Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Donald Trump meets with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and other congressional leaders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Sept. 6.

It’s a plot twist in a presidency that sometimes seems more about drama than policy: Surprise! President Trump’s a Democrat now, not a Republican.

Well, maybe that’s an overstatement. But Mr. Trump’s sudden affinity for deals with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has aggravated raw divisions in the president’s own party. It may even force a long-building final confrontation between activist and establishment factions of the GOP.

Will it actually make much difference for the debt ceiling, hurricane relief, tax reform, and other important fiscal stuff now working its way through Congress? Maybe not. But that’s another story. [The Senate passed a $15.3 billion hurricane Harvey aid package Thursday afternoon.]

Let’s back up a bit: On Wednesday Trump struck a deal with the Democratic leadership to combine hurricane Harvey disaster relief with a three-month extension of the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution that funds the government.

In political terms he might as well have stolen House Speaker Paul Ryan’s gym bag and knocked Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s glasses off his face.

The GOP leadership had insisted that the debt ceiling, etc., needed to be extended for at least 18 months. They’d been hoping to use the must-vote status of hurricane aid to push politically difficult fiscal votes past next year’s mid-term elections.

Mission Un-Accomplished. The GOP leadership was furious – particularly because they thought Trump agreed with them. Yet he reversed course right to their face. And Democrats made the most of their newfound presidential friendship.

Ms. Pelosi suggested Trump reassure so-called “Dreamers” – the children of illegal-immigrant parents who brought them into the country as minors – that they wouldn’t be deported over the next six months, even though he’d rescinded a program protecting them just the day before. Trump agreed, and tweeted the sentiment promptly.

Mr. Schumer, like Trump a New Yorker skilled at television appearances, added that maybe it would be great if we just got rid of the debt ceiling thing entirely. Why vote continually to increase the amount of money the government can borrow? Trump agreed to pursue the idea. (Representative Ryan indicated that won’t happen. Congress would never vote to give up that power, he said.)

Two points from all this:

1. This exacerbates existing GOP divisions. The conservative activist wing of the party, represented by tea party groups and the House Freedom Caucus, won’t abide Trump’s easy fiscal agreements. They might label a president of their own party a RINO (Republican in name only), while attempting to oust Speaker Ryan for swallowing his pride and backing the deal.

Republicans have been a fractious party for a while now. December – when the fiscal issues all crash together – could be a wild month for the caucus.

2. Despite all the end-zone celebrations by Democrats, this may not really change legislative outcomes that much. It’s true that Democrats may have a bit more leverage in December. But the House Freedom Caucus always opposes debt ceiling increases and urges fiscal constraint. The GOP always needs Democratic votes for the must-pass debt bill. There have been enough cliffhanger votes in recent years to see they always get solved the same way: bills that more or less preserve the status quo.

We’ll find out in three months. Is that a TV sweeps period? Just asking.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun Times/AP

Surrounded by students and elected officials, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signs education funding reform bill SB 1947 at Ebinger Elementary School in Chicago on Aug. 31.

The wish list of Chicago Ridge School District superintendent Kevin Russell includes the types of things other administrators likely desire for their schools as well: smaller class sizes, daily gym classes, more art and music for the elementary students.

Dr. Russell has reason to revisit his list now, thanks to a law signed by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner last week – a measure that will significantly change the way the state funds its schools starting in 2018. The current system, which relies primarily on local property taxes, will be replaced by a new formula that takes into account each district’s individual needs and local funding sources when distributing state aid, prioritizing high-poverty districts that need the most financial assistance. 

It’s a big step for a state that has lagged far behind the rest of the country in equitable funding, observers say, particularly as the change has come as the result of political compromise in the state’s legislative and executive branches after years of contentious debate. The final passage of the bill allows educators to start cautiously thinking about how they will help their students.

