Though the story is set in South Africa, Clint Eastwood’s Invictus is a hybrid of classic American forms, the triumphant sports movie and the high-minded political film. There is much to like in the film, and a fair amount one might dislike as well, but in the end one’s overall feelings are likely depend on one’s enthusiasm for these genres in general and for their peculiar marriage in this instance.
Invictus tells the story of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the first major international sporting event to take place in South Africa following the collapse of apartheid. Nelson Mandela’s presidency was still young, and he saw in the event an opportunity to fuse his nation across racial lines, to make the national team, the Springboks, not merely an icon for white South Africa but for the country as a whole. Without giving too much away, he--and they--succeeded.
Mandela is played by regular Eastwood collaborator Morgan Freeman, and the performance is sincere and moving, if not always entirely smooth. So much of Freeman’s appeal, dating all the way back to his Easy Reader days on “The Electric Company,” has been tied up in his mellifluous baritone, but here he must pitch it upward to match Mandela’s clipped, nasal cadences. There are moments when the accent slips a tad, or you can hear Freeman’s natural rumble beneath Mandela’s tinny timbre. (Oddly, in a few bits of voiceover, Freeman seems to drop the accent altogether.) Yet these stumbles notwithstanding, Freeman gets the big things right: Mandela’s awkward gait, serene disposition, and strange anti-charisma, the way he could offer Hallmark-level bromides about peace and reconciliation with such quiet conviction that his words were impossible to ignore.
This was a matter of American interest. More than that: it was actually an American matter. And the contempt that Great Britain, particularly Scotland, and Libya have shown the United States in it is a fact with which we must conjure, lest this drama in four parts otherwise define, delimit and demean our very position in world affairs. This is a choice that neither Russia nor China ever seem to face. That is, they never stand down (or seem even to contemplate standing down) from what they deem to be core. Take, for example, Georgia or Darfur, which on any reasonable reading would be far from core.
This was a matter of American interest. More than that: it was actually an American matter. And the contempt that Great Britain, particularly Scotland, and Libya have shown the United States in it is a fact with which we must conjure, lest this drama in four parts otherwise define, delimit and demean our very position in world affairs. This is a choice that neither Russia nor China ever seem to face. That is, they never stand down (or seem even to contemplate standing down) from what they deem to be core. Take, for example, Georgia or Darfur, which on any reasonable reading would be far from core.
Our centrality in this case, however, should be self-evident. Pan American 103 was an American carrier, "Clipper Maid of the Seas," on its way on December 21, 1988 from Heathrow Airport, London to J.F.K. in New York. Of the 270 dead, fully 189 were Americans, two were infants at two months, and one was an elderly gentleman of 82. There were 66 students on board, plus 17 men in the U.S. defense and security services. Ah, maybe one or a few of these folks were the targets of the bombing, you might be saying to yourself suspiciously. But then this would truly be an act of outright war against the United States.
It took eleven years before a trial was held, much of this time spent in odious negotiations with Moammar Gadhafi over a venue. Even Nelson Mandela was brought into the act, as he often is to rescue from justice some miscreant who happened be an ally of the "revolution." In the end, a new facility was actually built for the Scottish High Court of Justiciary on a former American military base in the Netherlands. I kid you not. There, one of the defendants was found not guilty and Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University, has written an eye-opening article for Forbes.com on the legalities and illegalities of the process. Read it, please.
Dear reader,
I'm in South Africa, a country I've already been to four times. The first time I came the apartheid regime was in power. The regime was tottering during my second visit. By my third the African National Congress had come to power.
What I saw on my last visit were several undeniable realities:
1. That South Africa is a modern industrial power;
2. That its democracy actually works;
3. That it is undermined by black racialism and populism--and also by the antagonist of both, capitalism;
4. That its foreign policy is tribal and venal.
These are still true. The country is now in a transition between a government that, initially neo-communist, had transformed itself into a disciplined free enterprise machine and a government which looks more and more like a captive of its silly words and its officials' corrupt habits.
If you are a critic of the Bush administration, chances are that, at some point over the past six months, Ron Paul has said something that appealed to you. Paul describes himself as a libertarian, but, since his presidential campaign took off earlier this year, the Republican congressman has attracted donations and plaudits from across the ideological spectrum.
