Mary Altaffer/AP

Democratic and Republican canvas observers inspect Lehigh County provisional ballots as vote counting in the general election continues, Nov. 6, 2020, in Allentown, Pa.

This past week has been difficult for many Americans, indeed even many outside the United States. To say tensions have run high after the Nov. 3 election would be an understatement. The United States has seesawed between two different paths forward, always with the advice to be patient while the electoral machinery finishes its job.

Today, a growing lead places Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden near the threshold of the White House, with reports suggesting calls could come soon. Mr. Biden’s campaign has been speaking with increasing confidence. President Donald Trump has filed lawsuits and made unfounded assertions about the legitimacy of the vote.

But what has really happened? Lawsuits grounded firmly in evidence must still play out in the courts. Results must be certified by states, electoral votes cast. Today was an important mile marker. But in waiting for networks to make a call, it is possible that we missed a larger lesson from the past week.

Weeks ago, predictions of electoral chaos and collapse were not difficult to find. But the overwhelming story of the election so far is one of professionalism and patriotic duty by civil servants and elected officials. So far the process has worked amid the unprecedented pressures of a pandemic and mass mail-in voting.

Vote counters present an image of steadiness and resolve to a high civic calling. First-time voters like Zack Ness – who told the Monitor he also helped his father cast his first-ever ballot – drove participation to levels unseen in more than a century. And the voting finished without any major incidence of violence.

The process will continue until the inauguration on January 20. But what has already been accomplished points to the way forward. During the past three days, civility and grace and fair play have proved their fortitude and relevance in moments of doubt as well as certitude. They fueled a remarkable achievement – a peaceful, professional election amid a pandemic and historic political polarization.

In the end, the Founders could set up only the guardrails for the American experiment. The best defense against tyranny are constitutional guarantees of individual liberty along with institutions that check each other. Recent years have shown that turning political opponents into personal enemies leaves much of the promise of democracy untapped. The country can survive, but in lurching from crisis to crisis, it only becomes more divided.

This day asks everyone, from first-time voters to the president himself, to consider: Are we committed to the bonds of trust and the mutual obligations that define America?

When the founder of this newspaper, Mary Baker Eddy, was asked about her politics in the election year of 1908, she answered: “I have none, in reality, other than to help support a righteous government; to love God supremely, and my neighbor as myself.” 

Her words point to qualities of thought – away from self and toward humility, love, and service – as the ground on which government must rest. And while this week has shown many different portraits of America, perhaps the most overlooked one is the most important. It shows clearly that the greatest power we possess to heal and help the nation is the good in hearts aspiring upward toward a greater, stronger whole.

New Hampshire Democrat Frank Fahey once clashed with Joe Biden on national TV. Now he thinks the former vice president is exactly the bridge-builder America needs.  

When Mr. Biden was first running for president, in 1987, he derided Mr. Fahey for asking about his academic track record, boasting that he probably had a higher IQ than the New Hampshire educator. The moment went viral, 1980s-style, and an already beleaguered Mr. Biden dropped out of the race shortly thereafter.

Today Mr. Fahey, now retired and an avid follower of nitty-gritty congressional deliberations, says he’s seen a mellowing in the erstwhile Delaware senator – born not only of professional experience, including 36 years in the Senate, but also of the personal trials of a man who lost his young wife and daughter, and in 2015, his adult son Beau.

“I think he has compassion, which is something we need right now,” says Mr. Fahey by phone, while watching TV coverage of the ongoing vote tallies in Arizona and Georgia.

As of press time, Mr. Biden was leading in four key swing states still counting the remaining 2% to 8% of ballots – with a growing lead in the biggest prize of Pennsylvania, which alone would be enough to give him the White House. While President Donald Trump and his campaign have launched court challenges, and many have cautioned against calling the election prematurely, Democrats as well as Republicans have pushed back on the president’s allegations of widespread irregularities. Control of the Senate will likely come down to two Georgia runoffs, the last nine of which have produced Republican winners, even when the Democrats led in the initial vote.

After a particularly divisive four years, the extreme wings of both parties are revved up, and any suspicions about the fairness and credibility of the election could lead to further agitation. But many others across the country – from voters to mayors to state representatives – see this election as a clear indication that trying to govern as if there’s a mandate for either party’s vision of sweeping change is not going to work.  

Perhaps counterintuitively, the outcome that currently looks most likely – a Democratic president with a Republican Senate and more evenly balanced House – could provide an opportunity for America to regroup and see modest bipartisan progress. That’s in part because Mr. Biden has long-standing relationships with many Republican lawmakers, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“Certainly a large part of the country is suffering from Trump fatigue,” says Ed Goeas, a Republican strategist in Alexandria, Virginia. “[Mr. Biden] has a real opportunity ... to work from the center and not be pulled into what appears to be a desire on the part of the progressives to go to war.”

