Among Palestinians, Marwan Barghouti’s popularity is unsurpassed.

Politician and professor – and a peacemaker now imprisoned for armed resistance – the man regarded by many as Palestinians’ “Mandela” looms larger than ever amid the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and spiraling violence across the West Bank.

Rising from humble farmhand to community organizer to a leader of the national Fatah party, Mr. Barghouti became known for his soaring oratory and common touch.

His message of democracy, unity, and resistance to occupation is resonating today with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who are under attack, who distrust their autocratic leadership, and who would vote for him if given the chance. He is the only political figure who outpolls Hamas.

Serving five life sentences after being convicted by an Israeli court for involvement in militant killings in the second intifada, Mr. Barghouti remains the rare – perhaps the only – figure trusted by all Palestinian factions.

With his release from Israeli prison demanded by Fatah’s rival, Hamas, and even advocated by a former Israeli spy chief, the mere possibility of Mr. Barghouti’s return to the scene is stirring up Palestinian politics, and hope, at a historic crossroads.

Many believe that Mr. Barghouti, if released from prison, would go straight to Gaza to reconcile Fatah with Hamas – whose infighting he describes as a “catastrophe” – and form a new, broad national unity government that could resolve the current conflict with Israel.

“We must achieve unity, and then liberty,” multiple associates quote him as saying recently.

“If the international community is serious about solving the conflict in Gaza, they will push for Marwan’s release,” Barghouti comrade Mahmoud Jabri says from the office of the Free Marwan Barghouti Campaign in Ramallah.

“He is the key to any future political solution.”

Hussein Malla/AP/File

Palestinian women shout slogans while waving their national flags with a picture of jailed leader Marwan Barghouti, during a protest in Beirut, May 4, 2017. Hamas officials say that any cease-fire deal with Israel should include his release.

Grassroots

Mr. Barghouti was born and raised in Kobar, an agricultural village north of Ramallah, to a family of farmhands.

Volunteering with a local youth club, he repaved roads and cleaned up the local cemetery, civic works that introduced him to Fatah, the then-banned Palestinian nationalist movement. His Fatah activism soon landed him, at the age of 19, in an Israeli jail, where he came under the wing of veteran Palestinian activists and fighters.  

These experiences forged in Mr. Barghouti the belief that in order to liberate and build a nation, one had to act locally, recounts his younger brother, Muqbel Barghouti.

“Marwan loved to serve and volunteer,” he says. “It was from this desire to serve, and his first years in prison, that he became committed to the national struggle.”

Mr. Barghouti took a grassroots approach to his work in Fatah – as youth leader in the West Bank, in leadership in exile in Jordan, and then as secretary-general of Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), when he returned to the West Bank in 1994.

Residents recount how, as the right-hand man of President Yasser Arafat, he would drop work to help harvest dates in Rafah, pick olives near Nablus, attend a funeral in Jenin, or visit the site of an industrial accident.

“No matter the occasion, he had to be there on the ground. This is why to this day, people across the West Bank and Gaza feel close to him,” says PA official Qadura Fares, a Fatah colleague and adviser.

Personal credibility

Mr. Barghouti’s reputation for being honest and blunt, and for following through on his word, has earned him credibility rare among Palestinian leaders today.

Which is why, many believe, Hamas is pushing for his release.

“Hamas and everyone know that Marwan says what he believes, and what Marwan says, he does. He doesn’t say what you want to hear,” says Mr. Fares. “Marwan is someone who says he wants to reconcile Palestinian factions and will immediately set out doing it.”

In contrast, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who has not allowed elections since 2006, has engaged in endless rounds of reconciliation talks with Hamas while refusing to implement agreements and working to isolate and undermine the Islamist organization.

From prison, Mr. Barghouti has advocated for democracy at all levels of Palestinian politics and society, and for broad participation in governing.

“You shouldn’t be afraid of others winning; all you need to focus on is improving your policies to win votes,” colleagues quote him as saying.

Taylor Luck

The farming village of Kobar, jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti's hometown, is located in the central West Bank, March 20, 2024.

Palestinians still recall how, in the 1990s, Mr. Barghouti led anti-corruption protests against his own boss, Mr. Arafat, and the Palestinian Authority.

PA corruption persists as a major issue for the local public and for exasperated Arab and Western allies.

