On this day a year ago, America turned the page from a most controversial president and toward a familiar face – one who many hoped could bring the nation together amid profound challenges. 

President Joe Biden centered his inaugural address on the theme of unity. A year later, the nation is as divided as ever, at least in modern times, and the challenges are just as acute: the pandemic, inflation, climate change, threats from major global adversaries. The new chief executive’s public approval has tanked. 

Can President Biden turn his fortunes around? His press conference Wednesday – a nearly two-hour marathon, aimed at both defending his performance and launching a reset – was a mixed bag. His eyebrow-raising statement on Ukraine, saying he expected Russia to invade, merited quick clarification from his press office and a follow-up from the president himself on Thursday. His murky pronouncement on the legitimacy of coming elections, if voting rights legislation doesn’t pass, also sparked a response from his press secretary.

But his willingness to change course on a stalled agenda, as well as his display of stamina, was also reassuring to some. 

Mr. Biden’s challenge is steep, particularly in these highly polarized times, analysts say. But many other first-year presidents have struggled – and watched their party get trounced in midterm elections – only to recover and win reelection. 

Mr. Biden’s task is multifold. He needs to log demonstrable successes, especially in the battle against COVID-19 and in the economy; avoid foreign policy disasters; and strengthen his public image. 

His first year, like the press conference, produced mixed results. The economy’s recovery of jobs lost to the pandemic was strong, and early on, he implemented two major programs. In March, passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan provided funding for vaccines, schools, small businesses, and anti-poverty programs. And his administration launched a vaccine distribution program hailed for its speed and wide availability to those who chose to vaccinate. 

“They got off to a really strong start,” says William Galston, a domestic policy adviser under President Bill Clinton. “That may have convinced them that they just had to keep on going, and all would be well. Well, they kept on going and all wasn’t well.”

Over the summer, the delta variant caused COVID-19 caseloads to surge again. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was chaotic. Inflation, which the administration initially dismissed as transitory, has grown to a 40-year high. Mr. Biden’s big spending package, the $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act, has hit a wall in Congress, as has voting rights legislation the president calls essential to preserving American democracy. 

David Dermer/AP

The Biden administration this week launched a website for American households to order four free at-home COVID-19 tests, at COVIDTests.gov. The administration had drawn criticism for not anticipating the widespread shortages of at-home tests during the recent COVID-19 surge.

When it comes to the pandemic – arguably the president’s most pressing challenge – top federal officials have faced criticism for confusing messaging and not being nimble enough with policy responses. With the omicron variant pushing caseloads to new highs, availability of test kits has lagged demand, as school districts and businesses have struggled to stay open.

“Doing the equivalent of hanging a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner over the White House on July 4 weekend was not wise,” says Mr. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

Test kits are about to arrive in homes across the country, courtesy of the federal government; a website that allows every household to order four free kits went live this week. And Mr. Biden is regrouping on his domestic agenda. At Wednesday’s press conference, he discussed breaking up Build Back Better and passing smaller pieces now – noting climate change and universal prekindergarten – then fighting for the rest later. 

A major bright spot for Mr. Biden in his first year was the November passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which will bring benefits to Americans across the country with investments in roads, bridges, water pipes, and rural broadband. Significantly, it passed with Republican votes, unlike the American Rescue Plan. 

Still, the president’s political capital has plummeted. The Gallup poll’s first measure of Mr. Biden’s job approval after taking office came in at 57% – well above the 51% of votes he won in defeating President Donald Trump. Now Mr. Biden is at 40%. During his first year in office, Gallup reports, the president averaged 49% approval, with only President Trump coming in lower (38%) among first-term presidents elected after World War II. Gallup also notes that Mr. Biden’s approval ratings reflect record political polarization for a first-year president.

Mr. Biden still has the muscle memory of a longtime senator who loved working across the aisle, welcoming meetings with members of both parties and speaking highly of Republicans – even those who have made clear they don’t want him to succeed. 

