The ladder she’s standing on rattles in the wind, but Havana Dadian’s paintbrush is steady. With freezing fingers, she lays color inch by inch onto the whitewashed wall. The street below is empty, as residents shelter from an approaching storm. 

The muralist was hired to spruce up the working-class neighborhood of Södra Sofielund in Malmö, just blocks from where she grew up. 

More than that, Ms. Dadian is painting for the future of her country. 

“I wanted to shine light on the beautiful soul of Sweden,” she says, gesturing to the sketch on her phone. She is painting a scene from the 1940s, back when this building was home to a neighborhood laundry house. It was a time of community, frugality, and hard work – which she sees as the foundation of Sweden’s egalitarian prosperity.

“Something has happened, and it’s not so certain anymore – the safety, feeling that you have everything you need,” says Ms. Dadian. 

At stake is a uniquely Swedish philosophy: lagom. It’s a difficult-to-translate word meaning not too much, not too little, but about right. The lagom amount is just enough. The lagom solution is reasonable, appropriate, and moderate. The term is often associated with stories of Vikings who passed a bottle of mead around a circle. (Laget om means “around the team.”) To drink too much would be inexcusable; to drink too little would be unsociable. The more likely etymology points to the root lag, or law. In either case, to be lagom is to respect the rules of the group. 

“Lagom is one for all and all for one,” says Ms. Dadian. “It was a way for everyone to come together, for everyone to get their share.”

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Havana Dadian is painting a mural in Malmö, Sweden.

At a time when collective social and economic narratives are under debate around the world, lagom raises quintessential questions about human nature and society. What is the right balance between the individual and the whole? When should we strive for more versus sustaining what we have? And how much is enough, anyway?  

Consistently ranked in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of satisfaction, Sweden is hailed for its success in finding balance between the collective good and individual freedoms. Generous public benefits cover a wide range of basic needs, while a free market economy rewards ingenuity and entrepreneurship. 

Yet Sweden appears to be reaching a turning point. The threads of lagom seem to be fraying, as social services come under increasing stress and politics reach unprecedented levels of polarization. Public discourse, dominated by talk of rising rates of violent crime and gang activity, is bringing to light fears about the erosion of social trust. Some wonder whether the economic pie is still big enough to go around. Others question the very foundation of a growth-based economy, pushing instead for a return to “just enough.” 

“There is this mentality of aiming for the public good, the common good, but it’s being put more and more to the test,” says Åsa Callmer, a postdoctoral fellow at Örebro University, west of Stockholm. “I want to believe that there is some kind of potential for reclaiming lagom as a way of finding ‘good and enough.’” 

Most Swedes don’t contemplate the fate of lagom on a daily basis. In fact, many are surprised by how much international interest a word they view as ordinary has garnered. Yet few would deny that the cultural ethos of lagom has shaped Sweden’s development up to now. 

The country was a poor, agrarian society of low taxes and limited government until the mid-19th century. Without a feudal system, farmers in decentralized villages worked primarily for themselves, laying the foundation for a society with a relatively flat hierarchy that rewarded hard work. These farmers were of minor importance to the government as individuals but powerful as a collective, making cooperation key. 

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Kiruna is one of the mining towns in the northern part of Sweden, Oct. 15, 2023.

Sweden got rich “the same way most rich countries got rich,” says Andreas Bergh, an economist at Lund University, near Malmö. Free trade, open markets, innovation, and the rule of law transformed Sweden into the fourth-richest country per capita on the planet by 1970, helped by abundant natural resources for export and a policy of neutrality during the world wars. 

While socialists in other parts of the world sought complete control over the means of production in the early 20th century, the socialists who gained traction in Sweden took a more lagom tack. They believed in harnessing the power of the market through taxation and redistribution to achieve social goals. By the 1960s, Sweden had one of the most robust social support systems in the world and one of the most egalitarian income distributions.  

“A lagom economy is a pragmatic economy,” says Dr. Bergh. “At its best, Sweden has combined the benefits of a capitalist, well-functioning market economy with a relatively generous social welfare state.”

Salaries may be lower than those for comparable job titles in the United States or United Kingdom. But for many people, that difference is compensated by free education from preschool through university, universal health care, generous pension and unemployment systems, housing allowances, and other social safety measures. The welfare state needs to be lagom, says Dr. Bergh. Benefits can’t be so generous that they reduce work incentives, nor can taxes be so high that they frustrate the broad middle class. 

