2024
March
11
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 11, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

In today’s issue, I talk to author Ethan Zuckerman about the mistrust behind America’s political frustration. His idea: Consider other levers for change, like economics or technology. 

We have two other stories about exactly that. New England’s last coal-burning energy plant is closing. Says writer Troy Sambajon, “Residents say that it appears that economics has accomplished what more than a decade of protests alone did not.” In Africa, those seeking an electric future wonder what will drive change. Lenny Rashid Ruvaga’s story shows technology and economics will be key. 

One way to address political frustrations, it seems, might be to focus less on politics. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Stephen Cutri/Special to The Christian Science Monitor
Brenda Glass, founder and CEO of the Brenda Glass Multipurpose Trauma Center, talks to a client Nov. 29, 2023, in Cleveland.

Life after a violent encounter can be overwhelming. Trauma recovery centers offer a respite, while shining a light on the dignity and trust that propel progress.

Today’s news briefs

• Portuguese elections: Portugal’s center-right Democratic Alliance party wins the general election by a slim margin, with the anti-corruption Chega party placing third, quadrupling its parliamentary representation to 48. 
• U.S. airlifts Haiti embassy workers: The U.S. military airlifts nonessential embassy personnel from Haiti as the Caribbean nation reels under a state of emergency. 
• Biden proposes budget: President Joe Biden issues a budget proposal for a second term that includes tax breaks for families, lower health care costs, smaller deficits, and higher taxes on wealthy people and corporations. 
• “Oppenheimer” wins best picture: “Oppenheimer” was crowned best picture at the 96th Academy Awards. The most closely watched contest went to Emma Stone, who beat out Lily Gladstone for best actress.

Read these news briefs.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Granite Shore Power’s Merrimack Station is the last operating coal plant in New England, seen here Feb. 12, 2024 in Bow, New Hampshire. Some locals hope it will be converted to a clean energy plant.

New England is on the verge of becoming the first region in the United States to go coal-free. What lessons does the last coal-fired plant in New Hampshire hold for the rest of the country?

Lenny Rashid Ruvaga
Brian Otunga, a motorbike taxi driver, chats with colleagues. They complain of rising fuel prices; Mr. Otunga drives an electric bike.

When it comes to cars, the world is going electric. Innovators in Africa want to make sure the continent is not left behind. 

U.S. politics is not working the way it used to. The system seems brittle and unresponsive. To make our voice heard, author Ethan Zuckerman says, we must understand what’s happening, and how to change it.  

Courtesy of Stephanie Lane/Oregon Department of Corrections
Daniel Wilson (right) and Tracy Schlapp (center) record an incarcerated writer who contributes to the ponyXpress literary journal at the Oregon State Penitentiary.

Prison can be a land of “cliques.” Writing workshops and a literary journal offer a refuge behind bars. 


The Monitor's View

AP
Muslims gather for Iftar meal during the first day of Ramadan at Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, March. 11. Muslims throughout the world are marking the Ramadan – a month of fasting during which observants abstain from food, drink, and other pleasures from sunrise to sunset.

Negotiators meeting in Cairo last week had hoped to secure a cease-fire in Gaza before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that started Sunday evening. Elsewhere, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made a similar appeal for Sudan, a predominantly Muslim country where warring generals are fighting a protracted civil war. Neither truce has come about yet.

But the groundwork for peace is often laid in smaller gestures. In years past, for example, some Muslim families in Jerusalem and the West Bank have invited their Jewish neighbors to help them break the daily fasts of Ramadan with joyous evening meals – reflecting the holy month’s emphasis on charity and reconciliation.

Celebrations like those may be muted this year. Amid the wars in Gaza and Sudan, Muslims around the world have approached Ramadan in quieter contemplation. Many planned to forego traditional festivities in favor of more devout worship and selflessness. They “want to spend more time with God,” Dr. Ahmed Soboh, director of the Islamic Center in Yorba Linda, California, told the Whittier Daily News. “Many will find it more meaningful to serve others who are in need.”

That desire has not gone unnoticed. In Israel, a tourism group that has partnered with Muslim communities in the West Bank to enable Jews to encounter how Muslims practice Ramadan is seeking a different approach this year. To avoid intruding in private homes, it will invite Israelis and Palestinians to share their aspirations for peace in evening conversations via Zoom.

“We understand that Ramadan won’t look the same this year,” Ilanit Haramati, program manager of Shared Paths, told Haaretz. “It’s not clear that it’s right to enter a mosque as a visitor now, or even wander with a group of Jews on the street in an Arab community.”

Such empathy and respect reflect a broader trend reshaping the Middle East. Across the region, religious tradition is gradually becoming less politicized. A 2022 Zogby Research Services poll conducted in seven Arab countries found that “strong majorities ... believe that when religious movements govern, they make countries weaker.” The survey found broad desire for freedom, innovation, equality for women, and more modern approaches to teaching religious tenets.

Those attitudes coincide with a shift among younger, progressive Jews worldwide who, amid the Israel-Hamas war, feel torn between “embracing simultaneously a God of loving social justice and a state that rejects liberal democracy,” wrote Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor, in The Washington Post last week.  Young Muslims in France who increasingly see Islam as an individual path to spiritual growth rather than a politically stigmatized identity.

Ramadan begins a six-week period that includes Easter and Passover – a time when Muslims, Christians, and Jews turn thought more deeply to values of humility, sacrifice, and love. “Above all, it’s a way of getting closer to God,” Youcef, a high school student in the suburbs of Paris, told Le Monde. Despite the persistence of war, a season of devoutness reveals the mental foundations of peace.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A willingness to let go of confining “us” and “them” labels, and instead see everyone as included in God’s immeasurable love, lends healing impetus to our prayers.


Viewfinder

Yuki Iwamura/AP
Members of the Muslim community gather for the Tarawih prayer in New York’s Times Square as Ramadan begins, March 10, 2024. The Tarawih prayer is voluntary, and it is performed in congregation as well as individually every night during Ramadan. Ramadan begins in the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, with the sighting of the crescent moon.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Tomorrow, we will look at the humanitarian situation in Gaza. As it breaks down, law and order is also beginning to break down as people are pushed to the brink.

More issues

2024
March
11
Monday
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