2024
June
07
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

June 07, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Today, we close our Rebuilding Trust project. During the past four months, we’ve taken you to a town in France trying to piece itself together after a horrific crime. To a community in Washington state finding that things as simple as gathering trash can help soften partisan lines. And to climate scientists’ struggle to discover where trust in their work begins.

Since Feb. 1, we’ve published 59 trust stories and 16 editorials, including five cover stories for the Monitor Weekly, five “Why We Wrote This” podcast episodes, and one online event with author Alexandra Hudson

Of course, we’ll continue to publish stories about trust, but we’re interested in your feedback on the project – what you appreciated, and what can be improved. We hope we were able to dive beneath the surface to show why trust is so essential to human progress, whether in war or in politics or even at the local animal shelter

You can find all the stories from the project here. Please let me know how we did at editor@csmonitor.com. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Dominique Soguel
Ukraine marines practice how to carry wounded comrades long distances and in and out of trenches mid-battle during training exercises the in Kherson region.

The east bank of the Dnieper River has been a critical front in Ukraine's campaign to repel Russia. Initially seen as a launching point to reclaim Crimea, it is now a bastion against further Russian incursion.

Today’s news briefs

• Israeli prime minister to U.S.: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address a joint meeting of Congress July 24.
• Hunter Biden trial: Prosecutors rest their case in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial after Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Joshua Romig concludes his testimony.
• New jobs numbers: America’s employers add 272,000 jobs in May, an acceleration from April and a sign that companies are still confident enough to keep hiring despite high interest rates.
Iraq attacks: A flurry of recent attacks in Iraq, apparently orchestrated by supporters of Iran-backed, anti-American militias, reflects surging anger against the United States, Israel’s top ally, over the war in Gaza.

Read these news briefs.

U.S. state and local officials are increasingly at odds over which gun laws – if any – will improve citizen safety. One divide: whether states will even allow cities to try some policies on their own.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
In Vancouver, British Columbia, leləm̓ is a planned community that includes a mix of housing types, urban amenities, public plazas, and green space, and incorporates Musqueam culture and art.

When it comes to Canadian land development, Indigenous people have long been relegated to the sidelines. But several First Nations are getting a chance to shape Vancouver’s future, through the lens of their own values.

Podcast

Capitalism with a collectivist twist? Our writer went into the mountains to see it.

When workers feel empowered, the companies they serve tend to succeed. And when different companies adopt a spirit of mutual aid, that success can spread. We found a case study in Spain’s Basque country. For our reporter, it set up as a story about trust.

A Kinder Brand of Capitalism

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In Pictures

Alfredo Sosa/Staff
Edgar Alberto Méndez Hernández has worked for tips as an organ-grinder in Mexico City’s historic center for some 15 years.

Traditional organ-grinders are facing new realities. Can they continue coexisting on the streets of modern Mexico City?


The Monitor's View

In March, roughly six months into the war in Gaza, the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry published a paper exploring “the possibility of reconciliation – that is, of refiguring relationships to open up a space for dialogue to create pathways to heal the ruptures.” The study, by Paul Komesaroff, executive director of the group Global Reconciliation, noted that “the rich history of partnerships and collaborations between Jews and Palestinians provides a robust infrastructure” for peace between the two estranged communities.

A similar theme resonates in the work of this year’s winner of the Templeton Prize, which highlights discoveries that yield "new insights about religion." The prestigious award was given to Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a South African scholar who has explored ways to nurture deep empathy between victims and perpetrators of conflict.

Her particular focus is on the power of forgiveness to expunge hatred and historical harms. Such an approach is now widely acknowledged as essential because of wars – from Ukraine and Gaza to Myanmar and Sudan – that have resulted in extensive harm to innocent civilians.

Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela “has a remarkable grasp of the personal and social dynamics that allow for healing in societies wounded by violence,” stated Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foundation. “Her work underscores the importance in contemporary life of cultivating the spiritual values of hope, compassion, and reconciliation.”

Serving on South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s, Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela gained insights into both the needs of those who suffered under decades of apartheid and the motivations of those who upheld racial separation through violence. Her life work, she said following the award announcement Tuesday, involves understanding “the conditions necessary to restore the values of what it means to be human – to want to preserve the dignity and life of the other.”

The award affirms values that marked South Africa’s transition from systemic inequality to a democracy in 1994. In national elections last week, voters broke 30 years of governance dominated by a single party. They demanded that political leaders be held accountable through a power-sharing coalition. Yet in a society still striving to move beyond a divided racial past, ordinary citizens must also reach out to others who differ with them.

“There’s no better time to shove away prejudices, pull up a chair with a supporter of that party you can’t stand, and talk with them about how we can work together for a brighter future,” wrote Ian Siebörger, a senior lecturer of linguistics at Rhodes University, in the Mail & Guardian newspaper on Thursday.

In her work, Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela offers ways to avoid “the passing on of grievance and a sense of victimhood from one generation to the next.” The “reparative quest,” she told Time magazine this week, is “a constant journey to repair and to heal” through atonement and forgiveness. It is not a singular moment. Victims and perpetrators move each other beyond the boundaries of their own experiences.

Forgiveness empowers those who have been harmed, she wrote, while “genuine remorse humanizes perpetrators and transforms their evil from the unforgivable into something that can be forgiven.”

For all the wrongs – either real or perceived – between Israelis and Palestinians, the hope of a stable peace can begin by remembering the many partnerships that existed between the two societies, stated Dr. Komesaroff. “In these dark times, when for many all hope seems to be lost,” he wrote, “it is important to remind ourselves of the resources for peace and reconciliation, painstakingly assembled over many decades, that, despite the obstacles, remain tantalizingly within grasp.”


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Becoming more aware of our love-filled unity with God brings healing.


Viewfinder

Feisal Omar/Reuters
A man jumps into the Indian Ocean, joining other revelers in Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 7.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us this week. We wish you a wonderful weekend. Next week, we’ll be working on stories about the Hunter Biden trial, the latest from on the ground in Ukraine, and how a camp in South Africa aims to be a part of the solution to the country’s high rates of gender-based violence. We hope to see you then. 

More issues

2024
June
07
Friday
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