Social trust – including faith that people are not taking advantage of the system – is a key ingredient in the lagom mentality, “where people share similar interests and work together for the benefit of the group,” says Dr. Bergh. That has long meant widespread support for relatively high taxes, which add up to 41% of Sweden’s gross domestic product, compared with 28% in the U.S.

Recently, however, a new narrative has taken hold among some, suggesting that perhaps Sweden was once the land of lagom – but no longer. 

David Keyton/AP/File

Students read at the Djurgårdsskolan elementary school in Stockholm, Aug. 31, 2023.

A financial crisis in the early 1990s led to near political consensus that the welfare state had become too hefty. Over the past three decades, the government has slashed taxes and public spending. Sectors from education to health care and elder care have increasingly been privatized. 

To some, this privatization is lagom, allowing for a healthy balance between the public and private spheres. In education, under a voucher system, families that prefer an independent school receive the same amount of funding the government spends per student in a public school. 

Others take the privatization as a sign that Sweden is losing its lagom-ness. 

Tax cuts mean there is less funding today for social services. Wait times for health  services have grown notoriously long; during the pandemic, the weaknesses in Sweden’s elder care system became impossible to ignore. And since the 1980s, income inequality has increased more than in any of the other 37 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, though still low by international standards.

Sweden has a reputation of being one of the most welcoming countries in the world for migrants and refugees. A fifth of Sweden’s population of 10.4 million was born abroad. But the integration process has been uneven, and anti-immigration sentiment has intensified in recent years. 

Saleem Akhtar and his family moved from Pakistan to Malmö in 2016. As a business owner, he could have made more money and paid lower taxes somewhere else, but he chose Sweden for its social stability and openness. 

“In Sweden people don’t care if you are rich or poor,” says his son Hammad. His father nods, adding, “People look at me like I’m Swedish only. ... You feel like, this society is ours.” 

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

“People look at me like I’m Swedish only. ... You feel like, this society is ours.” – Saleem Akhtar (front), a business owner who moved with his family to Sweden from Pakistan in 2016

Increasingly, however, the family’s experience seems more the exception than the rule. Neighborhoods have become more segregated, with unemployment rates higher among immigrant communities. With many jobs requiring advanced skills, the Swedish labor market can be prohibitive.That has led to what former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has called “parallel societies.”

“My Swedish friends have an innate safety feeling,” says Ms. Dadian, the muralist, whose mother is Swedish and father is from Lebanon. “[For] my friends with mixed backgrounds, ... it’s starting to feel more like a movie sometimes: drugs, guns, no trust, and much involvement with the police. It can be like different worlds.”

Rising levels of violence and gang activity dominate news cycles as law enforcement struggles to contain a recent surge in crime linked to gang and drug networks. In the first 11 months of 2023, there were 346 shootings and over 140 hand grenade or dynamite explosions. 

“If we don’t handle it very soon and rapidly, we will see larger problems down the road in terms of decreasing social trust and cohesion,” says Dr. Bergh. “Sweden is less and less lagom these days.” 

That matters not only in terms of safety, but also for the future of Sweden’s economy. 

Snow blanketing every surface, Jokkmokk can appear to blend into the dense forest enveloping it. Trees tower over homes organized in neat blocks on either side of a sleepy main street. At night, lamps placed on windowsills shine into the cold. 

In this small town on the Arctic Circle, a tense debate is playing out about how much is enough.

Flyers pinned to the grocery store’s bulletin board advertise groups for knitting, cross-country skiing, and weekly walks around Lake Talvatissjön. Locals distinguish their town from mining cities in the region, where pressure to earn as much as possible and buy the latest car or snowmobile is stronger. 

“There might be a little bit more of a common sense that we don’t need ‘more’ up here,” says resident Anna-Lena Andersson. “Being out in a silent forest is enough.” 

Emma-Sofia Olsson/TT News Agency/Reuters

A person walks their dog in the village of Vittangi, Sweden, Jan. 3, 2024.

This is the heart of Sápmi, the ancestral home of the Indigenous Sámi people, spanning northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Traditional Sámi communities lived nomadically until the mid-20th century, following their reindeer as they migrated from north to south and back again. The lifestyle was lagom by nature, with no room for excess when everything they owned traveled atop sledges pulled by reindeer or on people’s own shoulders. Today, most Sámi people live in houses, drive cars, and use snowmobiles for herding. But many still live by the Sámi principle of birget, which is similar to lagom. 

“Birget means to get by,” says Åsa Larsson Blind, vice president of the Sámi Council. “You take enough to get by, you use enough to get by, but you don’t take more than what you need to get by.”

