Canada is accustomed to global accolades. But usually they’re from the international left: for its welcome of refugees, for example, or its state-funded health care system.

But now that a “Freedom Convoy” has occupied the capital, with hundreds of trucks occupying downtown and threatening not to leave until vaccine mandates are ended, Canada has found itself feted by the international right – and caught off guard.

The convoy, which arrived in Ottawa on Jan. 28, is composed, on the face of it, of people angry about vaccine mandates for cross-border trucking – the latest iteration in a series of demonstrations that started against masks, then lockdowns, then vaccines, and now vaccine policy. But it has attracted disparate groups – including far-right extremists and anti-democratic forces, experts say – that were once siloed around their own interests and have now coalesced around pandemic frustration.

Ottawa initially treated it as just another protest. It set up no bollards into the capital and for more than a week took a nonconfrontational approach, tolerating the protests even after some demonstrators desecrated national monuments, wielded swastikas and Confederate flags, destroyed property, and threatened that they will not leave until the democratically elected government is overthrown – veering far beyond their right to assembly.

Now, city and federal government officials are left struggling to figure out why they weren’t prepared for the protests, how things spun out of control so quickly, and what they must do to prevent this kind of multifaceted disruption in the future. Part of the disconnect is that Canada simply didn’t recognize itself in the angry convoy rolling across the country.

“We saw it coming literally down the highway for a week or so before it arrived in Ottawa. And the security agencies took a look at that and said, ‘Well, I’m sure it’s not as bad as all of that up here in Canada,’” says Michael Kempa, a University of Ottawa criminology professor. “Maybe there’ll be a few broken windows or something, but ultimately everybody will come into town, protest, stop by Harvey’s, and leave.”

“We weren’t prepared, because we’ve never seen this before in Canada,” Dr. Kempa adds. “There’s a definite shift in thought in that we have conceptually caught up to the threat that had plainly presented itself, but we were incapable of recognizing.”

“Convoy identity”

There are plenty of Canadians angry about public health measures, and many of them are exercising their right to protest against them in this convoy. Still, the Freedom Convoy itself does not reflect a majority in Canadian society – just as the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in the United States did not align with the vast majority of Americans’ values. Although an anti-vaccine movement exists here, almost 80% of Canadians have gotten vaccinated – among the highest rates in the world – and, though weary, have complied with pandemic restrictions.

Still, this protest has lasted longer than expected, and created more havoc than anticipated. It has gained outsize international attention: Right-wing politicians in the U.S., including former President Donald Trump, have called the protesters heroes as the occupation has moved into a 14th day and this week cropped up on the U.S.-Canada border, disrupting automakers in both countries, including Toyota, Ford, and General Motors. It has inspired calls for “convoy protests” – the use of large-scale vehicles to bring a seat of government to its knees – around the globe.

Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press/AP

Supporters wave flags on an overpass in Kanata, Ontario, as a trucker convoy making its way to Ottawa passes by on Jan. 29, 2022. “We saw it coming literally down the highway for a week or so before it arrived in Ottawa. And the security agencies took a look at that and said, ‘Well, I’m sure it’s not as bad as all of that up here in Canada,’” says Michael Kempa, a University of Ottawa criminology professor.

It has gotten significant funding. Some foreign, too – with tens of thousands of donors offering millions of dollars in total via GoFundMe, before that mechanism was shut down (earning the fundraising site threats from Republicans in the U.S., from Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton).

The international appeal owes in part to visuals – a cross-country journey of large-scale trucks and semis overtaking a capital. Its “success” has motivated those who share a “convoy identity,” says Ciaran O’Connor, disinformation analyst with the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue. But it has also created opportunities for extremists around the globe.

“It provides far-right groups permission to protest and permission to mobilize offline, on the streets where they didn’t have such an open door prior to COVID,” he says. “For police or for security services or governments or even public health authorities trying to manage the pandemic, this does present a new kind of challenge.”

Kathleen Rodgers, an associate professor in the School of Culture, Media, and Society at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, says Canada failed to recognize the danger because Canadian intelligence has focused domestically for the past 75 years on threats it has perceived from the left, from communists to environmentalists and most recently Indigenous activists protesting natural resource extraction.

“And so the surveillance was really skewed to the left of the political spectrum,” she says. “I think the fact that intelligence and police services were not prepared for what we’re seeing today really reflects that bias, because they simply hadn’t identified this group of people as extremist threats.”

“This is a siege,” admitted Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly, who has been criticized for not confronting the movement from the start. “It is something that is different in our democracy than I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

Why did the police take so long?