Yet Mr. Barghouti’s family members do not appear to have enriched themselves and still live modestly in Kobar, neighbors attest, in contrast to other senior PA and Fatah officials who have built lavish villas in the West Bank and abroad.

“Marwan was clean. He would give out the last shekel in his pocket before the end of the day,” recounts Youssef, a driver and former Fatah officer who served under Mr. Barghouti in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He declined to use his last name.

“That is why Abbas’ circle don’t want him released,” he says.

Peace and resistance

Yet his core popularity today is as a man of both peace and resistance.

Some Israelis remain open to dealing with Mr. Barghouti, who, as an adviser on the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, was a fervent supporter of the peace process for several years.

As a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, he regularly met with Israeli party leaders and toured Europe in joint Israeli-Palestinian parliamentary delegations. Colleagues say he was on a first-name basis with half the members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

In 1996, when Hamas began a string of suicide bombings against civilians in Israel, Mr. Barghouti led a pro-peace march alongside Israeli activists, denouncing the attacks.

“Marwan believed in Oslo as an opportunity to invest in peace and state-building,” says Mr. Fares. “He believed we must build a culture of peace for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.”

Yet the peace process – and Mr. Barghouti’s views – would change.

In light of the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the accords, the rightward tilt of Israeli politics, and the lack of progress on final-status talks, Mr. Barghouti began to believe Israelis were dragging their feet to run out Oslo’s five-year window and expand settlements, to render a Palestinian state impossible.

This sentiment hardened after the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit between Mr. Arafat, President Bill Clinton, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

A peace process, Mr. Barghouti concluded, could not succeed without pressure on Israel.

Instead, he believed the Palestinians should pursue both negotiations and resistance – armed, if necessary – in order to push Israel to follow through on its commitments and agree to a Palestinian state.

“The occupation is negotiating with us while maintaining its occupation; therefore, we want to negotiate while maintaining resistance,” Sa’d Nimer, political science professor at Birzeit University and former Barghouti campaign manager, remembers him saying. “You can’t have occupation and peace at the same time.”

Taylor Luck

Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Authority's Palestinian prisoners and detainees commission, who is a colleague and adviser to Marwan Barghouti, sits in his office in Ramallah, West Bank, March 20, 2024.

Today, this approach is in line with majority Palestinian opinion and straddles both camps of thought: those who believe in negotiations and institution-building to achieve a state, and those who believe armed resistance is the only path to statehood.

“Negotiations for the sake of negotiations with no Israeli partner has led us to disaster,” says one senior Fatah official. “Marwan’s approach can bring us back on the path to statehood.”

Putting this approach into practice during the second intifada led to Mr. Barghouti’s imprisonment after he initially led protests at Israeli checkpoints in hopes of restarting talks.

As the intifada turned more violent, and amid competition with Hamas for support, Fatah established the armed Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade under Mr. Barghouti’s authority. He did not direct the brigade, colleagues claim, but gave it rhetorical backing while insisting its forces attack only military targets in the occupied territories.

Yet as the violence got out of control, they say, the decentralized brigade violated those parameters, killing civilians.   

After an Israeli assassination attempt on him failed, Mr. Barghouti was arrested, tried, and convicted, though he refused to recognize the court’s legitimacy.

Popularity

Mr. Barghouti’s charisma and at-times contradictory philosophies have enhanced his popularity, which polls show has only increased as the current war drags on: He wins any electoral matchup.

In an early March poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 40% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza said they would support Mr. Barghouti in an election. Just 23% said they would support Hamas’ overall political leader, Ismael Haniya, and 8% Mr. Abbas.

Mr. Barghouti’s presence in a race for president boosts voter turnout from 52% to 72%. In any hypothetical presidential race without Mr. Barghouti, Hamas wins handily.

Another indicator of his popularity are young Palestinians in the West Bank who describe themselves as “Sinwar and Marwan” supporters, saying they identify with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Mr. Barghouti for both their support for armed resistance and the long periods they spent in prison.

“Marwan has lived our reality. He has been in prison, suffered, and paid a personal price. He represents us because he too has gone through the struggle that we go through,” says 18-year-old Mohammed in the Tulkarem refugee camp, shortly after being released from Israeli military detention.  “Sinwar and Marwan: These are the leaders who represent us.”

