Article July 22, 2002 Issue

Africa's comforter

By John Selover

The Editor of The Christian Science Monitor made a hopeful prophecy to a rapt audience of college students. In a sweeping summary of world issues, he said that South Africa had the opportunity to become the premier multiracial society in the world. That was nearly thirty years ago.

Out of my love for that country and continent, I have kept watch over that prophetic hope. And so much has happened to fulfill it. The engine for dissolving South Africa's apartheid system has included courage, nobility, knowing what is right, spiritual conviction, and trust in God. The adjustment goes on, just as any society anywhere evolves and grows.

But the watch over Africa is not finished. The cries and sad images from the heart of all Africa wrench our distant hearts and break the close ones. Famine, genocide, and plague on that continent make more striking news headlines than the work of peacemakers and healers. But peacemakers and healers are there, in action, and will ultimately triumph over those blights.

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