That worldview is clashing with plans to open an iron ore mine outside Jokkmokk. The region is home to Europe’s richest mineral deposits, hailed by politicians as a promise of continued wealth for Sweden and green energy independence from China and Russia. Mining constitutes 10% of Sweden’s total foreign income. 

In 2022, the Swedish government granted a mining concession to Beowulf Mining for a new mine in Jokkmokk. The prospect has divided the town down the middle. Many in Jokkmokk commute long distances to work in the mines of Gällivare and Kiruna, so working closer to home would be convenient. And a study commissioned by the U.K.-based Beowulf, which has been seeking approval for the new mine since 2013, estimates it would bring 600 million kronor ($57.5 million) in tax revenue for the municipality. The study also says the mine would add 550 jobs in a town of 4,800 residents that struggles with job creation and a shrinking population. 

A petition in support of the mine argues the economic boost it would bring is necessary for Jokkmokk’s survival, helping “people start to have faith in the future.” 

“Development will always take place, so trying to compromise and get as much of the pie as possible has to be better than flat out saying no and getting nothing,” reads the petition. 

Malin Moberg/AP/File

Reindeer in a corral at Lappeasuando near Kiruna, Sweden, await release onto the winter pastures, Nov. 30, 2019.

Not everyone is so sure. Gunnevi Strandh, who runs programming for children at the local church, sums up how she says many in Jokkmokk feel: “Maybe we need that mine, but not here.”

The most vocal opponents have been environmental and Sámi activists, who are appealing the concession. The mine would cut off the only viable migratory route for reindeer and limit grazing pasture, already under pressure due to climate change and other development projects. They say the environmental costs are not worth the short-term benefits of a mine with a projected life span of 14 years.

“We have overspent the resources and overstepped the boundaries of Earth for such a long time. So now we see the consequences of it. We need to once again take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘What is it that we need to get by?’” says Ms. Larsson Blind. 

But not everyone answers that question the same way.

“You decide for yourself what is lagom,” says Iana Nesterova, a visiting researcher in sustainable business studies at Lund University. “This can be quite problematic. It’s a very subjective concept.”

Jon-Mikko Länta, one in a long line of Sámi reindeer herders, has struggled to find that balance in his own life as the cost of living has risen. 

“I was working a lot, all the time, working, working, working. All the money went to buying new stuff, buying new stuff, replacing old stuff,” he says. 

But then he began to simplify. He stopped buying the latest tools and took new pleasure in repairing old things. He bought a piece of land outside the town, where he is building a campsite for visitors – and for his reindeer. He’ll be able to continue herding while supplementing his income and spending more time with his wife and three young children.

It’s a different kind of satisfaction, says Mr. Länta during a lunch break in his kitchen. Dishes are stacked waiting to be washed; half a bottle of milk has been left behind by their 2-year-old. Mr. Länta’s work pants are patched with tape. 

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

Jon-Mikko Länta (left) and his father dig a sewage system on Mr. Länta’s campsite outside Jokkmokk, Sweden, Oct. 16, 2023.

For him, the mine would bring “catastrophic” changes to Jokkmokk, eroding respect for reindeer herding and the natural world. “It pinpoints exactly what’s sick with the Western society. ... [It’s] built upon growth, and as much growth as possible. And that’s completely unsustainable.”  

He wishes debates about the mine would take lagom into account, he says, helping residents “feel the contentness of enough.” 

In Sweden’s business world, many companies are finding that lagom is one of the keys to a profitable organization. Offices tend to clear out by 5 p.m., and employees with kids often leave earlier. In addition to nine public holidays, workers enjoy five weeks of vacation. New parents share 480 days of paid leave between the two, plus a child supplement of 1,250 kronor ($120) per month until the child is 16. Many employers offer a “wellness allowance” of up to 5,000 kronor ($479) each year and a paid “wellness hour” each week. 

“They take their work responsibilities really seriously. But businesses take people’s private lives very seriously, too,” says Niki Brantmark, who moved from the U.K. to Malmö in 2004 and wrote a book titled “Lagom: The Swedish Art of Living a Balanced, Happy Life.” “In many societies work really takes over,” but that’s not the norm in Sweden, she adds. 

The model is working for Sweden’s economy. Labor productivity as a measure of GDP per hour worked is 28% higher in Sweden than the average for countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It also bodes well for business in the long-term, with employees less prone to burnout. Ms. Brantmark appreciates the tendency to focus on the tasks that matter most, and worry less about the things that go beyond what’s needed.

