From Friedman's column in NY Times ... Man­dela had an ex­traor­di­nary amount of “moral au­thor­ity.” Why? And how did he get it? Much of the an­swer can be de­duced from one scene in one movie about Man­dela: “In­vic­tus.” Just to re­mind, it tells the story of Man­dela’s one and on­ly term as pres­i­dent of South Af­rica, when he en­lists the coun­try’s famed rug­by team, the Spring­boks, on a mis­sion to win the 1995 Rug­by World Cup and, through that, to start the heal­ing of that apart­heid-torn land. Be­fore the games, though, the sports com­mit­tee in the post-apart­heid, new­ly black-led South Af­rica tells Man­dela that it wants to change the name and col­ors of the al­most all-white Spring­boks to some­thing more re­flec­tive of black Af­ri­can iden­ti­ty. But Man­dela re­fus­es. He tells his black sports of­fi­cials that an es­sen­tial part of mak­ing whites feel at home in a black-led South Af­rica was not up­root­ing all their cher­ished sym­bols. “That is self­ish think­ing,” Man­dela, played by Mor­gan Free­man, says in the movie. “It does not serve the na­tion.” Then speak­ing of South Af­rica’s whites, Man­dela adds, “We have to sur­prise them with re­straint and gen­er­os­ity.”