Still, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, emphasized the importance of not calling the election prematurely, even as it appeared increasingly likely that Mr. Biden would win.

“Every vote needs to be counted,” says Governor Whitman, the national chairwoman of Republicans and Independents for Biden, adding that the Trump administration’s court challenges should be taken seriously. “Those will need to be heard, so that people have confidence that it is what we want it to be – a free and fair election.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File

Voter Frank Fahey clashed with Joe Biden on national TV during Mr. Biden's first presidential run in 1987, after Mr. Fahey questioned his academic track record. Now the retired New Hampshire educator thinks the former vice president is exactly the bridge-builder America needs.

The new-old power couple 

Should the Senate remain in Republican hands while the White House goes to Democrats, Senator McConnell and a President Biden would become the nexus of power in Washington. The two have a strong working relationship and a long Senate history in common, including working on legislation targeting voter fraud. At Beau Biden’s 2015 funeral, the Kentucky senator was the only Senate Republican to attend.

Vice President Biden was Senator McConnell’s go-to negotiating partner in the Obama administration, together getting the country past the shoals of debt and fiscal crises. Around the White House, the vice president was called “the McConnell whisperer.” To the surprise of many, the Senate stepped up its productivity when Republicans took control in the last two years of the Obama presidency – working out deals on infrastructure, budget, education, and Medicare with Democrats. 

Though the country has become increasingly polarized since then, both Mr. Biden and Senator McConnell are likely to be thinking ahead to how history will view them, says Steve Voss, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

“So that’s an opportunity for them to not worry too much about the clamor among the noisy wings of their party,” says Professor Voss.

Still, Senator McConnell’s pitch to voters this year was to keep the Senate in Republican hands as a “firewall” against Democrats. “Mitch is not about public policy; Mitch is about power. Anything that makes Biden look good, he’s going to think twice about,” said former Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, in a preelection interview. 

As majority leader, Senator McConnell would control the Senate agenda, and can be expected to block progressive priorities, including progressive Cabinet picks and judges, if Mr. Biden were to nominate them. The Kentucky lawmaker’s strength, said Senator Heitkamp, a centrist from North Dakota, is his tight control of his caucus. The way for Mr. Biden to break that is to work with individual Republican senators, such as Susan Collins, who won reelection in Maine, or Rob Portman of Ohio.

Senator McConnell may find it harder to control his caucus as a number of senators consider their own presidential bids in 2024. “There’s going to be a lot of competitive pressures on him. There will be [conservative] folks who want to burn the place down and moderates who will say, ‘We need to heal the country,’” said John Feehery, former spokesman under Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, also in a preelection interview.

By the same token, Mr. Biden could face significant pressure from “the Squad” and other progressive members of Congress who would have vastly preferred a President Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. But in that regard, Senator McConnell could become a useful foil, allowing Mr. Biden to blame the majority leader for stymieing a progressive agenda, rather than dealing head-on with intra-Democratic divides.      

“Biden will have to take very modest baby steps in terms of policy innovation ... if he’s going to get anything through the Senate,” says Charles S. Bullock III, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia. “[That] will frustrate the left wing of the party but also possibly give him an excuse for why he can’t go further left.”

A trickle-down effect

If Mr. Biden begins his presidency by rekindling and building on relationships with his former Republican Senate colleagues, and they are game to work together, that could have a trickle-down effect to their constituents, says Martha Hennessey, a Democratic state senator in New Hampshire.

“If they are telling the people they represent ... ‘This is OK, we’re going to give this guy a chance,’ ... if they even give a hint of that – people will start to calm down, and breathe deeply,” says Senator Hennessey, whose party just lost control of both chambers of the state legislature in the nastiest election she ever recalls seeing in New Hampshire.

Determining how the country got so polarized – and whether it was driven or simply reflected by Washington – is difficult. But most political scholars agree a clear turning point was 1994, when Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich led a Republican charge to take back the House. After years of compromising with Democratic-dominated chambers of Congress, he argued it was time for “trench warfare,” says Professor Bullock of the University of Georgia.

The GOP takeover that vaulted Mr. Gingrich into the speaker’s chair – and the no-holds-barred approach behind it – did not go unnoticed by other ambitious politicians, who began adopting similar techniques, on both sides of the aisle. During that time, more lawmakers also began keeping their families in their home states, coming to Washington only for weekday business and ending an era of bipartisan mingling over dinner parties and children’s soccer games.

“Gingrich gets a fair amount of the credit or the blame for what politics has become today,” says Professor Bullock. 

Parallel to that, voters have increasingly “sorted” themselves into partisan camps that are both ideologically and geographically distinct, creating an urban-rural divide. 