“We really can be perfectionists, always striving to be the best in everything,” she says. “And sometimes it’s enough just to get something done, right?” 

For some, though, lagom itself brings out a kind of idealism. 

Six years ago, Niklas Hegfalk quit a comfortable position teaching, left an apartment in the city, and bought a cabin with no heating in the woods of Småland. To the world’s eyes, he has given up a lot – including warm showers, a washing machine, and his old social circle. To Mr. Hegfalk, he has achieved lagom.

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

“I have less money, but I have more time to be self-sufficient. That is a feeling of being rich.” – Niklas Hegfalk, a permaculture teacher at the Holma Folkhögskola adult education center

“I feel ... more clearly what is important for me in life,” he says. “I have less money, but I have more time to be self-sufficient. That is a feeling of being rich.” 

He had grown frustrated with what he sees as an increasingly consumerist society. Despite Sweden’s ambitious climate targets and relatively low carbon emissions compared with other rich countries, environmentalists are quick to note that Sweden is no model for climate action. If the entire world consumed in the way Sweden does, it would take four planet Earths, according to data from the Global Footprint Network. 

Mr. Hegfalk began a course in permaculture, an approach to agriculture that prioritizes ecological balance, at the Holma Folkhögskola, an education center for adults in Höör. Within a year, he was hired as a teacher. In the principles of permaculture, he sees potential for a more lagom future for society. 

“It is possible to find other ways to live your life,” he says.  

All employees at Holma work 75% time, or six hours a day, taking a corresponding cut in pay. Everyone earns the same salary, from the school director to the most recent hires. Twice a year, the staff holds a meeting dedicated to coming up with creative solutions to the question, how can we live more with less? 

Mr. Hegfalk acknowledges that Sweden’s welfare state makes that challenge easier. But he wonders if Swedes have grown too comfortable. 

“We can get a little bit lazy in Sweden because everything is served on a plate,” he says.

Some say that ease can detract from the collective spirit. With loneliness a public health concern, the city of Luleå recently launched a “say hello!” campaign to encourage residents to talk to each other. 

“It’s like we decided to pay money to the state so that the state looks after everyone, and then we don’t have to look after each other,” says Jonas Wilson, headmaster of Holma. 

Erika Page/The Christian Science Monitor

“This place was built so that there is a balance between nature, climate, and people being well.” – Berit Manell, a retired economist who lives with her husband (also pictured) at Stockholm Royal Seaport

Yet as Sweden continues to build and grow, the touch of lagom can still be felt. For Berit Manell and Janne Berglund, it can be as simple as being able to feed the ducks just a short walk from their front door. As the retired couple make their way to the wooden dock, their friends in the river below circle expectantly. Mr. Berglund pulls a bag of bread bits out of his pocket, and wings flap in excitement. 

The couple were among the first residents of Stockholm Royal Seaport, one of Europe’s largest urban development projects, created on the site of a former gasworks area. 

“This place was built so that there is a balance between nature, climate, and people being well,” says Ms. Manell, gesturing to the homes behind her and the expanse of green space that begins across the river. The neighborhood was designed as a five-minute city. Nearly everything the couple need is at their fingertips: groceries, a bakery, hairdresser, library, bank, deli, and restaurants. 

But is lagom really lagom if it’s out of reach for most? Half of the housing is sold at market prices, while the other half is rented through Stockholm’s housing system. The couple pay 14,000 kronor ($1,342) a month in rent, less than the average in the city center, but still prohibitive for many – and a stretch for them. Mr. Berglund works part time as a bus driver to earn extra cash. 

Ms. Manell wishes the community could be more inclusive. She worries about Sweden’s economy going forward. “It’s become more divided,” says the former economist. 

Back in Malmö, Ms. Dadian packs up her ladder for the season. Her mural has a long way to go, but near-freezing temperatures mean she must wait for spring. 

In a way, Ms. Dadian is not a typical Swede. She is outspoken where others are reserved. She stands out where others blend in. “People say I’m not lagom,” she says, laughing. But she likes to think she is carrying forward the inner compass she sees in her mother and grandmother: that lagom sixth sense that knows when to appreciate what is enough, and when to fight quietly for the collective good.

Even if the spirit of lagom doesn’t appear to be top of mind for many Swedes, she doesn’t believe it’s lost. After all, “we’re all sitting in the same boat,” she says.  

Some 300 miles away, Mr. Berglund finishes tossing pieces of bread into the river. As the couple turn to continue their walk, the ducks squawk, asking for more. He raises his arm in feigned exasperation. 