The city of Ottawa declared a state of emergency over the weekend. Mayor Jim Watson on Monday called for 1,800 federal and provincial offers. But many are asking why it has taken so long. It has led to widespread anger among local residents who watched for over a week amid incessant honking – until a class-action suit was brought by a downtown resident and a judge ordered a temporary injunction against the noise – as well as the closures of businesses, vaccine clinics, and a school.

Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press/AP

A counter-protester holds a sign while biking past a demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria, British Columbia, Feb. 5, 2022. While there have been protests spinning off of those in Ottawa, none have been as disruptive – though a blockade on the Ambassador Bridge between the U.S. and Canada is impacting auto manufacturing schedules.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for example, have in recent years violently dispersed anti-pipeline and logging protesters in British Columbia. Police in other jurisdictions, including in Toronto over the weekend, where the environment was politically pointed but otherwise cheerful, easily de-escalated a convoy that arrived.

“Protest policing in Canada is fairly well honed. And it’s quite confrontational,” says Jeffrey Monaghan, a criminologist at the University of Carleton in Ottawa. “When it comes to public order policing, there’s a lot in the toolbox that police regularly use against other groups that isn’t being used here.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been the subject of much of the ire, condemned protesters in the House of Commons Monday. “This blockade, and these protesters, are not the story of this pandemic,” he said. “They are not the story of Canadians in this pandemic. From the very beginning, Canadians stepped up to be there for one another, to support their neighbors, to support the elderly, and to support our front-line workers by doing the right things, by wearing masks, by getting vaccinated, and by following public health restrictions.”

The work ahead lies in delineating where protest ends and occupation begins. “They are deploying deliberate, disruptive, and extraordinary tactics to extract what they want out of government and calling it free speech and the right to protest,” says Dr. Kempa. “Saying, ‘We will not leave until each and all of our political demands are met. Full stop. No negotiation. No conversation.’ That is extortion. That is not the expression of your ideas. I think government, frankly, should be explaining to Canadians precisely these legal distinctions.”

And precisely who gains from this kind of protest, he adds: the far-right or anti-state actors trying to attract new members to their radical, political cause. “We’re not talking about a coordinated global cabal of evil people that are pulling the levers in a coordinated fashion behind the scenes. They don’t have secret handshakes and knuckle cracks.” Instead he compares them to investors who see the pandemic as a “wonderful opportunity.”

Many of the more moderate Canadians – those angry about policy but not against democracy itself – would, he suspects, likely leave.

Abby Gainforth contributed reporting to this piece.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Australia to meet with Quad foreign ministers, holds a student town hall at the University of Melbourne, Feb. 10, 2022.

To illustrate the challenges President Joe Biden faces as he struggles to redirect America’s strategic focus to countering a rising China, Margarita Konaev cites one of the world’s renowned international affairs analysts.

“As Mike Tyson once said, ‘Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.’”

And President Biden has taken a few punches over his first year in office – from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, from an Iran barreling toward nuclear capability, even from a much-weakened but recalibrated ISIS. Those hits have distracted the United States from its long-envisaged “Asia pivot,” says Dr. Konaev, adjunct senior fellow in technology and national security at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

After two draining Middle East wars, America is viewed internationally and on a divided home front as both tired of expectations that it provide international leadership, and distracted by conflicts in regions where it has traditionally had influence.

For many, the question now is whether the United States has the superpower heft and domestic support to carry out an effective counterbalancing effort to an increasingly aggressive and economically powerful China.

Indeed, for some national security experts, the attention-grabbing security challenges presented by Russia in Europe and by Iran in the Middle East place Mr. Biden’s plans to shift America’s focus to the Indo-Pacific at a critical juncture.

“We’re on the knife’s edge right now. We’re going to figure out in the next six months or so whether this administration can successfully develop the shift in attention and resources to Asia that has been the stated priority for nearly two decades now – or whether we’re going to have our fourth failed Asia pivot,” says Hal Brands, senior fellow in defense strategy and U.S.-China relations at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from left), on a trip to reaffirm U.S. foreign policy priorities in the Indo-Pacific region, takes part in a health security partnerships roundtable at Biomedical Precinct, in Melbourne, Australia, Feb. 10, 2022.

The Asia pivot is most closely associated with former President Barack Obama, but as Dr. Brands notes, it got a tentative start under George W. Bush – before being stalled by the Iraq war.

Now the Biden administration is doing its best to show the world – and the home audience – that the Asia pivot is on track.