“I actually like Mitch McConnell,” he said Wednesday, referring to the Senate GOP leader. But, he said later, “the public doesn’t want me to be the ‘president senator.’ They want me to be the president, and let senators be senators.”

It was a reminder that the American presidency is as much a mindset as a job – and one that involves major on-the-job training, even for a man who served two terms as vice president and 36 years in the Senate before that. 

Andrew Harnik/AP

President Joe Biden (left) and Vice President Kamala Harris (foreground) attend a meeting with members of the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, Jan. 20, 2022. Allies believe that once infrastructure projects get off the ground in the spring, following passage last November of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the president's public image will rebound.

Looking ahead, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake predicts Mr. Biden’s public image will improve – particularly come spring, when infrastructure projects can start. 

“In April and May, it will be a very different ballgame,” says Ms. Lake, who does work for Mr. Biden and the Democratic National Committee. “Right now, nobody’s repairing a bridge or building a highway – you can’t do that with snow on the ground in places like Michigan and Wisconsin.”

She ascribes Mr. Biden’s low job approvals to people feeling upset with the direction of the country, and taking it out on the president. 

“We need to communicate better – as Democrats and as the administration – the accomplishments that have happened,” she says, while acknowledging that the pandemic and inflation are two “kitchen table” issues hitting voters every day and dragging the president down. 

Ms. Lake predicts that the midterm election campaigns now kicking into gear will provide oxygen to the president, as Democrats around the country defend his record. 

Black voters are a key constituency for Mr. Biden, and keeping that part of his base energized will be crucial. A recent study by Robert C. Smith, a political scientist at San Francisco State University, concluded that the Biden administration has been “the most responsive to Black interests since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.” 

Even if Mr. Biden fails to pass voting rights legislation, as now seems certain, he needed to be seen trying, Professor Smith says. 

“A number of Black voting rights activists thought he wasn’t aggressive enough” in pushing to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate so the legislation could pass with a simple majority, he says. “He had to make that speech [on Jan. 11 in Atlanta] to let them know that he was doing everything he could. And he did.”

Perhaps Mr. Biden’s biggest unkept campaign promise – aside from “shutting down the virus” – is his pledge to unify the country. On its face, it seemed an unrealistic pledge, given the many factors feeding the nation’s political polarization, from partisan sorting along geographic lines to media echo chambers. There’s also the Trump effect: a one-term president who has refused to concede his loss, and may well run again, unlike other defeated former presidents in the modern era. 

“I don’t think Biden’s problems are because he follows Trump,” says Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University. “And polarization didn’t start with Trump. But he’s escalated it, and that’s the most important thing that has made governing so difficult for Joe Biden.” 

Noah Berger/AP/File

Trucks line up to enter a Port of Oakland shipping terminal in California on Nov. 10, 2021. For months, many economists attributed rising consumer prices to supply chain challenges including the pandemic's effect on production and shipping. Many finance experts now say the price pressures may require tighter monetary policy to fix.

It’s the kind of record any president would envy. Economic growth in 2021 is forecast to have reached a 38-year high. Jobs are being added at a historic pace. The administration – and some others – are calling it the “Biden boom.”

But the American public is skeptical. After one year in office, President Joe Biden’s approval rating is slipping to lows that Donald Trump experienced for most of his presidency.

A key reason? Inflation is also on a tear and is beginning to undercut the otherwise thriving economy that Mr. Biden inherited. The damage is minimal so far, but the trends are ominous for Democrats. The Federal Reserve is likely to begin throttling back growth just as voters begin to make up their minds about the direction of the economy. When they go to the polls this November to vote for members of Congress, will they perceive a Biden boom or a sticker-shock bust?

