervous and anxious, but if he starts eliminating the Springbok name and the colors, the green and gold, then they’ll say, “We knew it. Okay, Mandela is going to oppress us. We oppressed him. Well, it’s payback time. Here we go.” All of their worst fears would’ve been realized, and that’s exactly what Mandela fears would happen.
And so, he says to this committee, we need to restore the Springbok name and colors immediately because they’d voted to remove it. He says, as we’ve mentioned on Robben Island, “My jailers were Afrikaners,” he says, “I had to know my enemy before we could prevail against them, and we did prevail.” And then he says some remarkable statements. Mandela says this, “Our enemy is no longer the Afrikaner.” Now, that makes no sense. Some White South Africans were a bit more liberal politically, and they were against apartheid. But the Afrikaners, those of Dutch descent, they were predominantly, if not all, for apartheid. So he’s basically saying, those diehard apartheid people, they’re no longer our enemy. What? He then goes on to say, “They are our fellow South Africans, our partners for democracy. They treasure Springbok rugby. If we take that away, we lose them. We prove we are what they feared we would be. We have to be better than that. We have to surprise them with compassion, with restraint and generosity.”
He says, “I know all of the things they denied us. This is no time to celebrate petty revenge. This is the time to build our nation using every single brick available to us, even if that brick comes wrapped in green and gold.” His audience, these Black members of the sports committee, they knew that the green and gold meant Springbok colors. That’s an incredible statement to say. And then he finishes by saying, Mandela does, “You elected me as your leader. Let me lead you now.” Now, it wasn’t easy. It took quite a few votes, but eventually, the Springboks name and green and gold colors was restored.
Mandela knows he needs what? White South Africans. He tells his Black chief of staff something that’s very pragmatic. He says that the White minority still control the police, the army and the economy. He says, “If we lose them, we cannot address the other issues.” So he cannot afford to antagonize all of the White South African minority. Some will never be for him, but he needs some of that White South African minority to be with him because they have all the institutional knowledge. Police, army, the economy, he can’t lose them all. And so, this symbolic issue of keeping the Springboks name and the green and gold colors, it’s both idealistic to bring people together, but it’s also very pragmatic.

Gary Schneeberger:
And that speech that he gives to the sports committee, you may have noticed, well, if you’ve watched these episodes, folks, the first six, this is the seventh, if you’ve watched these episodes that we pull one clip from the movie in every episode and play it, and this is the first time, Warrick, that I was like, I was doing this between which clip did I want to pull, whether it was that one that you just talked about or the next one that comes up. So that’s really-

Warwick Fairfax:
That’s the problem with Mandela. He says so many profound things, and there’s so many profound things. It’s a tough one.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. But next, Mandela meets with the captain of the Springboks. So, his vision to do all the things that we’ve been talking about, to try to bring some racial unity to South Africa, he meets with the captain of the Springboks, Francois Pienaar. It’s during this meeting that he reveals his plan for using the sport of rugby as a unifying inspirational force. The role Francois and his teammates will play in making the president’s vision a reality are conveyed in a conversation between the two, the President and Francois over tea in the president’s offices. Let’s take a look and a listen to the clip of that scene.

Nelson Mandela:
What is your philosophy on leadership? How do you inspire your team to do their best?

Francois Pienaar:
By example. I’ve always thought to lead by example, sir.

Nelson Mandela:
Well, that is right. That is exactly right. But how to get them to be better than they think they can be, that is very difficult I find. Inspiration, perhaps. How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing less will do? How do we inspire everyone around us? I sometimes think it is by using the work of others. On Robben Island, when things got very bad, I found inspiration in a poem.

Francois Pienaar:
A poem?

Nelson Mandela:
A Victorian poem. Just words. But they helped me to stand when all I wanted to do was to lie down. But you didn’t come all this way to hear an old man talk about things that make no sense.

Francois Pienaar:
No, no, please, Mr. President, it makes complete sense to me. On the day of a big match, say a test, in the bus on the way to the stadium, nobody talks.