Flying the flag

Despite the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been in the Indo-Pacific region this week, meeting with foreign ministers of the so-called Quad countries – Australia, India, and Japan, besides the U.S. – the leaders of Pacific Island nations, and then with the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea in Hawaii. Secretary Blinken made the long trip to Australia even as Mr. Biden and the Pentagon remained focused on the Ukraine crisis and the broader destabilization of Eastern European allies.

The weeklong trip seemed designed in part to demonstrate that the U.S. has not taken its eye off what the administration insists remains its top international priority.

“With Secretary Blinken’s trip to the Pacific and with a number of other diplomatic and military actions, the administration has been trying to signal that it can walk and chew gum at the same time,” says Dr. Brands, author of “The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today.”

But he adds that the Biden administration is now confronting a problem “that is not of its making but which has been building over a decade now, and that is the growing gap between our commitments and our ability to fulfill them – especially if those demands are made simultaneously.”

Secretary Blinken has been at pains throughout his trip to demonstrate how he’s keeping tabs on Ukraine. After ticking off to the traveling press a list of the issues he’s addressing in Asia – the pandemic, climate change, China’s provocative moves in the South China Sea, North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests – he went on to underscore his split-screen agenda.

“We’re covering quite literally as well as figuratively a lot of territory [on this trip],” he said, and added: “Meanwhile ... even as we’re doing this we will be on the phones, on the video conference with other countries and counterparts, back in Washington, given everything that’s going on in Europe.”

Clearing the decks

Mr. Biden came into office a year ago declaring an authoritarian and economically potent China as America’s chief strategic and ideological rival, the only one, his national security strategy declared, able to “mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.” At the same time, he was cognizant that in order to counter China in the vital Indo-Pacific region, other drains on attention and assets would need to be managed to secondary status – or taken off the plate altogether.

Thus Mr. Biden ended America’s longest war in Afghanistan and has sought to quickly return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal.

Moreover, he crossed the Atlantic in June for a summit with Mr. Putin, with the stated goal of establishing a “stable and predictable” relationship with America’s Cold War nemesis.

Lisa Leutner/AP

A general view of Palais Coburg, the site of closed-door nuclear talks with Iran, in Vienna, Austria, Feb. 8, 2022.

Then came those Tysonian punches.

Far from quickly reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the administration has been stymied by drawn-out yet unfruitful talks with Iran. Tehran has used the months without limits on its program to stockpile enough fuel to deliver a nuclear bomb in a month or less, some experts say.

Talks with Iran and other world powers reconvened in Vienna this week, but U.S. officials warn that without a deal very soon, Iran’s nuclear progress will make a deal moot and put the international community back on crisis footing in the region.

As for Mr. Putin’s Russia, his amassing of more than 130,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders and his demands of Western acknowledgment of a Russian “sphere of influence” over much of the former Soviet Union have prompted Mr. Biden to dispatch 3,000 troops to fortify NATO’s eastern flank. The Ukraine crisis has required the administration to focus more attention than anticipated on transatlantic relations.

The home front

Yet as challenging as those crises will be to a superpower Dr. Brands describes as “overstretched,” some international security experts say a deeply divided domestic political environment poses just as great a threat to America’s ability to lead in successfully countering China.

“Most people and countries in the region worry about what they see as a decline in the United States’ ability to continue to underwrite the Indo-Pacific’s security and prosperity, let alone its ability to do more in the face of an increasingly powerful China,” says Ramesh Thakur, emeritus professor at the Australian National University in Canberra and senior fellow at the Toda Peace Institute in Tokyo.

The Asia-Pacific region became accustomed over the decades since World War II to an “indispensable” American presence, he says, “but the bigger worry now in the region is over the United States’ ability to deal with its domestic tensions and political divisions in a way that allows it to lead,” he says. “We watch in horror as events unfold within [the U.S.] that cast doubt on its continued leadership of the kind of free and open and prosperous region most people want.”

Others agree that the image the U.S. offers to the world will play as important a role in determining a successful Asia pivot as defense policies and diplomatic forays.

“With China challenging U.S. leadership with its own vision of managing international affairs, people in Asia, like people and countries elsewhere, are asking, ‘What does America have to offer?’” says Dr. Konaev, of the Center for a New American Security. “That means a first step to a successful Asia pivot, as much as other factors, is to get our own house in order and narrow the political divisions that weaken our image and our ability to lead.”

Dr. Konaev says she’ll be looking for U.S. investment in “critical emerging technologies” to compete with China and wants to see even more emphasis on strengthening alliances with Asian partners to fortify the “free and open” region the Biden administration talks about. But she cautions that fostering an Indo-Pacific region with Western ideals cannot come at the expense of America’s traditional alliances, first and foremost with Europe.