Rising prices are important for ​reasons that go well beyond politics. When untamed, inflation itself can threaten economic growth by eroding consumer and business confidence – and damaging household finances as prices surge faster than incomes. And if Americans expect ​it to be lasting, they will make purchasing decisions that exacerbate inflation and complicate the Fed’s efforts to control it.​

“The Fed is behind the curve,” says Frederic Mishkin, an economist at Columbia Business School and former Fed governor. “They are going to have to tighten more than they otherwise would.”

To counteract inflation, central bankers typically “tighten” monetary conditions – by raising interest rates, for example. However, those actions can cool demand and slow the economy, often resulting in a recession. And if there’s one thing voters like even less than inflation, it’s slow or negative economic growth, research shows.

Nam Y. Huh/AP/File

A hiring sign is seen outside an employment agency in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, on Dec. 3, 2021. The year was one of the fastest for job creation in U.S. history. Unemployment is low and wages are growing. Yet rising prices have shaken consumers – contributing to a fall in indexes of their economic confidence.

This is what scares Democrats. Heading into midterm elections where their prospects for holding onto the House and Senate already look shaky, they don’t want to get saddled with high inflation or a weak economy. At his first solo press conference in 10 months, Mr. Biden on Wednesday acknowledged that inflation was bad: “People see it at the gas pumps, the grocery stores, and elsewhere.” And he endorsed efforts to fight the surge in prices, pointing out that it was the Fed’s responsibility.

Inflation rises on the worry list

The surge in prices is undeniable. Inflation last month rose at an annual rate of 7%, the highest 12-month increase since 1982, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even using “core inflation” measures, which strip away sectors where prices can swing widely, the price surge is ratcheting up. 

And its effects are beginning to be felt. Average hourly earnings rose by a strong 4.7% for 2021, but that turns out to be more than a 2% pay cut once adjusted for inflation. An index of consumer sentiment is lower now than during a spring 2020 dip as the pandemic began.

The Biden administration pins the blame on the pandemic and says supply chain issues will get worked out over time and inflation will then abate.

“Given that it is a supply-demand mismatch that really is a result of the pandemic, the reason ... forecasters are expecting that inflation will ease is we do expect that this pandemic will moderate,” Cecilia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an online symposium with the Council on Foreign Relations last week. 

That argument becomes harder to make the longer high inflation persists. In a Conference Board survey of U.S. CEOs released last week, inflation was the No. 2 external challenge after labor shortages; a year ago, it barely registered on CEOs’ radar at No. 22. Even Federal Reserve policymakers, who spent most of last year agreeing with the administration that inflation was transitory, have dropped the term and are signaling a tougher stance. 

Did federal stimulus play a role?

Conservatives point to another major culprit for inflation: federal spending. Many economists applauded the initial $2 trillion pandemic relief act that President Trump signed in early 2020 for containing the economic damage after government-mandated shutdowns. But subsequent Trump spending measures poured another $2.8 trillion into the economy, followed by $2.7 trillion in Biden initiatives, with promises to spend even more. That money has pumped up demand. 

“To this day, [Democrats and their supporters] blame the inflation on supply-chain problems and the usual suspects: big business, insufficient antitrust enforcement and greedy profiteers,” write former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm and Mike Solon of US Policy Metrics, an economic and public policy research firm in Washington, in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. “They never blame government.” 

Inflation is not uniformly bad. Like other economic changes, it creates winners as well as losers. Homeowners see the value of their homes go up and the burden of fixed-rate mortgages go down. Renters, by contrast, see only rising rents. A recent Bank of America study found that lower-income and less-educated households save less and are spending a greater percentage of their incomes on high-inflation goods, such as energy, food, and cars and trucks, than higher-income and more-educated households are. The inflation surge has cut the spending of households where no one holds a college degree by 4.6% versus only 3.0% for those with a college degree.

Forecasting when inflation falls is difficult, even without the complications of a pandemic. The latest survey of professional forecasters, released in November, called for the consumer price index to drop back to a 2.5% or lower annual rate of growth in the second half of this year. Now, some forecasters see the Fed imposing three quarter-point increases this year in the federal funds rate, which the central bank typically uses to influence short-term interest rates.

