A Fractured Mandate: West Bengal’s 2026 Election and the Strain on India’s Social Fabric By Habib Siddiqui

The results are in, and the unthinkable has happened. What I had feared for the past five years has now come to pass: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the ideological leadership of Narendra Modi, is set to form the next government in West Bengal. Suvendu Adhikari—whose record of incendiary, anti‑Muslim rhetoric has dragged political discourse to new lows—appears poised to become the state’s next chief minister. For a state long celebrated for its pluralism, cultural sophistication, and resistance to communal politics, this moment marks a profound rupture.

Even The Hindu, one of India’s most respected newspapers, described the outcome as a “paradigm shift in the BJP’s political journey.” Adhikari himself wasted no time claiming that the results reveal a “visible crack” in the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Muslim support base. For those of us who have watched India’s political evolution over decades, the BJP’s first solo victory in West Bengal is not a sudden development but the culmination of a long, calculated project.

Behind the BJP’s historic breakthrough lies the strategic acumen of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, often described as the party’s modern‑day Chanakya. Shah camped in Bengal for two full weeks, holding late‑night organizational meetings, coordinating booth‑level operations, and addressing more than 50 rallies and roadshows across the state. During this period, he made targeted promises—such as implementing the 7th Pay Commission for government employeesand vowed to crack down on “goons and infiltrators,” language that played directly into the BJP’s polarizing narrative.

After the first phase of voting, Shah confidently declared that the BJP had already secured more than 110 seats, setting the tone for the second phase. This projection, amplified across media and social networks, created a sense of inevitability around the BJP’s victory, especially in regions previously considered difficult terrain for the party.

A National Election Day, but One Result Dominated

The West Bengal elections were one of five whose results were announced on May 4. Tamil Nadu witnessed a political upset as actor‑turned‑politician C. Joseph Vijay swept aside established parties with his new TVK formation. In Kerala, the Congress defeated the ruling left coalition. A BJP‑led alliance captured Puducherry, and in Assam the BJP returned to power with a commanding majority.

Yet, despite this flurry of outcomes, it was West Bengal’s verdict that overshadowed all others. After 15 years of TMC rule, the state’s dramatic political reversal carried implications far beyond its borders. For more than a decade, West Bengal had resisted the BJP’s advance even as the party expanded across India. The state was widely regarded as a bastion of regional pride, cultural pluralism, and resistance to Hindu majoritarianism under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. That bastion has now fallen.

The BJP’s victory in West Bengal is not merely electoral. It is ideological. The party is now in power uninterruptedly from Gangotri in Uttarakhand, where the Ganga originates, to Gangasagar in West Bengal, where the river meets the Bay of Bengal. Symbolically, this is a triumph of the BJP’s long‑term project to consolidate political control across the entire Gangetic belt.

West Bengal also holds special significance as the birthplace of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor. For decades, the BJP’s ideological ecosystem has viewed Bengal as unfinished business, a region that must be brought into the fold of its Hindu nationalist vision. The 2026 result fulfills that long‑standing aspiration.

Early results showed the BJP winning or leading in roughly 200 of the state’s 294 seats—an unprecedented leap from its previous best of 77 seats in 2021. The TMC, once dominant, was reduced to fewer than 90 seats. Analysts cited in the reporting describe the outcome as a convergence of anti‑incumbency, religious polarization, and a highly disciplined BJP campaign machine.

The Human Story Behind the Numbers

Yashraj Sharma’s reporting for Al Jazeera opens with the story of Seema Das, a domestic worker who traveled two days across India to cast her vote. Das had always supported the TMC, but this time she switched to the BJP after being convinced that Mamata Banerjee “favours Muslims.” This narrative—long promoted by the BJP—has been central to its strategy in Bengal, a state where Muslims constitute more than a quarter of the population.

Das’s shift reflects a broader trend. Analysts noted that urban Hindu men were particularly polarized. The BJP’s messaging – casting itself as the defender of Hindu interests and portraying the TMC as “pro‑Muslim” – resonated with voters who felt economically insecure or culturally threatened.

The Limits of Welfare Politics

Mamata Banerjee’s political rise was built on welfare schemes, grassroots mobilization, and resistance to both communist rule and Hindu majoritarianism. Yet after 15 years in power, her administration faced growing dissatisfaction. While she remained personally popular, many voters felt alienated by the TMC’s local machinery, which they viewed as intrusive and overbearing in everyday life. At the same time, growing economic hardship and unmet aspirations deepened anti‑incumbency sentiment. Welfare programs that once energized her base could no longer offset the frustration of those who felt left behind, and the party’s inability to offer a fresh vision allowed resentment to build beneath the surface.

Polarization as Strategy

The BJP’s campaign was described as “better‑managed,” with a clear strategy to consolidate Hindu votes while exploiting urban‑rural divides. Suvendu Adhikari openly credited “Hindu consolidation” for the victory. He also claimed that some Muslim voters shifted away from the TMC, though this remains unverified until detailed Election Commission data is released.

