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2020
June
26
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

June 26, 2020
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Linda Feldmann
Washington Bureau Chief

I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., 32 years, but don’t ask me to identify most of the city’s statues. Sure, I have my favorites, starting with Joan of Arc leading the charge from Meridian Hill Park. Some, like Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park, can be appreciated as art, but have become flashpoints. President Jackson forcibly moved Indigenous people from their land and enslaved people.

Earlier this week, protesters vandalized and tried to topple the Jackson statue, but were thwarted by police. Now it’s protected by a chain-link fence, awaiting its fate. 

A radio interview Thursday with former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu spoke to ways of dealing with controversial statues that involve a full spectrum of voices and force the whole community to wrestle with the past. Several years ago, during planning for the city’s tricentennial, renowned Black musician Wynton Marsalis suggested that the city’s Confederate statues be removed. 

Mayor Landrieu agreed, and thus was launched a process: months of debate, a public hearing, a city council vote (6-1), a vote in the legislature, and court challenges. Finally, under cover of darkness to protect the workers, the statues came down.

Later, Mr. Landrieu used the experience as the frame for his memoir, “In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History.” 

“Here is what I have learned about race,” he wrote in an essay for Time. “You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go around it. You have to go through it.”

By doing that – and having a truly inclusive conversation guided by democratic processes – the public landscape changed. 

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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Navigating uncertainty

The search for global bearings
Jacky Naegelen/Reuters/File
The Eiffel Tower is illuminated in green, with the words “Paris Agreement is done,” to celebrate the climate change pact in 2016.

Power shift: How America’s retreat is reshaping global affairs

( 13 min. read )

The U.S., which has led much of the world since the end of World War II, is pulling away from global institutions. Yet many believe U.S. leadership is needed to drive the world forward on problems that require big-power cooperation. Part 11 in our global series “Navigating Uncertainty.”

By Peter Ford, reporting from Paris
SOURCE:

Gallup

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
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North Korea and US: Is it back to square one, only worse?

( 6 min. read )

President Trump’s outside-the-box approach to North Korea earned praise for temporarily lowering tensions. But has it materially changed the national security challenge confronting the United States?

By Howard LaFranchi
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For migrant farmworkers, coronavirus adds new burdens

( 5 min. read )

The United States relies on 2.4 million farmworkers to harvest everything from blueberries to lettuce. This year they’re confronting extra risks tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Lee A. Dean, reporting from Shelby, Michigan
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Ben Curtis/AP/File
Tourists Sarah and John Scott from Worcester, England, take a step back as a male silverback mountain gorilla unexpectedly steps out on Mount Bisoke volcano in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda on Sept. 4, 2015. In some parts of the region, tourists and researchers routinely trek into the undergrowth to see gorillas in their natural habitat.

Tourist treks helped save gorillas. What happens in lockdown?

( 5 min. read )

Wildlife tourism has come to seem like an all-around win: for animals, surrounding communities, and visitors. Its history isn’t so simple, though, and COVID-19 has exposed more challenges – but also calls for change.

By Christopher Bendana and Ryan Lenora Brown, reporting from Kampala, Uganda
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On Film
Dan Budnik/Magnolia Pictures
“I Am Not Your Negro” is about the life of novelist, playwright, and activist James Baldwin. “The future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country,” he states.

Racial justice: Five eye-opening documentaries

( 4 min. read )

Since the killing of George Floyd, there has been a concerted effort to better understand the Black experience – and documentaries can be crucial to that learning. In this column, Candace McDuffie identifies five films that chronicle injustice in the Black community, and whose messages are arguably more relevant than ever.

By Candace McDuffie
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The Monitor's View
Reuters
A vendor in Taiwan makes statues of Hong Kong protesters at a June 13 rally marking the one-year anniversary of the start of the protests in Hong Kong.

A safe landing for Hong Kong’s democracy refugees

( 2 min. read )

In coming days, China’s rulers are expected to give final approval to a draconian measure that will end Hong Kong’s autonomy and allow the arrest of any pro-democracy activist in the territory. By some estimates, as many as 100,000 Hong Kongers will emigrate soon after. Millions more could follow. Where will all these freedom-seekers go?

While Britain and Japan have made moves to welcome some of the likely political refugees, perhaps the best landing spot will be Taiwan, only 400 miles away. The island nation of 24 million has proved that Chinese Confucian culture and democracy are compatible. It needs young talent. The cultural is similar.

Yet most of all, Taiwan has shown moral courage in standing up to Beijing’s bullying. The independent island is often harassed by China’s military, hackers, and propagandists for not wanting to join the mainland. Last month Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, said that if democracies allow autocrats to advance abroad, “we are neglecting our own democratic values.”

On June 18, Taiwan took initial steps toward assisting the hundreds of Hong Kong protesters who have already fled to the island to avoid persecution at home. The government plans to open an office July 1 that will help them resettle, find a job, or study in Taiwan. The move is seen as preparation for eventually absorbing more people from Hong Kong.

China refers to pro-democracy defenders in Hong Kong as a “political virus,” which translates as a threat to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party. By comparison, Ms. Tsai was handily reelected in a popular election last January. She projects her country as a “force for good” in the world. A measure of that good is the welcome mat being put down for Hong Kong’s freedom lovers.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board
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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.

Caring for others? Let inspiration lead the way.

( 3 min. read )

Feeling stumped during her preparations for a hands-on test during her training as a Christian Science nurse, a woman turned to God for help.

By Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche
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A message of love

AP/FILE
Seventy years ago, the idea of desegregation was shocking to many Americans. “I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South,” said Virginia Sen. Harry Byrd in February 1956. Little more than a century ago, women’s suffrage was unthinkable to a large part of the country. And 200 years ago, social reformer Robert Owen’s call for “eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, [and] eight hours’ rest” was considered radical. Yet today, equal access to education and public spaces, voting enfranchisement, and labor rights are commonly accepted – if not always perfectly realized – as ideal standards of American life. And in each case, mass demonstrations helped pave the way toward those reforms. The country’s current protests, which began in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on May 25, may once again be the harbinger of significant change by focusing global attention on how society can become more equitable for all. Moving past racism, said former first lady Michelle Obama, “starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets. – Anna Tarnow, Staff writer

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( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Please come back Monday, when we examine the great face mask question, as COVID-19 caseloads rise in 29 states. And remember, for the Monitor lens on breaking news, check out our First Look page.

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2020
June
26
Friday

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