Even with those moves, the federal funds rate would still be below a percentage point, hardly an aggressive tightening, points out Laurence Ball, an economist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

If the pandemic ends over the course of this year, it’s still reasonable to expect inflation to slow and the economy to bounce back without drastic action from the Fed, he adds. But “I’m in the group of people that has been somewhat chastened. I wrote things early last year that this [inflation] thing would be gone pretty soon, and that hasn’t been the case.”

Prime Minister’s Questions, the weekly interrogation of Britain’s top office by elected officials, is always a dramatic high point in Parliament. But Wednesday’s encounter was truly extraordinary: a cacophony of voices – not just from opposition parties but from a senior figure in the governing Conservatives – with a single, bracing message for Prime Minister Boris Johnson: It is time for you to go.

When, or whether, he will do so remains unclear.

But the pressure on him is building, only two years after an election victory that gave his party a commanding majority in the House of Commons. And while Mr. Johnson has a long record of parrying such political challenges, this time seems very different.

The main item on the charge sheet – hypocrisy – isn’t new. Rather, what might be called the new politics of the pandemic are in place: a deeper change in the atmosphere, and the rules, defining what’s seen as acceptable in a political leader.

Mr. Johnson’s main misstep might have been tricky to defend even in more ordinary times: He sanctioned, and in at least one case joined, food-and-drink parties in the official Downing Street residence, at the very time his government’s lockdown rules barred such gatherings for the rest of the country.

But now, it’s personal. It’s being felt as a visceral affront by the many millions of Britons – including voters and politicians who have supported him through earlier political challenges – who have been following the rules, seeing their own family’s lives turned upside down during two long years of the pandemic.

“Everybody knows the stories of relatives attending births via Zoom, not meeting grandchildren, or failing to be present with a dying relative in the critical last moments,” explains Andrew Russell, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool.

The anger being directed at the prime minister and his Downing Street team, he says, is because they’re seen as “not taking that [sacrifice] seriously.”

A failure of fairness

Political reproach has come and gone during Mr. Johnson’s 2 1/2 years as prime minister, including over a plan to seize control of a parliamentary anti-corruption watchdog following a cash-for-access scandal, as well as allegations of party donors paying for the refurbishment of the prime minister’s residence.

But Mr. Johnson has survived the controversies largely thanks to the support he amassed due to Brexit and the patient attitude of the public toward his pandemic policies.

UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Reuters

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during Prime Minister's Questions at Parliament in London, Jan. 19, 2022. The event was largely seen as humiliating for Mr. Johnson, as it featured both a Tory MP's defection to the opposition Labour Party and a senior Tory MP calling for Mr. Johnson to resign.

Yet now, there’s real anger, and it shows little sign of fading. As he did during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr. Johnson has attempted to fend off questions over the parties by saying that critics need to wait until an official inquiry, being carried out by Cabinet Office civil servant Sue Gray, is completed.

But regardless of the outcome of the inquiry, the Downing Street parties broke what Daniel Finkelstein, political columnist at The Times newspaper, describes as the core bond of “reciprocity” with voters. Expecting others to lock down while not doing so themselves has “triggered the fairness norm” in voters’ minds, Mr. Finkelstein says.

The idea of sacrifice has also changed. Professor Russell says the hardships of the pandemic accelerated a sense of togetherness that Britons dub “the Blitz spirit.” While that has somewhat faded as lockdown regulations eased, the pandemic has lifted ideas that altruism and sacrifice are for so-called celebrities as much as for the ordinary citizen.

Earlier in the pandemic, lesser figures around Mr. Johnson experienced the political effects of the anger that their failure to live up to the public’s sense of fairness generated.

When government scientist Neil Ferguson broke lockdown rules, he had to resign. The same happened when former Health Secretary Matt Hancock was found to have breached the social distancing guidelines he had long asked others to follow.
 
