Hope for
You Too
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
from No Future
Without Forgiveness
God
does have a sense of humor. Who in their right minds could ever have
imagined South Africa to be an example of anything but the most ghastly
awfulness, of how not to order a nation’s race relations and
governance? We South Africans were the unlikeliest lot and that is
precisely why God has chosen us. We cannot really claim much credit
ourselves for what we have achieved. We were destined for perdition and
were plucked out of total annihilation. We were a hopeless case if ever
there was one. God intends that others might look at us and take
courage. God wants to point to us as a possible beacon of hope, a
possible paradigm, and to say, “Look at South Africa. They
had a
nightmare called apartheid. It has ended. Northern Ireland (or
wherever), your nightmare will end too. They had a problem regarded as
intractable. They are resolving it. No problem anywhere can ever again
be considered to be intractable. There is hope for you too.”