“We had such an inequitable funding system in districts like mine that are very heavily reliant on the state,” says Russell, whose district, southwest of Chicago, has 71 percent low-income students. “This really is a lifesaver for us and should give our kids the opportunities that a lot of other districts take for granted.”

Along with a new evidence-based model – which involves a formula that prioritizes high-poverty districts without reducing state funding for other districts – the legislation includes a new $75 million scholarship tax credit program for private school tuition and a provision allowing districts the option to vote to lower their property taxes. 

The reforms, particularly the new formula, are “an exceptionally big deal in Illinois,” says Christine Kiracofe, professor of educational administration at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. ”I think it has the potential ... to really drastically change the landscape of school funding in the state.” 

Hurdles to catching up

Concerns about inequity in school funding aren’t new, or unique to Illinois. The 1960s through the ‘90s saw a wave of states assume greater responsibility for school funding, largely in response to court challenges, says David Arsen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University. 

Since then, he says, the trend has “slowed dramatically.” In recent years, there’s been “a very checkered, unequal progression on school funding equity across the states,” with reforms occurring “in a kind of sputtering fashion.” 

While some other states have been able to enact change through judicial action, however, Illinois has not. Lawsuits have failed, with courts ruling that there is no case to be made on the basis of the Illinois constitution – leaving the fate of school funding in the hands of politically divided legislative bodies. 

“It’s harder in Illinois than in many states because ... it’s been something that’s had to organically come from the political leadership,” says Lawrence Picus, professor of school finance and education policy at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. “There’s not a hammer saying ‘you have to do this’ coming from the courts.”

Addressing a long-standing issue

A 2015 analysis by The Education Trust found that Illinois had “by far” the largest gap in funding between poor and wealthy schools in the nation, with the report stating that “the legislature does not distribute state funds progressively enough to counteract disparities in local dollars.” 

These disparities are due in large part to Illinois’s heavy reliance on local property taxes to fund public schools, a system that has resulted in many poorer districts spending little more than the state’s longtime “foundation level” of $6,119 per student, while some wealthier districts spend as much as $30,000. Local property taxes accounted for about 67 percent of K-12 funding in Illinois in 2015, with the share provided by the state sitting at about 25 percent. Nationally, local sources account for 45 percent of revenue for elementary and secondary schools, with an average of 46 percent coming from the state, according to 2013-14 data.  

A compromise, but still some dissent

After years of debate, negotiations, and setbacks – including a veto of the original legislation by Governor Rauner, who characterized the bill as a bailout of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) – lawmakers were able to reach a compromise appealing to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. 

Not everyone embraced the deal. Some Democrats who voted against the package did so in opposition to the tax credit program, while their Republican “no”-voting counterparts cited the cost of the bill and additional money directed at CPS. 

The $75 million tax credit provision in the law – praised recently by United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for its potential to “help thousands of Illinois children succeed” –  was strongly opposed by teachers unions in the state, who argued that the program would take tax dollars away from public schools. 

“We’re on a better path toward equity and adequacy, and we must move forward in our classrooms and communities,” said Illinois Federation of Teachers President Daniel Montgomery in a statement. However, he wrote, those gains had come “at a very disappointing cost.” 

Still, the passage and signing of the measure reflects a shared determination worth recognizing, Professor Picus says.

“Anytime you get large-enough majorities to reach agreement on matters of this sort in the legislature, it’s a pretty amazing thing,” he says. “It suggests a great deal of political will and how important it is to adequately fund schools for the children of Illinois.” 

Cautious optimism

The reforms have been applauded by some of the state’s administrators in majority low-income districts, including Superintendent Ehren Jarrett of Rockford Public Schools. With 58 percent of Rockford students coming from low-income families, Rockford spent $12,141 on operational costs and $7,145 in instructional costs per student in 2015. 

SB 1947 “[has] the potential to significantly impact all students,” said Dr. Jarrett in a statement to the Monitor. “Illinois is now moving toward a commitment to both adequacy and equity for students in Rockford and the rest of the state.” 