Many Hamas supporters, who preferred to remain unnamed to avoid arrest, told the Monitor they would vote for Mr. Barghouti for president.

“Revolution of Light”

Even from behind bars, Mr. Barghouti has continued his push for unity by influencing the next generation of Palestinians.

Until Oct. 7, he taught an accredited bachelor’s degree program in international relations to fellow prisoners, while also providing courses in English and Hebrew.

Taylor Luck

Muqbel Barghouti, brother of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, stands on the outskirts of their home village of Kobar, in the West Bank, March 20, 2024.

This prison educational program, which Mr. Barghouti has coined “Revolution of Light,” is designed to teach young Palestinians “that you must want to live to serve your country, not die for your country,” notes Mr. Jabri of the Free Marwan Barghouti Campaign.

Jehad Manasreh, one of some 600 Palestinians who have graduated under Mr. Barghouti’s tutelage, recounts an introductory course designed to break down factionalism and biases.

“Marwan taught us that it is not acceptable to stay in your small ideological corner,” says Mr. Manasreh. “I have to see how others think, accept them, and understand their views – even if they are against what I believe.”

Key themes in Mr. Barghouti’s lessons: unity and community.

“Marwan taught us that you can perhaps succeed 50% of your goals as an individual, but you can succeed 90% as a group,” says Mr. Manasreh, a former high school dropout in prison who earned a master’s and is now a political activist.

“We must ... build coalitions with those who disagree with us, because differences in opinions strengthen your decisions.”

Mr. Barghouti recently began teaching a master’s course – in Israeli affairs.

Relatives and colleagues worry that Mr. Barghouti’s role as a unifying figure is hurting his chances of release; the far-right Israeli government and Mr. Abbas both have vested interests in his imprisonment. His living conditions have reportedly deteriorated since far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered him detained in solitary confinement in December.

Relatives have not been able to communicate with him. According to his lawyers, he has had limited access to medical care and has suffered rapid weight loss.

During a March 25 visit by his lawyers, Mr. Barghouti exhibited extensive bruising and said he had been beaten by prison guards on March 6 until he collapsed, family members say.

Yet they insist he is in good spirits.

When asked about the way forward, Muqbel Barghouti quotes his brother’s words.

“We Palestinians have our ‘Mandela.’ We are waiting for an Israeli de Klerk.”

Alex Brandon/AP

Ishaq Dar, then Pakistan's finance minister, speaks with The Associated Press during an interview at the Pakistani Embassy, Oct. 14, 2022, in Washington. Mr. Dar says that many in Pakistan's business community are keen to resume trade with India.

Pakistan’s newly appointed foreign minister has signaled a desire to reopen trade with neighbor and arch-adversary India – an aspiration that, if pursued, would mark a major diplomatic shift.

Islamabad suspended trade in 2019 after relations with Delhi deteriorated, in part because of India’s decision to strip the majority-Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir of its legislative autonomy, and Pakistanis have been paying the price ever since. 

“I was speaking to an Indian company just yesterday that wants to sell us cumin,” says Mubashir Hussain, who owns a spice and dry fruit import business in Lahore. “I would like to buy the product, but it will first have to go to Dubai and then have its country of origin changed.”

While Pakistani businessmen and consumers are forced to foot the bill for these convoluted import journeys, experts say the trade ban has backfired politically. 

Over the past five years, Pakistan has made dialogue with India contingent on Delhi restoring Kashmir’s special status. But the Indian government refuses to engage with Pakistan on the disputed territory, viewing it as an internal matter – and a largely settled one at that. With border security concerns unresolved and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to win a third term in the country’s upcoming elections, Pakistan’s new leadership is firmly on the back foot.

“Pakistan’s declining economic situation, unstable politics, and precarious security situation make its influence marginal when compared to India, and so its 2019 demands have only led India to further solidify its position,” says Pakistani academic Yaqoob Khan Bangash. He points to how India’s Supreme Court sided with the federal government on Kashmir’s status last December. “If Pakistan wants any detente with India it would have to eat a lot of humble pie and make the first few moves.” 

Anjum Naveed/AP

People buy groceries and other things at a market in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Feb. 6, 2024. Pakistan’s economy is suffering from relatively low growth and high levels of inflation, and trade restrictions have made Indian products more expensive.

Trade pains

The Sharif family, which controls the ruling Pakistan Muslim League N (PMLN) party, has historically favored closer ties with India, partly because it relies on the electoral support of the Punjabi trading community whose interests are served by the border remaining open for commerce. This stance has frequently raised the ire of the country’s powerful military establishment, and was a contributing factor in the breakdown of civil-military relations during the 2013-2018 government of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif.

Now back in power, the PMLN “has compelling political reasons for pushing for border trade with India,” says Michael Kugelman, who directs the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center. “Pakistan’s economic crisis offers an additional incentive.”

Pakistan’s economy is suffering from relatively low growth and high levels of inflation and has become dependent on cash injections from the International Monetary Fund. Some believe reopening the door to a massive neighbor market is just the economic jolt Pakistan needs.

In 2018-2019, Pakistan’s annual Indian imports totaled around $2 billion, and its exports neared $500 million. Today, there is no formal trade. All goods must be funneled through a third-country port such as Dubai or Singapore, at added costs. 

“You may have banned trade, but you haven’t been able to stop Indian products from entering the market,” says Mr. Hussain, the spice merchant. “All that you’ve done is made them more expensive.”

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar acknowledged this reality at a press conference in London in late March, promising to gather stakeholders and “seriously examine” reopening trade with India. “What India did in 2019, the steps they took to amend the constitution and law, that was very painful,” said. “But I think the business community of Pakistan is very keen” to restart direct trade.

Unresolved tensions

While some Indian business communities agree, Indian officials are less keen.

Diplomat Maleeha Lodhi, formerly Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, notes that it was the Modi government that first imposed trade restrictions in 2019.

Months before Kashmir was stripped of its special status, a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian service personnel in the state's Pulwama district. India “slapped a 200% customs duty on Pakistani exports,” says Dr. Lodhi, and withdrew Pakistan's Most Favoured Nation Status – a principle that ensures that countries are not able to discriminate in the terms they offer trading partners. Delhi blamed Pakistan for the attack, which was claimed by the outlawed terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, but Pakistan has consistently denied any involvement. 

Mukhtar Khan/AP

A paramilitary soldier stops a man near a closed road ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public rally in Srinagar, India on March 7, 2024. Mr. Modi is expected to win a third term in India's upcoming elections – the first since the revocation of Jammu & Kashmir's special status.

The same day as Mr. Dar’s press conference, India’s Minister of External Affairs harkened back to these security woes, accusing Islamabad of being a sponsor of state terrorism. “How do you deal with a neighbor who does not hide the fact that they use terrorism as an instrument of statecraft?” he asked, referring to terror attacks on Indian soil. “It’s not a one-off happening ... but very sustained, almost at an industry level.”

In light of this, analysts in Pakistan have questioned the wisdom of Mr. Dar’s comments on restoring bilateral trade.

“Indian officials have repeatedly established their lack of enthusiasm and often, utter contempt, for the idea of any kind of normalization,” says foreign policy commentator Mosharraf Zaidi who served as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2011 and 2013. “For any Pakistani leader to continue to desperately signal his country’s openness to trade relations whilst India sustains a belligerent and bullying approach is inexplicable.”

The criticism appears to be resonating in at least some quarters of Pakistan’s foreign office.

On Thursday, spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch clarified that there had been “no change in Pakistan’s position” on resuming trade with India, an apparent backtrack on the foreign minister’s proposal.

Even if the government manages to placate its critics inside Pakistan, hopes for immediate change are slim. For Dr. Bangash, the academic, appealing to Mr. Modi’s legacy may be Pakistan’s best strategy.

“In his third term, the only thing which might lure Modi to want to talk to Pakistan could be a yearning to be recognized as a world peace maker,” he says.

John Robinson

Brad Wilcox is a sociologist at the University of Virginia. His book "Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Force Strong Families, and Save Civilization," argues for strengthening marriage rates in the U.S.

Brad Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. A sociologist, he has studied how and why marriage has declined among adults in the United States and what the consequences are for family formation and for society. In his book “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Force Strong Families, and Save Civilization,” Mr. Wilcox laments what he describes as the “closing of the American heart” that is undermining marriage and family life, including childbearing. In 1960, some 72% of adults were married. Today that proportion is around 50%. 

