2019
September
19
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

September 19, 2019
Loading the player...

In today’s issue, our five hand-picked stories explore a regional perspective on the Saudi oil attack, South Africa’s efforts to stop violence against women, whether human empathy can save our birds, justice redefined on the U.S. border, and what weddings tell us about shifting values in India.

First, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the latest public figure to have crossed a racist line that, arguably, has shifted. When he was teaching at an elite private school in 2001, Mr. Trudeau wore brownface at an “Arabian Nights” costume-themed dinner, reported Time magazine. He apologized Wednesday night and revealed he had also impersonated singer Harry Belafonte in high school. On Thursday, a video emerged of another incident in the 1990s. 

You’ll recall that earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam apologized, then denied, being in a 1984 medical school yearbook photo with a person in blackface and a person in a Ku Klux Klan hood. 

Last month, Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman said she was fired from a recent movie when producers saw an old photo of her in blackface in a 2007 comedy sketch. “I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on,” she told GQ magazine in 2018. “That was such liberal-bubble stuff, where I actually thought it was dealing with racism by using racism.”

Zero tolerance for racist behavior and cultural appropriation is seen by many as progress. But some object to applying the new standard retroactively. They see the “cancel culture” – particularly on college campuses – as a form of bullying that shuts down free speech. And where does grace or forgiveness enter?  

Next month, Canadians go to the polls. Voters will decide if their current leader is a closet racist or exhibited poor judgment 18 years ago. 


You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Planet Labs Inc/AP
Black smoke rises from Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq oil processing facility in Buqayq, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 14, 2019.

Sometimes the best way to understand an event is to look at a map. We show the Saudi oil fields strike is part of a wider regional conflict with Iran and a host of actors – and motivations.

SOURCE:

BBC, Haaretz, Radio Free Europe, Media Reports

|
Jacob Turcotte and Scott Peterson
Ryan Lenora Brown/Christian Science Monitor
Johane Gumede, a university student, carries a placard of Uyinene Mrwetyana, whose rape and murder in August spurred a wave of protests, during a demonstration at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Sept. 13, 2019.

Amid a wave of outrage over the murder of a young woman, South Africans wonder if their country is finally ready to address its history of gender-based violence.

Empathy lies at the heart of our next story. A report on a dramatic decline in bird populations is important, but even more so is how we as humans respond.

Will the judiciary act as a check on the executive branch, or will it offer deference on national security grounds? That’s been the question on immigration since the Trump administration’s first travel ban. The U.S. Supreme Court is answering this now.

A deeper look

Ann Hermes/Staff
At center, groom Sonu Sabjiwala sits with family and friends as they wait for the bride to arrive at his wedding on June 15, 2019, in the neighborhood of Madanpur Khadar, outside New Delhi.

Replete with tradition and ceremony, weddings are a snapshot of what a society values. In India, once-sacrosanct wedding culture is changing, reflecting evolving outlooks on marriage and gender roles.


The Monitor's View

CBC via Reuters
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologizes Sept. 18 for wearing brownface makeup in 2001.

Soon after becoming Canada’s leader in 2015, Justin Trudeau directed his justice minister to increase the use of restorative justice for criminal offenders in the country’s indigenous communities. If they fess up, apologize, and make amends to victims, their penalty would be light. Now Mr. Trudeau, who is in the midst of a reelection campaign, is seeking restorative justice for himself.

After being outed this week for wearing racist makeup 18 years ago at a party, he apologized for engaging in a stereotype that, even at the time, was viewed as mocking and dehumanizing. He also apologized in private to leaders in the minority communities, asking them for advice on what he can now do. “This is about me taking responsibility,” said Mr. Trudeau.

Canadians, who hardly view Mr. Trudeau as racist because of his policies, will be able to decide soon on whether to forgive him for this past behavior – and not revealing it – or whether to punish him and set an example. They vote Oct. 21 in a parliamentary election. If Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party wins and he survives as prime minister, it could be a reflection on how much Canadians accept his self-reflection.

The prime minister is certainly well practiced in making apologies, mainly on behalf of the government over official wrongdoings in the distant past, such as discriminatory actions against gays, European Jews, and indigenous war chiefs. He is seen as Canada’s most apologetic leader. In 2016, he apologized to two female legislators for a physical encounter during a charged debate in Parliament. Earlier this year, however, he refused to apologize for intervening in the prosecution of a Quebec company for corruption, saying he was merely trying to save jobs.

Mr. Trudeau has done much to bring social healing for public injustices in Canada’s past. Now he seeks a type of justice for himself by apologizing and trying to make amends. Like a judge looking into the heart of a defendant for genuine remorse and an acceptance of what is right, voters must decide whether to apply restorative justice to their prime minister.


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.

When we are willing to go where God, Love, leads us, this opens the way for our lives to unfold in increasingly fulfilling and purposeful ways.


A message of love

Fauzy Chaniago/AP
A firefighter rides his motorcycle as smoke billows from burned trees at Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Sept. 19, 2019. Indonesia's forest fires are an annual problem that strains relations with neighboring countries, with smoke blanketing parts of Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a video about France’s efforts to fight climate change, a program called “Make Our Planet Great Again.”

More issues

2019
September
19
Thursday

Give us your feedback

We want to hear, did we miss an angle we should have covered? Should we come back to this topic? Or just give us a rating for this story. We want to hear from you.