Russell, the Chicago Ridge School District superintendent, says he and his colleagues were “excited” to hear that the reforms had passed. CRSD spent $10,313 on operational spending and $6,681 on instructional spending per pupil in 2015, falling below the state averages of $12,821 and $7,712, respectively. 

Under the evidence-based funding model, CRSD hopes to tackle its wish list – reduce class sizes and expand its offerings in subjects such as art, music, and physical education, Russell says. As things stand now, the district can’t afford full-time art and music at the elementary level, and is unable to offer daily physical education classes. Russell is optimistic that the new funding system could change that. 

“Of course,” he adds, “we’re cautiously optimistic until we see all the final details.” 

Ryan Lenora Brown/The Christian Science Monitor

Abandoned letters slump in piles on the floor and spill out of over-full post boxes in Juba, South Sudan. Since the country's independence in 2011, it has not been able to set up outgoing international mail delivery.

The abandoned letters slump in piles on the floor and spill out of over-full post boxes. There are airmailed envelopes addressed in Chinese and American absentee ballots from the 2008 presidential election, a dozen postcards from an American elementary school, and enough Ethiopian Airways frequent flier statements to paper the walls of a small mansion. The return address on one orphan letter from Kenya simply says, “Your mum.” Another, from Zimbabwe, reads FAMILY REQUEST FOR URGENT HELP AND BUSINESS ASSISTANCE across the flap.

But as he wanders through the unlit mail room of the only post office in South Sudan’s capital on a recent Friday afternoon, Rogasiano Felix Andrea has a simple, unsentimental explanation for how so much mail had ended up abandoned here.

“In the war, many have gone. Maybe others have lost their box key,” says Mr. Andrea, the assistant director for international relations at the South Sudan Postal Service.

But there is, perhaps, an even simpler reason for the backlog. Since South Sudan’s independence in 2011, the country has not been able to set up outgoing international mail delivery. And all of its incoming mail stops here, in a quiet back room of the capital’s only post office. There is no home delivery, no address-forwarding, no return-to-sender.

And so the mail room here feels less like a place to send or receive mail than an intimate archive of a country upended by civil war. Its stacks of uncollected letters offer quiet hints of the upheavals that have shaken the world’s youngest country in the six years since its birth – separated families, shuttered businesses, lost connections to the outside world.

In the long rows of blue post office boxes there are fistfuls of mail addressed to a place that technically no longer exists – Juba, Sudan – or to cities nearly blown off the map by conflict – Malakal, Kaya, Kajo-Keji. There are letters that arrived here in the days leading to the two explosions of violence in the capital in December 2013 and July 2016 that no one ever came to collect.

Dear Nyuol, begins an abandoned postcard from a Key West, Fla., elementary school. My name is Sean. I am 10 years old. I love to play baseball. I also love to read books. I have three dogs. The type of dog is a boxer. Key West is 90 miles from Cuba. We are also known for the best sunsets. Do you have pets in Juba? What are you learning in school? Sincerely, your pen pal Sean.

Beneath the card are a dozen more like it, dirt-streaked images of turquoise seas and white sand beaches, each a staccato procession of biography and interrogation. My favorite color is hot pink. What is it like in South Sudan? School is awesome. What does your teacher look like?

Write back soon.

Talk to you soon.

I look forward to being your pen pal!

Ryan Lenora Brown/The Christian Science Monitor

Post boxes are the only option to receive mail, but many owners have fled during the country's civil war.

Connecting a nation

In the United States today, you’d be hard-pressed to call the post office a popular institution. But it wasn’t always this way. Across the early decades of American history, home mail delivery connected a geographically vast and bewilderingly diverse country that, in many ways, had little else to hold it together. It was an equalizer – mail was delivered to the poor as well as the rich, unlike in colonial Britain. And so, it became the “central nervous system” of the young democracy, writes Winifred Gallagher in her book, “How the Post Office Created America” – a way for news, from the personal to the political, to travel from the young country’s urban centers of power to its farthest-flung rural corners.