“We talk about the online echo chambers and ideological bubbles in which folks exist,” says Professor Voss, who describes himself as a radical centrist. But, he adds, if more voters lived among people who were different from them politically, “it wouldn’t have the power that it does.” 

At the local level, some officials point out they can’t afford to let polarization stand in the way of fixing potholes or repairing the sewer system.

“I don’t know if it came out from Washington or we sent it back toward Washington,” says Donnie Tuck, the independent mayor of Hampton, Virginia. But wherever it started, it needs to be stopped at every level, from the president on down, adds Mayor Tuck, who makes a point of attending social gatherings and meetings with people who don’t agree with him. “We need leadership that will try to bring us together.”

Democratic Mayor Steve Williams of Huntington, West Virginia, who just won his third term with 62% of the vote in a deep-red county, points out that the oath of office taken by politicians is not to uphold a political party but the Constitution of the United States.

“That’s what this nation needs right now – put the nation first,” says Mayor Williams, whose city has become a national model for dealing with the opioid crisis, for which he credits his own community’s willingness to work together as well as support and funding from the Obama and Trump administrations.

“There are some people in Washington who want division, because as they push division on both the right and the left, more [campaign] dollars come rolling in,” he says. “Let’s ... just start getting something done.”

In a speech Thursday, Mr. Biden reprised themes of unity he’s often emphasized on the campaign trail. 

“Once this election is finalized and behind us, it will be time for us to do what we’ve always done as Americans: to put the harsh rhetoric of the campaign behind us,” he said, calling for the nation to unite, heal, and come together. “I am campaigning as a Democrat. But I will govern as an American president. The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It is the one office in this nation that represents everyone. ... I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did vote for me.” 

He may have his work cut out for him, with many conservatives expressing doubt in the run-up to the election about whether he could or would hold off the increasingly energized left wing of his party, whose progressive agenda and stark discourse alarmed moderates.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Pennsylvania as it tallies up the remaining ballots, cast by voters like Kim Davis.

She waited an hour and 15 minutes to vote in Glen Rock, but said earlier this week as she exited the polling place that she would have waited four hours if that’s what it took to exercise her right to vote. As in 2016, she cast her ballot for Mr. Trump, whom she described as the “lesser of the evils.”

Wearing nursing scrubs and walking back to her Mini Cooper, Ms. Davis expressed a desire for greater moderation on both sides.

“We forget that our end goal is serving the country, not serving a political party,” she said.

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed reporting from Pennsylvania.

Leonhard Foeger/Reuters

People pay their respects at the site of a deadly shooting in Vienna, Nov. 4, 2020. The attacker had tried to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State a few years ago, but he was arrested and sentenced to prison in Austria, before being released in December 2019.

To Vienna resident Julia Schrammel, her beloved hometown felt like a bubble of peace and security. Until Monday night, that is, as Europe’s third terror attack in three weeks brought gunfire to the city center as she dined with friends.

The shooter – who killed four people before being shot dead by police – had tried to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State (ISIS) a few years ago. But he was arrested and given a prison sentence in Austria that was cut short. Holed up in her apartment later, Ms. Schrammel reflected upon his early release.

“I think the public would have wished this person had stayed under arrest,” says Ms. Schrammel, who is a master’s student in international management. “I understand it’s really hard if someone’s convincing authorities that they’re no longer [radicalized]. Still, it’s important to understand this is about extremes and not about Muslims overall.”

This separation of terror from religion is a sentiment that has characterized Austrian society’s response. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz at first remarked the shooting shouldn’t be seen as a fight “between Christians and Muslims, or between Austrians and migrants,” before later taking a more divisive tone.

In France, on the other hand, last week’s knife attack in Nice and a beheading in a Parisian suburb on Oct. 16 weren’t met with such a fine line. French President Emmanuel Macron stoked controversy when he made remarks earlier last month that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today” and outlined plans to counter what he called “Islamist separatism.”

Terror attacks in Europe are increasingly perpetrated by radicalized individuals, rather than being organized and supported by networks such as ISIS, experts say. That means Muslim communities are more vulnerable to discrimination as politicians and greater society rush to condemn terror attacks and their perpetrators.

“Fighting ‘Islamic terror’ is a catastrophic term,” says Daniela Pisoiu, a researcher on radicalization at the University of Vienna. “People all of a sudden slip into talking about Islam, and it’s a very slippery slope. I don’t think a terror attack can divide societies, but policy can.”

More lone wolves, harder to find

The reasons an individual might commit violence are incredibly complex, and there are no clear paths to radicalization, says Fiona de Londras, chair of global legal studies at the University of Birmingham in England. “There are a lot of assumptions in politics; one example is poverty. But we’re not entirely sure that’s the case. The push-and-pull factors are contextual.”

