Friday, January 28, 2011

Invictus

How does the movie Invictus relate to recreation and community development? Well, this movie has it all.
     Nelson Mandela’s idea to use sport in order to develop a stronger community worked wonders for South Africa. First off, not only did sport bring a struggling community together but it brought hope to all those who did not believe that South Africa could turn things around for the better. This not only brought a community together, this brought an entire country together. This was not about winning the World Cup – of course it helped but it was about much more than that. Despite if they won or not, winning wasn’t their objective. Their objective was to create a country where despite if one is black or white that not only did everyone have equal rights but that everyone believed they deserved them. The right to feel comfortable in ones skin in a place where many people could not before.
      Nelson Mandela’s idea to use sport to bring people together is in a way, very simplistic. We have all watched those movies where a small community wins a championship game and the community’s struggles seem to go away. In this case, creating a better community was the main objective – the Springboks could have lost in the quarterfinals. I believe that despite of the outcome, the rugby team had to demonstrate to the rest of the country that hard work and having a positive outlook develops stronger aspirations. If a struggling rugby team could have success than why couldn’t a country? It does sound quite farfetched but it worked. Sport has that effect on people and Mr. Mandela used that to his advantage.
       In conclusion, Invictus demonstrated that sport is much more than we give it credit for. It is responsible for the ups and downs in our community. It brings out the best and the worst in people demonstrating that in the whole grand scheme of things that winning isn’t everything (although they still won.)
 

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.




 






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3 comments:

  1. kyle l'arriveeFebruary 1, 2011 at 3:00 PM

    good blog, i like how you added that the sport not only brought the people of South Africa together it also gave them hope. I think with hope the people were able to have some sort of confidence that things would be able to finally get better.

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  2. Reid MitchellFebruary 2, 2011 at 1:59 PM

    Good job on relating how the sport brought the whole nation together. WIth the hope of the rugby team winning the World cup, it gave the nation a sense of togetherness and they backstopped the country all the way to the finals. Good post bud.

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  3. Brent WashenfelderFebruary 3, 2011 at 4:11 PM

    Good post. It definitely didn't hurt that they were able to win the world cup, but I agree with your perspective on how the rugby team led by example to show the rest of the country how a positive outlook can bring hope to everyone.

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