When South Sudan became independent from Sudan in July 2011, many had similar hopes for what a mail service might do to connect the new country. Edouard Dayan, the head of the Universal Postal Union, urged the country to rebuild a postal service gutted by decades of civil war, pointing out that it was “an important infrastructure that helps respond to inhabitants' communication needs as well as a country's socioeconomic development.”

And was definitely a place that needed holding together. Besides a shared desire for independence, after all, the Texas-sized chunk of central Africa had very little keeping it glued into place. For more than five decades, the southern Sudanese had been part of Africa’s largest country – an unwieldy collection of tribes and geographies shoved together by British colonialism – but treated, many felt, as second-class citizens in their own land.

As they fought two grueling civil wars against the country’s north, most southerners’ strongest sense of community came from within their own ethnic groups. So when South Sudan became independent after half a century of conflict, few people had a sense of what it meant to take pride in being part of a nation.

“We basically had to start from scratch,” Madut Biar Yel, then the minister for telecommunications and postal services, told delegates of the Universal Postal Union in November 2011. He was talking about building a mail-delivery system, but might as well have meant building a country.

South Sudan was born with just 68 miles of paved road. Only a quarter of the population was literate and even in the capital, there was no formal system of addresses. Most of the country’s post offices had been destroyed in the wars, along with thousands of its schools, clinics, and homes.

Still, the early days of the country – and the post office – were hopeful. The postal service released a flurry of patriotic stamps featuring the country’s new president, its unusual wildlife (a vulture with a tuft of chin whiskers; an antelope with round, white satellite dish ears), and a fluttering South Sudanese flag. At the central post office in Juba, meanwhile, donations poured in. There were sorting machines and desks given by the Egypt Post and two new mail delivery trucks from the UPU, the UN agency that coordinates global mail delivery.

Ryan Lenora Brown/The Christian Science Monitor

Unclaimed letters pile up in the sole post office in Juba, South Sudan. There is no home delivery, address-forwarding, or return-to-sender here in the capital city.

Holding on to 'normal'

But that soon began to unravel. Two years after independence, the brewing ethnic conflict in South Sudan broke open into civil war. A power struggle between the president, Salva Kiir, and his former deputy, Riek Machar, who’d always been more rivals than comrades, turned bloody, and spread quickly across the country.

General, begins one opened letter, piled among hundreds of lost messages in wobbly stacks on the floor below P.O. Box 267. We call on the South Sudanese authorities to either immediately charge Elias Waya Nyipuoch with a recognizable offence and present him in court, or release him.

The box belonged to the chief of staff for the country’s armed forces. The letter came from an Amnesty International club in Sweden, urging an end to what had become a too-common tale in the new South Sudan – the arbitrary detention of one of the government’s many political enemies.

Meanwhile, the country’s economy was beginning to rot away. Oil money, which accounted for as much as 99.8 percent of the country’s export earnings in the years after independence, was dwindling as global prices tanked and civil war choked exports. To stave off financial ruin, the government began printing more money, sending the country spinning into hyperinflation, which reached 800 percent in 2016.

Albert Langoia, a senior inspector for the post office, watched his monthly salary halve in value, then halve again. By early 2017, it was worth less than $30 a month.

And then the government stopped paying altogether. He and many other civil servants say they have not received a single paycheck since April.

“The post office used to connect us to the world,” he says, remembering the days when the now-ghostly mail room was stacked high with packages and letters from the outside. “Now [the employees] keep coming here just to have something to do.”

But as the war grinds on, it’s getting harder and harder to pretend that things are normal, he says. Outside his office, queues of cars hundreds deep trail out in front of nearly every gas station in the capital. The fuel shortage has gotten so bad that some weeks radio stations don’t operate and newspapers don’t print – never mind finding fuel to power the generators inside a half-functional post office. Some days, Mr. Langoia says, employees don’t come to work because they simply can’t afford the motorcycle ride there.