What’s clear, however, is that acts are increasingly perpetrated by lone wolf actors, which make them extremely difficult to detect and track. For example, the young man behind the Paris beheading, who was of Chechen origin but had spent most of his young life in France, was not previously known to authorities. Neither was the Tunisian man who authorities say killed three worshippers in a church in Nice last week. “Attacks are impossible to stop with a single individual and access to firearms ... [or] everyday items such as a vehicle or knives,” says Steve Hewitt, a lecturer in security and intelligence at the University of Birmingham.

When perpetrators might be known to authorities, they can still slip through the cracks. The Vienna shooter had been in prison and should have been tracked after his release, says Dr. Pisoiu of the University of Vienna. “But they didn’t,” she says, remarking that the shooter had been evaluated and flagged as someone who “wasn’t over it.” “Everyone’s pushing [around] the blame. Now the Interior Ministry says, ‘Well, it’s not our fault because the guy was supposed to be deradicalized.’ The problem is that we don’t actually have a deradicalization program.”

A good program, she says, involves many institutions and aspects, from schooling to psychological support and employment programs. “Make sure the guy has a job, you know, make sure he doesn’t go back to his buddies, his community,” says Dr. Pisoiu.

The politics around terrorism

The rise of the far-right in European politics is adding an often toxic new element to the discussion around terror attacks. Far-right ideology can inflame Islamophobia, which risks triggering a broader societal backlash against Europe’s population of more than 26 million Muslims. That can fuel alienation within members of the Muslim community, which can in turn trigger those members’ radicalization, says Dr. Hewitt of the University of Birmingham.

“I also can’t help wondering if it’s about politics,” says Dr. Hewitt. French President Macron is facing reelection in 2022 and increasing pressure from the far-right. His comments about reforming Islam are likely meant to appeal to this right flank, but they also are “exacerbating divisions,” says Dr. Hewitt, which makes things “far worse in the long run.”

Politicians might feel it imperative to channel the “gravity” of a violent attack, says Dr. de Londras, but they must also “make sure nothing is incendiary.” “There’s a balance to achieve,” she says. “It’s arguable that President Macron has a tendency to respond in a way that fails to reflect on what the root causes of divisions are in France.”

Experts believe France and other European nations should avoid duplicating the United Kingdom’s controversial “Prevent” deradicalization program introduced in 2003, which led to the targeting and alienation of British Muslims.

“‘Prevent’ places a responsibility on all sorts of institutions, such as schools, health, etc., to report those they suspect as radicalized to authorities. The problem is that [the] communities identified are mostly Muslim and it creates a profile,” says Dr. Alex Christoyannopoulos, a politics and international relations lecturer at Loughborough University. “Some are suspected much quicker than others, maybe because they’re simply critical of foreign policy in the Middle East.”

If lone wolf attacks do continue and society doesn’t better grasp how to talk about them, backlash against Muslim communities in the U.K. and France could worsen, experts say.

“Society as a whole has a certain amount of responsibility; not the main responsibility, also not the first responsibility, but it has an effect on the process,” says Lamya Kaddor, a scholar of Islamic studies and teacher who introduced Islamic education into German public schools. “If I as a young person am constantly being pushed into a corner, constantly being pushed towards the edge of society, because my lifestyle isn’t German enough or isn’t considered normal, then this promotes radicalization.”

A responsible response

In the Vienna shootings, Austrian society reacted in a sensitive way that was encouraging, says Thomas Roithner, an expert on Austrian foreign affairs, security, and defense at the University of Vienna.

Take the media. “There wasn’t this reflexive response to research his background and religion,” says Mr. Roithner. Austrians were also discouraged from sharing self-shot videos of the shootings, and media interviewed bystanders to ask why they felt compelled to help. Politicians also mostly talked of unity.

“Politicians didn’t start talking about shutting people out or dividing [out] people who were born in Austria or not born in Austria and now live here,” says Mr. Roithner. “It hasn’t always been like that in the past. This is an important sign that civilians sent to politicians, that they don’t want to see people divided right now.”

Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

Demonstrators gather during a protest over alleged police brutality in Lagos, Nigeria, Oct. 17, 2020.

Amaka Amaku and her friend were singing along to the radio, driving toward the southwestern city of Ogbomosho, when police “came out of nowhere” to pull them over, she says.

The officers seized the duo’s phones and Ms. Amaku’s laptop because she did not have a receipt, then accused the 26-year-old entrepreneur of taking “hard drugs” when they found her contraceptives. Three of them kicked her friend out of the car and began driving Ms. Amaku away.

“I was afraid. I thought I would get kidnapped,” she says. “I didn’t have my phone, couldn’t scream, they were armed, and I didn’t know where my friend” was. They drove her to a nearby station, where other squad members showed up with her friend, and demanded a bribe to let them go, Ms. Amaku says. After some haggling, they agreed to pay 3,000 naira ($8).

