2022
April
27
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

April 27, 2022
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El Yaque Bistro, a buzzing arepa shop in Buenos Aires’ Palermo district, was the perfect spot to reconnect with Daniela Flores.

A Venezuelan refugee I’d first met in 2019, Ms. Flores had chosen El Yaque based on a friend’s advice that it served some of the best arepas – corn-flour pockets stuffed with meats and veggies – the Argentine capital’s Venezuelan community had to offer.

As we shared a ceviche and munched on our arepas, Ms. Flores filled me in on the few downs, but mostly the ups, of the past three years.

“For sure it hasn’t always been easy, and the pandemic didn’t help,” Ms. Flores says, “but this is such an open-armed city, and the Argentines are so generous. I feel like I’ve had an angel with me.”

We’d first met in conjunction with a story I was doing on the large number of Venezuelan musicians who settled in Buenos Aires after fleeing their country’s economic collapse and political repression. Ms. Flores had developed a gig as a kind of makeshift press agent and promoter for one refugee orchestra called Latin Vox Machine.

Later, she landed a job on McDonald’s Argentina social media team. A separate highlight has been promoting the career of Venezuelan refugee singer Steffania Uttaro, who last year was a finalist on Argentina’s “The Voice.”

How different Ms. Flores says she now feels from the young woman who arrived alone in Buenos Aires in 2018. “Back then I was battling this sense that if anything ever happened to me, no one in the world would know about it,” she says. “Now I feel connected.”

Our conversation turned to the millions of Ukrainian refugees, mostly women and children, now filling the news.

Ms. Flores recognizes that the hardships she faced hardly compare with those confronting families displaced by a horrendous war.

But she recalls the “angel” that appeared early on in the form of an Argentine woman who offered her a place to stay, where she could feel safe and get her bearings.

“We are so alert to the bad things that are out there, but we have to be open to the angels, too,” she says. “I wish these angels for the Ukrainian refugees we are seeing now.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor
Ukrainian teacher Oleh Azarov and 10th grade student Maryna Basyuk hug as they see each other for the first time since Russia invaded in early February, in front of their school in Bucha, Ukraine, April 20, 2022. Mr. Azarov, who remained in Bucha during its occupation by Russian forces, expects renewed interest in the civil defense course he teaches given Ukrainians' shared wartime experiences.

After two months of war, Ukrainians are already developing a shared historical perspective born of experience, and a deepening sense of national pride and solidarity, as our reporter found in Bucha, Ukraine. 

Patterns

Tracing global connections

While Ukrainians are finding unity, our London columnist observes that many Western democracies are facing political, economic, and cultural fissures that undermine a shared sense of national identity and purpose. What might we learn from Ukraine?

Chiang Ying-ying/AP/File
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (third from left) shakes hands with officials from the United States and various Pacific nations at the inaugural Pacific Islands Dialogue in Taipei, Taiwan, on Oct. 7, 2019. In recent years, Taiwan has tried fostering diplomatic relationships with its Pacific neighbors by emphasizing their shared Austronesian heritage.

Taiwan’s Indigenous populations may have more historical and linguistic ties with Pacific Islanders than with mainland Chinese. And therein lies a unique diplomatic bridge for the rest of modern Taiwan.

SOURCE:

Robert Andrew Blust, Encyclopedia Britannica

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
Inspired by another Boise, Idaho, second grader, Dillon Helbig, Evey Jensen has written two books, shown here on April 24, 2022, with the aim of sharing them with her community. Her cat Louise features prominently in both tales.

Inspired by one Idaho second grader’s fame as an author, other elementary school students are demonstrating that courage and creativity come in pint sizes too. 


The Monitor's View

Reuters/file
Female soldiers of an artillery unit in Taiwan take part in a military exercise which simulates an attack by China's People's Liberation Army.

The biggest surprise of the war in Ukraine has been the fierce resolve of Ukrainians to defend their national identity. Their civic solidarity, rooted in democratic ideals, not only helped them win the battle for the capital of Kyiv, but also awed the West into sending major weapons for the battles to come. Their unity around shared virtues has been the unseen armor against aggression by Russia.

This lesson in resilience may mean the most to another small country, Taiwan. It faces the threat of invasion from a much larger neighbor, China, that asserts a dubious claim to rule the independent island. A common slogan on Taiwanese social media is “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow!”

Many Taiwanese now ask if they would put up a heroic resistance during the early days of a Chinese assault to buy time and win military support from the United States and others. “We have to insist our principles – democracy, freedom, and the dignity – are what our people desire for,” pro-democracy activist Annette Lu told CNN.

Like the Ukrainians, the 24 million people of Taiwan have only lately shaped an identity around democracy. Their first direct election of a president was 24 years ago. Since 2016, when a woman, Tsai Ing-wen, was elected on a wave of support for retaining independence, China has stepped up military incursions near the island nation.

Taiwan’s economy accounts for a greater percentage of global trade than Russia yet its troop strength is small compared with China’s. While the island has a natural defense in the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, it would need to rely heavily on people’s morale to fend off Chinese forces just enough to gain time for a U.S. response to Beijing.

“The best defense of Taiwan is done by the Taiwanese,” says Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

One sign of Taiwan’s new unity is a plan to lengthen the time for active military service from four months to one year, a move widely supported in a poll. Other possible moves include expanding conscription to women and boosting training for the country’s 1.5 million military reservists.

Just before the Ukraine war, nearly three-quarters of Taiwanese told pollsters they would fight for their country if China used force to unify the island with the mainland. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, polls show a significant increase in support in Taiwan for officially declaring independence. In addition, 80% of residents now see their identity as Taiwanese, not Chinese, up from 62% last year. Three decades ago, it was about 18%.

In May, the government plans to change its annual emergency drills for earthquakes and other disasters. People will be asked to also train for a simulated missile attack. Ukraine’s lessons in civic cohesion are finding followers in Taiwan.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Can prayer bring lasting freedom from chronic pain? As a woman experienced firsthand after recurring back pain came to a head, the answer is yes.


A message of love

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
A man visits Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, ahead of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which starts this evening, April 27, 2022.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow, when we explore how Germany is wrestling with what it means to be a moral nation in its response to the war in Ukraine.

More issues

2022
April
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Wednesday
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