BROTHERHOOD
Mr M Marwick, Senior Deputy Headmaster
Appropriately, as we build up for the most sacred week on the Maritzburg College calendar, the theme for this week and for today’s assembly is brotherhood.
At this school, we talk a great deal about brotherhood and there’s a lot of chest-beating here at College, as we celebrate the things that bind us not just to each other but also to our noble old school.
A brotherhood is a community in which men treat each other literally like brothers – like men of the same family and of the same blood, who share the same parents.
For many people, no-one means as much to them as their brother, and for us to say “You are my brother” or “You are like a brother to me” are not words that can be used or taken lightly.
So, to talk of brothers in a brotherhood, we’re talking about like-minded people with shared values who have a very deep connection to each other – often through shared experiences with one another.
Brotherhoods tend to spring up in places where men share especially stirring experiences – in sports teams, in hostels, and at proud old boys’ schools like this one (with its codes of conduct, traditions and College Credo) – but also in army units like the US Marines and the French Foreign Legion, in fraternities, as well as in less palatable places like street gangs and in jail. In the armed forces of the world, soldiers often speak of being “brothers in arms”, and the popular term, “band of brothers”, comes from the play Henry V by Shakespeare, in which the English King Henry, on the eve of the great battle of Agincourt in 1415 against the French, urges his heavily-outnumbered army with some of the most inspiring words ever written in the English language.
If you are lucky enough to be part of this great Maritzburg College brotherhood, I can assure you that, if you want it and if you let it happen, you will be part of a very special community for the rest of your life.
But brotherhood is not just for all the good times in College’s boarding establishment dorms and on its sports fields, or as you get older on fishing trips and braais with your old school friends, or enjoying a few drinks at the Bowling Club on Reunion Day.
When you are part of a brotherhood worth belonging to, like our school’s great brotherhood, you have the chance to learn from fellow men about how a man should conduct himself in life; how he should operate under pressure; how he should lead, if he gets the chance; how he should treat women and prepare for a future family; how he should try and get ahead in his career and in life generally; how to play a role in his community; and how to be a role model to others.
To be a brother and to be part of a brotherhood comes with obligations – ones that are steeped in loyalty, respect and kindness. Those obligations are not for a day or two, or for only the good times, but they are forever. To be in a brotherhood worth belonging to, you look out for each other, you help each other do the right thing, you speak out when your brother begins to stray, and at College you fight to preserve the healthy brotherhood that surrounds these “Old Walls.” You do not look away. You do not say, “Next time,” and you do not say, “I’m too busy.”
Last week, one of the great stalwarts of the Old Boys’ community died suddenly and tragically, while at a family dinner. He was one of the most passionate Old Collegians you could ever meet – all his great friends in life had bled with him on Goldstone’s, or endured the hardships of Grade 4 in Parkinson House and the tribulations of life in Clark’s in the late 1980s. The affairs of this school were always very close to his heart. His son is in Grade 6 at Merchiston, and I know that it was going to be the greatest pride and joy of his life to have his son follow in his footsteps to Maritzburg College. I was only a peripheral friend – he had hundreds of Old Boy friends. To see these men of College from all parts of the world rally ‘round his family at this time of tragedy and pain has again been a very sobering lesson on what it means to be a brother and to be part of this College brotherhood.
It means that you are there for each other, in good times and bad; decades after your schooldays have ended you fulfil the loyalties of your youth, and you help your friends and their families when they are in distress and in pain.
Creating a lasting, lifelong brotherhood takes time, energy, and continual investment. You have to “show up” for your brothers on a regular basis. You need to give time for them to become who they are meant to be. You need to encourage them, challenge them, and push each other to reach new heights. Being a brother means that you honestly and truly care for the people around you, and you are willing to help, whenever it is needed. It means that you completely accept your fellow brothers for who they are, and you support them at all times.
So, as we think about this special “brotherhood of the Jimeloyo!,” of this brotherhood embraced by the Red-Black-White, let us start thinking about Reunion Day on Saturday too. Let’s think about our own special “band of brothers”, and what it means to be part of it, and as we then think about the boys from Balgowan, who beat Hilton on Saturday and feel that this weekend they will trample the pride of the Red-Black-White, let us now briefly revisit that great speech from Henry V.
Just remember, it’s 1415 – a time of knights in shining armour, of broadswords, battle-axes and bows and arrows – and the English army is really up against it. The prospects of victory are poor, let alone of survival, and King Henry’s soldiers are not just anxious, but scared too. The great battle is going to take place in the morning, a few hours away, on a saint’s day known as ‘St Crispin’s Day.’ The English king rallies his troops with a fiery speech, and he ends off with the following words, which I have edited slightly – and again, I urge you to think of the battles that loom for the Red-Black-White this weekend:
“This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother;
And gentlemen in England now in bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin’s Day.”
And what was the outcome of this great battle of 500 years ago, you might ask? The English “band of brothers” won a great victory over the French, who lost over 6 000 knights in a catastrophic defeat.
Gentlemen, always remember that brothers, united under a single flag, pursing a noble cause, together, can perform mighty deeds.