“It makes sense for the U.S. to shift its primary focus to Asia to build alliances based on ideals of free and open economies and societies with democratic systems and respect for human and civil rights,” she says, “but if we don’t stand up for those principles where they are most threatened right now, what’s the point of mounting this competition with China?”

Dr. Thakur agrees that the guiding principles for a “free and prosperous” Indo-Pacific region are what’s most at stake.

“The U.S. continues to speak of China as a ‘rule-breaker’ in the international system that the U.S. itself has led in the region and globally,” he says. “But the reality is that unless the Western-led system is strengthened and China is challenged, we’re going to find that China has become the new rule-maker.”

Some 3,000 U.S. troops began arriving in Poland and Romania this week, in an effort to drive home the message to Moscow that invading Ukraine is a risky proposition.

“These [U.S. troop] movements are unmistakable signals to the world that we stand ready to reassure our NATO allies and deter and defend against any aggression,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters last Thursday.

In addition to massing soldiers on Ukraine’s borders, Russia’s aggressions have, to date, ranged from cyber attacks to reported plans for an elaborately faked video depicting Ukrainian troops killing Russian-speaking civilians, handily creating a pretext for President Vladimir Putin to save the day through an invasion. 

Given that Mr. Putin has made clear he wants to push back against Western forces and weaponry in his backyard – and extract a promise from NATO that Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, will never, ever be allowed to join the Western military alliance – the American troop movements represent the most significant response yet to the strong-arm tactics. 

“Maybe what we’re doing is sending a message that [Mr. Putin’s] intransigence – this completely contrived crisis that you’ve put forward – is now going to cause the very thing you’re trying to correct, by us moving more forces into the forward area,” retired Gen. Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, posited in a virtual chat hosted by the Atlantic Council last week.

But beyond sending a pointed message, it’s unclear what, exactly, U.S. troops in the region might accomplish – and what the measure of success will be. The relatively small size of this deployment limits the potential scope of the mission, though analysts have speculated about the extent to which the troops could be involved in any spillover fighting should Russian tanks start rolling. Nor have endpoints been defined: Barring unforeseen hostilities in the wider region, what will allow American forces to come home again?

“A diplomatic statement”

To this latter question, Mr. Kirby endeavored to lay out some rough parameters. “The measure of success is that NATO’s eastern flank is appropriately postured and prepared to defend itself. And that we are part of that defense – that’s the measure of success here.” 

Pentagon officials have also been careful to stress that they do not believe conflict is inevitable, and that the U.S. has no intention of sending troops to fight in Ukraine. 

Indeed, they have shown little interest in ratcheting up tensions. When pressed, for example, about whether the U.S. troop deployment signals that the Biden administration has come into possession of some alarming new information indicating Russia was on the brink of invading Ukraine, Mr. Kirby suggested this was not the case. 

“This isn’t about an intel assessment about what Mr. Putin will or won’t do,” he said. “We still don’t believe he’s made a decision to further invade Ukraine.”

Patryk Ogorzalek/Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Reuters

U.S. soldiers disembark from a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland, Feb. 8, 2022.

There were excited questions, too, about whether 82nd Airborne Division troops would be parachuting into their new bases in a dramatic show of force. “I don’t anticipate it will be a tactical operation in that regard,” Mr. Kirby said.

This is not to say U.S. military officials haven’t taken note of some troubling developments in recent weeks. 

When Russian soldiers first began massing on Ukraine’s border, for example, troop formations were “big, non-tactical,” and “easy to see from space, easy for reporters to see,” Mr. Breedlove noted – in other words, a plausible bluff. 

Yet in recent weeks they have morphed into “more tactical formations,” including field hospitals, fuel depots, and logistics trains, prompting questions about what precisely the Russians have planned.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that they’re not sure, either. Mr. Putin “is providing himself many options, lots more capabilities,” Mr. Kirby said. “For exactly what purpose? We don’t know right now.”

Even so, U.S. officials don’t seem particularly alarmed, judging by the number of troops headed to eastern Europe. “In terms of combat capabilities, it’s fairly minimal given what they would be up against,” says retired Col. Peter Mansoor, executive officer to Gen. David Petraeus during the Iraq War and now professor of history at The Ohio State University. “In that sense, the deployment is a diplomatic statement.” 