The deployment of 2,400 companies of paramilitary forces – the largest ever for a state election –was justified by the central government as necessary to prevent violence. Opposition parties, however, argued that the heavy security presence intimidated voters and created conditions favorable to the BJP.

The Controversial Voter Roll Revision

One of the most contentious aspects of the election was the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India. In West Bengal alone, more than nine million names (nearly 12 percent of the electorate) were removed. Six million were classified as absentee or deceased; the remaining three million lost their voting rights because their cases could not be heard in time.

Opposition parties accused the ECI of bias, arguing that the revision disproportionately disenfranchised Muslims and vulnerable communities. Mamata Banerjee challenged the process in the Supreme Court, calling it “opaque, hasty, and unconstitutional.” Although the Court did not restore voting rights, it ordered the ECI to publish the list of affected voters.

A National Turning Point

The implications of the West Bengal result extend far beyond the state. After the 2024 national elections, the BJP had fallen short of a parliamentary majority and depended on coalition partners. The 2026 state victories, particularly in West Bengal, Assam, and Puducherry, helped the party regain political momentum. Analyst Praveen Rai argues that the Bengal win “substantially increases the national standing of Modi’s leadership” and strengthens the BJP’s ability to govern India.

The Road Ahead

Mamata Banerjee’s initial response was defiant. In a video message, she urged her party workers to remain vigilant during the counting process and accused central forces of “forceful use” against the TMC. Analysts expect significant political turbulence ahead, noting that Banerjee is unlikely to retreat quietly.

The deeper question is what this election means for West Bengal’s social fabric and for neighboring Bangladesh, where the political reverberations may trigger concern among Muslim communities already wary of rising hostility across the border. This anxiety is hardly surprising: the campaign itself was defined by intense Hindu–Muslim polarization, and the voter‑roll controversy has left many vulnerable groups feeling exposed and uncertain about their place in the political order.

The BJP’s rise is often framed as a late‑20th‑century phenomenon, but its ideological roots run deeper: back to the Hindu Mahasabha of the 1940s and to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s vision of a culturally unified Hindu nation. Bengal, with its history of communal tensions and competing nationalisms, was the crucible in which this ideology first took shape. Today’s electoral shift thus carries a historical resonance that extends far beyond the state’s borders.

The 2026 West Bengal election is a reminder that democratic outcomes are shaped not only by party performance but by the broader political environment: identity, economic anxiety, institutional trust, and the narratives that resonate with voters.

As I see it, the election noted that the BJP’s victory was driven not only by strategic campaigning and deep anti‑incumbency, but also by a level of polarization intensified by what can be described as an unfathomable rise in intolerance and open bigotry toward Muslims. This atmosphere, repeatedly highlighted in reporting from the ground, became a powerful force shaping voter behavior and the broader political narrative.. The TMC’s defeat underscores the limits of welfare politics when confronted with shifting social dynamics and organizational fatigue.

What remains to be seen is whether West Bengal can preserve its tradition of pluralism, whether disenfranchised voters regain confidence in democratic institutions, and whether political competition can proceed without deepening communal divides. For now, one thing is clear: West Bengal has entered a new political era, and its consequences will reverberate across India.

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[Dr. Siddiqui’s forthcoming book, ‘Modi‑fied’ India: The Transformation of a Nation, is slated for publication by Peter Lang in 2026.]

Progress 1+1=10 #Poem by Jan Sand

The word itself is implacable
That time advances in its chances
To endow the inevitable, the reliable,
That failures fail.
To whack that nail
Hammerwise square and solidly
On its head may demand
Lots of lives
Becoming dead.
The no go of the dodo,
The pterodactyls disappearance
Was just an act of clearance
For the hummingbird,
Not at all absurd.

These days that logic still persists.
It cannot be missed that humanity
Is eager to conform.
Evolution cannot resist advance.
Therefore it is obviously a plus
That the atmosphere must rearrange
In planetary change to toss away the
Vast stupidities that now drive with energies
Humanity’s departure from persistence.
Within a decade or two, perhaps a camel
Might remain to gaze in curiosity
At the pyramids.
Perhaps a meerkat might stand and stare
In wonder at the wreckage and blunder
Distributed here and there
Left by a humanity that has terminated
In nowhere.

 

Remembrance under strain by Virginia Robertson

The annual Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the Second World War was created as a solemn promise to history that sacrifice would never be reduced to political convenience or selective memory. In recent years however that promise feels increasingly fragile as public discourse hardens into rivalry rather than reflection

In parts of contemporary political culture including rhetoric associated with figures like Donald Trump critics argue that the shared narrative of Allied cooperation during World War Two is sometimes diminished or reframed in ways that elevate national grievance over collective victory This perceived shift unsettles historians and citizens alike because it risks flattening a complex alliance into caricature.

