Invictus Assignment

View the movie with an eye on Nelson Mandela's style of leadership as he works to bring his country together. Be prepared to discuss how Mandela's used disruption As a catalyst for change.

Quote from a newspaper in a scene from the movie:  “He can win an election, but can he run a country?”

Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned for 27 years for trying to have democratic freedoms for all South Africans.  During this time, he could have become bitter or worn down by his experiences in the prison. Instead, he chose to use this time to learn about the people who imprisoned him in order to understand their language, habits, thinking, wants and needs.  This knowledge would serve him well as he became president of South Africa in 1994.

He could have used his power to enact revenge on his captors and the White South Africans who denied rights to the Black South Africans.  In fact, I think most of the Whites expected him to do so.  In the film, after he became president he did several things to interrupt the thought pattern for both Blacks and Whites about how he should act as the newly elected leader.  He gathered the remaining incumbent staff and told them that they were welcome, that he needed and wanted their help and that by doing so, that they would be of great service to their country.  He also told them that he expected them to work with a good heart and to the best of their abilities. 

President Mandela led by example.  He stated that reconciliation would start immediately and took steps to show that this was true. He had both black and white members on his security team and made sure that they were visible. 

He, too, was visible at popular functions that the locals enjoyed such as rugby matches.  Mandela could have dismantled the national rugby team, changed their name and colors- but didn’t do any of this.  Instead, he used the team as a focal point for bringing the country together. Mandela also set a goal of winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup for South African and enlisted the help of Francois Pienaar (captain of the team).  Rugby was a sport that was played by both the black and white people of the country.  At the beginning of the film, the Black South Africans would cheer for anyone, but the country’s team- the Springbok- as they represented the oppressive leadership before Mandela took office.  By the end of the movie, some of the racial tensions were beginning to lessen.  People such as Mandela’s cabinet, his security team and some of the political groups who had distinct thoughts about what the president was doing and why he was “catering” to the whites and the Springbok team eventually came around.

Mandela’s beliefs that everyone has the ability to change the world by acting (or not acting), that all must exceed their own expectations and inspire others to greatness by the work they do was threaded throughout his actions in the film. His ability to know what he wanted and be able to stay on his course for achieving this goal was admirable.  It would have been so easy to give in to those around him who were not in favor of working together with whites in order to create a lasting change for the country.  He was able to do this by holding back the resentment that I’m sure he must have felt, making allies of former enemies and showing the change that he expected to see in others.