King Leopold's Ghost

By Warren Bolon, Senior Writer

Several years ago, a friend and I were talking about some of the crises facing Africa. He was a newspaper foreign correspondent and had covered Africa. Out of the blue he asked, "How do we know that praying makes any difference, especially to people halfway around the world?" My reply was something along the lines of "I don't know exactly how prayer works, but I just know in my heart that it makes a difference for good."

Then I thought of a metaphor. I said, "Imagine a big stadium that's in total darkness. None of the thousands of people in the stadium has a candle or flashlight, except one person. That one light, if turned on, would be visible to everyone there." At the very least, I thought, that one light would give those people a sense of hope that there's a way out of darkness.

Journalists and historians cannot right historical wrongs by the act of piecing together facts and perceptions. They can only expose wrongs. Or so goes the usual author's disclaimer.

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