The end of the Cold War saw the emergence of some amazing figures in Eastern Europe. One of them was Vaclav Havel, a Czech poet and former political prisoner who went on to become the leader of the Czech republic. Commenting on his own experience during the dark years of political oppression he talked about the way that faith and hope had sustained him, particularly when it seemed that nothing was going to change. He came to see that hope is more than just wishful thinking; it’s a firm conviction that it’s right to do right. He said: ‘Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that what we do is right regardless of how it turns out.’ It reminds me that the Bible says: ‘Let us not grow weary in doing right for when the time is right we shall reap a reward if we don’t give up.’