Nelson Mandela:
Ah, yes, they’re all preparing.

Francois Pienaar:
Right. But when I think we are ready, I have the bus driver put on a song, something I’ve chosen, one we all know, and we listen to the words together and it helps.

Nelson Mandela:
I remember when I was invited to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, everybody in the stadium greeted me with a song. At the time, the future, our future seemed very bleak. But to hear that song in the voices of people from all over our planet made me proud to be South African. It inspired me to come home and do better. It allowed me to expect more of myself.

Francois Pienaar:
May I ask, what was the song, sir?

Nelson Mandela:
Well, it was Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, a very inspiring song. We need inspiration, Francois, because in order to build our nation, we must all exceed our own expectations.

Gary Schneeberger:
So, Warwick, Mandela doesn’t give a lot of specifics about what his vision, what his plan is yet, but it’s clear that his intent on enlisting Francois and the Springboks in his strategy to bring unity to South Africa, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
This is a wonderful scene in Mandela’s presidential office when he summons Francois Pienaar, the captain of the South African rugby team, the Springboks, to meet him. Now, Francois doesn’t really know what’s going on. Why are is he being asked to meet with the president? It’s like I’m the captain of the rugby team, but I don’t quite get it. And Mandela has a vision of using to unite the nation. So what Mandela is doing is he’s trying to inspire vision in his country. In this particular case, in Francois Pienaar, who’s the captain of the Springboks, the South African rugby team of how this team, the Springboks, can somehow bring the country together and help inspire people to things they never thought was possible. It’s a powerful dream that he’s giving Francois Pienaar.
So Francois leaves the meeting with President Mandela, somewhat awestruck, dumbstruck about what happened, he’s like what happened there? He’s blown away, and his wife is outside in the car waiting for him, and she wonders, well, how’d it go? And Francois says, Mandela is not like anyone that he’s ever met before. He says, “I think he wants us to win the World Cup.” Now, Mandela never said that, but between the lines, Francois gets it. So this clip shows Mandela’s vision to unite Black and White South Africans with rugby.
The World Cup is being hosted by South Africa a year later in 1995. And Mandela’s vision to use rugby to unite the country is one that many would think makes no sense. Rugby was seen as a symbol of White South African oppression and was hated by Black South Africans who just really saw it as a symbol of apartheid. In fact, we see some scenes with the White and Black security officers talking about rugby, and it’s almost as if the Black security officer purposely didn’t want to know anything about the game of rugby. It was a hated sport that to know something about it is just wrong. There’s a scene at a church where there’s a Black woman and a White woman, and they’re handing out basically care packages gifts to-

Gary Schneeberger:
Right, right, right, yeah.

Warwick Fairfax:
The Black kids in the local townships. And this naive and well-meaning White woman gives this Springboks green and gold jersey to a Black kid. Here’s the Springboks jersey. She’s thinking she’s doing him a great favor and he says, “No, no, I can’t take it.” And he leaves and she doesn’t get it. And the Black woman says, “You don’t realize, if he wears that, he’ll get beaten up by his friends. He’ll be wearing a symbol of apartheid.” And the White woman just does not get it. So using rugby to unite people. As we’ve said, there are many Blacks that Africans have said, “I will not follow the Springboks. I refuse to know anything about rugby. It’s an evil game and it’s perpetuated by evil people.” It’s probably their attitude. So this vision in a lot of ways, in one sense, it’s a bold vision, but it makes not a whole lot of sense. Talk about a tough symbol. It’s like you’re going to use that symbol to bring people together? It makes no sense in one way of looking at it.

Gary Schneeberger:
And even if you look at it from outside the prism of South Africa, it’s rugby. Think about there’s tens of thousands, 60,000 fans in a stadium, and rugby fans tend to be a little rowdy. So, it isn’t like it’s the sport of reconciliation, generally speaking, and then it just doubles down in South Africa. In fact, one of the security officers, one of the White security officers in trying to explain to the Black security officer says something about rugby is a game of gentlemen played by hooligans. And the Black security officer goes, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that joke before. Stop. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

Warwick Fairfax:
Right.