The police unit that stopped them that October day three years ago was the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), disbanded last month amid weeks of protests across Nigeria and the diaspora beyond. Since its founding in 1992, the unit has perpetrated the very kinds of crime it was commissioned to prevent, critics say, with Amnesty International reporting at least 82 cases of “torture, ill-treatment and extra-judicial execution” in the past three years alone.

But if protests have been suppressed – sometimes with violence – the movement’s broader aims are here to stay, many Nigerians say. The people driving #ENDSARS from the pages of the internet to the streets of Nigerian cities and now back online again are overwhelmingly young, like the country itself. Half of Nigeria’s estimated 182 million people are under 30.

Their generation, the first in decades to grow up in a democracy, is also fed up with its disappointments: the corruption and inequality that have become central concerns of their movement.

Bulama Bukarti, a sub-Saharan African expert at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, says the protests – the largest since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999 – were a result of long-building frustration “and outrage that has accumulated over the years.”

“SARS has been a very brutal team for years and young people in Nigeria have been penting up the anger. They have been crying inwardly,” he says.

Demanding transparency

Outrage over the alleged abuses by SARS has simmered for years, prompting government pledges to reform. The latest tipping point for protests came in early October, when a viral video allegedly showed SARS members killing a young man in Delta state and driving off in his car. 

On Oct. 11, the government vowed to disband SARS. But trust between citizens and officials is low, particularly with previous promises not kept. And the situation worsened on Oct. 20, when soldiers shot into a crowd singing the national anthem and waving the flag at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, protesters’ de facto headquarters. At least 10 people were killed, according to Amnesty International. 

After initially denying involvement, the army admitted soldiers were present, but said they did not open fire on protesters, despite eyewitness reports. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement that “strongly condemns the use of excessive force by military forces who fired on unarmed demonstrators in Lagos,” and called for an investigation.

Young people are most at risk of harassment and extortion from SARS officers, according to Amnesty’s report, particularly those with dreadlocks and tattoos (which a high-ranking police official linked to “cultism”), or expensive equipment. Nigeria’s well-funded technology sector has minted middle-class youths who can afford items considered luxuries in a country where 51% of the population lives in extreme poverty. 

But calls for accountability for police and beyond have resonated among youth for a variety of reasons, including socioeconomic frustrations. Unemployment among people ages 25-34 stands at 30.7%. Meanwhile, the affluence of the political class is often on display. President Muhammadu Buhari, for example, spent 10 days in London to treat an ear infection in 2016, despite the billions of naira budgeted for the clinic at the president’s residence. 

Young people took to the streets in the first place, Mr. Bukarti suggests, because they had no experience of military or colonial rule, when taking on the government was taboo.

“Young people are disentangled from the colonial and military mentality and showed that they are ready to take up leadership of their country and demand better,” Mr. Bukarti says.

The protests were leaderless, but organizations like the Feminist Coalition led the fundraising to provide legal and medical aid to protesters. The starring role of the rights group, whose leaders declined to be interviewed for this article, reflects the generation’s increasing calls for gender equality in a society still steeped in patriarchal attitudes. But its daily updates on how money was spent also underscored one of the protesters’ main demands: greater transparency in politics.

Idayat Hassan, director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, an Abuja-based think tank, says the Feminist Coalition has shown Nigerians the “true meaning of accountability in just two weeks.”

“They achieved a feat no Nigerian government has been able to achieve,” Ms. Hassan writes in an email. 

The road ahead

Though street protests have ended, that clamor for accountability has not. Failed promises of police reform in the past have fueled this year’s protests, Mr. Bukarti says, making many Nigerians wary of the new pledge to disband SARS. In August 2018, for example, the government set up a judicial inquiry into SARS, but the commission’s finding has yet to be released to the public almost two years after its submission. 

Last week a panel in Lagos began hearings on police brutality, after waiting for the appointments of youth representatives. Protesters have demanded justice for the alleged victims of SARS, the release of arrested demonstrators, psychological training for SARS officers before their redeployment, and higher police pay to discourage extortion in the first place.

If sustained, the youth-led movement could fundamentally change the political landscape in Nigeria, especially at the next general elections in 2023, says Ms. Hassan.

“The politics of 2023 will not be the same; the youth who [make up] 51% of the voting population is going to decide and possibly in a different way,” she says. 

Washington State University defensive lineman Dallas Hobbs walks through a vast but largely deserted campus athletic complex in Pullman, a quiet college town surrounded by golden fields of freshly cut spring wheat, on his day off from the Cougars’ football practice.

“Hey, coach!” he greets WSU head football coach Nick Rolovich in passing. Then he steps into the empty WSU stadium and strides onto the turf at center field, recalling the night three years ago his team defeated the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans in overtime, and elated fans rushed the field.

“It was pretty exciting,” recalls Mr. Hobbs, then a freshman, even though that celebration cost his team “a big fine.”