Still, early each morning, the postal service’s single functioning mail truck drives out to the city’s decrepit airport – a dirt-stained tent planted on the edge of a runway – to see if any incoming mail has arrived on the morning flight from Nairobi. Many days it arrives back at the post office empty-handed.  

“People have given up on the postal service,” says Andrea, the postal service’s assistant director for international relations. Few people think to send mail through the post anymore. Nongovernmental organizations – and anyone else who can afford it – rely on private courier services like DHL.

So why hasn’t he given up on the postal service too?

“Every country in the world has a postal service,” he says. “We have to keep ours going.”

Reporting for this story was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation.

Editor's note: Children's names have been changed to protect their identity.

People are angry about Colin Kaepernick. They just don’t agree on why.

Julie Page Morgan, from Arkansas, says she doesn’t watch the National Football League anymore in part because of the “sick disrespect” of players taking a knee or refusing to stand during the national anthem. Mr. Kaepernick’s decision to begin this trend last year was a publicity stunt, she says.

“He said he did it to show ‘solidarity’ with oppressed individuals in America,” she writes in an email. “No, he did it so they’d like him again. He hoped minorities would besiege his team’s owners to let him start as quarterback again despite his lack of talent.”

And the players now following Kaepernick’s lead? “All to garner attention to themselves, so they could be perceived as identifying with poor blacks in America,” she says.

Yet last week, hundreds of people protested outside the NFL’s New York offices in support of the quarterback, who has been out of a job since the end of last season. Many critics have accused teams and owners of colluding against him because of his politics. More than 175,000 people have signed a change.org petition pledging to boycott the league if Kaepernick doesn’t play this season.

“It is obvious ... that Colin Kaepernick is qualified to be at least an NFL backup,” longtime fan Jordan Starck writes in an open letter to the NFL, shared with The Christian Science Monitor. “The absurdity with which clubs like the Ravens maneuver to avoid signing him point to his political beliefs as a significant factor in his unemployment.”

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/File

From left, San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold, quarterback Colin Kaepernick, center, and safety Eric Reid kneel during the national anthem before an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys in Santa Clara, Calif., Oct. 2, 2016. What started as a protest against police brutality has mushroomed a year later into a divisive debate over the future of Kaepernick, who refused to stand for the national anthem and now faces what his fans see as blackballing for speaking out in a country roiled by racial strife.

For a league that goes to enormous lengths to enforce conformity and limit controversy – with rules governing everything from touchdown celebrations to shoelace color – the Kaepernick situation is a catastrophe. But it is not the only one. From domestic abuse to concerns over concussions, the NFL is increasingly being sucked into uncomfortable cultural territory.

On one hand, it’s a testament to the game’s pervasiveness in American life. But at a time when the country is struggling to overcome divisiveness, the NFL faces a serious challenge. To this point, it has been able to maintain its preeminent place in American sports. But there some signs that controversies might be catching up to the league – and this season is shaping up to the most fraught in years, if not decades.

“The NFL and football is always political because different groups are always trying to shape different meanings from the league,” says Tom Oates, a media studies professor at the University of Iowa and the author of the book “Football and Manliness.” “Right now it’s easy to see because politics feel particularly urgent to people.”

Dave Gowin, a 49ers fan, just wants the players to play football.

“The NFL is a sport that people pay a lot of money to attend and support,” he says. “[They] should not be subject to the players political views that may offend them.”

Many fans agree with him. Polls last year showed that a majority of Americans disapproved of Kaepernick’s protests. But others see things differently. Just as there has been a backlash against overt politics among players, there is a backlash against what are seen as the more inhuman aspects of the game.

Zach Furness, whose late father played and coached for the Pittsburgh Steelers, says when he sees players collide on the field, “I feel like I’m watching permanent head injuries happen in real time.”

