2023
August
01
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 01, 2023
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Whitney Eulich
Latin America Editor

When I was reporting in Barbados in May, a visit to Drax Hall was a must-do. The sugar plantation has been in the same family’s hands for nearly four centuries, and the property hosts a 17th-century house made in the late English Renaissance Jacobean style. It’s believed to be the oldest building of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

A government source told me it was fine to stroll onto most plantations, but when I asked a local to join, she laughed: “No way we can go there!” The current owner, conservative British Member of Parliament Richard Drax, has refused to engage in conversations around reparations for slavery, even as momentum for reparative justice has grown in recent years. Those running the property don’t like the negative attention – and attempted visits – that have come with that.

Still, we gave it a try one evening, driving down a dirt road and parking outside the grand home with its rust-red-trimmed roof and green shutters. We took in the manicured lawns, the aged brickwork of the old windmill tower, and the vast fields of sugar cane, musing poignantly about all that the towering trees must have seen in their lifetimes.

While I furiously took notes, my companion sent selfies and messages to friends and family. “You’ll never believe where I am,” she said in a voice note.

Mr. Drax’s attitude contrasts with that of a new group called Heirs of Slavery. Founding members, profiled in today’s Daily, discovered their own ancestral ties to slavery and decided the solution was to take action. They hope that through making public apologies, writing books, making donations, and engaging with activists around the lasting damages of slavery, more people like them will see the power in shining a light on a historic wrong.

On this day, there was perhaps some small power in my friend feeling that even this corner of her island was not off-limits.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Shellie Habel/Hawaii Dept. of Land and Natural Resources/AP/File
A house collapsed on Oahu's north shore, Feb. 28, 2022. The home tipped onto the beach in an area prone to erosion from high-energy waves that draw professional surfers from around the world.

The Hawaiian Islands are a test case for how coastal communities must increasingly adapt to erosion as sea levels rise. One lesson learned: Community collaboration matters. 

By threatening King Abdullah’s promised democratic reforms, draft “fake news” legislation is placing the Jordanian monarch at the center of his people’s struggle for rights and freer speech.

Difference-maker

THE TIMES/NEWS LICENSING/MEGA/NEWSCOM
Laura Trevelyan, co-founder of Heirs of Slavery, publicly apologized for her family’s ties to slavery.

Can we make amends for ancestors’ misdeeds? For Heirs of Slavery, the first step toward confronting an uncomfortable legacy is humility.

Moffin Opilio
Agripina Mutuka tends to one of her garden towers with the help of her neighbor's children in Lanasawa village, Kenya, July 23, 2023.

Faced with rising food insecurity – driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the climate emergency – many African countries are scrambling to adapt. A solution in Kenya that provides food and dignity could take root elsewhere.

Points of Progress

What's going right

In our progress roundup, lawmakers and charity groups are expanding the meaning of family for children and adults. In Chile, adoptees born during dictatorship are being reunited with birth parents. And in Taiwan, LGBTQ+ couples gain the right to adopt.


The Monitor's View

AP
Morocco's Nouhaila Benzina heads the ball during a Women's World Cup soccer match between South Korea and Morocco in Adelaide, Australia, July 30.

Since its soccer matches began in July, the FIFA Women’s World Cup has seen many firsts. The biggest one may be this: Nouhaila Benzina, a player on Morocco’s team, was the first woman to wear a hijab on the pitch. Just a decade ago, Islamic head covering was banned by FIFA. Now, since the ban was lifted in 2014, Ms. Benzina’s choice to wear a hijab during a game has revealed a newfound respect for religious minorities, at least in global sports.

To some degree, her courage will help push back against widespread and often-violent discrimination against people of faith – or no faith – in many countries. “Seeing hijabs represented at such a high level will allow other countries to see that I’m not an oppressed person who wears a headscarf,” Yasmin Rahman, a soccer player for Saltley Stallions in Birmingham, England, told the BBC. “You want everyone to be accepted as they are.”

In many societies with religious diversity, that desire for peaceful inclusion runs deep. In June, it was expressed in a unanimous vote by the United Nations Security Council. The 15-member body passed a resolution asking countries to improve their interreligious dialogue in order to help end religious hate. The resolution also requires the U.N. secretary-general to report next year on how impingements on religious freedom are threats to international security.

In a sign of how attitudes have changed, Ms. Benzina did not even speak about her breakthrough moment after her team played its debut game in Australia. Her religious expression, the hijab, was for her to judge. She spoke to the media only about the game she had played and the games ahead for her team. Her religious freedom in the sport she loves was just accepted as a fact, just as she accepted other players who were not wearing a hijab. Peace is made from such respect.


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.

Through prayer, each of us can play a part in breaking through the notion that limitation and suffering are inevitable for anyone.


Viewfinder

Eric Gay/AP
Migrants walk past large buoys being used as a floating border barrier on the Rio Grande, July 31, 2023, near Eagle Pass, Texas, as they cross from Mexico to the United States. The U.S. Justice Department is suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the floating barrier that the state placed on the Rio Grande to stop migrants from entering the U.S.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Just as we were going to press, former President Trump was indicted in the Justice Department investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. You can read this Associated Press report for further details, and we will have more Monitor coverage on Wednesday. 

More issues

2023
August
01
Tuesday

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