Gary Schneeberger:
That’s the sport that Mandela has put… If this was poker, he pushed all his chips into the table, right? Into the middle of the table, and it’s both generally speaking, between countries, it’s going to cause conflict. But in South Africa, oh my gosh, as you’ve explained, going to cause conflict. And yet, Mandela has heard that the World Cup finals will be broadcast to a live TV audience of more than a billion people worldwide. And the opportunity to show the whole world that the nation has moved beyond apartheid consumes him. The plan begins by having the Springboks hosting coaching clinics throughout South Africa. Those clinics will include one Black player, Chester Williams, and has the team visiting youth across the country. Warrick, what happens at these coaching camps, coaching clinics, that moves Mandela’s vision forward? Because again, when you see it, when you hear it, you’re thinking, how is that going to help? How indeed does it help move his vision forward?

Warwick Fairfax:
Mandela is indeed a great visionary. He sees things that most people cannot see, and his vision is all behind this. So what happens is the head of South African rugby tells the team that they’ll be conducting coaching clinics in townships, but that’s basically where poor Black people live in, ramshackle hovels, basically, it’s tin sheds, it’s incredibly poor places. So they’re going to go visit the townships, and there’s predominantly White South African rugby team, the Springboks. They initially pushed back. But they’re told, this is a request from the very top. In other words, President Mandela. Now, Francois tells the team that they have become more than a rugby team, and they might as well get used to it. He says, “Times change and we need to change as well.”
Francois understands Mandela’s vision and is trying to implement it, and it’s not easy. There’s a lot of grumbling. So the team goes to these townships, and as they’re driving through in the team bus, they’re overwhelmed by the poverty they see. I’m sure many of them have not been to these townships, these predominantly White South African rugby players. So they get off the bus and the kids all cheer, in particular for Chester. And Chester Williams, he is the only Black player on the team. They’re all shouting his name, Chester, Chester. They know who he is. It’s like these other guys, no, we don’t really care about you. We just want Chester.
But Chester provides a way in to these Black kids, and they’re all having a lot of fun. And the White rugby players, they’re actually enjoying themselves too. And they’re teaching the fundamentals of rugby, how to pass, which in rugby, you’ve always got to pass to somebody that’s either beside you or behind you. There’s no forward passing. So they’re showing them how to do the fundamental elements of rugby and scrums. And later on, this scene is on TV on the news, and Mandela sees on TV, the scene of South African rugby players playing with kids in the townships. And Mandela says that picture is worth any number of speeches. And he smiles. It’s a powerful image. People are watching saying, “Whoa, the Springboks are going into the township and teaching poor Black kids how to play rugby.” That is a scene that you wouldn’t see before, but Mandela has a broader vision. It’s a powerful scene.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. So, because the Springboks are not one of the world’s stronger teams, they focus, along with Mandela, on winning their first World Cup game against, sorry, Warwick. It’s against Australia.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. Oh, well.