“That was enough!” he tells them.

John Minchillo/AP/File

Supporters of former president Donald Trump rally near the White House, Jan. 6, 2021. An original script for Mr. Trump’s speech the day after the Capitol insurrection asked the Justice Department to “ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" and said the rioters “do not represent me.” Those words were deleted and never spoken, according to exhibits released earlier this week.

When the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument next week in a case that could see Donald Trump disqualified from the 2024 presidential election, the justices will consider a number of complex and politically fraught questions.

The case, Trump v. Anderson, concerns whether Mr. Trump is barred from running by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The Civil War-era provision holds that anyone who “engages in insurrection” against the United States is disqualified from public office, and last month the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the provision applies to Mr. Trump.

The case is unprecedented, and it raises a host of complex and rarely litigated questions. Among those questions, two stand out as more politically sensitive than any others: Do the events on and around Jan. 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress certified the 2020 election results, constitute an “insurrection” per Section 3? And did Mr. Trump “engage in” that insurrection?

These are the kinds of questions the Supreme Court tends to try to avoid. There are several issues on which the justices could decide the case, so they could still choose to avoid it. Even then, experts say, the court’s silence will be deafening.

What “engaging in insurrection” means 

There is little in Section 3, or elsewhere in the Constitution, clarifying what “engages in insurrection” means. The question is also a fact-specific one, and in the U.S. court system, district courts are considered the main finders of fact. That can be a challenge in election cases, which are often heard on expedited timelines, as this case was. 

In the Anderson case, the district court held a five-day trial that included 15 witnesses and 96 exhibits, with another two weeks for parties to submit other findings of fact and legal arguments. Much of that time was spent analyzing events leading up to and during Jan. 6, including President Trump’s fiery speech to protesters just two hours before they breached the Capitol and his repeated false claims before and during that day that he had won the 2020 election.

But in a dissent to the Colorado Supreme Court decision, Justice Brian Boatright questioned if the district court had enough time and resources to give the case the full evidentiary hearings it deserved. 

A Section 3 case, he wrote, “presents uniquely complex questions that exceed the adjudicative competence of [the code’s] expedited procedures.”

Process questions aside, while the “engaged in insurrection” question is a complex and politically volatile one, it is ultimately a yes/no question.

David Zalubowski/AP

Attorney Eric Olson (far right) argues before the Colorado Supreme Court Dec. 6, 2023, in Denver. That court ruled former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot. The Supreme Court may now decide whether Mr. Trump can stay in the race.

On the “no” side, some legal experts argue that Jan. 6 doesn’t constitute an insurrection because it wasn’t long enough or violent enough. Seven people died during or as a result of that attack. Some scholars also claim that Mr. Trump did not “engage” in their actions. They point to the facts that he spoke before the protest turned violent and he simply watched the violence unfold from the White House. That, they argue, doesn’t justify disqualifying him from the ballot.

Furthermore, they add, the president’s relative inaction that day – including waiting almost three hours to tell supporters to peacefully disband, and choosing to not deploy additional federal law enforcement to the Capitol – doesn’t amount to engaging in insurrection.

“I think he was reveling in what he saw,” says Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ”But that’s different from him having an intent to bring about insurrection and act on that intent, even if the intent was doing nothing.” 

A history of insurrection

In countering these arguments, other legal experts point first to the history of Section 3. For a Supreme Court that places value on history and the original meaning of the Constitution, these arguments could prove compelling.

When the 14th Amendment was ratified, Supreme Court rulings and other legal opinions had coalesced around a four-part definition for “insurrection.” It required an “assemblage” of people resisting “any federal law” by “force or violence,” and had to have “a public purpose.” 

“It would be incorrect for the [justices] to say that Trump did not engage in an insurrection, as ‘engage in insurrection’ was understood” in 1868, says Mark Graber, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law who believes that Mr. Trump should be disqualified.

Historically, Section 3 has also been consistently applied to people who haven’t been first convicted of insurrection. The drafters viewed the provision as an additional, civil law consequence of engaging in insurrection, separate from other legal punishments.

Mariam Zuhaib/AP

A U.S Supreme Court police officer patrols outside the court, Jan. 5, 2024, in Washington.

“Section 3 is a civil remedy,” says Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law. If Mr. Trump is disqualified, he adds, “you’re not putting him in jail; you’re not taking his property away. ... He’s not in office, [so] you’re not taking his office away.”

More importantly, he argues, Section 3 doesn’t disenfranchise voters. “You can’t take away someone’s right to vote unless you convict them of a felony,” he says. But “saying a particular person they want to vote for is ineligible [isn’t] the same as taking away their right to vote.”