And the new pandemic-era intensity of grassroots resentment of such breaches is becoming evident outside Britain as well, most recently in the controversy surrounding tennis star Novak Djokovic’s attempt to to compete in the Australian Open – despite his decision to forgo the vaccinations required for other visitors to Australia.

There’s a growing sense among many people, says Patrick Diamond, a former policy adviser in Downing Street, that there is “one rule for the government and the rich” and another rule for the rest. “That has struck home.”

And it’s hitting home for Mr. Johnson especially. He rose to political prominence in large part due to an ability to connect with ordinary people, to communicate and entertain them in equal measure. But news of the Downing Street parties has appeared in the media in a slow drip-drip, contributing to a sense of unending exposed breaches – and frustration that has now reached a critical mass. “All of a sudden, he finds himself no longer of the people. He looks very much like the elite, doing what he wants,” says Dr. Diamond, now a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.

Are the walls crumbling for Boris?

The debate could be fatal for Mr. Johnson’s tenure, as he faces a growing number of calls to quit. A leadership contest would be triggered if 15% of Tory members of Parliament (54 of them) send a letter of “no confidence” to the powerful Conservative backbench 1922 Committee. There is speculation in the media that between 20 and 40 letters have already been sent to the committee.

Dr. Diamond says that part of the prime minister’s fightback plan is to throw “red meat that will please the Tory base.” The government has already announced plans to take away the BBC funding and send the Royal Navy to push back refugee boats coming from France, both moves popular with the party core. The pressure the prime minister is under also may spur him to enact more radical policies in an attempt to deal with the rising cost of living.

But if Mr. Johnson is found to have breached the ministerial code, his position will become untenable not just to ministers, but to the very people who helped elect him.

Mr. Johnson owes his majority to “red wall” constituencies in the north of England, so called because they long supported the Labour Party, whose color is red. Many of those communities flipped to Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019, but they have suffered disproportionately in the pandemic. On Wednesday, one of the Tory MPs elected in 2019 in the red-wall region defected to Labour in dramatic fashion, perhaps another sign that Mr. Johnson’s time is running out.

“Voters, especially those in left-behind areas of the country, are constantly in search of trustworthy politicians who can revive their hope in politics,” says Sam Bright, an investigative political journalist from Huddersfield, a red-wall constituency. “Yet, when a politician shatters those hopes, people are unforgiving.”

Manu Fernandez/AP

A woman wearing an FFP2 face mask to curb the spread of COVID-19 sits in a coffee bar in Madrid. Spain and other European countries are stiffening mask mandates so as to avoid lockdowns and other restrictions on daily life.

Zero COVID. That was the alluring refrain – and understandable goal – of countries around the world at the outset of the pandemic.

Not any longer.

More and more governments are concluding that “zero” is an unattainable target, or at least an unsustainable one, given the huge social and economic costs of lockdowns. A new consensus goal is emerging, summed up last week by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez: not shutting out COVID-19, but finding a strategy to live with it.

And that’s part of a deeper shift in the political landscape of the pandemic, with potential implications for major democracies even if it does begin to wane. At issue is the fundamental relationship between governments and the governed.

During the early stages of the coronavirus, the sheer scale of the challenge facing the world rekindled many citizens’ fraying trust in their governments. They realized that, especially in time of crisis, there were some things that only governments could do.

But the move toward “living with” the virus is being powered by political leaders’ recognition of the limits to effective government action; many accept that making the new approach work will ultimately depend on their citizens’ individual choices about how to behave.

This shift in thought is occurring at different speeds in different countries, and it could still be rerouted by a new turn in the pandemic. But the trend is clear, aside from China, which remains wedded to zero COVID-19 in the run-up to next month’s Beijing Olympics.

Spain is not the only European country eyeing a new approach. A number of its neighbors are also moving toward loosening mandates and controls.

In Israel, a precursor and model for pandemic policies in other countries since early in the pandemic, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett this month ruled out imposing a fourth lockdown, saying that it wouldn’t just be costly. It wouldn’t work.

