Invictus

We need a Mandela. Indeed, more than one. In all corners of the world where hatred causes war, civil war, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, violence with and without adjectives. Ukraine, of course, but not only. Too much humanity lives (dies) in terror of bombs, missiles and all the most infernal war sophistries conceived by the human mind.
We fight for economic reasons - oil and underground riches - but also for borders, pieces of land and desert, sea inlets. And for tribal, ethnic, religious or presumed such struggles. And when it ends, there are cemeteries that call for peace.
We need a Mandela. Because Nelson Mandela rejected the logic of war, choosing peace. He lived in apartheid South Africa, the separation between whites (few powerful rich) and blacks (many weak poor). He called for justice and equality. They imprisoned and isolated him. For twenty seven years.

On February 11, 1990 they were forced to release him; the wind had changed, the world could no longer tolerate South African apartheid. That day, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, awaited, acclaimed, carried in triumph. He had South Africa in his hands. The hero who hadn't given in, the guide, the leader of an entire people, ready to follow him wherever he wanted to take him.
A nod, a word, a gesture was enough and the black multitude would have overwhelmed the white minority, all hell would break out, the most atrocious of revenges. But Mandela smiled, thus guiding his people on the path of peace and reconciliation, stopping the violent, building a country of equals, black and white together, a rainbow country. They elected him President, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In prison he was supported by a poem, continuously recited, entitled Invictus:
From the depths of the night
that covers me
Black as the pit
from pole to pole
I thank the gods
whatever they are
For my indomitable soul. In the tight grip
of adversity
I didn't back down
nor did I shout.
Under the ax blows of fate
My boss is bleeding,
but indomitable.
Beyond this place of wrath
and tears
Only horror looms
of the shadows.
Yet the threat of the years
He finds me, and he will find me,
fearless.
No matter how narrow the passage,
How full of punishments is life
I am the master of my destiny:
I am the captain
of my soul.

We need a Mandela.
Indeed, more than one. It's not there, it's not there.


Renzo Agasso
NP March 2023