2021
May
17
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

May 17, 2021
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Yvonne Zipp
Features Editor

After being canceled in 2020, graduation ceremonies are taking on new meaning this year. 

Each one offers recognition for hard work, challenges overcome, and hopes for new beginnings. But Latonya Young’s story frankly brought me to tears.

Ms. Young is a mom of three who worked as a hairdresser and drove for Uber to take care of her boys. Since she was a girl she'd dreamed of becoming a lawyer, she explained to a passenger she picked up one evening. She had been working toward her associate degree when a serious car accident derailed her plans, and about $700 in unpaid fees kept her from returning to Georgia State University. 

The passenger, Ken Esch, gave her a $150 tip and urged her not to give up. The next Monday, he paid off the $693, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in 2020. His generosity and faith in her were the catalyst she needed, she told the AJC. Ms. Young earned her associate degree before the pandemic hit, with Mr. Esch there to cheer her on.

“It’s not how you start but how you finish in life,” she said then. A pandemic and two hospitalizations didn’t stop her from persevering.

This month, she received her bachelor’s degree from GSU, in criminal justice, and Mr. Esch was there to celebrate with her.

He now sits on the board of a nonprofit that offers scholarships to older women to return to college – an invitation that came from his generosity to Ms. Young, who received a scholarship from the group. “She’s kind of a shining example of being able to push through and do it,” he told the AJC

Next up for Ms. Young: a new job. Then law school.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

For the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules Gaza, war with Israel offered an opportunity to claim the mantle of Palestinian defenders of Jerusalem. It’s a political victory, but with a cost.

Juan Gonzalez/Reuters
Mapuche spiritual authority and constituent candidate Francisca Linconao signs a document before casting her vote in the election for governors, mayors, councilors, and constitutional assembly members to draft a new constitution to replace Chile's charter, in Temuco, Chile, May 16, 2021.

Chile’s current constitution does not recognize the nation’s Indigenous groups, but their representation at the table where the country’s charter will be rewritten may signal hope for a new model of governance across Latin America.

The Respect Project

Bridging the conflicts that divide us

Black mothers in Toronto have gained ground in fighting racism in schools. Their hard-won battles have underscored how exploring what respect truly means to different people has been essential to progress.

Coastal wetlands are a vital buffer in Louisiana against storms and rising sea levels. But a state plan to restore them is provoking responses as complex as the marshy ecosystems themselves.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Rick Bowmer/AP
Travelers walk through the Salt Lake City International Airport in Utah. The Transportation Security Administration said its agents screened more than 1.7 million people on May 9 – the highest number since March 2020, when travel was collapsing because of the coronavirus pandemic.

As capacity restrictions are lifted, the pandemic’s end stage is resetting supply and demand. Americans looking to go on vacation are finding hotels are booked solid and rental cars can’t be found.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
Poll workers in Valparaiso, Chile, sort votes for candidates to draft a new constitution, May 16.

Since the late 1980s nearly every Latin American country has sought in some measure to become more democratic. Several have adopted entirely new constitutions. Others have introduced significant constitutional reforms. These changes reflect a deepening embrace of common principles: religious and cultural diversity, gender equality, respect for property rights, and recognition of civic rights for all. Progress has been halting and uneven, but as two former White House officials, Richard Feinberg and Benjamin Gedan, wrote last month in World Politics Review, “the region’s democracies have proved surprisingly robust time and time again.”

Now Chile is poised to bend the arc of democracy in Latin America further. Over the last two days, it held elections for a new assembly tasked with replacing a constitution drafted under former military dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet. That 1980 constitution provided a foundation for Chile’s return to democracy in 1990. In the three decades since, Chile has become one of the wealthiest, stablest, and least corrupt countries in the region.

That growth, however, also resulted in accelerating economic inequality. According to the latest survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 53% of Chilean households are financially vulnerable: The poorest 20% earn just 5% of total national income. Popular discontent has erupted repeatedly during the past decade, first in student protests over university tuition and then, in 2019, a modest hike in public transportation fares in Santiago, the capital. The latter sparked what came to be called “the awakening.” Yielding to mass demonstrations nationwide, the government called for a referendum last October on whether to draft a new constitution. It garnered the support of 78% of Chileans.

The plebiscite’s second question was even more significant. Voters were asked to decide who would draft a new constitution – elected officials or a new constitutional assembly chosen by the people. Seventy-nine percent opted for the latter. That set the stage for the ballot held over the weekend.

The design of the new constitutional assembly reflects shifts already taking place in Latin America toward greater recognition of the rights of women and minorities. Unlike other countries that have adopted quotas – it took 15 years, for instance, for Mexico to achieve its gender parity goals in the national parliament – Chile built in guarantees. Of the 155 seats in the constitutional assembly, half must be filled by women, 17 for Indigenous candidates, and seven for people with disabilities.

That distribution reflects a key lesson taken from constitutional reforms worldwide: A 2019 study by scholars at American University in Washington and Loyola University in Chicago of 195 new constitutions over the past 40 years found that “inclusion is what matters.”

The assembly has until August 2022 to draft a constitution that strikes a new balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, and between individual empowerment and the common good. Expectations are high. As Maribel Mora Curriao, a Mapuche poet, told Al Jazeera outside a polling station in Santiago, “We are voting with pride and identity for the first time. We take this process very seriously and we are very much aware that this is a unique opportunity not only for us but for the Chilean people as a whole.”

A campaign slogan from the community of disabled Chileans put it more succinctly: “Nothing about us without us.” As a region watches, the people of Chile have set a new course toward an ageless idea: government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is a project compelled neither by the result of war nor an attempt to perpetuate political advantage, but by an insistence that power derives legitimacy through each individual’s expectation of the common good. 


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

The ongoing situation between Israelis and Palestinians may make us wonder, Can peace truly be achieved? This article from the column’s archives, written in 2014, highlights a spiritual basis for lasting peace that remains very relevant today.


A message of love

Peter Nicholls/Reuters
Marcelo Noone-Taylor watches aquarist Jeremy Simmons plant corals, rescued from illegal trading, in a 7-meter-long reef tank ahead of ZSL London Zoo's reopening of indoor exhibits, May 16, 2021.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for starting your week with us. If you haven’t signed up yet, please join us for an online event tomorrow, Tuesday, May 18: a master class in building respect across deep divides.

This Respect Project event features two Monitor writers and is hosted by Amelia Newcomb, our managing editor.

More issues

2021
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