“Get Married” details the social, economic, and cultural forces that shape how adolescents and adults view marriage. Mr. Wilcox also examines public policy options, from tax credits to vocational training and school choice, to promote and support marriage.

“Too many on the right have had a blind faith in the market’s power to bring prosperity and so much more to families,” he writes. From the left, the problem is a “blind faith in the state’s ability” to provide for families, a faith that undermines “the strength, stability, and solidarity of American family life.” 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has happened to marriage and divorce rates in recent decades?

Since 1970, the marriage rate has fallen by more than 60%. For young adults, we’re projecting that 1 in 3 adults will never marry, heading into record demographic territory. About 1 in 2 adults currently are not married, and that’s also a record. When it comes to divorce, however, the news is better, in part because marriage has become more selective along educational, financial, and religious lines. We’re seeing that divorce has come down in America by about 40% since 1980. Many Americans think that 1 in 2 marriages ends in divorce today. But the data suggest for couples who are getting married recently, a majority of them are going to go the distance, and probably only about 40% will end up getting divorced. 

How does the decline in U.S. marriages interact with declining fertility rates? 

We see in the demographic research that one of the best predictors of having kids is being married and having a good relationship that makes you feel like you’re going to have a partner who is with you, and for you, in raising children. So the fact that fewer and fewer young adults are getting married, and the fact that more of them are postponing marriage, means that fewer young adults today are having children together, which is one big reason why our fertility rate is close to 1.7 [births per woman of childbearing age] right now. 

What makes for an enduring marriage? 

I argue in the book that there are markers of both happy and stable marriages. I specifically talk about the importance of fostering a sense of communion [the first C] in marriage. [Then there’s] cultivating an appreciation for how much your children depend upon you to have a good marriage, if you have kids. That’s the second C. The third C is commitment understood in terms of sexual fidelity and sort of seeing marriage as a lifelong enterprise. The fourth C is cash, recognizing the value of a steady stream of cash coming into the household and shared assets stabilizing marriage as well. And then the final C is community. We see the people who are surrounded by other couples and adults who have good marriages or a good approach to life are more likely to flourish in their marriages, versus couples who surround themselves with people who are not as favorably inclined to marriage and family are more likely to flounder in their marriages. 

Your book shows that education has become a strong predictor of whether adults marry. Was it always this way? 

When you look back in the ’60s and ’70s, there were not large educational, class, or racial differences in American marriage and family life. And, really, since the 1960s, we’ve seen growing gaps between Americans who are more and less educated, more and less affluent, and also growing gaps along racial lines as well. So marriage has become – and I think is a tragic development – more of the province of the well-educated and the affluent.

Your book subtitle refers to “defying the elites.” But the elites are the ones who are getting married and raising children together. 

Right. I talk in the book about the way in which our elites talk left, and walk right, when it comes to marriage and family. What I mean by that is that, yes, our elites tend today to get married and stay married, and to honor and practice the virtues and values that are associated with marriage and strong families more generally. But when it comes to their positions of public authority and power, unfortunately, we often see our elites either denying the importance of marriage, or minimizing the importance of marriage in their roles as journalists, professors, school superintendents, Hollywood moguls, and C-suite executives. 

Your argument that culture and media are promoting an anti-marriage agenda seems at odds with the fact that marriage, and the pursuit of marriage, is the oldest storyline of all.

You can certainly find examples in pop culture of stories and movies and TV shows and songs that paint a more rosy or honest portrait of marriage and family life, and I wouldn’t minimize that reality. But it’s important to acknowledge today that there are a lot of [news] stories that are painting a clearly false message about marriage. There was a story about women who are staying single getting richer in America on Bloomberg, and that is empirically false. There was an article in The New York Times [that claimed] married motherhood in America is a game no one wins. That’s just not understanding that there’s no group of women [that report being] more happy, on average, than married women aged 18 to 55.

You advocate a “success sequence” for young adults. Can you explain this? 

The success sequence is this idea that there are three pillars to the American dream, financially, and those three pillars are education, work, and marriage. So the idea here is to teach young adults that if they get at least a high school degree, work full time in their 20s, and get married before having children, their odds of being poor are just 3%, [whereas] their odds of reaching the middle class or higher in their late 20s and 30s are 86%. It’s also a way to underline the value of these three institutions: education, work, and marriage. I think today that marriage piece is the most controversial step for critics of the sequence. But we’re also seeing a lot of young men not working full time. What my research indicates is that 1 in 4 adults in their prime who are not college educated are not working full time. That affects their marriage ability and also affects their marital stability. 

What’s the evidence that such campaigns can change norms and behaviors in an individualistic society?

We’ve obviously had campaigns in the past on topics ranging from teen pregnancy to smoking to [tackling] COVID that had success in terms of moving the dial in terms of cultural sentiment and people’s behavior. I think we would be looking for someone or some institutions or an array of states and school districts and nonprofits to put out a success sequence-friendly message, particularly to adolescents and young adults. 

Recent declines in marriage rates mirror similar declines in birthrates, a topic that the Monitor recently explored in a three-part series. The first looks at why U.S. parents are having fewer children. The second shows how immigrants are powering a population boom in rural Iowa. The third looks at the tumbling global birthrate and hard societal choices ahead.

As the rest of the city heads out on a Friday evening, Alfredo Paniagua dons a lime-green vest, loads his 180-pound telescope into a van, and drives into the center of Madrid.

He sets up the telescope at the mouth of the busy Ópera metro station, a block from the Royal Palace. The sun still setting, he swivels the massive cylinder to an invisible point in the sky and fiddles with the focuser. And then he waits.

It doesn’t take long for curiosity to pique. Children tug on sleeves and point. Friends dressed for an evening out stop to ask what’s up there.

“Jupiter,” says Mr. Paniagua. “The view is spectacular tonight.”

A line begins to take shape, curious passersby waiting their turn to peek through the lens. Mr. Paniagua places a footstool for those who need it and lifts the smallest kids up himself. He shows each viewer how to focus the image. Then he steps back for his favorite part. Eyebrows raised, he watches face after face light up at the sight: a perfectly round ball of bright gas marked by two clear stripes near its equator, tiny to the eye yet big enough to fit 1,321 Earths. Four moons stretch out in a straight line below.

He gives visitors their own time with the infinite, jumping in with information only when asked. What are those dots? How many moons does Jupiter have? How far away is it?

It’s a nightly ritual Mr. Paniagua has performed for two decades, whenever the sky is clear. He often stays past midnight, sharing his telescope with hundreds of strangers free of charge. Many leave a donation, which he accepts.

It’s not that the center of Madrid is the best place for stargazing – there’s too much light pollution to see much besides Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon. “But it’s difficult to bring lots of people to where you can see things well,” says Mr. Paniagua. So he goes where the people are.

“I like to think that they begin to ask themselves new questions.”

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Alfredo Paniagua took up astronomy as a hobby two decades ago. Now he shares views of outer space with hundreds of strangers each evening, weather permitting.

“We are teeny tiny, and this is immense”

For as long as there has been a record, the night sky has captured imaginations from every corner of the world. For Mr. Paniagua and countless others, there is something transformative about that feeling of unfathomable vastness. And a growing body of psychological research is corroborating what philosophers and religious thinkers have long posited – that awe and wonder are a central part of what it means to be human, connected to a wider whole.

“These are two emotions that help you to step outside of yourself,” says Helen De Cruz, a professor of philosophy at Saint Louis University and author of “Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think.” It’s one thing to look at pictures from the James Webb telescope online, she adds. It’s another to catch a glimpse of the distant universe yourself in a neighborhood telescope.

“You get this sense of insignificance,” she says. At the same time, “you’re part of this big world somehow.”

That’s what Ana Afonso Martin says she felt looking through Mr. Paniagua’s telescope. She and three friends just arrived from the Canary Islands for a weekend in Madrid. Jupiter was the last thing she expected to find in the capital.

“We are teeny tiny, and this is immense,” she says. “If you’re always stuck in your world, and you don’t look up at the sky, you don’t realize that.”

It’s also what pulled Mr. Paniagua into the fold 25 years ago. At the time, he was working odd jobs, mostly as a metalworker, on the outskirts of Madrid. He heard word of a free astronomy course offered by someone in his neighborhood, and signed up.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Ana Afonso Martin happened upon Alfredo Paniagua's telescope during a weekend visit to Madrid from the Canary Islands.

It was Saturn that hooked him, on the last day of the class. From there, he and a few others formed the Agrupación Astronómica Madrid Sur (South Madrid Astronomical Association) and began bringing an old telescope to schools, hospitals, small towns, and whoever invited them. Most of what he has learned he taught himself, though he eventually became a certified astronomy monitor through the Starlight Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and protecting the night sky. Over time he realized that to reach the most people, he needed to be out on the street.

Something that shouldn’t be taken for granted

So-called sidewalk astronomy dates back to at least the 19th century and was popularized more recently by the late amateur astronomer John Dobson. The value of a telescope should not be measured by size or sophistication, but by “how many people ... got to look through it,” Mr. Dobson said in a 1994 interview.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Héctor Bueno peers at Jupiter through Alfredo Paniagua's telescope while his father looks on.

Meanwhile, a growing dark-sky movement is working to protect the night from light pollution, which grew by nearly 10% every year between 2011 and 2022. For his regular fans, Mr. Paniagua is giving people the chance to appreciate something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

“It’s wonderful, this curiosity about science,” says Mariano Gorroñogoitia, who lives nearby and often stops to greet Mr. Paniagua. “This feeds the spirit.” Mr. Gorroñogoitia points to a light traveling across the sky, now long dark. “Guys, that’s the International Space Station,” Mr. Paniagua calls out down the line. Necks arch upward in response.

Finally his turn, Héctor Bueno approaches the telescope shyly. The boy climbs onto the step stool and squints into the eyepiece, finding just the right angle. His father watches from behind, curious. His mother snaps a photo on her phone.

A few long moments later, Héctor pulls away from Jupiter and comes back down to Earth. Mr. Paniagua is waiting with a smile.

“Did you see it?” he asks, knowing the answer.

Héctor nods, eyes wide. Before his parents can walk away, he gets in line again.

Just before the official release of “Cowboy Carter,” the second act of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance,” I thought about a number of Black artists who had been disrespected by the country music establishment. The most local, if not the most notable, for me, was James Brown.

There’s a recollection of Brown’s March 1979 performance at the Grand Ole Opry from Rolling Stone, which recounted some of the angst from other country music performers. “I could throw up,” piano player Del Wood reportedly said to the Nashville Banner. The Memphis Press-Scimitar offered this headline: “James Brown brings disharmony to Grand Ole Opry.”

It reminded me of the icy reception Beyoncé received at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards, where her performance of “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks drew backlash. That pushback from the CMAs has reportedly inspired her latest work, and much like James Brown didn’t take no mess, neither does Mama Carter.

I love “Cowboy Carter” because among the serenity and severity of the album, there is a brashness that comes through. I can’t stop listening to the thumping “SPAGHETTII” and the strings on “TYRANT,” two tracks with straightforward lead-ins from female country music icons that make way for defiant anthems. The sultry lyrics of “Cowboy Carter,” buoyed by the likes of Black country music icon Linda Martell and legends Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, give roots to Beyoncé’s experimentation. “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” Martell asks at the beginning of “SPAGHETTII,” and Beyoncé wrote on Instagram that “Cowboy Carter” isn’t a country album – it’s a “Beyoncé album.” Her song titles are in all capitals and threaded with Roman numeral II’s throughout, as a visual callback to the album being Act II of “Renaissance.”

Since the April 2016 release of “Lemonade,” Beyoncé’s sense of empowerment through her studio albums has been pronounced, and no one is exempt. I can still visualize a baseball bat-wielding ’Yoncé marching down the street, her lyrics a damning indictment of the behavior of her husband, Jay-Z. The first act of “Renaissance” elicited the spirit of Black disco icons such as Donna Summer, but also saved room for systemic angst, exemplified in phrasing such as “America Has a Problem.”

“Cowboy Carter” opens up with “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” which goes beyond the problem and acknowledges that status quo is what makes this country and establishment go:

Nothing really ends
For things to stay the same, they have to change again
Hello, my old friend
You change your name but not the ways you play pretend
American Requiem

And then, the explicit pushback on notions that she isn’t “country enough”:

Used to say I spoke, “Too country”
And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough
Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but
If that ain’t country, tell me what is

This is a reminder that we’ve known Beyoncé since she was a child – that even when she fell among the stars, it was only a setup for an illuminating career. It would have been easy for Beyoncé to lean into scorn and vindictiveness, taking a Louisville Slugger to country music’s elite institutions. But success has always been her best revenge. “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper,” she told us in 2016’s hit “Formation.”

In that same song, she told women to organize, which is the true beauty of “Cowboy Carter.” This album is a clarion call, an “OK, ladies” to the “Blackbirds” of country music, to giants such as Parton and Martell. (She covers the Beatles classic in “BLACKBIIRD.”) A requiem requires an invocation. Beyoncé, the living successor to Tina Turner, is an evocation. She is Proud Mary on “YA YA.”

“BODYGUARD.” “PROTECTOR.” She’s letting us know where she sits, not just on a throne, but on a horse, as a defender of the past and the present. One of her husband’s most famous lines ends with “no, [I] did that, so hopefully you won’t have to go through that.” So much of pop music has become homogenized, which is why her genre-bending effort shines through. It’s not just informed by history, but also soulful and avenging. 

One of the promos for the album mentioned the “chitlin’ circuit,” which is a fancy way of saying the underground railroad, or the Negro leagues. It is a callback to second-class citizenship, or, rather, to the attempts to instill such policy. Beyoncé, a native of Houston, uses it to affirm her family and musical legacy, and also to uplift the Martells of the world and give them a voice. Sonically, it is “Black Girl Songbook” author’s Danyel Smith’s recollection of unappreciated women in music, and this exhortation – “Shine Bright.”

Another promo featured a taxi driver who rode through the countryside, and a sign: “Radio Texas, 100,000 watts of healing power.” James Brown owned radio stations throughout the country as well, a response to the difficulty Black artists had distributing their music. “If you can’t beat them, buy them.” This sense of capitalism can rub folks the wrong way, and so it went with Brown and Beyoncé. The Black Panthers challenged Brown, and Beyoncé has received criticisms about her radio silence on Gaza.

When Brown said it loud – that he was Black and proud – it resonated. Beyoncé’s efforts at Black reclamation – including Black Panther homages at the Super Bowl and the Grammys – have done the same.

I am finding that the people who criticize her the most are not the targeted audience. I have a good friend, a proud Houstonian, who has followed Beyoncé figuratively and literally, having attended her Coachella set. “I love Beyoncé and she loves me,” Crystal Franks proudly has listed on a social media page.

Quite naturally, she calls “Cowboy Carter” a masterpiece. But she also called this latest episode of “Renaissance” a refrain.

“Once you get past melodies and beats, you’re in the middle of a history repeating itself lesson,” Ms. Franks says. “Overall, I’m pleased with her representation of our past and present in this country. No better woman [or] man for the job of putting America in its place.”

AP

Istanbul Mayor and Republican People's Party, or CHP, candidate Ekrem Imamoglu take photographs with supporters during a campaign rally in Istanbul, Turkey, March 21.

When a democracy faces a leader or a candidate who sows fear and division to gain power, what is the best response? A good answer can be found in a remarkable election on Sunday in Turkey, where voters chose the antithesis of fear.

The country’s main opposition parties easily won elections in 35 municipalities, notably Istanbul and the capital, Ankara. It was a big defeat for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the populist president who has held power for 21 years with the rhetoric and actions of an authoritarian. While voters certainly held the president accountable for a bad economy, they also endorsed the opposition’s style of governance – one that embraces Mr. Erdoğan’s supporters out of humility and respect rather than shuns them.

That inclusive, nonpolarizing approach is summed up by the campaign slogans of the main opposition leader, Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul: “Everything will be fine” and “Love will win.”

Or as his wife posted on social media after her husband’s reelection by a wide margin: “Love and kindness won.”

Mr. İmamoğlu’s party, the center-left Republican People’s Party, adopted a strategy in 2019 called “radical love.” It is a way of listening to the bread-and-butter concerns of Erdoğan supporters while not reacting to the language of hate coming from the ruling Justice and Development Party.

“This is more than a mayoral election,” Mr. İmamoğlu said during the campaign. “It is consigning a mentality to history.” After his win in Istanbul, he said, “With this election, we have brought democracy out from within us.”

As for the president, he seemed unusually contrite after his party’s major election losses in urban areas. Mr. Erdoğan expressed “respect” for the election results – a big change from his reaction to losses in 2019 – and pledged to exercise “self-criticism.” Perhaps the opposition’s use of love tactics is not so radical.