Gary Schneeberger:
So they focus on winning that game because if they don’t win that game, they’ll go into the part of the tournament that they have to play stronger teams like Britain and like the incredibly powerful New Zealand All Blacks before the final. So the easier path to the final would be to beat Australia. So, Mandela helicopters in to visit the players before the game, and he greets every player. I’ll let you tell folks, Warwick, how he greets every player, because it’s a really powerful scene, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
Again, Mandela sees things that most of us don’t see. He realizes the powerful image of South Africa united behind the Springboks team, the national team. And [inaudible 00:41:33] he helicopters in to where they’re practicing and it’s before the first big match against Australia. And he has done his homework. He has a board in his presidential office. He’s got the names and faces, and he memorizes every name and face of the players on the team. So, he’s about to meet these folks, these players on this practice field. And Francois Pienaar I think, is about to introduce him because he figures you’ve never met these guys. You don’t know who they’re, and he basically says to Francois, “I got it.” And he greets each player by name and says hello to them, and I’m sure they’re blown away.
Francois didn’t tell the president who we are, and he knows our names? It’s a powerful symbol that he cares about them and he cares about the Springboks. It was a powerful message that was clearly received. And the Black security officers, they’re looking on and they’re amazed at what they’re seeing. It’s like he knows their names. How is that… If there’s anybody in South Africa, you don’t want to know the names of other than maybe some of the security officers, you don’t know the names of the Springboks team. We don’t know anything about Springboks.
And so, Mandela tells these players, “Your country supports you completely.” Those are powerful words. Your country supports you completely. And we see Mandela talk privately to Francois, given the poem Invictus, which we’ll talk more about in a moment. So it’s a powerful symbol. And so, Mandela is going to great lengths to make sure that the predominantly White South African team, the Springboks, believe that he’s completely with them. Given the history of the team, which is almost a completely White South African team. This is just remarkable that he would say, “Your country supports you completely.” A Black president. It makes no sense in a lot of ways, but Mandela has a vision that’s beyond what most of us can see.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And that vision’s going to move a little bit farther down the line in what happens next. Because the Springboks win and it’s after this initial victory that the team visits the prison where Mandela was held for 27 years. They’re told it’s been kept in the same condition as it was when he left it. Francois doesn’t just look at it from a distance. Francois goes into the cell, closes the gate, and just walks around in there. And that, Warwick, is a moving scene because Francois is moved by what he sees there, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So, Francois, he is living out the vision that Mandela has. He’s getting it. And so, every morning, we see that Francois is leading his team on a morning run through the streets of Cape Town where the World Cup is being held. And this particular day, this morning run, it ends at the docks and the players are wondering, well, why are we stopping here? Well, there’s a boat. They get on the boat and they go on the boat to Robben Island, the prison where so many apartheid people were held, including Mandela. So clearly, this is all organized by Francois, and it’s a powerful experience that will impact them all. So Francois asked the White prison guard, which cell was Mandela’s? And the guard says it was cell 4664. And this guard tells Francois, this is because Mandela was the 4664th prisoner, interned there in 1964 when he was first imprisoned.
Now, it’s a small cell, it’s a very barren cell. It seems like there’s only a mat on the floor. And as you mentioned, Francois closes the door and he looks out the window and there’s this just landscape that was just rocks and dirt. And he imagines in his mind, Mandela out there in the rocks and with a pickax and just doing hard labor, which is what they would do to the prisoners there. And we hear in Francois mind, the words of that poem, Invictus, that Mandela gave him, that Mandela recited to himself often during his long years in prison. And Mandela said that he used this poem, Invictus, to keep his hope alive, to remain resilient in the face of oppression and to maintain courage in the face of fear. And it’s worth reading this poem because it’s the title of the movie Invictus, which in Latin means unconquered.
And that’s a message I think many of us need to hear in terms of our soul. We want our souls to be unconquered and not be defeated by our worst days, and maybe a few of us will be oppressed the way Mandela was, but mistreated or our own mistakes. These are powerful words from this poem. So I’m going to read them. “Out 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 felt clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of fate, 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 to scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.”
These are powerful words about really taking control of your life despite the injustice and indignity we might face. So Francois was already impressed with Mandela, but his admiration for Mandela went to another level when he visits his cell in Robben Island. He sees how he was treated and what he had to do with pickaxes with the rocks. And given what was done to Mandela, Francois is amazed at the magnanimity of Mandela, and now he had the forgiveness and compassion to want to try to the nation of South Africa? I think Francois thinks of Mandela at that moment thinking, this is such a great man. In one sense, it makes no sense, his compassion that he shows, but I admire him so much for doing what most people would find impossible, to show forgiveness and compassion to those who oppressed him. It’s truly remarkable.

