When Democrat Mary Sattler Peltola went looking to hire a chief of staff, she chose someone with hands-on experience and a deep knowledge of her home state, Alaska. He was also a Republican. Alex Ortiz’s last job was serving in the same role for her predecessor, Don Young, a giant in the state who died in 2022 after setting a record for longest-serving Republican congressman in United States history.

And he wasn’t the only Republican who Representative Peltola put on her payroll after winning a special election in August to replace Mr. Young. The congresswoman’s scheduler, another Young veteran, and communications director also came with experience working in the conservative trenches. 

This is all but unheard of in the Capitol, where party loyalty can trump the most impeccable résumé. Indeed, colleagues in Washington asked Ms. Peltola if she were going to make her staff change their party affiliations. 

“That was very surprising,” she says in a phone interview, adding that the questioning “set me back on my heels a bit.” Representative Peltola explains that she hired these staffers for their in-depth knowledge of Alaska, of the inner workings of the Capitol, and of the federal bureaucracy. It was a practical decision, “common sense,” she says. “I would never ask somebody to change their party affiliation. We are all on the same team, but we’re all still autonomous people on our team.” 

For those Americans weary of polarization and its attendant lack of practicality, Alaska – which reelected Ms. Peltola to a full term in November, as well as moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski – is offering a new model. And it’s prompting questions about whether the “Alaska way” might be repeatable in other states.

The nation is seeing in Alaska “a road map for political parties and political discourse across the country. ... I fully expect that, in the coming years and decades, to trickle into Congress,” says Zack Brown, former communications director for Congressman Young. Mr. Brown appeared in a campaign ad for Ms. Peltola for her reelection. In an October op-ed, he and other former Young-sters praised her positive campaign, bipartisan approach, and pledge to carry on Mr. Young’s legislative priorities for Alaska.

A key element in making this Alaska way possible is a different way of voting. Last year, Alaska put into practice a first-in-the-nation voting system of completely open primaries and ranked choice voting. It resulted in this red state sending two moderates to Congress. The representative is the first Democrat to occupy Alaska’s lone House seat in half a century, and the first Alaska Native ever elected to Congress. Yard signs featured Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Peltola together, and the Republican senator publicly said she would be voting for the Democratic congresswoman.

Much, too, has been made of the fact that Ms. Peltola never ran a negative ad as a candidate. Her chief rival was the Trump-endorsed Republican Sarah Palin – former governor, former vice-presidential candidate, and a politician whose star has faded in the brilliant night sky over the Last Frontier. Actually, they’re friends. That’s true, also, of Ms. Peltola and the late Mr. Young and his family.

Mark Thiessen/AP

Sarah Palin (left), a Republican, is shown before a debate for Alaska's sole U.S. House seat on Oct. 26, 2022, in Anchorage, Alaska. Ms. Palin faced U.S. Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola (right), Republican Nick Begich, and libertarian Chris Bye in the November general election, which Ms. Peltola won.

Bipartisanship is also evident in the state Legislature, where Senate Republicans – despite having the most members – have decided to start the new year in Juneau with a majority coalition with Democrats. Both chambers have a recent history of bipartisan majorities stemming from fractures within the GOP, especially over fiscal issues. When the Alaska Legislature convenes Jan. 17, three GOP senators will be out in the cold – still on committees, but not eligible to lead them, nor to set the Legislative agenda or the rules.  

Ivan Moore, who conducts independent polls at Alaska Survey Research, calls the November election “a win for moderation.” That’s unusual for this state, he says, given that it voted twice for Donald Trump and that for many years, the state Legislature has had Republican majorities, including not a few veto-proof ones.

Most Americans want compromise

Representative Peltola’s welcoming of common sense and continuity, even if found on the other side of the aisle, might well appeal to the ideological middle in America. According to Gallup, 37% of Americans in 2021 described their views as “moderate,” essentially tied with “conservative” (36%) and ahead of “liberal” (25%). Gallup also finds that independents now make up the largest political bloc in the country: Some 42% identify themselves that way, at least a third more than self-identify as Democrats or Republicans, though independents often lean one way or the other.

That tracks with a growing frustration with both parties, according to the Pew Research Center. With increased hostility, and large majorities of Democrats and Republicans now considering people in the other party to be “immoral,” the percentage of Americans who disapprove of both parties has reached its highest level in decades. More than a quarter have negative views of both parties, compared with just 6% in 1994.

Most Americans want the parties to work together. In another 2021 finding by Pew, 71% of U.S. adults acknowledge that “compromise in politics is how things get done, even if it sometimes means sacrificing your own beliefs.”

Courtesy of the Office of Congressman Don Young

Mary Peltola meets with the late Republican Congressman Don Young in his Washington, D.C., office. After his death and her election to his seat, Ms. Peltola, a Democrat, hired Mr. Young's chief of staff and other Republicans.

Ask Representative Peltola about her two worlds and she answers with a description of her parents – her father from a Nebraska wheat-farming family, all of them Republicans, and her Alaskan Native mother, with “100% Democrats” on her side. She uses the same phrase to describe both branches: “kindhearted, hardworking” people. Because of this experience, she says, she’s able to see people “for who they are, without labels,” whether they’re white or Native, Democrat or Republican.

“We all have the same basic needs. We all want to be seen. We want to be respected. We want to feel love,” she says. “We all love our kids. We love our parents. We’re all proud of who we are, and where we came from.” 

