大象传媒

Good morning. As the Indian cricket team return home after a long tour with its highs and lows it鈥檚 worth noting that 26 years ago today a tour of India by the England Cricket team was effectively cancelled when several players were refused visas to enter India.
The main reason was that some England players had played cricket in South Africa, and at a time when apartheid was established there, a system defended by some, but despised and criticised by increasing numbers of organisations, like the UN, and public figures, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
It would be another 16 months before President De Clerk began to dismantle apartheid and Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Today there remain many systems, regimes and contexts giving cause for concern, some quite properly universally condemned. Systems that oppress one group of people and privilege others: regimes based on violence and hatred; contexts in which the poor appear powerless and the powerful seem invulnerable; are all incredibly complicated and seemingly unalterable.
But history suggests that there are certain events and occasions which together finally change the most unchangeable situations, because as Martin Luther King used to say no evil or lie can last forever. So we take hope.
Merciful God, look upon your fragile planet and everyone living on it. Protect the weak and transform situations of injustice, oppression and danger. Raise up prophets and leaders who change this world to a greater likeness of your intentions. May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth, this day, we pray. Amen.