Gary Schneeberger:
When I hear you read that poem, Warwick, the last line of that poem, “I am the captain of my soul,” makes me think about what you talk about a lot at Beyond the Crucible, the idea of soul work. The importance of doing soul work after a crucible. I don’t know if there’s anything you want to say about that. It’s off the track of what we’re talking about here, but that line does bring that to mind, that if you’re the captain of your own soul, you’re doing some soul work, I imagine.

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s such a great point. We often say that the key to bouncing back from your worst day, is character, is soul work. And the greatest leaders are ones with the greatest character. We’ve talked in an earlier podcast about Abraham Lincoln, who was the American president during the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865. The way he won the Civil War, which was long years of suffering and enormous numbers of soldiers dying, was remarkable. But as great as that was, it was just his inherent humility and self-awareness of wanting to bring the nation together. And I think in a second inaugural, he talks about binding the wounds of the nation. Binding the wounds of the nation? The Confederate soldiers were one who stood for slavery. It’s a similar story, in one sense, but he said, we have to become one nation. There are many that said one nation with these people?
But it was the greatness of his character. He saw a bigger picture. Mandela is the same way. He was personally oppressed in apartheid for 27 years, but yet, he saw that we need to be able to forgive to be able to move on and become one nation. Bitterness will only tear us apart. He had a broader vision that came from his, just the incredible nature of his character. That’s where his strength came from, is his character. His speeches would be impossible without that. So you’re very right, Gary. It was the soul work that helped Mandela be the great leader that he was.

Gary Schneeberger:
And it’s the practice work that helps the Springboks be who they are because the Springboks continue to win their World Cup games in exciting and unexpected fashion, they are set now to play that dreaded team, New Zealand, a team that one character refers to as, “They seem unstoppable.” That’s how uphill battle this is going to be against New Zealand. Francois’ wife at this juncture Warrick, noticed that he seems preoccupied and she asks him what’s bothering him. This is a telling scene, isn’t it, Warwick? Because it shows just how respected Mandela has become in the eyes of Francois, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So yeah, as you say, here is Francois he’s in his hotel room, before the big game, and it’s with his wife. And his wife asks Francois if he’s thinking about tomorrow, the big game? And Francois says, “No, tomorrow’s taken care of one way or the other.” In other words, what we’ll be will be, we’ve done our best. We’ll do our best. So I’m not worried about tomorrow. He says he was thinking about how Mandela spent 30 years in a tiny cell and came out ready to forgive the people who put him there. It’s just hard for Francois to get his mind around how Mandela could do that. And it’s clear that the experience of seeing Mandela’s prison cell at Robben Island has deeply moved Francois.

Gary Schneeberger:
And as that game against New Zealand is about to begin, Mandela comes out wearing full Springbok gear. President Nelson Mandela looks at this rugby game like I look when I go to a Cubs game, he’s wearing the jersey, he’s wearing the hat, he’s wearing everything. He’s got the colors, he’s all decked out in all of the finery here. The crowd cheers, raucously. No divisions along race are apparent, which was not true in some earlier parts of the movie. These thunderous cheers, Warwick, really show that Mandela’s plan, his vision to help bring racial harmony to South Africa through rugby seems to be working. Don’t you think?

Warwick Fairfax:
It really is. This is a powerful scene where Mandela arrives at the stadium and then he walks onto the field. It seems that all South Africans in the stands are united behind their team. Mandela greets all the players and tells the South African team members that your country is proud of you. Your country, your whole country is basically implicit in what he’s saying, is proud of you, the Springboks team. That must have seen that amazing statement for the Black South African president to say to this predominantly White South African rugby team, the Springboks, and he wishes them good luck. There are 62,000 people in the stands and they’re all cheering. And we see throughout the game and leading up to it that there are people in bars as well as Black townships all glued to the TV as they’re about to watch the game. I have to believe this may be the first rugby game that Black South Africans have ever watched with the Springboks.
But it’s a different era. Mandela is behind them, and it’s just remarkable to see White and Black South Africans all cheering for the same team, the Springboks. And there is also a remarkable side scene, if you will. It’s pretty powerful. You’ve got these two White policemen and they’re standing outside their police car that’s just near the stadium and listening to the game on the car radio. They’re there for security. They can’t go in. So the next best thing is to listen to it on the radio. Well, there’s this young Black kid who’s trying to listen on the car radio as well. Initially, these two White police officers are not sure what this Black kid is doing. Again, their training under apartheid is okay, what’s this kid doing? Is he up to trouble? They would make assumptions.
But as the game goes on, they’re actually all united huddled around that car radio listening to the game. There’s a transformation in the countenance of this Black kid being a little fearful, but he wants to hear the game. And the White policeman wondering, what’s this kid up to? It’s a powerful scene how people of different backgrounds become united around a common cause.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. They start out like this, right? They’re really separated apart, and then every time it goes into the action in the game and then all of a sudden they’re closer together, then they’re closer together, then they’re sitting together.

Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly.

Gary Schneeberger:
It just keeps happening. That breaking down of the divide continues to happen. And what’s the thing that makes it happen? They’re listening to rugby. So, that idea that Mandela has had that people think is a little crazy, continues to keep working. Warrick, talk a little bit about, and this is where I have to lean on you, because I wouldn’t know rugby from a rug shop. I don’t know anything about rugby. So, talk about how big the challenge is with the South African Springboks taking on the New Zealand All Blacks team. Just help our listeners and viewers understand the incredible odds against the Springboks winning this game.

Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. So yeah, let me give folks a bit of an understanding of this game because it’s important to understand, there’s a lot of interesting themes in this movie, but one theme is how basically, the South African Springboks were not respected by their own TV commentators. It’s like they’re rubbish. There’s a guy that plays, a South African rugby commentator and he uses very colorful language to describe how terrible they are. So yeah, stuff you wouldn’t actually hear on ESPN. The language is that bad. They wouldn’t allow it. And you’ve got some colorful folks on ESPN, but this is colorful at another level. And so, the New Zealand All Blacks in 1995, they’re arguably one of the greatest international rugby teams of all time. They’re that good. And they have probably the best rugby player on the planet at the time, and certainly one of the greatest in the game in Jonah Lomu.
Now, he is their left wing. He is fast, but he’s built like a linebacker. So can you imagine trying to, in football, you’re a quarterback trying to tackle some receiver that’s as fast as the best receiver, but built like a linebacker? Lots of luck. You’re in trouble. And so, Francois tells his team that they have to stop this guy. They can’t stop this guy, they lose. It’s that simple. He’s that good. And he basically says, “I’ll do whatever it takes to take this guy down. I’ll break my arm, break my neck. Once I grab onto him, basically, I will not let that,” in his words, “Let that frickin’ guy go.” Basically, you can imagine a much smaller Francois Pienaar wrapped around this guy probably taking him over the line to score a try, which is basically like a touchdown. But they basically have a strategy.
The first guy gets him, and then everybody else piles on, however many people it takes to stop him. Eventually three, four, five, 10, eventually, we’ll stop him if we have enough players.

Gary Schneeberger:
They get there.

Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, the first guy delays him, the other guys in that sense, it’s the same in football. So this gives you an indication of how hard this guy is to stop. So really, this truly is a David and Goliath match in which the New Zealand All Blacks are Goliath. So the African Springboks, they’re David. And yeah, the [inaudible 00:58:57] they favor the All Blacks over the Springboks two to one. So the [inaudible 00:59:02] say, this is not going to be close. They’re just going to get annihilated, the Springboks. And to make it worse, how could it be worse? Well, it gets worse. The All Blacks have this powerful psychological advantage. This is actually worth looking up on YouTube. It’s pretty amazing. Before every international rugby game, the All Blacks do this called the Haka.
This is a fearsome Maori war dance. Maori being the indigenous folks of New Zealand, and the opposing team is forced to stand in the line, watching them jump up and down. They poke their tongues out, they yell, it’s all part of this Maori war dance. It is pretty scary stuff. And the South African Sports Minister says half the games are won before the first whistle because of the Haka. So this stuff really does work. It psychs you out. It’s not easy to withstand that.