Walks in both worlds

Observers point to Ms. Peltola as the personification of a bridge builder, both culturally and politically. She was raised on the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska and moves easily between the Yup’ik language and English. Natives and non-Natives surge with pride over her election. In October, she walked on stage to thunderous applause at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention. Attendees spontaneously sang a hymn of blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, to which she and many Natives belong. They also sang an Inupiat song of gratitude.

Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola

Mary Peltola out fishing. Like many Alaskans, she can “fill a freezer,” as the saying goes. A campaign ad showed her at summer fish camp, filleting salmon.

Ms. Peltola calls the Kuskokwim River community of Bethel, 400 miles west of Anchorage, her home. It’s a Yup’ik hub for area villages, and despite a subsistence culture, harsh climate, and reliance on weekly water deliveries, the city of roughly 6,000 has a “metro” feel, with a growing, increasingly diverse population and the third busiest airport in the state, says Ana Hoffman, who has known Ms. Peltola since they were in middle school. Residents have a sense of “place and purpose,” typified by summer “fish camp” when families are laying up fish for the winter, she says. Ms. Peltola started commercial fishing with her father when she was just 6 years old. As a young adult, she went on to serve a decade representing the Bethel region in the state Legislature, where she gained a reputation for collaboration. 

Like most Alaskans, she’s all in for responsible development of Alaska’s natural resources, and for a time worked for a goldmine project. More recently, she was the executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, working to protect fast-dwindling salmon runs in western Alaska, where many people rely on fishing and hunting to survive. She campaigned as “pro-fish, pro-family, pro-freedom.”

Nathaniel Wilder/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

The community of Bethel, Alaska, as seen from the frozen Kuskokwim River. Congresswoman Mary Peltola, who is from Bethel, served a decade representing the region in the state Legislature, where she gained a reputation for collaboration.

“She walks in both worlds,” says Sheri Buretta, chairman of Chugach Alaska Corp., one of 12 tribal corporations established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. She explains that Ms. Peltola understands the remote, village world of Alaska Natives, who make up 20% of the population, and more urban Alaska, including “Los Anchorage,” where her husband, Gene “Buzzy” Peltola, has a home.

In an interview at her office, where Native masks and beaded headdresses adorn the walls and shelves, and giant plate glass windows reveal the majestic, snow-draped Chugach Mountains, Ms. Buretta describes Representative Peltola as someone who “understands how government works, how business works, how you work toward compromising to achieve the needs of the people.” 

Face-to-face outreach

Andrew Halcro chokes up a bit when he recalls the first time he met Ms. Peltola. It was 1999, when he was a new Republican legislator in Juneau, and she, too, was a freshman – as was Ms. Murkowski. With the state facing a budget deficit, he arrived with the perspective that “by God, we’re going to cut the budget. Cut. Cut. Cut.” But after looking at the books, he realized, “there’s really nothing to cut,” explains Mr. Halcro, who is the chairman of Alaska Rent-A-Car and former president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.

And so, from his “ignorant, privileged, white-guy” perspective he gave a speech shortly after his arrival in which he called on rural Alaska to live without subsidies, to strengthen themselves, and build a better economy – having never set foot in remote regions except for sport. The blowback was swift and widespread.

“Within an hour or two, Mary Peltola was at my office door,” he recalls. She acknowledged that they were both new, and then offered to sit down with him and talk about rural Alaska, especially the energy cost equalization program, which he had just thoroughly derided. 

Nathaniel Wilder/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Former Republican lawmaker Andrew Halcro at his home in south Anchorage, Alaska, on Dec. 6, 2022. When he and Ms. Peltola were both freshmen in the state Legislature, she shared her understanding of rural Alaska with him. “That created a relationship that really anchored me," he says.

“That created a relationship that really anchored me, and created such a desire to understand rural Alaska and help advocate for rural Alaska,” he says, wiping his cheeks.

The reality is, Alaska is a tough state to manage, explains Mr. Halcro, who has taken unsuccessful runs for the governorship and Congress as an independent. The state’s finances depend on the price and production of oil. Its vast terrain – the largest state in the country – is home to far-flung communities that may have just a couple of dozen residents. As newcomers in the state House, he, Ms. Murkowski, Ms. Peltola, and others created a bipartisan fiscal policy caucus to tackle structural budget problems. Only an alcohol tax survived, and the state is eating through savings as it struggles with out-migration and bumps along the bottom compared with other states in education, public safety, and economic growth. 

Ms. Peltola’s longtime friend Ms. Hoffman, who is co-chair of the Alaska Federation of Natives, describes her election as “restorative” – for democracy, and yes, for fish, with the supply of salmon reaching a “crisis” on the Kuskokwim River. Indigenous people and others in the lower 48 have noticed the new voting system and its outcome, she says. “Mary’s election is one that helps to renew people’s confidence in our democracy – beyond Alaska,” says Ms. Hoffman, who is also the president and CEO of the Bethel Native Corp.  

Nathaniel Wilder/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Ana Hoffman, co-chair of the Alaska Federation of Natives, lives in Bethel and has known Mary Peltola since middle school. “Mary’s election is one that helps to renew people’s confidence in our democracy – beyond Alaska,” says Ms. Hoffman, shown here in Anchorage, Alaska, on Dec. 4, 2022.

The Alaska spirit

But can the Alaska model be repeated?