Shifting the focus 

Next week, the nine justices may probe attorneys on these questions. But the “engaged in insurrection” issue is both fact-dependent and politically fraught. When deciding the case, the court may focus on other issues.

The court “isn’t going to want to review factual claims about what happened on Jan. 6,” says Professor Lessig. “Instead, you’re going to see them try to decide the case in a way that’s based solely on the law.”

But even if the justices base their ruling on other issues – such as whether Section 3 is self-executing or covers the presidency – some experts say they will have to make some statement about Jan. 6.

The case has drawn comparisons to other monumental cases in Supreme Court history. These cases combine serious legal implications with issues that divided the country. With Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, it was segregation. With United States v. Nixon in 1974, it was Watergate.

With Trump v. Anderson in 2024, it will be Jan. 6 and the false claim that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election. The justices dismissed some challenges to the 2020 presidential election results. So this will be the high court’s first case concerning the subsequent attack on the Capitol.

“The rhetoric in these opinions is going to be very important,’’ says Professor Magliocca.

Two dozen honey jars sit stacked in a pyramid on a card table, their swirls of rich gold catching the early morning sunlight. Producer Denis Grosset stands patiently, waiting for his next customer at this outdoor market in east Paris.

The calm scene is a far cry from the revving tractors and bales of hay blocking major highways just a few miles outside the city. Mr. Grosset says that after the market closes, he’ll pack up his truck and join farmers in protests that originated in southwest France and have spread across the country.

“What’s happening to French farmers is a scandal,” says Mr. Grosset, who produces lavender- and chestnut-flavored honey in southeast France. “We all need to be in solidarity with one another. If we don’t speak out, who will?”

Like Mr. Grosset, French farmers have a list of grievances: rising production costs, excessive regulations on green policies, and free trade agreements that have choked their ability to earn a living.

But the farming community is not a monolith. It consists of various political and ideological groups, ranging from the right-wing FNSEA, France’s most powerful farmer’s union that is leading the protests, to small organic producers.

The demonstrations have been shaped by demands made by FNSEA President Arnaud Rousseau, a grain and oil producer with 1,700 acres of land and a top figure in French agribusiness. But other, small-scale landowners wonder just how much their own interests are being addressed by the agenda of figures like Mr. Rousseau. Can the protest movement unite, not divide, farmers in order to have a true impact?

“Agricultural production in France has gone down, farmers are bogged down by paperwork. ... Lots of things are not right,” says Vincent Chatellier, an economist at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment. “We’re focusing on their economic demands now, but this movement is largely sociological. It shows a profound malaise, an anger amongst farmers that they’re misunderstood by the public, and a feeling of doubt about their future.”

“Farmers need to see the point”

France is the largest agricultural producer in the European Union and the sixth-largest worldwide. But 17% of French farming households live below the poverty line, with some earning just €500 ($541) per month. In 2020, the rate of suicide among farmers was 43% higher than the national average, according to Mutuelle Sociale Agricole, the sector’s main health insurance provider.

French farmers have been deeply affected by rising costs of energy, transport, and fertilizer, as the government tries to bring down food inflation. They also take issue with several EU free trade agreements, which have allowed foreign products such as meat to enter the country without abiding by French quality controls, and offered products to consumers at more competitive prices – at the expense of local farmers.

Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

Members of gendarmerie stand guard on the A6 highway during a farmers protest close to Chilly-Mazarin, France, Jan. 31, 2024.

Meanwhile, many criticize the European Green Deal, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases and provide healthier soil across the continent. But it has tangled farmers in red tape and failed to offer affordable, environmentally friendly alternatives to tools such as pesticides, which they rely on to increase output.

“Farmers need to see the point of these measures,” says François Purseigle, a sociologist at the École Nationale Supérieure Agronomique in Toulouse. “If you tell a farmer not to remove weeds from a ditch in order to protect biodiversity but then it causes the ditch to overflow, that directive no longer has purpose. The norms need to correspond to a farmer’s reality, or they won’t be accepted.”

The FNSEA, the pro-environment Confédération Paysanne union, and the more protectionist Coordination Rurale union largely agree on reducing France’s dependence on free trade deals and boosting the country’s food sovereignty. They’re equally pushing for better working conditions and salaries, and for less time spent on administrative tasks.