Lessons from the Korean War

That the troops are intended to send a message of solidarity to NATO partners, however, doesn’t prevent them from doing “practical things” like training with allied militaries, tracking down intelligence, helping with border patrols, and “coordinating with civilian authorities to plan for restoring power or other essential services,” notes Kori Schake, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

And if the Biden administration was interested in “really changing the Russian calculus,” it could also bring in fighter jets, said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO who also took part in the Atlantic Council discussion.

In the event that Russia decided to launch a “massive air offensive, you can be sure they wouldn’t hesitate” to “waggle their wings and beat their chests” in the air space of other eastern European countries as well, General Clark said – in which case NATO allies might need additional reassurance from the U.S. “The Russian military is arrogant and full of itself because it’s got new equipment, it’s been successful in Syria, and it knows how the U.S. Air Force operates.” 

Yet despite this apparent hubris, the lessons of the 20th century should serve as a warning to Russia, Mr. Clark added, invoking the example of the Korean War. 

America had declared that South Korea wasn’t part of its “defensive perimeter,” and, hearing this, North Korean leaders had approached China with their plans for overrunning Seoul. Beijing warned them against it, saying: “‘You better be careful because the Americans are unpredictable, and they might still intervene,’” Mr. Clark said. North Korea proceeded nonetheless, and “sure enough, President Truman ordered the invasion.”

In other words, though U.S. troops almost certainly won’t be fighting Russians in Ukraine, their arrival in the region could plant a small seed of doubt in Mr. Putin’s mind that that could change, should things get particularly ugly.

The Pentagon, for its part, did not rule out the possibility that U.S. forces could go into Ukraine to conduct “noncombatant evacuations” if needed. 

Beyond all this messaging to Moscow, sending U.S. troops into eastern Europe is a move designed for domestic consumption as well, notes Rajan Menon, director of the Grand Strategy program at the Defense Priorities think tank. 

“It’s showing that the Biden administration has done everything humanly possible to demonstrate resolve, short of sending American troops to fight in Ukraine,” he adds.

“If there’s a deal struck with Putin, [Mr. Biden] will be criticized for sure, but he’ll be able to say that diplomacy averted a war and that he delivered a clear message of deterrence.”

As the geopolitics play out, U.S. troops are likely to stay in place. “Our forces don’t need to be held hostage to Russian deployments, but troops in Romania and Poland could very well stay there for quite some time,” Professor Mansoor says. 

These rotational deployments are usually on the order of nine months, and, after that, these units could be replaced by others. “To deploy 3,000 additional troops to eastern Europe,” he adds, “is not a heavy lift for the U.S. Army.”

Courtesy of Daniel Becerril

Reporter Juan Alberto Cedillo Guerrero (right) holds a sign demanding justice for slain journalists in Monterrey, Mexico Jan. 25, 2022. The demonstration was one of more than 60 that took place across Mexico following the killing of several journalists. So far, five have been killed for their work in 2022 alone.

Is it worth risking your life to cover the news? Mexican reporters ask themselves that question all the time, working as they do in the most dangerous place on earth for journalists outside of war zones.

And with five reporters killed for doing their job so far this year, the question weighs more heavily than ever. For some, it’s become even more personal.

The threat to Mexican journalists – particularly local reporters – comes from organized crime hit-men, local government officials, and other, often anonymous, sources. The intimidation scares some journalists out of the profession, and forces others to self-censor, limiting what Mexicans can read and see about their country.

Twenty-nine journalists have been killed here since 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, not including those killed so far this year. It’s not a trend anyone expects to drop off soon.

“This isn’t one simple problem that can be solved with a few simple solutions,” says Jan-Albert Hootsen, the CPJ’s Mexico representative. Corruption, near-blanket impunity for journalists’ killers, and poor police training mean “this is a problem that was many decades in the making and will take many years to resolve,” he adds.

The Christian Science Monitor spoke with Mexican reporters at different stages in their careers and in different parts of the country about what keeps them going, and their hopes for the future of their profession.

Writing “stories for history”

Juan Alberto Cedillo Guerrero never expected to be one of the few investigative reporters covering the explosion of crime and violence in northeastern Mexico. He studied history but dropped out of college, and found his footing in journalism covering financial news.

But when violence began to spiral about 15 years ago, he started questioning what was behind it. That led him to cover landmark stories like the 2011 three-day-long massacre of civilians in the small border town of Allende (retold in a Netflix drama, “Somos,” last year), and to write five books about crime and violence.

He was detained and beaten by municipal police whom he had photographed making an arrest, and he’s received too many threats on his life to count. Somebody angered by his reports that narcotraffickers were teaming up with local gangs even smashed up his plumbing.

He’d asked the national newspaper which ran that story not to publish his byline, but editors in Mexico City ignored his request; perhaps they were unaware of the risks he was running.