A strong independent streak – some describe it as libertarian – runs through the state that calls itself the Last Frontier. An astonishing 57.6% of registered voters here are either nonpartisan or undeclared. As pollster Mr. Moore explains, the vast majority of Alaskans came from the lower 48 to get away from the lower 48, including its take-no-prisoners politics. “In certain respects, we’re fundamentally different,” he says. That difference, he suggests, makes Alaskans open to new ideas, like open primaries and ranked choice voting.

A cooperative spirit also permeates the state. It’s a stunningly beautiful place, but it can also be cold, dark, remote, and dangerous. You never know when you might get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, depending on help from a passerby (Mr. Moore had just such an experience, after hitting a deep pothole). Or when your boat might be in a remote slough and you need to borrow 5 gallons of fuel. Alaskans have an “ingrained feeling of mutual survival and that leads to an ingrained reasonableness,” says Mr. Moore.

While it’s a huge state, it’s also one of the least populated – about the size of Washington, D.C. Ms. Peltola mentions 1 degree of separation between Alaskans. Everyone knows everyone else.

For instance, she and Ms. Palin were both pregnant when Ms. Palin was governor and Ms. Peltola was in the state Legislature. Ms. Palin gushed praise for her friend during the 2022 campaign, complimenting her as a “real Alaskan chick” in texts after Ms. Peltola won the special election. Likewise, Ms. Peltola’s father worked for Mr. Young in his early years, and her mother was expecting Mary as she campaigned for him. When one of Mr. Young’s daughters unexpectedly presented Ms. Peltola with her father’s prized bolo tie at the Native convention last year, it was an emotional moment.

These circumstances may set Alaskans apart, but it doesn’t make a spirit of cooperation exclusive to them, says Ms. Peltola. She recalls growing up in a time when the spiciest rhetoric in national politics was Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan digging at his opponent, President Jimmy Carter, with the debate quip “There you go again.” America once had a level of civility and decorum, and it can recapture it, she believes.

“We start with ourselves,” she says, imploring elected officials and community leaders to lead by example. “Attitudes are contagious. If enough people are doing this, it will catch on. This was our culture before.”

New voting process

In 2020, Alaskans approved a ballot initiative to adopt nonpartisan open primaries. Any registered voter can vote for any one candidate, with the top four winners advancing to the general election. At that point, ranked choice voting kicks in. That’s when voters can rank their choices for each office in order of preference. If no candidate gets 50% plus 1, votes are retabulated as the bottom candidate is eliminated and that candidate’s votes are redistributed according to the preferences until there is a winner with majority support.

The process is meant to have a twofold effect: ensuring that candidates who might have broad support are not filtered out by a closed partisan primary, and encouraging a more civil tone and wider appeal as candidates seek to go beyond their base to attract voters who may designate them as their second choice.

“The overall purpose is to create systems that reward candidates with broad, majority support,” says Richard Pildes, an election law expert at New York University School of Law. “There’s no reason [the Alaska model] cannot be adopted in other states.”

Indeed, last November, Nevada voters approved a similar ballot measure. However, because it involves changing their state constitution, they will have to approve it again in 2024 for it to take effect. Maine has been using ranked choice voting since 2018 – in both state and federal primaries, and in general elections for federal candidates only. In 2020, it was expanded to presidential elections. Beyond that, two counties, 58 cities, and military and overseas voters in six states use ranked choice voting, according to FairVote, which promotes the process.

“I’m kind of a fan” of the new voting system, says Cathy Giessel, who will be the Republican majority leader in the Alaska Senate when it convenes later this month. She didn’t always feel this way, she notes. “I think this will allow the voters – especially what sometimes people call the ‘silent majority,’ the people in the middle – the opportunity to really have a voice and not just have the parties run these elections,” she says on a bright winter afternoon at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she serves on the Citizens Advisory Board to the School of Nursing.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Cathy Giessel stands outside the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Nursing, Dec. 2, 2022. Ms. Giessel, who benefited from Alaska's new voting system, will be the Republican majority leader in the Alaska state Senate. She praises the new process for allowing "the silent majority" to have a voice.

State Senator-elect Giessel has directly benefited from the new process – and learned from it. Previously the Senate president, she lost reelection in 2020 when she was primaried from the right. This time, she cast her net much wider, knocking on 8,612 doors in a vigorous retail campaign. She found a lot of former Republicans, as well as Democrats whose vote she courted as a possible second choice by emphasizing common ground. What she heard repeatedly was that people want basic problems solved. They don’t care about the politics.

“I talked to some really interesting people, that, if this had been a closed primary, I would not have gone to their door. ... That really helped me see a bigger picture,” says Ms. Giessel. It paid off in the end. Voters from her Democratic opponent who ranked her second gave her a comfortable majority. The same thing happened with Senator Murkowski, who ran against Trump-endorsed candidate Kelly Tshibaka. Ms. Murkowski is reviled by many Alaska Republicans for voting against the repeal of “Obamacare” and in favor of Mr. Trump’s impeachment, among other reasons.

What about the political parties?

Snow falls gently as Alaska’s former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman walks into New Sagaya City Market in downtown Anchorage. Few people realize it yet, but it’s the start of a “snowmaggeddon” that’s going to dump 4 feet over 11 days and bring the city to a near standstill. Inside, it’s warm and cozy – a liberal hangout, the Republican notes, but it’s got great coffee (an obsession here).