Back then, by his own account, Mr. Hobbs’ life revolved entirely around football and other sports – and still does to a degree. This year’s delayed Pac-12 Conference football season will kick off Nov. 7, and the 6-foot-6-inch, 285-pound junior says he’s raring to go.

But in sharp contrast to previous seasons, Mr. Hobbs has undergone a transformation in outlook that is shaping how he views football, school, and his future. For the first time in his life, he’s speaking out against racial injustice in sports, standing up for players’ health and well-being, and advocating for Black Lives Matter helmet stickers and uniform patches.

“It’s not something I ever truly thought I would be a part of, but ... something needs to happen to create more success for college athletes who are putting their bodies and their health on the line,” says Mr. Hobbs.

The twin catalysts for his awakening as an activist-athlete were the pandemic, which starkly highlighted inadequate protections for college football players, the majority of whom at top levels are Black, and the killing in May of George Floyd, who was suffocated under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

“The turning point was George Floyd,” says Mr. Hobbs, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt he designed that says “im human” on the front. “It has totally changed my perspective on a lot of things, and is really changing the path I am on now.”

On college and university campuses across the United States, football players and other athletes are embracing a new activism aimed at raising awareness of racial inequities and proposing solutions – many of them feeling empowered to speak out for the first time, experts say.

“Student athletes have been inspired by the current movement for Black lives and racial justice, and it has been great to see more of them use their platforms,” says Shaun Harper, professor of education and business at USC and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center. 

“Now is the time for Black student athletes to know how much power they have,” says Dr. Harper, an expert on racial issues in university athletics, “and to leverage that power … in the interest of Black students overall.” 

For Mr. Hobbs, the call to action was sparked by a text message in June from his friend Dylan Boles, a Stanford University football team defensive end. The two men are both natives of Iowa, where Mr. Hobbs grew up in Cedar Rapids watching his father, a veteran of Iowa University and NFL football, compete in rugby.

Courtesy of WSU Athletics

Dallas Hobbs (98), a defensive lineman for Washington State University, plays during a game against the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, Oct. 29, 2019.

“I was always playing, no matter the season,” he says. “Most of my life has been in sports.” Family vacations often revolved around his sister’s basketball and volleyball tournaments. His mother also played sports, and is such an avid booster of Mr. Hobbs that when he enrolled at WSU she relocated nearby so she could attend all his home games.

The text from Mr. Boles lit up Mr. Hobbs’ phone at his Pullman apartment just as summer training was starting, but it wasn’t about football. It was about COVID-19. Soon, Mr. Hobbs found himself on regular Zoom calls with Mr. Boles and a growing contingent of Pac-12 football players, comparing notes on the uneven testing and safety precautions that threatened to put them at risk.

“There was this inconsistency, and nothing was truly enforced,” he says. “There were no safe standards to protect us.”

The players created an informal Pac-12 unity group with the hashtag #WeAreUnited, and in August released a list of demands related to ensuring health and safety standards, assisted by allies such as Andrew Cooper, a former WSU cross-country runner working on his master’s thesis at the University of California, Berkeley, about racial injustice in college sports.         

“It opened my eyes,” Mr. Hobbs recalls. “We put our bodies on the line every day, and we don’t know what the outcome is.”

Meanwhile, the college athlete activism was spreading nationwide. A group of players from other conferences had launched a #WeWanttoPlay movement, and one of them, Trevor Lawrence, Clemson University’s national championship-winning quarterback, texted Mr. Hobbs about their plan to save the college football season.

In a Zoom call, the two groups decided to join forces. They asked Mr. Hobbs, an honor roll student, to create a graphic of their demands. A digital technology and culture major recognized last year for his 3.81 GPA by the College Sports Information Directors of America, Mr. Hobbs was well prepared for the task. The challenge? He only had 30 minutes to do it – racing to tweet it by midnight Aug. 9, before anticipated decisions by football conferences about the season.

Mr. Hobbs’ eye-catching graphic created a sensation the next day, publicizing key demands of athletes from the Power 5 football conferences: They wanted NCAA-wide policies to adopt common health and safety standards, allow players to opt out without losing eligibility, and give players a voice at the table through the establishment of a college football players association.

“It was a big moment,” says Mr. Hobbs, talking over a fruit smoothie and burrito outside a WSU cafe one recent fall afternoon.

His new activism has not come without pushback and pressures. At one point in August, he thought he’d been dismissed from his team, although he says it was a misunderstanding and was quickly cleared up.

Still, he’s forging ahead, excited to combine his digital arts skills with advocacy – both for the football players and in his role as creative director of the WSU Black Student-Athlete Association.

Progress so far has been encouraging, he says. Already, the NCAA met two of the player demands: requiring rigorous player COVID-19 testing and standard health protocols, and guaranteeing an additional year of eligibility. “We count that as a win,” he says.