“This is part of the emotional crisis,” many Mexican reporters face, he says. “In my region you know what it means to investigate and write a story like this.”

 “Often after publishing a big investigation, I’ll disappear for a little bit,” taking trips out of town or moving from guest bed to guest bed in the homes of generous friends, he says. “I can feel really scared, but then it passes.” He belongs to a national network designed to protect journalists and human rights workers, but chuckles at its effectiveness. He says the panic button he received as a member of the program “isn’t much more than a toy.”

Mr. Cedillo has considered quitting. And he has often resorted to self-censorship. If he and his wife hadn’t separated over a decade ago, he says, he would never have taken the risks that his beat demands. His family’s safety would have been at stake.

“What gives me the conviction to keep going, despite the risks, is to write this down in the most understandable and well-documented way,” Mr. Cedillo says. That way, perhaps, in the future, people will be able to better understand, and to fix, Mexico’s problems.

“I want to write stories for history,” he says.

“A lifestyle”

Alejandro Castro Flores, 27, is not only a journalist; he is an activist who last month helped organize nation-wide demonstrations demanding greater protection for reporters and their freedom of expression. Some of his colleagues in Cancun who turned out carried signs that read “We won’t forget they shot us here.” Two years ago, police had opened fire on them as they reported on a protest against violence against women.

Courtesy of Alejandro Castro Flores

Alejandro Castro Flores (left) helped organize national demonstrations calling for protection of the press and freedom of information in Mexico on Jan. 25, 2022. In Cancun, he stood in front of photos of slain reporters, including three of the five killed for their work this year.

“It makes me hopeful,” he says. “My generation is planting some seeds, but those coming up behind us are going to change the entire landscape” with their readiness to be outspoken.

Mr. Castro is a freelance reporter in Quintana Roo, the site of popular beach destinations such as Cancun and Tulum. Organized crime is gaining traction – and international headlines – there, and clashes are catching tourists in their crossfire. Journalists have been targeted for their coverage of everything from environmental destruction to local politics.

“I’ve seen dozens of journalists killed in Mexico over the past four years [since starting his career], but that’s only part of what makes the profession precarious,” Mr. Castro says. Just cobbling together a living by writing for a mix of local, national, and international outlets about the environment, human rights, and sometimes crime and security is hard enough. “The uncertainty of the situation is pretty traumatizing,” he says.

He says he doesn’t know a single young journalist who hasn’t already wondered “should I open a bakery instead? Become a carpenter?” Yet, he’s dedicated to this work. “It’s a profession, but it’s also a lifestyle,” he says, admitting that even when he is off duty he is often thinking about his work.

Mr. Castro grew up in a rural hamlet; his discovery of journalism at his university’s radio station in Mexico City and his early days as a reporter in the capital opened his eyes to social inequalities, he recalls. “Through journalism, “you can generate certain changes,” he says, hopefully. “I know it’s just one grain of sand and maybe my work won’t change everything, but it’s an integral part of democracy, even imperfect democracies.”

“Unspoken limits”

For a long time, Nohemí Vilchis Treviño’s parents seemed to think that journalism would never be more than her hobby.

Courtesy of Nohemí Vilchis Treviño

Nohemí Vilchis Treviño monitors national and local news as a student journalist for the Agencia Informativa UDEM at the University of Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2016.

“When I graduated and wasn’t looking for PR jobs or to report the weather, my mom sat down to ask me about my future,” recalls the recent journalism graduate in the northern city of Monterrey. “You should find an office job. Use Excel. Don’t risk yourself as a reporter,” she says her mom told her.

Ms. Vilchis gets it. She never sought an internship at a local newspaper because she knew “the first assignment would be to go out and cover local politics or security,” she says. That was an unnerving prospect in Monterrey, a city where shootouts in the historic center and bodies hanging from bridges were not uncommon.

Very few of her classmates are covering local news either. “Almost everyone wanted to cover entertainment,” Ms. Vilchis says. It’s safer.

“There are unspoken limits about where you can go, what you can cover,” as a reporter in Mexico, she says. Yet, Ms. Vilchis still wants to report on social issues, even if not in a conventional way for daily papers or TV news. She recently started work at a publication targeting academics and policy makers, writing about education and technology.

Sometimes she wonders whether she really shares a profession with reporters spending their time out in the field uncovering difficult and dangerous truths. But, she says, at the end of the day she’s conducting interviews, thinking critically, synthesizing complicated information, and using professional journalistic skills.