Nathaniel Wilder/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Alaska's former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, Dec. 17, 2022. He strenuously opposes the state's new voting system. “It makes political parties increasingly irrelevant in terms of influence,” he says.

As lieutenant governor in the early 2000s, he oversaw Alaska’s elections. He strenuously opposes the new voting system. “It makes political parties increasingly irrelevant in terms of influence,” he says over a hot cuppa joe. “Political parties exist for a reason. People associate with them, because in general, they set up values that people can say, ‘Well, I agree with most of those values.’” 

It’s not an uncommon criticism, along with complaints that Alaska’s new system is too complex (though 79% of voters polled found it “simple”) and that it took more than two weeks to tally final votes – inviting suspicions about fraud. Neither does the system deliver on its promise to take away power from dark money special interests, he says. In an opinion piece opposing the measure, he wondered about the promise to produce a breed of leaders that is “wiser, kinder and more capable.” What about San Francisco, he wrote, which has used the ranked choice voting method for years, and is riven with homelessness and other problems that elude its leaders?

Mead Treadwell, another Republican former lieutenant governor opposed to the new voting system, notes that because of the new way of voting, Republicans had no opportunity to unify behind a single primary winner. In the case of Ms. Peltola, her two Republican opponents, Ms. Palin and Nick Begich, went at each other hammer and tong, somehow missing the fact that they were disincentivizing their supporters from ranking either of them as their second choice. It was redistributed Begich voters who eventually pushed Ms. Peltola into a comfortable majority. “We never had a chance to coalesce,” says Mr. Treadwell. 

Nathaniel Wilder/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Alaska's former Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell at his home in Anchorage, Alaska, on Dec. 17, 2022. He notes that because of the new way of voting, Republicans had no opportunity to unify behind a single primary winner. "We never had a chance to coalesce,” he adds.

Alaska’s new voting system passed by a narrow margin of only 4,000 votes, and efforts are underway to repeal it through a new ballot measure. That may well happen, says Mr. Moore, the pollster, but he is mystified by conservatives’ objections. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy won reelection on the first round of counting. Registered Republicans heavily outnumber Democrats, and typically there are nearly twice as many Republican candidates. No question, the new system – particularly the open primary – had a “huge” effect, but at the same time, the winners ran successful campaigns, with Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Peltola also helped by voters who support abortion rights.

Mr. Moore is not alone when he describes Ms. Peltola as a “first-rate candidate.” She has authenticity, he says – that “undefinable thing that only some people have.” It reminds him of Ms. Palin, in her early days.

Ms. Peltola is relatable to ordinary Alaskans because she does the things they do, says political strategist Jim Lottsfeldt, whose firm created a super political action committee, Vote Alaska Before Party, to try to get her elected. Like many Alaskans, she can “fill a freezer,” as the saying goes. A campaign ad showed her at summer fish camp, filleting salmon. She owns more than 170 guns and reminded Alaskans that she hunts.

“Ranked choice voting opened the door for her,” says Mr. Lottsfeldt. “But she didn’t stumble. She didn’t walk through the door, she just sprinted.” 

The road ahead

Now comes the hard part. Unlike her few months in Congress last year, Representative Peltola is suddenly in the minority party. It is Republicans who will set the agenda in the House, not Democrats. But as a moderate in a chamber where Republicans have only the narrowest of margins, she has leverage as a potential swing vote.

She also has the bully pulpit, and an administration that’s supposedly on her side. She recently teamed up with Senator Murkowski and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, also a Republican, to successfully pressure the administration to declare fisheries disasters in Alaska so that fishers can get relief funding – which she successfully lobbied to include in the massive year-end spending bill.

Like Mr. Young, she’ll be measured in Alaska by what she does for the state, what she can bring home in development projects, jobs, funding, and constituent services. What many people might not realize, she says, is that policy is influenced by relationships. And so she’s learning the names of all 434 of her House colleagues, while also carrying on the tradition of “fish Fridays” that she held in the Alaska House, where she shared salmon with her fellow lawmakers.

One of her top goals is to reauthorize the 1976 law that manages fisheries in U.S. waters, the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Last fall, she literally talked turkey on the House floor with the incoming GOP chair of the Resources Committee, Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas. Stuffing or dressing? His mom makes dressing, which she learned involves cornbread. He also told her how much he loved Mr. Young, and how he wants to help her move his legacy forward, including reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Representative Peltola is well aware that any vote in divided America is “going to anger 50% of the people.” For instance, she’s inclined to vote for an energy independence bill, which Democrats oppose but which Republicans say they plan to quickly introduce. It would ramp up domestic fossil fuel production and critical mineral mining.

While she can’t solve the partisan divide in America, she says she can do her part as a House member.

“We have formidable foreign challenges. We have formidable domestic challenges. Americans cannot afford for us to be engaging in partisan bickering,” Representative Peltola says. “We have got to focus on our real challenges and find solutions to those challenges.”

Editor’s note: Maine’s implementation of ranked choice voting has been clarified.

In a sunny spot along the bustling shores of Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, a group of beachgoers splash and frolic in the sea. But this is no ordinary beach.

Holding onto floating barriers and ropes, safe in the knowledge that attentive lifeguards are nearby, almost everyone here is blind or visually impaired. Mandara Beach is the first of its kind in the Arab world’s most populous country, specially fitted so it’s accessible to swimmers with physical disabilities. For many, it’s more than just a day of fun and relaxation – it’s a rare window of empowerment.

Inaugurated in 2021 for people using wheelchairs, Mandara underwent another renovation last year. When the revamped beach opened again in June, at the height of Egypt’s summer season, thousands of citizens with visual impairments could also safely swim in the calm cerulean Mediterranean waters.

Many of the adaptations that make public spaces accessible for those with disabilities – taken for granted in Western nations – are lacking in developing countries such as Egypt. In a country where residents with disabilities are deprived of basic equal opportunities, Mandara has drawn both tour groups from disability organizations and thousands of ordinary families, its management team says.

“This is the first time I’ve been to the sea,” Sarah, one beachgoer, says with a beaming smile. “I was very happy and did not feel afraid at all when I was swimming.” 

Sarah, who traveled from Sharkia, 130 miles east of Alexandria, says she hopes all visually impaired people might one day enjoy an experience she calls “life-changing.”

Inclusive design

Some 12 million Egyptians live with a disability, roughly 3.5 million of whom face visual challenges.

In 2018, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared the “year of persons with disabilities.” The aim was to make Egypt more accessible and inclusive for people living with disabilities, and Parliament responded with a slew of laws, including the provision of state-subsidized health care to people with disabilities.

Other benefits included tax exemptions on the purchase of cars, educational and medical materials, and imported assistive devices. Legal fees, whether for plaintiff or defendant, also were lifted for people with disabilities. And in 2021, Parliament approved tougher penalties for the bullying of people with disabilities.

“The laws from 2018 are excellent,” says Hassan Abdel Qader, head of Alexandria’s Blind Association. “But the problem is in their implementation.”

Mariam Ehab

Two visually impaired women enjoy a swim at Mandara Beach in Alexandria, Egypt, Aug. 23, 2022.

The fact is, say campaigners, that many public spaces and means of transport still lack accessibility, assistive technologies are hard to come by, services for people with disabilities are patchy, and discrimination is not uncommon.

Still, change is coming, slowly. 

Some months ago, Jihad Mohammed Naguib, an employee at the Department of Tourism and Resorts in Alexandria, was inspired by something she heard from the governor of Alexandria, Maj. Gen. Mohamed el-Sherif. He noted that there were never any blind people on the beaches, which are the pride of the coastal city.  

Ms. Naguib couldn’t stop thinking about that, and wanted to do something to help them, she later said in a televised interview.

“The idea ​of ​allocating a part of the beach for the visually impaired … was put forward after we inaugurated the free Mandara Beach for people with motor disabilities and the success that it met,” Major General Sherif says in an interview.  

And so, with funding from the Rotary Club of Alexandria Pharos, the work began. 

Floating ropes with plastic balls were installed on a flat portion of the beach, so that swimmers with visual impairments could enter and leave the water holding these ropes. People in wheelchairs could use a modified ramp, the end of which was fitted with a metal box submerged in the water, ensuring their safety while in the sea. Lifeguards and a first-aid unit were also available – which isn’t always the case on Egypt’s public beaches.

Those directly affected – and most likely to benefit – were consulted from the beginning. “We proposed some things that they have already implemented, and others that they promised would be implemented in the future,” Mr. Qader says.

Those suggestions included a whistle for children who feel endangered, and a rope that extends from the entrance of the beach to the water, so that even if a visually impaired person visits on their own they can reach the sea without assistance.

The beach’s management is now studying how to create a safe beach for children with mental disabilities, autism, and epilepsy.

A window of empowerment

The beach is the latest in a recent string of hard-won successes for Egypt’s visually impaired people. The Egyptian Blind Sports Federation already runs several sports teams, including soccer, weightlifting, judo, and showdown – a type of air hockey for blind people.

But gaps remain. 

Mariam Ehab

A sign at Alexandria's Mandara Beach declares it “the beach for people with determination,” a phrase to honor disabled persons who engage in difficult activities.

“Most services, and recreational and sports activities for the visually impaired, are concentrated in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, while other Egyptian cities have little capabilities,” says Moamen Mostafa, the former head of public relations for the Blind Association of Egypt. “Visually impaired people in some governorates do not have a place to practice sports activities, and in many cases, it is not possible to find any place that provides courses or training for them.”

Egypt still doesn’t have a swimming team for the visually impaired that can enter international competitions, Mr. Mostafa says, “despite the presence of many skilled swimmers.” 

That makes Mandara Beach all the more poignant for a group who have difficulty accessing recreational and sports activities. 

For 52-year-old Mohamed Attia and his 40-year-old wife, Sahar, both wheelchair users, this was the first time they could enjoy the beach together. 

“I am happy to go into the sea for the first time in my life, after I could only watch it from afar,” says Ms. Attia. 

The couple were delighted to find a group of people who helped them move their wheelchairs into the water. Mr. Attia has been in the water before, but this visit marked a first of a different kind. “Previously, I had to crawl on the sand every time I went into the water,” he explains. 

Mr. Attia says he is hopeful that other people with disabilities won’t have to face that indignity. “Those who had this idea have a compassionate heart. We really wish this project to continue and spread on all the beaches of Egypt,” he adds. 

That wish may come true. Buoyed by the success and widespread acceptance of Mandara Beach, Major General Sherif says there are plans to open a similar facility in Alexandria’s Anfushi Beach. From there, he hopes, the idea will spread through the country.

This story is published in collaboration with Egab. 