But where farmers diverge is primarily on green policies. The FNSEA and the Jeunes Agriculteurs union, with which the FNSEA is closely aligned, have called for a tax break on agricultural fuel used for tractors, after the government moved to gradually reduce state subsidies. And the FNSEA’s Mr. Rousseau has defended the use of pesticides and said he would support the development of genetically modified organisms.

Ludovic Marin/AP/File

Arnaud Rousseau, current president of the FNSEA, a grain and oil producer with 1,700 acres of land, and a top figure in French agribusiness, poses during the opening day of the International Agriculture Fair in Paris, Feb. 25, 2023.

Discomfort among the unions

But such measures have made some farmers, especially organic food growers, feel sidelined from the national movement. Others take issue with the unions at the forefront of the protests.

The far-right Coordination Rurale farmer’s union has taken extreme measures, spraying town halls with manure and this week blockading the entrance to the massive Rungis wholesale food market outside Paris – the lifeline to French food supply. 

“I don’t feel represented whatsoever by [Mr. Rousseau], who runs hundreds of hectares of land and works for [French oilseed group] Avril, which produces biofuel,” says Marc Baudrey, a sheep farmer in the Vosges department and a member of the Confédération Paysanne. He says he feels conflicted about whether to join the protests.

“A lot of these measures they’re asking for go against the environment,” Mr. Baudrey says. “At the same time, a farm is a business, and if you have negative output, you have negative revenue. So we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Denis Perreau, a grain and sheep farmer near Dijon and a member of the Confédération Paysanne, says protesters have been too focused on small, short-term measures. Mr. Perreau says that only “strong, long-term solutions” will work to fight climate change and protect food sovereignty.

“We want to reinforce our industry”

This week, the French government announced several measures in response to the protests, agreeing to a tax break on agricultural fuel and temporarily pausing a plan that would halve the use of pesticides by 2030. It also announced €150 million in fiscal and social aid to farmers, and better checks and balances on food entering France.

“We will write the objective of food sovereignty into law,” French Interior Minister Gabriel Attal said Thursday. “We want to reinforce our industry, sector by sector.”

Those measures have been enough to satisfy the FNSEA’s Mr. Rousseau, who on Thursday said protesting farmers should return to their farms but maintain pressure on their local officials to keep the government at its word.

But the more environmentalist Confédération Paysanne is using the current momentum to push its demands further and has encouraged protesters to continue, in the absence of a satisfactory government response on farmers’ salaries and free trade deals, and a backtracking on green bills.

As the protest movement splinters, transitioning from highways to city halls, farmers will have another chance to air their grievances at the big annual International Agricultural Show at the end of February. But for now, there is a sense of the need to seize the moment – regardless of personal beliefs.

“There’s this feeling now that we’re finally being heard, that there is some visibility for what we’re going through,” says Mr. Perreau. “It’s the moment to join together.”

He was sitting on a low stone wall in a park in Moscow. He wore heavy black boots, tight black pants, a black jacket, and a sheepskin shapka on his head. He had military medals pinned to his chest. He sat calmly watching as people walked past. A few were walking alone. Some were talking to each other. Families were taking their children for a stroll.

His eyes were narrow, set in a weather-worn face featuring deep wrinkles across his brow, nose, and cheeks. His mouth, framed by a clipped mustache, seemed set in a subtle smile.

I watched him watching. I felt an urge to connect and walked toward the wall.

It was June 1983, and Russia was still part of the powerful Soviet Union. It was the middle of the Cold War. My wife, Peggy, and I were visiting four cities in the Soviet Union through Intourist, the government travel agency, and the only reasonable way of seeing life behind the Iron Curtain. We had visited what was then Leningrad, Kyiv, Odesa, and, finally, Moscow.

We saw several sites from the 1980 Olympics, which the United States and other countries had boycotted. Even three years later, it was a difficult subject. The boycott had cost Russia millions of dollars, but more importantly, it had cost the nation stature in the world. We had seen hundreds of propaganda posters showing the evil nature of the U.S. and its European allies. We had talked to a group of boys on the street who had said, “Mr. Reagan is a man of war. Mr. Andropov is a man of peace,” referring to the two nations’ leaders.

The influence of the Soviet Union extended beyond its border. The Berlin Wall still split that city, and the removal of that divider seemed unimaginable, even though it would happen six years later.

We had felt the tension of the times every day, and while we had been fascinated to see the Soviet Union, we were wearing down and looking forward to leaving. On our final day in Moscow, we had opted for a long walk, and that is when we saw the Russian man in the park.

He showed no surprise or concern as I walked toward him. His dark eyes met mine and we measured each other. Both my clothing and my curiosity would have told him I was American, but he did not move, nor take his eyes off me.