Ariel Schalit/AP

People, some wearing protective face masks, line up for COVID-19 tests in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 4, 2022. Israel's prime minister says a fourth vaccination against the coronavirus boosts antibodies, but has ruled out imposing a fourth lockdown, saying it would not work.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – who not only pursued zero COVID-19, but for a long time achieved it – has also concluded that the goal is no longer possible.

None of this means that governments have decided to throw up their hands and do nothing. But they are shifting toward more targeted public health measures, such as widespread masking or vaccine passports. Except in China, full-scale lockdowns are becoming a measure of last resort, considered only if health care systems are under make-or-break pressure.

An immediate catalyst for the change has been the latest coronavirus variant, omicron, whose rampant transmissibility appears, at least so far, to be offset by reduced virulence. That’s why the Spanish prime minister felt able to suggest that European Union countries start moving toward gripalización, treating COVID-19 much like the flu.

But the change had begun gathering pace before omicron, and the reason was political: growing public frustration with what looked like an endless series of repeated shutdowns and constraints without any sign of light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

Governments are also wary of the huge cost of lockdowns, both to the employees and businesses whose work was disrupted, and to the national treasuries providing the financial support to cushion their effects. So there is every likelihood the new policy trend will strengthen further in the weeks and months ahead.

But there are two major imponderables that bear watching.

The first involves the great zero-COVID-19 holdout, China. Braced for the effects of omicron, and focused on making the Olympics a success, the authorities have imposed new lockdowns in recent weeks. Some 20 million Chinese are now unable to leave their homes.

Politically, the government’s tools of control and enforcement mean President Xi Jinping need not worry about popular pushback.

Yet this is a big year for him politically, with a party congress in the autumn poised to reanoint him in office, with no set term limits. His coronavirus response has become a core part of his contention that the “Chinese model” has proved superior to that of Western-style democracies. So the question for Beijing isn’t whether it can lock down large parts of the country; it’s whether lockdowns will prevent the spread of omicron.

cnsphoto/Reuters

Student passengers show their COVID-19 test results to workers in protective suits before entering a railway station in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian, as the Spring Festival travel rush kicks off ahead of Lunar New Year next month.

Nor is China immune to the economic costs of its pursuit of zero COVID-19. The latest lockdowns are already raising international concern over the prospect of new interruptions in Chinese business and trade, with knock-on effects for the worldwide supply chain.

For democratic governments, the main imponderable is different.

If their new strategy is to succeed, they know that they will need buy-in from a critical mass of their own people. The approach assumes a kind of partnership, with governments easing their own pandemic measures but citizens stepping up to do what they can individually to reduce the prospect of new outbreaks.

That sense of partnership did seem to flourish in many countries early in the pandemic.

The question now is whether a similar joint effort will be enough to help them move beyond it. 

When Joel Bueno informed his parents that he wanted to play music just like his older twin brothers, the couple were crushed. It seemed an impossible wish to grant their vivacious, witty boy. But then they found EyeHarp – a gaze-activated digital instrument that their son, diagnosed with cerebral palsy, could play. 

Sitting in a hotel lobby about to go onstage in late November, 14-year-old Joel says the EyeHarp – the name of the instrument as well as the company – brings him joy. But more than that, it enables him to express a range of emotions with others. It allowed him to jam with his guitar-playing brother, Eric, at home, and perform onstage in Madrid and Barcelona. 

Zacharias Vamvakousis is the creative force behind EyeHarp. In 2008, he began looking into ways for quadriplegic people to play music when a friend of his had a motorcycle accident that threatened his ability to play the guitar. That scenario did not materialize, but set Dr. Vamvakousis on a path that intertwined his musical passion with his computer science skills. “I realized that the technology was there, but that nobody had done anything about it,” he says.

