2019
September
13
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

September 13, 2019
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Peter Ford
International News editor

Today’s stories investigate what happens next for multiple places in the news – Silicon Valley, Afghanistan, U.S. universities; whether religion and politics can mix in a new democracy; and a breakthrough discovery on another planet. 

In cinemas across the United Kingdom tonight, a new film will be pulling in fans by the busload. “Downton Abbey,” the movie, has arrived to celebrate the discreet charm of the aristocracy.

The record-breaking PBS drama, imported from England, was a smash hit for six seasons around the world, attracting 120 million viewers in 220 territories. But it was at home that the series wrung heartstrings the hardest, with its rose-tinted representation of early 20th-century life among the English social elite and their servants.

The fairytale vision of “Downton Abbey” was reassuring. The series delved into the lives and loves of its characters – from both entitled upstairs and deferential downstairs – in a society steeped in tradition. Everyone knew his or her place at home; and abroad, Britain’s preeminence was unchallenged.

That was a vision that appealed to many people in Britain, buffeted by the winds of globalization blowing across an uncertain world, when “Downton Abbey” first came to TV. Nostalgia was comforting. And nostalgia helped build the case that some politicians made for Brexit, the idea of leaving the European Union, before a referendum on the question. Things were better before, they said. And a lot of voters agreed.

But if escapist fantasy met a social need three years ago, it is even more in demand today. Brexit has still not happened, though it has filled the newspapers day after day; three years of increasingly angry debate have rent Britain down the middle; society is profoundly divided and most people on both sides of the divide are heartily sick of the whole issue.

They would probably agree with Hugh Bonneville, who plays family patriarch the Earl of Grantham. It is, he said before the film’s premiere, “great just to escape for a couple of hours from all the nonsense that we are surrounded by.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Could “techlash” go too far? An investigation by 48 states symbolizes bipartisan worry about the market power of a few tech giants. Some experts say the bigger concern is how to keep nurturing U.S. innovation.

“The first law of peace is a cease-fire,” a business owner told the Monitor’s Scott Peterson at the site of a fateful bombing in Kabul. With U.S.-Taliban talks halted, it’s a point of consensus for Afghans.

Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News/AP/File
Morgan McCaul holds a sign showing the years doctor Larry Nassar, who abused her, was reported to Michigan State University as trustees arrive for a university board meeting on April 13, 2018. The government’s $4.5 million fine against MSU is unprecedented.

What role should transparency play in addressing sexual assault at colleges? Increasingly, a campus crime reporting law is being used to hold schools accountable for communication, and to offer a way forward for survivors.

Religion and politics are rarely an easy mix. Yet in Tunisia, a nation with a long secular tradition, an Islamist is a leading candidate for president. He’s a profile in contradictions.

Planets outside our solar system long existed only in the imagination. But scientists are beginning to piece together models that are more rooted in reality.


The Monitor's View

For the second time since its revolution in the 2011 Arab Spring, Tunisia will elect a new president Sunday. In the Arab world, which is mostly autocratic or chaotic, that alone is quite a feat. Tunisia’s success is matched only by Iraq’s progress in democracy since 2003.

Yet what stands out in both countries is a parallel rise in national identity. Elections have led people to unite around a shared stake in deciding their civic interests in a civil way rather than fighting over differences within Islam or the role of Islam in governance. Given an opportunity to vote for leaders making pledges on issues from security to corruption, voters take on a secular, patriotic solidarity, polls show.

Tunisia’s opportunity to further shape its identity is reflected in the number of presidential candidates: 26. The diversity on the list – populist TV tycoon, feminist, Islamist, technocrat, free-market advocate, leftist, and so on – gives voters ample freedom to choose the country’s future. In addition, the candidates held three debates, an unheard-of public event in the Arab world.

In the 2014 legislative elections, political battle lines were largely between supporters of secular rule and the Islamist party of Ennahda. Since then Ennahda has rebranded itself as a “Muslim democratic party.” One reason is that Tunisians care more about jobs and services than a government imposing Islam on a society with wide social divisions.

In Iraq, too, since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the overthrow of an Islamic State enclave in 2016, the country has tried to move away from sectarian battles. In an election last year, which resulted in the fourth successive peaceful transfer of power, issues of everyday governance were more important than religion divides.

Remarkably, polls show the minority Sunnis have more trust in a largely Shiite-led government than do Shiites. The percentage of Sunnis who identify first as “Iraqi” keeps rising. And a large majority of both Sunni and Shiites say they feel safe in their neighborhoods and that it is better to separate religion from politics, according to polling by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies.

People in both Tunisia and Iraq still wear many “hats” – Muslim, Arab, tribal, regional, etc. Yet by uniting around a democratic process to solve problems together, they create a bond that defines a wider identity, one based on civic ideals. As messy as their democracy may be, they are trying to see themselves in the greater good.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Caught off guard by her own trepidation when it was time for her son to start preschool, a mother found encouragement in a Bible story about another mother-son duo. Our children may not always be in our care physically, but they are never beyond the reach of their Father-Mother God’s loving care.


A message of love

Kin Cheung/AP
Photojournalists strive to capture moments that tell a full story, bringing news from the remotest corners of the globe in an instant. Through them we learn more about the world, and ourselves. Here is a roundup of photos from this week that Monitor photo editors found the most compelling.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us and have a great weekend. Next week, we’ll begin a week of special coverage on climate change leading up to the United Nations summit.

More issues

2019
September
13
Friday
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