I had been taking photos in the park, so I still held my camera in my hand. When I moved within a few feet of him, I stopped. I moved my camera forward and then pointed to him. Without changing his eyes or his smile, he leaned forward and slowly rose to standing. He straightened and pulled his shoulders back, thrusting his chest and medals forward. It wasn’t a boastful pose, but more a motion of deep pride, of ingrained dignity.

I wished I could speak Russian. I sensed he had lived his life well, and I tried to imagine his story.

Did he have a family? What was his legacy? Had he chosen his place in life, or had he been forced, like so many others, to fight in wars like the current one in Ukraine? Was he happy in the present, or was he reliving moments from his past? What did he think of me, standing with my camera wanting to take pictures of him?

He spoke no English, so we faced each other in silence. I lifted my camera and took several photos of him. His expression never changed. His eyes were steady, his smile sustained.

When I finished, I lowered my camera.

“Spasiba,” I said. Thank you, one of the few phrases I had learned in Russian. His face changed into a full smile. I smiled back. Feeling I had bothered him enough, I turned, and we resumed our walk through the park.

After several strides, I glanced back. He had returned to his seat on the wall, again watching the people walking. I hadn’t been able to talk to him. We couldn’t share the essential stories that strangers often give to each other during these brief encounters, but I did read his face, felt his body language, and sensed a strong and memorable character. 

It is interesting how we can, at times, feel a deep connection to another person that transcends geography, borders, culture, and language. Even though it was the Cold War and he was technically “the enemy,” I felt his humanity. It was an important lesson then, and is equally important today with the conflicts and tensions pressing our world. Forty years later, I still have images of him in my mind, of his peaceful pose in a time and place that history would show was anything but pleasant.

Reuters

Revellers play in the Indian Ocean waters at the Liido beach in Mogadishu, Somalia Jan. 5.

This year marks an important transition in Somalia. A multinational force led by the African Union will begin drawing down its presence. For the first time in three decades, the world’s longest-faltering state is assuming full control of its own security.

That has many international observers holding their breath. During his first year in office, starting in May 2022, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made impressive early military gains against his country’s main threat. In recent months, however, the extremist group Al Shabab has shown it won’t go quietly.

Solving the problem of violent extremism is the critical security challenge in Africa, and Somalia is a key battleground in that effort. Yet to focus just on the country’s military fortunes misses a key part of its defenses and Somalia’s most important lesson in rebuilding so-called failed states. The nation’s real strength rests in the insistence of ordinary Somalis to reclaim the story of the country as a place where unity, dignity, and creativity flourish.

One project seeding that mental renewal is an effort to digitize the prewar archive of Radio Mogadishu. It includes hundreds of thousands of broadcasts and interviews on decaying reel-to-reel tapes. The recordings are preserving the only known surviving oral history of Somalia dating from before independence in 1951, nearly a decade before independence, to 1991, when the station was shut down at the start of civil war.

Together, the recordings capture a country that most of its citizens have never known, a vibrant society where sports, poetry, architecture, and music flourished. The tapes include plays, prayers, and political debates.

The archive survived three decades of urban warfare among rival clans through the efforts of a few individuals who saw it less as a record of the past than as a portrait of Somalia’s potential. “There’s a narrative implicit in the histories being told,” noted Philip Sherburne, a music critic who reviewed a compilation of tracks drawn from the archive. “Radio Mogadishu, a government station, played a unifying role. ... It is a story of openness that is at stark odds with the past few decades of Somalia’s history.”

Reclaiming such views of Somalia’s past isn’t an act of nostalgia. It is about reminding Somalis today that they are capable far beyond the dysfunction they have endured. One measure of that mental transformation is a resurgence of sports for girls in recent years. Once banned by Al Shabab, basketball and soccer leagues are thriving again in Somalia and drawing communities together. Men are among the most active fans.

“Since we started playing, community perception of us has completely changed,” said Aniso Abdiazis, a female player who helped break through social resistance to sports for girls a few years ago. “People who used to shame us, now clap for us,” she told the U.S. Agency for International Development.

As they have lost ground, Somalia’s extremist groups have lately started their own broadcasting outlets to try to shift public perception back in their favor. They face stiff resistance.

“My aim was to protect this important heritage for the Somali people,” said Abshir Hashi Ali, a former police officer working to digitize the Radio Mogadishu tapes. During the decades of urban warfare among rival clans, he said, “there were always good people ... who helped me save this precious treasure.”