If soccer is the sport that unites Brazilians across extreme economic, racial, and social inequalities, it’s Edson Arantes do Nascimento, the forward best known as Pelé, who acted as the glue.

As thousands of Brazilians made the pilgrimage to say goodbye to Pelé during his 24-hour public wake in the southeastern Brazilian city of Santos this week, most memories, whether of his more than 1,200 goals scored or his key role in winning three World Cup titles for Brazil, were inseparable from his impact off the pitch.

A poor Black child who used to shine shoes, Pelé had a rise to stardom in the late 1950s that included overcoming acute racial and economic barriers. Before he came to define the beauty of soccer for fans around the globe, few Black athletes were even allowed to play in private clubs or for Brazil’s international team, which nominally opened to Black players in the 1920s.

“We are constantly told that we are not capable, that we are not good enough, that we can’t do this or we can’t do that,” says Tatiana Marcela Vicente, a lawyer from São Paulo who traveled to Santos with her sister to pay respects to Pelé. The two were too young to witness his magic on the field firsthand, but they grew up hearing about his artful passes and how he blazed trails for Black children like them, she says.

Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters/File

Brazilian soccer legend Pelé speaks to journalists during an exhibition on the country's past World Cup tournaments, titled "Brazil, a Country, a World," in Brasília, Brazil, Dec. 17, 2013.

Pelé “could do everything. He showed us that we are equal, that we are capable,” Ms. Vicente says.

But decades later, many of the harsh realities he overcame still exist. The number of people going hungry in Brazil has jumped from 19.1 million in 2020 to 33.1 million in 2022. Welfare programs aimed at keeping children in school and providing housing to poor people were slashed over the past four years, under the outgoing far-right government. Black Brazilians are nearly three times more likely to be victims of police violence, while Black youth account for over 70% of school dropouts.

Even as Brazilians mourn Pelé, his death has spurred a moment of collective reflection on what his staying power says about obstacles for Black and poor Brazilians today, and how his life story can continue to inspire concrete change.

“It is very difficult at this moment for us to lose a figure like him precisely because of this symbolism,” says Thiago André, creator and host of the Brazilian podcast “Black History.” But, “even in his death, Pelé is inspiring us to reflect about the Brazil of the past, the Brazil of the present, and what kind of Brazil we want in the future.”

Breaking down barriers

Pelé first came to Santos F.C. as a scrawny teenager in the 1950s, with his athleticism and creativity quickly setting him apart from his peers. Just two years later, at the age of 17, he led Brazil to its first World Cup victory, scoring two goals in the final and cementing the country’s place on the world stage.

Pelé’s rise to global stardom captured the public imagination, quickly making him a hero to the millions of poor Black Brazilians who saw in him the possibility of less disparate treatment in the future.

Andre Penner/AP

The casket of late Brazilian soccer great Pelé is draped in the Brazilian and Santos soccer club flags as his remains are transported from Vila Belmiro stadium, where he laid in state, to the cemetery during his funeral procession in Santos, Brazil, Jan. 3, 2023.

“What we saw Pelé doing, nobody else had done before,” says Ronaldo George Helal, a sociologist and coordinator of the Sport and Culture Research Group at Rio de Janeiro State University. Pelé “turned into a symbol against racism.”

Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888. Racism and prejudice continued to vex the country – both in society and in sport – despite more than half the population being Black.

When Brazil lost the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã stadium in 1950, the Black goalkeeper alone was blamed for the defeat and it ended his career. Four years later, one of the country’s top soccer officials said Brazil would never win a World Cup with Black players on the squad.

When Pelé came along, transforming Brazil into a soccer powerhouse, the narrative began to change, says Juarez Xavier, a Black rights activist and professor at São Paulo State University in Bauru, where Pelé started playing soccer.

This legacy still looms large among fans. “For me, there is a Brazil before Pelé and a Brazil after Pelé,” says Guilherme Monteiro, a history teacher from São Paulo. “A Black man getting as far as he did, in a country with such a history of slavery, is so symbolic.”

“We began to have hope because of Pelé,” says Silvana Aparecida Alves de Souza Cruz, a homemaker clad in a black-and-white Santos shirt. “We saw people like us could also succeed.”

Lee Smith/Action Images/Reuters

Newcastle United player Bruno Guimaraes wears a Brazil jersey with the name Pelé and the number 10 written on the back during minuteslong applause in memory of the Brazilian legend, Dec. 31, 2022.

“Possibility of a different Brazil”

Despite advances on the pitch, changes off the field have been slow to come. Inequalities have been exacerbated in Brazil by a painful economic crisis: More than 15% of the population is now going hungry, and white Brazilians earn nearly double that of Black or multiracial Brazilians, according to the national statistics agency.

“Life has become harder for the Black population” in recent years, says Dr. Xavier.

Brazil had far-reaching success in reducing racial and economic disparities in the early 2000s. Under the government of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, referred to simply as Lula, inclusive policies were introduced to tackle deep-seated challenges, like university quotas and generous spending on housing, education, and anti-hunger programs.

But many of these advances have unraveled amid a deepening economic crisis, soaring unemployment, and cuts to public spending on affordable housing and education. Police violence against Black Brazilians rose 5.8% between 2020 and 2021, accounting for 84% of all Brazilians killed by police. This is even as overall police killings eased by 5% over the same period, from a record 6,412 in 2020, and the killings of white Brazilians declined by nearly a third.