The concussion issue is already having long-term consequences for the game. Since 2009, participation in tackle football among 6- to 12-year-old boys has dropped 20 percent, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.

So, too, there is unease about players’ behavior off the field – particularly with regard to the treatment of women.

Yet football’s cultural pull has so far proved stronger.

When Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger returned to the field after having a rape charge dropped against him in 2010, “there were all these little girls wearing pink Roethlisberger jerseys,” notes Danielle Coombs, a professor at Kent State who researches football’s female fan base. “It was completely nuts. But you want to believe the best in your heroes.”

Even Mr. Furness, who worries about concussions, acknowledges “there’s still that part of me that has been acculturated into football.”

For many, “football is a part of your family traditions,” says Professor Coombs. “It’s a heritage thing, we pass it on to our children. [Abandoning that] feels like turning your back on something that’s really important to you. We too often compare sports and religion, but it’s like turning your back on the Catholic Church. The psychology of it is similar.”

Adds Professor Oates of Iowa: “If not watching means passing up an opportunity to catch up with friends or hang out with your dad, it’s hard to pass that up.”

The NFL’s popularity has proven resilient. The ratings for this year’s Super Bowl were better than average. But last year, regular season ratings took took a dip before growing stronger as the season wore on. Though some attribute the decline to a backlash against Kaepernick’s protests, the reasons for the decline are unclear. But they show potential vulnerability at a time of upheaval.

Mr. Starck, who wrote the protest letter to the NFL, has rooted for the Vikings since he was 8. He describes himself as “the fan whose primary TV station is NFL Network, who subscribes to GamePass to evaluate our roster in the offseason, who researches college players in preparation for the draft,... who manages fantasy leagues, who buys the new Madden [football video game] each August.”

But recently, he’s found the league’s handling of things such as the Kaepernick issue and the inherent violence of the game hard to swallow. He’s also grown increasingly uncomfortable with what he sees as the racial power imbalance of the NFL, with a player base that is 70 percent black and an ownership and coaching fraternity that is overwhelming white.

That perception, or the rejection of it, is at the heart of what divides people on Kaepernick, and it reflects larger debates around Black Lives Matter and recent protests, says Oates. To those who back the owners, the league is a business, not a platform for cultural commentary. To those who back the players, there is an apparent double-standard.

“Owners make collective political statements all the time, in the league’s connections to the military, the expressions of nationalism. It doesn’t appear political in the same way as when a player uses his position to make a statement,” he says. “The Kaepernick outrage is a reflection of those power dynamics. In the eyes of many fans, he should have a prerogative in the same ways the owners do.”  

The question for this year is how much players will push that envelope. “I think players, there will be a spotlight on them in such a way that people who want to raise larger social concerns can do so,” says Furness, who co-edited a collection of academic essays on the NFL with Oates.

For his part, Starck says he’s done with football until Kaepernick gets a job. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Central Park, New York City

When I was a boy, my parents read the daily newspaper, and my mom read Woman’s Day, but I don’t recall either of them ever reading a book. And yet, they must have recognized the importance of books, because for my 11th Christmas they gave me the first book I ever owned – “The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.” I distinctly remember opening it, reading the first lines of “The Cask of Amontillado,” and remarking to myself, “So this is what reading is!” My delight was unbounded. Little did I know at the time that I was at the beginning of a lifelong journey.

So, if I confronted my first real book at the advanced age of 11, what was I reading before then? In a word, readers: relatively plotless, plodding, repetitive if well-intentioned attempts to teach children to recognize letters and their sounds and to build their vocabularies. Being a dutiful first son, I went through the motions, and I learned what words were. But I still had no idea what writing was.

Until Poe. Look here at the opening line of “The Cask of Amontillado”: “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

I didn’t yet know who Fortunato was, but I was acquainted with “injuries” and “revenge.” They were dark words, at the leading edge of Poe’s story, nestled in a sentence more complex and stylish than anything I had ever read before. Certainly more complex and stylish than “Run, Spot. Run, run, run. Oh, oh, oh. Funny, funny Spot.” And more challenging than the very short tales about poor children and loyal friends that were in the “Dick and Jane” readers. (Spot was their dog.)