“Even if not a lot of people are reading it, I have found my purpose in journalism,” she says. “I want people to see my work and think, ‘I didn’t know that before,’ or ‘I hadn’t thought about it that way,’” she says.

“There is a lot to investigate in Mexico,” she says. “There’s a lot to tell the world.”

Some people look at the Capitol dome and see an icon of democracy; others see an architectural wonder. But on this unusually warm December day, Tykee James looks up at the Statue of Freedom crowning the dome and sees something different – a hawk.

“It’s my first time ever seeing a bird up there,” says the National Audubon Society “bird lobbyist” and new president of the local D.C. Audubon Society, looking through his binoculars from beside the Capitol Reflecting Pool. The hawk, perched at the base of the statue positioned in 1863 during the Civil War, peeks out from beneath the inscription “E pluribus unum.”  

In a sense, Mr. James is on a mission to see that national motto, Latin for “out of many, one,” fully realized. His aids in this effort are often robins, starlings, sparrows, and yellow-rumped warblers. He conducts a monthly “Birding on the Hill” walk for legislators and their staff members, a program he’s led since 2019.

“I’m trying to make a birding community for [congressional] staff,” he says. “Birds are a way to just bring us to a shared purpose, a shared history, a shared humanity so that some of these more difficult conversations ... can happen with that shared ground – humanity, history, and the joy of birds.”

Early on his December walk, Mr. James pauses to point out a Cooper’s hawk in flight.

“I never thought I’d see a Cooper in downtown D.C.,” one Hill staffer on her first walk says, discovering the surprisingly fruitful experience of urban birding.

So far, about three dozen members of Congress have been on a Tykee James-led walk. A typical outing has between two and 12 Hill staffers or legislators, Democrats and Republicans. The hourlong early-morning expeditions provide an opportunity to learn basic birding techniques, identify bird species, and just talk outside the halls of Congress, away from intense policy discussions.

The relaxed tenor of the gatherings is a “very rare thing” on the Hill, says Shane Trimmer, a legislative director who has worked for Reps. Alan Lowenthal and Jared Huffman, both California Democrats. He adds that since COVID-19, this might be the only real bipartisan, in-person gathering he’s aware of.

Michael Bonfigli/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Tykee James, government affairs coordinator for the National Audubon Society, runs Capitol Hill birding walks. He says, “Every person I’ve met has a story about a bird.”

Birding helps put politics aside

Jo Stiles, the legislative director for Rep. Joseph Morelle, a New York Democrat, is one of the regulars. She has been on nearly a dozen walks led by Mr. James, but this December walk is her first since the pandemic started.

“Coming to these bird walks and the opportunity that [Mr. James] has created has shown that it is a great way to put politics aside,” says Ms. Stiles, who has worked on the Hill for six years and notes that birding is a personal – not official – activity. On a January 2020 walk with Mr. James, she spotted 22 bird species, but she says the outings also have led to connections with other Hill staff and on legislation.

He is “clearly combining this passion for birding and bringing people together with a clear talent for educating,” Ms. Stiles says. “That just makes it a very positive experience.”

For Mr. James, bringing people together through birds and linking them to a sense of place is nothing new. He’s been doing it since high school when he worked as an environmental docent at a park near his home in Pennsylvania.   

Back then, birding was a way of connecting with his neighbors, and getting them to the park where he worked, he says. The difference now is that the people he brings together work in Congress, and the place he forms these links is around Capitol Hill.    

“He’s out there doing the thing that he’d probably be doing on his off time anyway,” says Mr. Trimmer, of the excitement that the Audubon’s government affairs coordinator brings to the walks. “We’re experiencing him seeing birds that he’s excited to see. ... You’re kind of with him on this journey.”

In October, Representative Lowenthal, and the majority of his Washington staff, went on a walk with Mr. James. The congressman, a co-sponsor of the Migratory Bird Protection Act, got hands-on education about some of the birds he’s legislating to protect. Despite the occasional connection of policy and birds, Mr. Trimmer says of the walks with Mr. James, “They’re not there to have an ask.” 

“It provides an opportunity for spontaneous situations,” says Mr. James. “I’ve had one [Republican] staffer say to [a Democratic staffer], ‘Hey, nice to meet you. I don’t think your boss is on my boss’s bill, and I think you would really like it.”

Legislation aside, birds also can break the barriers of title, says Mr. James, recalling a conversation he had about purple martins with Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun: “To have that shared human, shared empathy, shared purpose, it was really fun.” 

But the bridge-building, new president of the D.C. Audubon Society didn’t always imagine birds as part of his professional life.