Yet Mr. Hobbs expects a long, tough fight for the weightier demands he’s advanced with other Pac-12 football players. These include requests for six years of health insurance postgraduation, and that the Pac-12 channel 2% of its revenue to aid low-income communities, and 50% to players to build “generational wealth.”

“We are grateful for what we do get,” he says, “but a lot of people come from backgrounds where their family is struggling to make ends meet – a lot of my teammates are on that spectrum,” he says.

Training hard, wrapping up a double major, and preparing for graduate school and a career as a creative director, Mr. Hobbs is undeniably busy – but there’s no turning back on his newfound activism, he says.

“A lot won’t be solved with this generation of athletes,” he says, “but if I can stand up and show we do have a lot of power, maybe down the road college athletes will have that voice to create change.”

It is barely noon on a sunny Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, but Julie Das has been busy. She’s already met with two Afghan refugee families, and is on her way to a third – a visit she’s particularly excited about. She’s meeting Khadija, a potential new chef for the cooking project at her non-profit, Greater Action.

At her tiny apartment, Khadija is dressed in a loose floral salwar kameez and cotton shawl over her head, ready with the meal she has prepared for this tasting session. There is the Afghan version of chicken biryani, along with some herbed rice, okra curry, and a tangy green sauce with yogurt, all neatly laid out on a mat spread on the floor, as is the custom in her homeland. 

Khadija came to Kuala Lumpur as a refugee late last year along with her husband and three children. Her husband, who was a tailor back home, had temporary work here until the pandemic cost him the job. He is now stitching masks for 1 MYR (less than 25 cents) apiece. In the middle of the meal, the couple’s 16-year-old son, Ali Reza, suddenly announces that he has decided to drop out of school – a local non-profit for children from Afghanistan and Myanmar, run by a team of Malaysian Chinese – to help his father stitch more masks in a day.

There is tense silence for a few minutes, before Ms. Das steps in calmly. Within the next hour, a new sponsor has been found for Ali Reza’s school fees (about $36, to cover books and lunch), and Khadija herself has been added to the chef roster at Ms. Das’ catering program. 

Through this project, Meaningful Meals, Ms. Das trains Afghan refugee women interested in cooking food from their country to cater to an international clientele. Given that it is almost impossible for asylum-seekers to find well-paying jobs in Malaysia, these home cooks are often the only earning members of the family.

“We came here in search of a good life ... but we have lost everything we had,” Khadija says, while Zahara, another young Afghan refugee who has picked up fluent English in her few years here, translates. She nods to indicate this was her own story, too. (The women’s last names have been omitted for privacy.)

Expectations, and reality

There are nearly 180,000 refugees and asylum-seekers registered with the United Nations in Malaysia, including 46,500 children. The majority are from war-torn countries like Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Myanmar, and most recently, Afghanistan.

All of them left home to escape violence, and fled to Malaysia on a tourist visa, imagining it to be a safe haven. The truth is that the country is not part of the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, and does not legally recognize refugees, leaving them vulnerable to arrest and deportation.

It is only when they arrive that they become aware of their status as persona non grata. Asylum-seekers can begin a lengthy application process for a U.N. card providing minimal access to health care and education, but it holds no legal value. Ms. Das explains that men often end up taking on manual jobs that locals do not want, for very low pay.

Charukesi Ramadurai

Many of the women whom Julie Das's nonprofit, Greater Action, trains to cook and cater Afghan food are the only wage earners in their family.

Newcomers also deal with xenophobia, which has become only more strident in the past few months as the coronavirus pandemic has taken its toll on the economy. “One of my tasks is to show locals how kind and brave these [refugee] people really are,” she says. 

Ms. Das, who is originally from France, is a part-time teacher at an international school in Kuala Lumpur, and started Greater Action in late 2019. Of all the refugee groups in the capital, she was drawn to the Afghan community because they are the latest to arrive, with the fewest supports in place. Many are in survival mode, Ms. Das explains, and one of her aims is to help them help each other. 

Her journey with humanitarian work goes back many years, following her Indian husband through Kolkata in India and Yangon in Myanmar. In both cities, she worked with underprivileged communities – particularly children – volunteering with local nongovernmental organizations to raise funds for their education and basic survival.

In Malaysia, she found waiting for the government to help refugees time-consuming and frustrating, and decided to work directly with them. She now has both a tailoring and a catering program for Afghan women, along with her fundraising efforts for education and health care. 

Small but significant

Sakina, the 20-year-old mother of a 3-month-old boy, was the first chef on the Meaningful Meals project. Her husband has held odd jobs since they moved here, washing dishes at a small restaurant these past couple of months. “He is on his feet 14 hours a day, and hasn’t got paid even the pitiful wages he was promised yet. But there is no way to complain,” Ms. Das laments.