Gary Schneeberger:
How do you pronounce the last name of this guy Jonah on team?

Warwick Fairfax:
Lomu. Jonah Lomu.

Gary Schneeberger:
Lomu. Okay. Isn’t he the one? I swear that as Mandela is shaking hands of the players on New Zealand as well, he sees this guy and he says, “You kind of scare me.” I think that’s the one he sees and says that to if I’m not mistaken.

Warwick Fairfax:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And he should. He’s probably, I’m sure not a bad guy, but he is a powerfully built guy and very fast. And yeah, Mandela has reason to be afraid of this guy. Mandela has done his homework. He knows if this guy has a good day, then we’ll have a bad day. Mandela knows exactly what’s going on.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about the day that everybody had. Tell us, Warrick, about what happens in this final game of the World Cup.

Warwick Fairfax:
In one sense, I think you could say this game is about defense. In the sense that there are no tries, which is the rugby equivalent of touchdowns. So, we have this whole rugby match in which people aren’t scoring tries, touchdowns, and the only way they score is by penalty kicks and drop-kicks, and you get three points for each. So think of it just like a game in football decided by a whole bunch of penalty kicks. It’d be almost unheard of for that to happen. And so, the score reaches nine all at the end of full time.
So now, there’s extra time. So that’s sort of like overtime, if you will, in football. And each team scores a penalty kick. So now it’s 12:12, finally before the end of the game, the Springboks score, a drop-kick, and it is 15:12, and South Africa are just hanging on for dear life. The ball is in a scrum, which is where you’ve got a whole bunch of heads wrapped together. And Francois Pienaar knows, okay, we just got to wait out the clock until time expires. So they’re just hanging on the dear life. And time does expire, and somehow, miraculously, the Springboks beat the New Zealand, All Blacks and South Africa wins.

Gary Schneeberger:
And that makes the Springboks, World Champions. Mandela and Francois then meet on the field together to celebrate the victory and to celebrate their alliance that helped pave the way for this victory. What Francois says at that moment is a great example of the impact that Mandela has had on so many people in the nation of South Africa, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. So here, we see again, this colorful South African TV commentator, and he is on the field as you are, interviewing the players after a big match. And so, he talks to Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks, the South African rugby team, and the commentator says to Francois that the Springboks could not have done this, could not have won without the support of the 63,000 South African fans in the stands. Francois says, “We did not just have the support of 63,000. We had the support of 43 million South Africans,” basically the whole population of South Africa. It was a telling comment. Basically, Francois says, the nation of South Africa supports our team. And these end scenes as the Springboks have won, are remarkable. We see the team raising Francois on their shoulders. We see Mandela waving to the crowds from the field. The whole stadium erupts, the Whites, or one of the White Security officers shakes the hand of a Black man, which we see from an earlier scene, I believe, is potentially a cabinet member.
And the White and Black security officers, the ones who have been pretty suspicious of each other, they’re embracing. You even have the Black security officers happy the Springboks have won. How can this happen? It’s just amazing. And so, Francois greets Mandela Mandela says to Francois Pienaar, “I want to thank you for what you’ve done for our country.” And Francois says to President Mandela, “No, Mr. President, thank you for what you’ve done for our country.” There is deep respect that both have for each other. Mandela gives the World Cup to Francois Pienaar who kisses it and holds it aloft, and then walks among his players with this gold trophy. We see Black and White hands touching the trophy. There are so many people in the streets that Mandela and the security officers, they’re trapped in the car. Everybody, all of South Africa in the street celebrating, so they can’t move. They’re trapped in the motorcade. The Black security officer says, “It is beautiful. It is beautiful.” He repeats that. The Black security officer saying, this is beautiful. The Springboks have won. Obviously more to context, which the nation is united behind the team.
And so, just before the movie ends, Mandela says to himself, quoting the final lines of the poem, Invictus, these words, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. I’m the master of my fate, I’m the captain of my soul.” And as the credits’ role at very end of the movie, we see some Black kids playing rugby. Remember those beginning scenes? It’s the White kids who play rugby, not the Black kids. Now, we’re seeing Black kids play rugby. That would be unthinkable before Mandela. This end scene where these Black kids are playing rugby. It’s a powerful scene that really just shows the vision that Mandela has of bringing a nation together.