Michael Bonfigli/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

A blue jay was sighted on a December 2021 “Birding on the Hill” walk for legislators and their staff members.

An unexpected pursuit of birds

In college, Mr. James wanted to be a math teacher. An unexpected call from a state representative looking for a scheduler opened the door to the world of public policy. His background as an environmental educator led him to a position advising the representative on environmental policy instead of being a scheduler, and birds were a key tool in that work.

“Every person I’ve met has a story about a bird,” says Mr. James, interviewed on a Botanic Garden bench near the Capitol. “Some of their stories are, ‘I used to see this bird a lot; now I don’t anymore.’” Connecting those stories to climate change or environmental degradation was a part of that job as an environmental policy adviser, and Mr. James brought those skills to Audubon a few years ago.

Mr. James is “the perfect educator,” Mr. Trimmer says. “Like any good teacher [he’s] able to have a lot of fun with [the walks] and his excitement is really contagious.”    

As the last walk of 2021 winds down, Mr. James stops to point out what he calls the most abundant bird in Washington. The group strains through binoculars, looking for the species, and he drops a trademark pun. “The construction crane,” he says, pointing out one of many across a capital city constantly under renovation.

The same year that Mr. James started “Birding on the Hill,” the Audubon Society published “Survival by Degrees,” a study that showed nearly two-thirds (64%) of the 600-plus North American bird species are at risk of extinction from climate change.  

“To get people to that data,” says Mr. James, “you can’t lead with the data. You got to start with the bird.” 

For him, birding is an activity that “slows things down” and requires one to be
“humble-minded” – that, and “having a beginner mind opens the way to problem-
solving,” he says. Relationship-building also, he says, is critical to addressing climate challenges.

“I’m not the only one who can be doing this,” says Mr. James, “A lot of people can and should be doing this on any level, doing it in their community with their environmental advisory council.”

As for the credit of educating and bringing people together in Washington, Mr. James defers to his aides. “The birds do all the work,” he says, modestly. “The birds do all the heavy lifting.” 

Reuters

Fadia, 9, writes the English alphabet at a school in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince.

Since the fall of a military dictatorship in Somalia three decades ago, the international community has faced a stubborn and spreading problem: how to rebuild states after their governments collapse. Some, like Libya and Yemen, have succumbed to civil wars involving meddling foreign rivals. In others, like Somalia and South Sudan, international attempts to set up even transitional governing coalitions have repeatedly stumbled.

Now the Caribbean nation of Haiti faces a novel political crisis that may result in a new model for restoring fragile states. On Monday the current government’s term expired without an elected successor to take over. The immediate need is therefore to establish who has the legitimacy to steer the country back to popular rule.

Yet more is at stake than the stability of a society perched on the brink of violence. Haiti is one of the world’s poorest and most food-insecure places despite receiving billions of dollars in foreign aid over decades. Its political and economic crises are prompting observers and policymakers to question whether foreign intervention, however well intentioned, does more harm than good.

“Many observers look at Haiti and see failure,” wrote Monique Clesca, a former United Nations official and pro-democracy advocate, in the journal Foreign Affairs recently. “But there is reason to hope that this enduring and complicated crisis and the current chaos can serve as a clarifying moment for Haiti’s long-delayed reckoning.”

The current political impasse is just the latest wrinkle in Haiti’s long pursuit of stable democracy. Last July President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in his official residence. He was succeeded by Ariel Henry, whom he had made acting prime minster two weeks earlier. Elections were due to be held in September. Mr. Henry instead embarked on a process to redraft the constitution.

That initiative clashed with a dialogue comprising a broad array of hundreds of professional and civil society groups that began in 2018 in response to evidence of election fraud and increasing authoritarianism under Mr. Moïse. The group, the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, has drafted a two-year road map for restoring the rule of law and democracy.

Now that the late president’s term has expired, both Mr. Henry and the transitional council are claiming the right to govern. The Biden administration, which has vowed not to “pick winners and losers,” has urged the two sides to work together. There’s just one problem. On Tuesday, investigators accused Mr. Henry in the assassination, strengthening the claims of his opponents that he is unfit to guide Haiti forward.

Decades of foreign aid and economic policies shaped by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have left Haiti increasingly dependent on the international community. American, French, and U.N. soldiers have been a regular presence since the 1990s. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 40% of the population requires emergency assistance.

But Haitians have also shown resilience in the face of successive natural disasters and persistent political crises. They have rebuilt schools and hospitals battered by earthquakes and hurricanes. Now they are expressing a desire for self-determination through deliberative and inclusive dialogue. They may show yet that citizens make the best architects of their own states.