The stress shows on Sakina’s young, pale face. As her baby wakes up in the middle of the conversation, her husband rushes to rock him back to sleep. They share their small apartment with another Afghan refugee family they met here, a couple and three children.

Sakina’s expertise is in making Afghan dumplings known as ashak and mantu. She speaks English slowly, hesitantly, remembering what she can from her schooling. But every couple of sentences, she gets teary-eyed and breaks into rapid Farsi. “Julie is very kind and I was really lucky to meet her when I did,” she repeats over and over again. “I was pregnant and needed to find work to make some money. We were new in this country and did not know anyone then.”

Being part of Meaningful Meals can provide home chefs like Sakina and Khadija with a monthly income of up to 700 MYR (roughly $170), which seems like a small amount, but contributes greatly toward the family’s rent and groceries. Since Ms. Das’ setup is small – indeed, it is only herself, along with co-founder Shazwan Sahabudeen based 200 miles north in Penang – there is no overhead, and the money goes directly and entirely to the chefs.

There are many people with the intention to do good, who just need to be pointed in the right direction, Ms. Das says. Her support comes in the form of friends and sponsors like Stacy Blattner, an American expat in Kuala Lumpur, who calls Ms. Das a superwoman for all she does single-handedly.

“She is passionate and compassionate about her work and the people she works with,” Ms. Blattner says. “Also, I know exactly where my money is going – and I can already see the impact it is having.” 

A month after Julie’s visit to Khadija’s house, Ali Reza sends out a taped video message to a small group of Greater Action champions, telling them about what he has learned in school lately. Khadija’s voice cracks when she says, “Without Julie, even my children would not be able to go to school here.”

AP

Stephanie Williams, the United Nations envoy to Libya, speaks to reporters Oct. 21 about the coming talks between Libyan factions.

When Libyan representatives gather in Tunisia on Monday to begin charting a political future of their war-torn country, they will be restrained by a remarkable precondition: A seat at the table requires giving up personal ambition.

The participants, including both the president of the unity government, Fayez al-Sarraj, and his principal rival, Libyan National Army Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, “must remove themselves from consideration in high government positions,” said United Nations mediator Stephanie Williams. That includes membership on the presidential council, the office of prime minister, and all other cabinet posts. 

What makes that requirement so notable is where it came from. The talks, part of a cease-fire agreement reached on Oct. 23 putting the country on a path to democratic elections, were framed with input from several Libyan civil society groups. Participants were drawn from across the country’s diverse geographic, political, and ethnic groups, with an emphasis on involvement from women and youth. A people battered by conflict since the ousting of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 are playing an active role in shaping peace. 

“Research and experience across numerous conflicts underscores that inclusion of all groups involved in, and impacted by, a conflict is vital,” said Osama Gharizi, a staff member at the United States Institute of Peace who has worked on the Iraq peace dialogues. “That inclusivity helps to ensure broad acceptance of a negotiated outcome, and to persuade all sides to pursue their grievances through institutions of law rather than through violent conflict.”

For nearly a decade Libya has been the theater of a complicated post-authoritarian conflict fueled by international rivals seeking to dominate the Mediterranean region and control the country’s oil reserves. A U.N.-backed unity government was established in the capital, Tripoli. It controls western parts of the country with armed forces, militias, along with mercenaries and military support from Turkey, Italy, and Qatar. To the east, the government’s main rival is run by a general once aligned with Mr. Qaddafi and propped up with support from Egypt, France, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. 

In addition to access to Libya’s oil fields, the international powers are divided on the role and influence of Islamist factions in Libya’s future governance. 

The talks due to start Monday are a study in incrementalism and persistence. During the past five years the path to these negotiations have wended through Russia, Switzerland, and Morocco. Early cease-fires and accords were followed by pitched battles. The toll on ordinary Libyans is impossible to quantify accurately. 

Importantly, U.N. diplomacy sought patiently to build local support. Ms. Williams, the acting special representative of the U.N. secretary-general in Libya, met with major players across the country in crafting the cease-fire and negotiation framework.

For this round to hold, two key issues need to be resolved almost immediately. The first is how the foreign powers, which have never formally acknowledged having a military presence in the country, will withdraw by the accord’s January deadline. The second involves the demobilization of armed factions, integration of rival forces, and joint security operations. Reestablishing flights between the rival power centers of Tripoli and Benghazi would help establish goodwill. 

But the cornerstone is inclusivity. “What matters to the Libyan people is ‘what,’ not ‘who,’” Ms. Williams told negotiators in a virtual meeting last week. “Libyans want peace, security, and a decent life for them and their children. Therefore it is of the utmost importance to place the supreme national interest above person, partisan, and regional considerations.” And for now, that supreme interest lies with Libyans who have put peace first.