What links?

Nelson Mandela and Timothy McVeigh

"Timothy McVeigh chose the poem Invictus, which means "Unconquerable" in Latin, to be his final statement. He handed a handwritten copy of William Ernest Henley's poem to the prison warden, Harley Lappin, just before his death."

"While incarcerated on Robben Island prison, Nelson Mandela recited the poem to other prisoners and was empowered by its message of self mastery."  

My first instinct was always to look for a legal link among revolutionaries (it works, too -- Mandela, again, is a lawyer, and was, already, when he was imprisoned; Robespierre, Fidel Castro, Danton, Lenin, and others-- OK, Ché was a medical doctor, but there are always exceptions...), maybe poetry and literature a bigger source of inspiration than the law?

Obviously, the way these two men made use of the same poem differs enormously; McVeigh saw in it a way to legitimize his feelings, while Mandela found in it solace and strength.  It amuses me to think these two men who couldn't be more different from each other, at least in how they're portrayed in the media, have this, the love for a poem, in common.

One can see how both saw elements which exist in the poem, no distortion of the sentiments expressed in it was necessary.  Is this a worry? Yes.  Is it exciting? Yes.  A poem, a piece of music, also becomes what the reader/listener sees in it.

William Ernest Henley

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gait,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

And here I'm afraid I'll appeal to my more vulgar tendencies and say I find this poem very good provided I manage to keep the song "The Captain of Your Heart" well away from my mind... otherwise... it is anachronistically ruined.