2018
January
12
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 12, 2018
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On New Year’s Eve, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a call for empathy:

“My wishes for the New Year are for us to become aware again of that which holds us together at heart; that we focus again on what we have in common; and for us to strive to have more consideration for others ... paying attention, truly listening, and showing understanding for others.”

Many interpreted this as a statement about Germany’s tumultuous embrace of more than a million refugees. But today, it looks like a road map for political compromise. 

On Friday, four long months after the elections, German leaders took a big step toward forming a new government. They’re not there yet. But the three major political parties (conservative, center-right, and center-left) have a preliminary deal for a new coalition government. 

After 12 years at the helm, many doubted Ms. Merkel could do it. Despite a strong economy, Germany’s widening rich-poor gap is creating new social fissures. Her party lost ground and a far-right party now sits in parliament.

Merkel struggled as never before, but her persistence paid off. It’s not a done deal yet. But for Merkel, long seen as the most powerful woman in the world, it’s the first sign of progress.

Now for our five stories selected to illustrate forgiveness, justice, and paths to progress in the world.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Do leaders have a moral obligation to choose their words carefully? After President Trump's remarks Thursday, our reporters look at the history of US presidential language and why we now may be in a period in which words can matter more than actions.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File
Sydney Lee, friend Addison Andrade, and Maddie Lee (from l. to r.) use their cellphones in Mountain View, Calif. The Lee family works together on using social media responsibly. Some tech-industry insiders and investors say technology firms should do more to help young people avoid smartphone overuse.

Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to recalibrate Facebook newsfeeds to prioritize social interactions over revenue-generating content is the latest signal that the tech industry may be shifting priorities: seeing quality time as more valuable than the quantity of time spent online.

Martin Mejia/AP
Demonstrators shout slogans as they hold photographs of people who disappeared during the government of former President Alberto Fujimori, in Lima, Peru, on Jan. 11. Relatives of those killed or disappeared during Mr. Fujimori's decade-long rule protested his being pardoned from his prison sentence.

With the pardon of former President Alberto Fujimori, Peruvians are digesting a complicated stew of values and principles, including the integrity of the justice system, forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation, and a history of impunity.

When facing a boycott, is the best response a blacklist? Israel, a democracy, now wrestles with how to protect its reputation and global identity from what it considers unfair criticism.

Speaking of America

Last of five parts

In the final installment of our five-part series about Americans, our reporter visits Appalachia, where many voters support President Trump and see his combative (or even vulgar) communication style as authentic.

Karen Norris/Staff

The Monitor's View

AP Photo
Tunisians demonstrate against the 2018 government budget in Tunis Jan.9.

Seven years after the Arab Spring felled its first dictator – Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14, 2011 – the Arab world has largely fallen into war or more autocracy. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the region accounts for half of the world’s refugees. Yet popular demands for individual dignity remain strong. That was made clear this past week in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began. Days of street protests against austerity measures have mostly been tolerated.

The country’s duly elected prime minister, Youssef Chahed, even went to the streets to talk to demonstrators – a type of accountability hardly imagined elsewhere in the region. He pleaded for people to accept the necessary belt-tightening. Police appeared sympathetic to the cries of youths left jobless by a stagnant economy. And the media covered the public outburst without restraint.

Such freedom of dissent may be one legacy of the Arab Spring. In a 2016 survey by Arab Barometer, two-thirds of those in the region say they could criticize the government without fear. Arabs may not have many civil liberties. Yet many more now feel a liberty of conscience.

“Arab citizens are unlikely to remain docile as socioeconomic stresses increase and welfare systems are curtailed in the years to come,” states a recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Citizens will increasingly use activism, albeit in forms different from those associated with the Arab Spring, to influence the fate of their countries.”

As in many democracies, youths in Tunisia resent the lack of job opportunities and a persistence of corruption. They are also upset about the long-range demands of foreign creditors who insist the government rein in subsidies. Public debt is 70 percent of gross national product. A fifth of all Tunisian workers are employed by the government, an unsustainable situation. Austerity is necessary for economic growth and the creation of private jobs.

Democratic revolutions like Tunisia’s are first and foremost about liberty for the individual. That lesson helped the country’s Islamist party, Ennahda, fully embrace democracy. Yet with liberty comes the need to define the collective good, often through individual sacrifice. The current protests are part of that process.

As it did seven years ago, the rest of the Arab world can watch as Tunisia again provides a model of reform. This time, the lesson is in how to build a healthier and more inclusive economy.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said. And the Nobel Peace Prize winner also expressed a commitment not to “defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.” What precious building blocks these ideas are for making a kinder, gentler society. Everyone’s real nature is loving and lovable, like our divine creator’s, because God is divine Love itself, and our true identity is God’s spiritual image and likeness. Not all thoughts and actions we encounter are in line with this spiritual truth. But nobody is destined to do wrong, or incapable of reform. Holding to everyone’s real identity as the reflection of divine Love is the basis for building a just society. This kind of Christly love is a powerful force for social change and healing.


A message of love

Sunday Alamba/AP
Pedestrians shop in a roadside market in Lagos, Nigeria, Jan. 12. African countries Friday reacted in shock to reports that President Trump Thursday reportedly questioned why the United States would accept more immigrants from Haiti and '[expletive deleted] countries' in Africa rather than places like Norway in rejecting a bipartisan immigration deal. On Friday he denied using that language. 'The African Union Commission is frankly alarmed at statements by the president of the United States when referring to migrants of African countries and others in such contemptuous terms,' said Ebba Kalondo, spokeswoman for the African Union. 'Considering the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the US during the Atlantic slave trade, this flies in the face of all accepted behavior and practice.'
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. We wish you the best on this three-day weekend in the US honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. We’ll be back Tuesday, but watch for a special note from our editor Monday.

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2018
January
12
Friday

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