Personal Diary © Burhan Rasool

Just finished watching the film “Invictus”. The film looks at the life of Nelson Mandela during his term as president, when he campaigned to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup event as an opportunity to unite his countrymen.

Here is the poem “Invictus” which inspired Mandela during his days of imprisonment and which he, according to the film, gave to the captain of the South African rugby team, before the start of the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

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Out of the night that covers me,

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According to Wikipedia, instead of giving him this poem, he gave a copy of Theodore Roosevelt speech titled “The Man in the Arena“ to the captain.

I am not sure which one is true and which one is not but here is a nice passage from that speech:

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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”