“In Pelé, many saw the possibility of a different Brazil,” says Dr. Xavier. “But having a hero alone doesn’t change reality for the Black population, and it doesn’t improve living conditions for Black people.”

Peter Karas/USA TODAY NETWORK/File

Pelé celebrates his goal with Cosmos teammate Jadranko Topic during a soccer match at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, April 17, 1977.

Still, many Brazilians see a glimmer of hope in the return of Lula, who was inaugurated as president on Jan. 1, beginning his third, nonconsecutive term after narrowly defeating Jair Bolsonaro last fall.

Lula has promised to restore government programs that combat hunger and social inequality, vowing to once again help lift millions out of poverty.

“We are committed to fighting, day and night, all forms of inequality. In terms of income, gender, and race. Inequality between those who throw food away and those who only eat leftovers,” Lula said in his inauguration speech last weekend. 

Lula has also signaled plans to run a more inclusive government, appointing a host of Black and Indigenous ministers to his Cabinet. In a symbolic move, a Black garbage collector handed the presidential sash to Lula on inauguration day. She was meant to represent the Brazilian population passing the torch, though the role is typically reserved for the outgoing president (Mr. Bolsonaro fled for Florida just days before the transition of power).

Two days after his inauguration, Lula arrived at the Santos stadium to pay his respects. Outside, hundreds of fans erupted in cheers, both for their new president and for their soccer hero. Some threw their hands up in an “L” sign, a symbol of support for the leftist. “Lula is our president! Pelé is our king!” the crowd chanted.

Taísa Julio Vicente, a high school teacher in São Paulo, traveled to say goodbye to Pelé with her sister, the lawyer. She fought back tears while waiting in line to see Pelé’s casket: His legacy in Brazil feels ever-present in her own life. When she searches for ways to keep her mostly poor, Black students engaged in the classroom, she often turns to his story.

“I teach adolescents. How many Black boys do we have who are completely hopeless?” says Ms. Vicente. “It’s necessary to have an idol, to have someone to look up to, who gives you hope,” she says.

“Pelé is resistance.”

In just over a year, Democrats will break a 52-year tradition of kicking off presidential jockeying with the Iowa caucuses. Instead, pending approval from the full Democratic National Committee, South Carolina will host the first Democratic primary on Feb. 3, 2024. 

Admittedly, I did a double take when I read that President Joe Biden had called for this change. His primary reason? “Voters of color.” 

As he expressed in a letter to fellow Democrats, “For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process. … It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”

My cause for surprise wasn’t because I’m a native of the Palmetto State. It came from my political experiences in a Republican stronghold, and my home state’s sordid history of racial injustice. Last January, on the day before the state’s General Assembly convened, I dropped off letters to each state House and Senate member, petitioning for the removal of a white supremacist monument. I still haven’t received a response from a single member. 

That personal angst combined with Mr. Biden’s push to reshape the primary season reminded me of a more noble group of South Carolina state legislators – the mostly Black delegates who convened in Charleston in 1868 to draft a state constitution. The Reconstruction-era document was groundbreaking for that time in its attention to detail regarding Black South Carolinians and overall social uplift.

As the South Carolina Encyclopedia explains, “Race was abolished as a limit on male suffrage. Disfranchisement could be only for murder, robbery, and dueling. The Black Codes that had flourished under the constitution of 1865 were overturned. There was no provision against interracial marriage, and all the public schools were open to all races.”

The gains made in 1868, however tenuous, would be entirely overturned by a wave of white violence less than a decade later. In July 1876, the Hamburg Massacre started a series of events that ultimately yielded Jim Crow. The monument I wanted to have removed – honoring the one white man killed in the melee – is a harsh and ahistorical reminder of that massacre.

It’s important to remember the reasons for that violence. The “threat” was Black equality – or rather, Black equity. Black people were gaining essential civil rights: basic needs such as housing, food, and education. 

Over a century and a half later, too many Black people are still seeking those rights. The inequities between the haves and have-nots are vivid. More than presidential primaries, more than political platitudes, Black people in South Carolina, and all over the country, desperately want equity.

The failure of voting to level the playing field is a point of frustration for Black folks, as expressed in a January 2022 Associated Press story reporting that poll numbers for Mr. Biden among Black Americans had dropped 30 percentage points over the preceding year.

“I’m perplexed. At some points, I’m angry. I’m trying to see if there is anything redeeming,” George Hart, an English instructor at Benedict College, a historically black school, told AP. “I’m just so disillusioned, I don’t know what to say.”

If that’s a growing feeling among African Americans, as the poll suggests, could beginning the presidential primary process in South Carolina offer hope? 

At the very least, it’s a clarion call for Black people in South Carolina to organize around urgent issues and mobilize around the outlets who speak on behalf of basic needs. 

When the presidential primary came to the state in 2020, candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer lent their support to Denmark, South Carolina, a small town besieged with water contamination issues comparable to those of Flint, Michigan. 

This year marks the 155th anniversary of the 1868 convention. Black people in America continue to impact democracy in a way that benefits all of us. When Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, one phrase attributed to Black folks was that we “helped to save American democracy.” 

It is time America returns the favor. Promises of political diversity, or a louder voice in the presidential primaries, should not be seen as the endgame. I am reminded of the words of Robert Smalls, a South Carolina state representative during Reconstruction and later a U.S. congressman for several terms.