I don’t mean to be harsh on the readers. They must have accomplished their objective, because I and my classmates certainly did learn the fundamental skill of reading from them. But that’s exactly the problem – they kindled a skill, but not affection, for the written word. That was left to Poe, whose ornate language, I admit, sometimes bamboozled me. But it was real language, charged language, language worth grappling with, and the payoff was enormous.

Poe, in short, was a springboard. My parents gave me that first book, but then I went off on my own. I liked science, which led me to discover Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I wound up favoring the latter. Look at the first sentence of “The Invisible Man”: “The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking as it seemed from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand.”

One solitary, introductory sentence, and I was taken prisoner by the story.

Other writers followed in quick succession, like a riffling of falling dominoes: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke. But I didn’t limit myself to science fiction. Other titles that deeply impressed me early on, and which I have carried on my life’s journey, include: “The Yearling,” “Shane,” “Ivanhoe,” “Of Mice and Men,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “The Good Earth” (recommended by a high school English teacher who told me, “You’ll dig ‘The Good Earth’!”).

It went on from there. I became that proverbial kid who, long after his parents tell him lights out, huddles under the covers with flashlight and book, his greatest fear one of being discovered and having his flashlight taken away. On reflection, I realize that my parents must have known I was defying them. But in their wisdom they feigned ignorance of my saintly sin of delight.

And so I owe my start as a reader to my parents, and to Edgar Allan Poe, and yes, in their rudimentary way, to the “Dick and Jane” books, whose counsel still whispers after all these years: Read, Robert. Read, read, read. 

And I have never stopped.

Reuters

Supporters listen as FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, speaks during the launching of the new political party Revolutionary Alternative Common Force, in Bogota, Colombia Sept.1.

For countries seeking an end to civil conflict, Colombia began to offer a useful model this month. The guerrilla group called the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which had used violence for more than 50 years to pursue its leftist aims, turned itself into a peaceful political party on Sept 1. It literally traded in its bullets for a chance to win ballots in an election next year.

The model is not really in the transformation of FARC from fatigue-clad jungle rebels into blazer-adorned urban politicians. Rather it is the way the government offered a path to reconciliation with a mix of limited punishment for most FARC commanders in return for the group renouncing violence and turning in its weapons. The group’s newly formed party was even guaranteed 10 seats in the 268-member Congress.

The government’s delicate balancing of justice and mercy took three years to negotiate and then required a difficult process of national approval last year. Doubts remain high among most Colombians about the new party because of FARC’s record of violence. Yet in a sign of hope, the largely Roman Catholic country welcomed Pope Francis this week for a six-day visit that includes a large ceremony that will bring together victims on both of the conflict. The event is aimed at promoting the country’s reconciliation process.

Reintegrating former armed combatants into society remains a difficult challenge from Africa to the Middle East. In Latin America, ex-rebels have a long history of adopting democracy. A former president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, for example, was once an urban Marxist guerrilla. In the late 1990s, a peace pact in Northern Ireland brought rebels into politics. And for years, Afghanistan has sought to have Taliban fighters join the country’s renewed democracy.

In many Arab countries, debate continues over whether to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to participate in politics or to outlaw and suppress it. Officially the Islamist group rejected violent means in the 1970s even though some of its associated members have not.

A leading expert on post-conflict societies, Paul Seils of the International Center for Transitional Justice, wrote in a recent paper, “Despite its complexity and contingency, reconciliation does occur in societies left fractured by conflict or repression....” The process requires a big measure of respect and dialogue between antagonists – the very ingredients needed to maintain a peaceful democracy.

In Colombia, the experiment in reconciliation has only just begun. So far, it is working, and deserves to be replicated in countries seeking a way out of civil violence.