Gary Schneeberger:
And as you were describing the final scenes, it occurred to me, folks, who are listening and watching, this may be the first podcast series you’ve ever listened to or watched, in which 25% of films that isn’t about sports, that 25% of the films talked about to illustrate the point of the podcast, involve at the end, a player being carried off on the shoulders of his teammates, because that was in Rudy as well.

Warwick Fairfax:
Well said.

Gary Schneeberger:
So 25% of our eight episodes, two of our eight episodes, feature players being carried off the field by their triumphant teammates. We’ve covered a lot of ground here, Warwick. Let me ask you the final Beyond the Crucible focus question, and that’s this. How does Invictus offer us hope and inspiration to move beyond our own crucibles? What would you say is the greatest bit of inspiration or insight from the movie that we can apply to our own lives?

Warwick Fairfax:
The theme of the movie, Invictus, is how Black and White South Africans can come together and support the South African rugby team, the Springboks in the World Cup triumph in 1995. This vision of Mandela’s is to have all South Africans support the Springboks. And in one sense, it makes no sense. Black South Africans saw the Springboks as almost a symbol of apartheid. How can you ask Black people in South Africa to support the symbol of apartheid? The team of their jailers? The team of Nelson Mandela’s jailers in Rob Island? It makes no sense.
Because Mandela gets it. He was in prison for 27 years, but that was before. He is now the new South African president. He is the president of all of South Africa. He’s the first Black president of this country. And so, Mandela inspired the White captain of the Springboks, Francois Pienaar, as well as the whole country to see the World Cup as a symbol which could bring both Black and White South Africans together. It’s easy to be cynical and be bitter after a crucible. Apartheid lasted for 46 years, from 1948 to 1994. That’s a very long time. And yet, Mandela was willing to move on and forgive and to seek to bring former enemies together. Mandela himself, he was imprisoned for 27 years. It’s almost inconceivable that Mandela would preach forgiveness and unity and compassion.
So many of us have not faced this level of crucible that Mandela and Black South Africans faced with apartheid. But it shows us that while we may not condone terrible things that were done to us, we need to find a way to forgive, find a way to move on, find a way to bring harmony and unity, if at all possible, to bring people together that may have been enemies before. We can’t control other people, but what we can from our side is forgive and try to live in harmony and unity for those that might’ve been our enemies before. That’s part of what coming back from your crucible means, is not being weighed down by the bitterness and the anger of the past and try to find a new vision, a new hope out of that dark path to the pit. And that’s exactly what Mandela tried to do in his own life and with the country of South Africa.

Gary Schneeberger:
That, folks, you may have noticed, friends, the house lights have come on. Please clear the area around your seats. Throw away all of your garbage as you leave. And remember, we’ll be back next week with the final, it’s kind of sad. The final episode of our summer series, Big Screen, Big Crucibles, and we will discuss… And Scott, this is what I need you to do, pay attention to what Warwick was saying about the Haka that really big… Do something, bang a drum, give me a drum roll. Do something that’s very celebratory because our movie next week is, here we go, Scott. Go. Our movie next week is The Monuments Men. So join us next week when we talk about that, folks, and we’ll save a seat for you.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won’t just find a label like the Helper or the Individualist. Instead, you’ll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially, the steps to get there. It’s more than an assessment, it’s a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.