“My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be equal of any people anywhere,” Smalls said. “All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

My friend Penny swears she didn’t shriek. She is basing this on her strong conviction that she is not a shrieking sort of person. She has known herself longer than I have known her, so I will concede the point. I will just state for the record that Penny emitted a brief squeak of very high pitch and decibel level that was completely out of context in the conversation we were having.

I no longer remember details of the conversation, but she was holding up her end of it when she decided to clean up a few dishes that had been left by her sink, and noticed a tea bag in the bottom of a glass tumbler, and reached in to pull it out. It was a little damp and a little squidgy, and it was just a bit larger than your average tea bag. Before she was able to fully process this observation, a wing unfolded on the tea bag, which was revealed to be, in fact, a bat. That’s when the thing that couldn’t have been a shriek happened.

I don’t think she has anything to be ashamed of. If I had reached into the very same tumbler and pulled out the very same damp bat, there would have been an authentic shriek, an airborne glass tumbler, and wild, jerky moves on my part that might have disrupted the entire kitchen ecosystem. I am readily startled.

My husband, Dave, enjoys this about me. At least once a week he does something to make me shriek. It feels like he’s sneaking up on me, but you don’t even need to sneak up on a writer: You can just be standing there when she pops out of her own head for a minute. 

Dave claims he is merely monitoring my heart health for me, but he is really doing it for his own entertainment. He can count on my reaction even though I’ve been on the lookout for Sudden Dave for years. At some point I’m going to drop my guard, and there he’ll be. 

There are a number of critters that evoke this response in many people. I am not afraid of any of them. Snakes are splendid. Spiders are attractive and interesting. Bats are flat-out cool. What my parasympathetic nervous system objects to is the sudden snake, the sudden spider, the sudden bat, and the sudden Dave. I want a little warning. I’ll put my nose an inch away from a spider in an orb web to admire her. But those little black spiders that run like the wind give me the willies. One day I stepped into the very center of a patch of baby snakes, and they wriggled off in every direction. I thought the ground was boiling. Everything inside me – food, bones, organs, dreams of glory – liquefied at once. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I’m pretty sure there was some cleanup involved.

Most of the time we fear what we don’t understand. Much of what people believe about spiders or bats amounts to slander. There’s nothing wrong with exercising a little well-informed caution, but fear in general isn’t good for us. We usually have to be taught what to fear: maybe bats, maybe spiders, and increasingly – especially during election season – entire classes of people. This rarely works out well for those people. Or for bats. It doesn’t do anyone any good. 

Back to Penny’s bat. We’d decided it was dead. It was kind of head first in the bottom of the glass, and it wasn’t moving, just unfolding a little. Penny also believes she didn’t shriek because she likes bats, as most of my favorite people do. Therefore a damp tea bag bat could not possibly have startled her in any way. 

Whatever.

I will report that she calmly relocated the bat – in the tumbler, but without putting a cover on it – outside on the ground, under a fern. A half-hour later it was gone. We’re hoping for the best.

Maybe bats startle easily too. Maybe it just fainted dead away at the very moment Penny didn’t shriek.

AP

Aviv Kochavi, chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces, speaks during a holiday ceremony with Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, Nov. 29.

Israel has a new governing coalition, one tilted toward conservative and religious parties that aim to expand the Jewish presence in Palestinian territories and alter governance of the West Bank. While critics worry about the potential for violent reaction to these changes, one voice stands out – the view of the Israeli military.

In an unusual meeting with the new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said the proposed changes would divide command over the West Bank and potentially put the military and police at cross-purposes. Lieutenant General Kochavi also objected to the idea of giving Israeli troops immunity from prosecution for acts committed during operations.

His concern points to the need to cling to values that assure mutual security of Israelis and Palestinians. These include honoring the rights of noncombatants and the humanity of nonviolent adversaries who disagree with the proposed actions.

For more than half a century, Israel’s status as an occupying force in the West Bank has bound it under international law to the equal protection of innocents regardless of their identity. Based on Lieutenant General Kochavi’s concerns, that principle now seems in doubt.

“The values of the IDF and international law are not only intended to prevent harm to bystanders on the other side, but they are also equally aimed at enabling us to protect our citizens,”  Lieutenant General Kochavi said in 2021.

Israel is not alone in trying to balance national goals and military concerns. Under the Geneva Conventions, occupying forces are obligated to observe and protect the human rights of those under their control. That principle has been reaffirmed in more recent international court cases and embodied in national security plans. The Pentagon, for example, last year adopted a plan making protection of noncombatants a moral imperative.

That imperative is also practical. In countries like Ethiopia and Sudan, human rights abuses by the military in each of those countries pose significant obstacles to peace negotiations. That points to a key lesson that emerged during the 2016 peace process in Colombia. “Our military were in every blacklist for human rights violations,” former President Juan Manuel Santos said in 2020. “We had to make the military understand that their most important asset was their legitimacy and the relations that they could develop with the community – respecting human rights.”

The proposed changes in Israel appear to have deep public support. Ahead of the elections last November, the Israel Democracy Institute found that more than 60% of Jewish Israelis identified as right wing, up from 46% in 2019. Among young Israelis between the ages of 18 and 24, that number rises to 70%. Yet, as Lieutenant General Kochavi has told his troops, the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, warned in 1948,  Israel’s “fate is in the hands of the security forces.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is seen as the most hard-line in Israel’s history. Yet as his outgoing military chief suggests, Israel’s strength also requires softer forms of power.