EyeHarp became a mission. For many people with severe disabilities, expressing basic thoughts and feelings – let alone intentional creative expression – can be a challenge. But Dr. Vamvakousis’ combination of art and technology empowers users to communicate from their soul by translating the smallest movements into musical notes on digital instruments of their choice. 

Courtesy of Zacharias Vamvakousis

Zacharias Vamvakousis began to look into ways for quadriplegic people to play music in 2008. His EyeHarp now has 650 users.

Finding calm

Joel’s movements tend to be jerky and become even more so when he is nervous or excited – such as when his favorite soccer team, FC Barcelona, is about to lose. But when he’s onstage, he calms as his eyes dance across colorful notes on a computer screen releasing a melody in flute.

“The way Joel plays this instrument and flourishes is mind-blowing,” says Tamar Zamora, who sang alongside him, summing up a mood shared by online and in-person spectators. “Seeing him enjoy himself and brimming with happiness on the chair is extraordinary.”

Fine-tuned over countless sessions with Joel and other students, the EyeHarp was the final project of a master’s degree in music technology that Dr. Vamvakousis pursued in Barcelona. This was followed by a Ph.D. in digital musical instruments for people with disabilities. He created the nonprofit EyeHarp Association in 2019, with the goal of making musical expression available to all. 

Playing music, he points out, builds social connections and supports self-esteem, while exercising reason and comprehension. 

“I wanted to make all this available to anyone,” says Dr. Vamvakousis. Today he splits his time between Barcelona and the Greek city of Heraklion and gives lessons over Zoom to 10 students scattered throughout Spain, Greece, and the Netherlands, all of them coping with impaired movement. 

“Zacharias has the folly of an inventor, but he is also a guy with so much soul,” says Jordi Bueno, Joel’s father. “Life has a way of putting great people on your path. The emotion I felt when Joel played the EyeHarp for the first time was tremendous.”

The opportunity for their son to be happy and included is what his mother, Laura, as well as Mr. Bueno value most. Both recall approaching the local music school in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda and being turned away because the school lacked resources to meet Joel’s needs. 

Discovering an instrument he could actually play buoyed the whole family, which had long fought for Joel to go to a public school and lead a life similar to his older brothers’. 

“We knew certain activities like playing soccer or music would be impossible for Joel,” says Ms. Bueno. “When EyeHarp appeared, we felt, my God, if we can do this we can do anything.”

Now Joel believes the sky is the limit. Physical education is his favorite subject in school – “because it doesn’t require writing” – and he aspires to become a soccer coach.

Dominique Soquel

Jordi Bueno sets up the EyeHarp on a computer at a fundraising event in Barcelona before his son performs.

Fine tuning 

One technical difficulty that had to be overcome quickly was what Dr. Vamvakousis refers to as the “Midas touch” – a nod to the Greek myth of King Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold, even when unwanted. Initially, thinking of a note often meant looking at, and unintentionally playing, the note. That’s no longer the case.

The EyeHarp is in its fifth version. Notes appear on the screen in a colorblocked wheel that can be customized for pentatonic or heptatonic scales. A button at the heart of the screen automatically repeats the last note played, allowing for greater speed between recurring notes. A circle shifts across the desired notes guiding the gaze to make the right sounds.

As students learn songs by heart, the visual aid can be turned off. Players can practice the notes with or without rhythm. Gamification, accuracy scores, and an option to silence errors offer users several ways to gauge their progress. At the request of a musician in Turkey, Dr. Vamvakousis programmed a vibrato feature for the violin. 

Now he’s focused on making the instrument as user-friendly as possible for music teachers and therapists. “Playing music is a process that requires studying and having music classes,” he notes. “So if we want it to reach many people, we have to reach first the music teachers.”

Globally, around 50 million people could benefit from augmented and alternative communication tech, Dr. Vamvakousis estimates. Currently, he says, fewer than 2% are so equipped. So far, around 650 people are using either the basic or premium versions of EyeHarp. 

