South Africa

The news from Zimbabwe, for the first time in many months, offers a modicum of hope. This week we heard that the ruling Zanu-PF party, led by Robert Mugabe, had provisionally agreed to a power-sharing proposal that would bring the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvingarai, into the government. This is a very shaky moment, with many opportunities for violence or other obstacles to emerge.

Today is the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela, the long-time leader of the African National Congress and the first president of a democratic South Africa. He is to me -- as to so many millions of people -- one of the greatest heroes of the past century. I will proudly wear my Mandela t-shirt today!

Born in the late 1960s, I went to high school and college in the 1980s, and was swept up in the anti-apartheid movement that had taken over the peace and justice activist scene during that era. At home, my family's Episcopal Church had a sister relationship with an Anglican parish in the (then-)Diocese of Johannesburg helped lead me to deep involvement on campus (at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut).