2019
August
21
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 21, 2019
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Welcome to the Daily. Today’s five handpicked stories touch on the independent spirit of a true American political swing district, the tactics of the far-right in Italy, seeking emotional resilience amid changing environments, how one woman is spreading racial reconciliation in her community, and an effort to share one of Afghanistan’s greatest treasures.    

But first, a look at who will actually have to “win” the Afghan war.

If reports are right, some sort of peace deal between the United States and the Taliban might be drawing near. Ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan is a priority for the Trump administration.

It is a time for considering how much the Taliban has changed since 2001. The Monitor’s Scott Peterson has already shared reasons to be wary of the Taliban’s promises.

But it is also important to consider how much Afghanistan has changed. The list is long and substantial. Women’s rights have dramatically improved, particularly in cities. Legitimate national security forces exist. The president and parliament are democratically elected.

Cultural changes have taken hold, too. “Young Afghans have embraced new clothing styles and haircuts with a vengeance,” writes Javid Ahmad in The Washington Post. “Several media channels broadcast 24 hours a day, producing everything from news to the Afghan versions of American Idol, mixed martial arts and Sesame Street.”

“We won’t let the Taliban force their ideas on us again,” said Zekeria, a high school graduate, to Radio Free Europe. Like Zekeria, half the country was born since 2001. Ultimately, the question of how much Afghanistan has changed will be theirs to answer.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

American voters are so baked in to their political preferences these days that true swing voters are a rare breed. That’s what makes visiting Macomb, Michigan, fascinating.

The Explainer

Italy is a unique laboratory for right-wing politics. A new political crisis could be a bid by the leading far-right politician to gain more clout.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Susan Heather, a farmer and agronomist, stands on a hill overlooking her family farm and the Little Bow River, which flooded in 2013, on July 9, 2019, in Vulcan, Alberta. Ms. Heather helps other farmers deal with the stress caused by the vagaries of Mother Nature.

When environments change, people can feel they’ve lost something familiar and dear. In an era of climate change, there’s new thinking about how to cope.

Conversations on hope

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor
Tiffany Robertson (center), founder of Touchy Topics Tuesday, talks with Sarah Booth Riss (left) and Kathleen Martin (right). The group, which Ms. Robertson started in the wake of a police shooting in her neighborhood, provides a weekly forum for people of diverse backgrounds to address tough questions about race.

Reconciliation and grace are hard in divisive times. But by committing to them, Tiffany Robertson is changing her community. This is Part 6 in a summer series on people who are facing – and successfully navigating – America’s most intractable challenges.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor
A man trims the edge of a carpet at the Zinnat Rug Factory, one of 15 producers working with the British developmental organization Turquoise Mountain to rejuvenate the Afghan carpet industry, on May 19, 2019, in western Kabul, Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, carpets are woven deeply into the nation’s sense of identity. Getting them out into the world is one group’s way of sharing that spirit.


The Monitor's View

AP
Volunteers prepare free lunches for Venezuelan migrants in La Parada, Colombia, Feb. 11, 2019.

If there were an annual award for mass generosity – beyond mere money – surely Colombia would win it. By the end of this year, the South American nation of 49 million is expected to have taken in more than 2 million refugees from Venezuela, whose economy is teetering on collapse, largely from a dictator’s mismanagement.

In contrast, Colombia is a model of the freedoms that can engender mass charity – even as it struggles with a per capita income of less than $8,000 and high unemployment.

The latest example of Colombia’s kindness: President Iván Duque gave citizenship to 24,000 Colombian-born babies of Venezuelan parents as well as to those born over the next two years. He also used the moment to warn against rising concerns by some politicians about the refugee influx.

“For those who want to make from xenophobia a political path, we adopt the path of brotherhood,” Mr. Duque said in a televised address. “For those who want to outcast or discriminate against migrants, we stand up today ... to say that we are going to take them in and we are going to support them during difficult times.”

Largely on its own peso, Colombia has integrated many refugees into schools and the economy. Sharing the same language helps as does some foreign aid, mainly from the United States. Yet Colombians also have a stronger-than-usual empathy toward the dispossessed. They endured a half-century of civil war until a peace deal in 2016. At many times during the war Venezuela took in fleeing Colombians. Compassion now begets compassion.

That is, at least between those two nations. Colombia is in need of far more foreign assistance. The United Nations has asked the international community for $738 million to aid Colombia and other regional nations coping with the refugee flow. Only about a quarter of the request has been filled. Currently, foreign assistance for Venezuelan refugees is about 13% of that provided to Syrian refugees.

Helping Colombia is a way to reinforce its bigheartedness and its counterexample to the tragedy of governance in Venezuela under ruler Nicolás Maduro. As his regime steadily collapses under the weight of its own mistakes, the rest of the world can also prepare to rebuild Venezuela, which would allow its refugees to return home. This aid planning will give hope to Venezuelans still in the country, as well as a reason for them to resist the regime. Assisting Colombia’s generosity is a big assist for a peaceful, democratic Venezuela.


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.

Ashamed by the way she racially profiled two young men after a theft on her property, one woman took a deep dive into what it means to truly love one’s neighbor.


A message of love

Hannah McKay/Reuters
A pelican catches a fish during feeding time in St. James' Park in London Aug. 21, 2019. The park is home to numerous species of birds that might seem out of place in urban England, including Egyptian geese and ring-necked parakeets.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us. Please come back tomorrow when we explore how the disaster of the Yemen war – and Saudi Arabia’s heavy-handedness – have begun to fracture one of the Middle East’s most important alliances.

More issues

2019
August
21
Wednesday

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