2021
August
31
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 31, 2021
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April Austin
Weekly Deputy Editor, Books Editor

Every so often an author comes along at the right moment, with just the right message. Journalist Amanda Ripley, whose latest book is “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out,” shared insights with writers and editors at a recent meeting of the Monitor staff book club. Her ideas about how to transform the approach to conflict, whether at the level of interpersonal disagreements or global strife, resonate at the Monitor because they parallel what we try to do each day.  

Ms. Ripley talks about “complicating the narrative,” by which she means producing stories that reflect the complexities of a situation and provide a nuanced view. In high conflict, people frequently devolve into two camps, and tend to vilify the other side. Generalizations can lead to name-calling, which leads to dehumanization and sometimes violence. Instead, Ms. Ripley asks, how can journalists give readers a better understanding of the complexities and so avoid making the polarization worse? 

One way to complicate the narrative is to answer questions such as: Why do the people in this group behave the way they do? What is the disagreement really about? Ms. Ripley calls this discovering the “understory.” She adds that, when you look deeper, the underlying causes often boil down to feelings of fear and humiliation. Interestingly, she points to divorce mediation as a model for working through intense conflict, whether the tension is between people or countries. 

Anger can be a hopeful sign that “people want the other side to be better,” she says. But once contempt enters the picture, the job of mediation becomes much more difficult. Like a divorcing couple who have to think about the children’s well-being, “We have to live with each other; that’s the No. 1 thing we have to get our heads around,” says Ms. Ripley. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Courtesy of Mana Setayesh
Mana Setayesh (left) and her friends show off their decorated caps before graduation in Lafayette, Colorado, in May 2021.

Three Colorado students confronted academic pressures, family needs, and questions about college during a fraught final year of high school. But they adapted in ways that suggest COVID-19 won’t define their futures.

When people come to an unfamiliar country – as is now happening with thousands of Afghan refugees – they need not just material support but also hope and encouragement. 

The Explainer

Accountability for lawyers can play a role in safeguarding democracy. A federal judge in Michigan last week sanctioned the “Kraken” lawyers for wasting the court’s time with baseless election fraud claims. 

In Pictures

KANG-CHUN CHENG
A man takes a boat to visit relatives on Maduwa island within the Bunyala settlement of Kenya’s Busia County. Land here used to flood each rainy season, but since early 2020, the waters have come to stay.

Wetlands have long been flashpoints between environmental conservation and development. For members of Kenya's Luo ethnic group, the Yala Swamp is more than a habitat to protect or a resource to exploit. It’s home.

Essay

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File
A Muslim woman attends a sermon at the New York Islamic Center in Manhattan on Sept. 14, 2001, declared a national day of prayer for all faiths.

After the 9/11 attacks, our essayist, a chaplain, answered calls to explain the roots of religious violence with a message of unity, respect, and love.


The Monitor's View

On Sunday evening, with no press cameras allowed, a top Israeli official met with the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah. That might seem like normal diplomacy but in this case it was not. The two sides have had no high-level face-to-face talks in over a decade, a result of deep misgivings and suspicions. No wonder Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz summed up his dark-of-night visit with PA President Mahmoud Abbas this way: “I came to the meeting to build trust.”

If trust is rooted in shared values and expectations of honest dealings, their secretive get-together was a modest success, at least in the humanitarian gestures by Israel. Some 16,000 additional Palestinians will be allowed to work in Israel, bolstering a hard-hit economy on the West Bank. The PA will receive a loan of more than $150 million. Some 5,000 Palestinians will be able to reunite with family in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. And Israel will issue more permits for Palestinian housing in the West Bank.

These proactive steps reflect a bottom-up approach toward Israel influencing the conflict with Palestinians. If the broad-based coalition under Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett can restore trust with the PA, it might be able to shape a reality for peace rather than simply manage the frequent violence in both the West Bank and in Gaza, which is controlled by the radical Islamist group Hamas.

“The stronger the Palestinian Authority is, the weaker Hamas will be,” Israel’s defense minister explained. “And the greater its ability to govern is, the more security we’ll have and the less we’ll have to do.”

The issues between the two sides are so huge that trust-building is the first requirement. For Israel, which now faces a more serious threat from Iran, the time is ripe to lift up the expectations of West Bank Palestinians for a better life. Within Mr. Bennett’s eight-party coalition, a few politicians such as Mr. Gantz see it that way. And in the prime minister’s meeting last week with President Joe Biden, the United States reaffirmed that “a negotiated two-state solution is the only viable path.”

That solution would be easier if Israel and the PA could act as if each side were a state, holding more face-to-face talks at the highest level, exploring what values and interests they share. Trust starts with listening.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

As God’s children, all of us have something unique and special to give, as well as the capacity to feel and know our God-given worth.


A message of love

Lewis Joly/AP
Big John, the largest known triceratops skeleton, is being assembled in a showroom in Paris, Aug. 31, 2021. Before being put up for auction on Oct. 21, the more than 66-million-year-old Big John will be on display. Estimated between €1.2 million and €1.5 million ($1.4 million and $1.8 million), this remarkable specimen will be the centerpiece of the Naturalia auction organized by Alexandre Giquello at Drouot.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow for a thought-provoking story about a fox and a scientist who wound up companioning together.

And celebrate with us the return of in-person Monitor Breakfasts with this Q&A from today’s breakfast with AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. 

More issues

2021
August
31
Tuesday
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