Notes from the heart

Mixalis Mixael is in his late 20s and lives in Limassol, Cyprus. He enjoys soccer and painting. But his greatest passion is music. With the EyeHarp he was able to channel the grief of losing his twin brother, express his romantic feelings to a friend of 11 years, and give a lyrical goodbye to one of the nurses working at the care center where he spends most of his days.

“[It’s] everything,” he types using head movements and eyeglasses with adaptive hardware, a tool he uses to communicate. Discovering EyeHarp was a game changer for him and his music therapist. The first time he tried the software, in May, Mr. Mixael felt a rush of “enthusiasm,” he types. So did Panagiota Kapnisi, his music therapist, who had searched high and low for some way to enable Mr. Mixael to express himself musically.

“At the beginning it was difficult but with the help of Panagiota I found it easy,” writes Mr. Mixael, gearing up to practice the Greek version of “Jingle Bells.” He is learning the song in batches of four notes at a time, using a built in memorization function that breaks down music into manageable chunks. When challenges arise, the duo turn to Mr. Vamvakousis for additional guidance on how to make the most of the software. 

Mr. Mixael and Ms. Kapnisi are both full of praise for the device and the man who designed it. 

“These are people who are so disabled they don’t have the opportunity to do many things,” notes Ms. Kapnisi, a soprano, who gives voice to the songs of her patient. “Learning music through an application like this gives them happiness. ... It’s their instrument. They couldn’t use an instrument and now they have one. You give them purpose and the opportunity to play music.”

“Zacharias opened new doors for me, and I see life now with different eyes,” says Mr. Mixael. He and Ms. Kapnisi are planning to put on a concert in the coming months.

AP

An Afghan woman holds her children as she waits outside a makeshift clinic near Herat, Afghanistan, Dec. 16.

It’s been half a year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan and no country has officially recognized the new regime. Frustrated with this diplomatic isolation, the acting prime minister, Mullah Hasan Akhund, pleaded with other Muslim-majority countries on Wednesday to set up ties and send ambassadors. The silence from those countries has been telling.

Many Islamic nations have been moving toward religious tolerance and a moderate version of Islam even as the Taliban return Afghanistan to the violent theocracy of their 1996-2001 rule. Among Arab youth, for example, only 34% saw religion as central to their identity last year, according to a PSB Insights poll. That is down from 40% compared with the previous year.

In addition, more than two-thirds of those between ages 18 and 24 want reform of religious institutions. In Saudi Arabia, for example, officials have largely expunged textbooks of teaching hate and fear of others, especially Jews and Christians.

Many young Arabs “have been playing a very instrumental role in bringing different cultures and traditions together,” Rabbi Levi Duchman, the first resident rabbi of the United Arab Emirates, told The Circuit publication.

A few Muslim-majority countries where women play prominent roles have warned the Taliban that their exclusion of women in many parts of society is a barrier to close ties. In the world’s most populous Islamic nation, Indonesia, the foreign minister is a woman. Even in Iran, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, the theocratic regime says the Taliban government has not included enough ethnic minorities.

In December, the 57 countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation held a special meeting on Afghanistan and gave a cold shoulder to the Taliban. The OIC urged the country to abide by the “principles and purposes” enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

The most visible sign of a shift in Arab thinking has come since the 2020 Abraham Accords. Four countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – agreed to normalize relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has also increased its unofficial ties with Israel.

“A surprising number of Arab countries are welcoming back Jews and embracing their Jewish heritage,” finds The Economist magazine. “Sympathetic portrayals of Jews have appeared in Arab films and TV shows; documentaries have explored the region’s Jewish roots.” In Israel itself, a new government includes the first independent Arab party in a governing coalition.

The Taliban may still believe they can set up a model Islamic state. Instead, most Muslim countries are simply watching to see if the Taliban prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a breeding ground for terrorist groups. Desperate for recognition and financial aid, the Taliban may yet come to reflect the emerging pluralism and diversity in other Islamic countries.