The memory of European allies who endured occupation resistance bombing and immense civilian suffering is not a footnote to history but a central pillar of it From the ruins of Warsaw to the resilience of London and the partisan movements across the continent the war was not won by any single nation alone

Yet today there is a growing tension between remembrance and reinterpretation where political messaging can sometimes recast allies as secondary actors or even question their contribution Such framing whether deliberate or rhetorical risks weakening the moral clarity that remembrance days are meant to preserve

The danger lies not only in historical distortion but in the erosion of shared responsibility that defined the Allied effort When remembrance becomes a stage for contemporary political posturing it risks transforming collective sacrifice into competitive narratives of superiority rather than solidarity This is particularly troubling in a world where historical literacy is already under pressure from misinformation and simplified slogans that flatten nuance and replace it with emotional immediacy Remembrance should resist becoming a battleground for present day identity politics because its purpose is not to rank suffering or distribute blame but to acknowledge the interconnected cost of a global conflict that reshaped the twentieth century In that sense the memory of European allies is not optional it is foundational to understanding how freedom was preserved

Ultimately remembrance is a test of political maturity and cultural honesty It asks whether nations can hold multiple truths at once celebrating their own contributions while respecting those of others The Second World War remains one of the clearest examples of what can be achieved through alliance rather than isolation and any attempt to reduce that history into narrow national pride diminishes its lessons for future generations In an era marked by renewed geopolitical tension the temptation to rewrite or weaponize history becomes even more pronounced Yet the memory of shared struggle should serve as a reminder that cooperation across borders is not weakness but necessity The sacrifices of European allies stand as enduring testimony to resilience under unimaginable pressure and their place in remembrance is neither symbolic nor optional it is essential to the integrity of history itself When leaders or commentators diminish that role they risk not only misunderstanding the past but also weakening the moral foundations upon which contemporary alliances depend The act of remembering must therefore remain vigilant inclusive and resistant to distortion even when political climates encourage simplification and selective memory Only through such vigilance can remembrance retain its true meaning as a shared human responsibility rather than a tool of division and fragmentation of historical understanding.

Fika bonding! #121 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Fika is a state of mind and an important part of Swedish culture. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee and a little something to eat.

For more Fika bonding!, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Gary Snyder : (1930 - ) A Zen View of Nature by Rene Wadlow

Rapprochement of Cultures

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the Decade 2013-2022 as the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures building on the efforts in the UNESCO General Conference which had called for “the development of a universal global consciousness” based on dialogue and cooperation in a climate of trust and mutual understanding and for a “new humanism for the twenty-first century”. Thus we look at the creative efforts of individuals who built bridges of understanding over the divides of cultures, social classes, and ethnicity and created a foundation for the New Humanism   Garry Snyder , whose birth anniversary we mark on 8 May, is a model of the cultural bridge-builder, creating linkes between Japanese – Chinese and US culture and at the same time developing a new awareness of Nature.

Gary Snyder : (1930 - ) A Zen View of Nature

The most revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited classes:
animals, trees, water, air, grasses. 
-- Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder reached the consciousness of a wide reading public  in the USA as Japhy Ryder, the name given to him in Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums. Kerouac, then the best known of the USA-based Beat Generation, sums up Snyder’s life till then “the number one Dharma Bum of them all was he, Japhy Ryder, who coined the phrase. Japhy Ryder was a kid from eastern Oregon brought up in a log cabin deep in the woods with his father and mother and sister, from the beginning, a woods boy, an axman, farmer, interested in animals and Indian lore so that when he finally got to college by hook or crook he was already well equipped for his early studies in anthropology and later Indian myth and in the actual texts of Indian mythology.  Finally he learned Chinese and Japanese and became an Oriental scholar and discovered the greatest Dharma Bums of them all, the Zen Lunatics of China and Japan. At the same time, being a Northwest boy with idealistic tendencies, he got interested in old-fashioned Industrial Workers of the World anarchism and learned to play the guitar and sing old workers songs to go with his Indian songs and general folksong interests.”

The adventures of Snyder as Japhy Ryder in the mid-1950s San Francisco Renaissance, along with Allen Ginsberg, the older poet Kenneth Rexroth and the scholar of Asian thought Alan Watts are well told in The Dharma Bums, a book less known than the Kerouac classic On the Road but still worth reading. A reflection of the Beat period comes from Snyder’s 1955 poem “For a Far-out Friend”:

            Visions of your body
            Kept me high for weeks, I even had
                        A sort of trance for you
            A day in a dentist’s chair.
            I found you again, gone stone,
            In Zimmer’s book of Indian Art:
            Dancing in that life with
            Grace and love, with rings and
            A little golden belt, just above
                        your naked snatch,
            And I thought – more grace and love
            In that wild Deva life where you belong,
            Than in this dress-and-girdle life
            You’ll ever give
            Or get.

By the time The Dharma Bums was published in 1958, Snyder was living in Japan, studying Zen having become a Zen Monk under the name of Chofu, and working on translations from Japanese and Chinese. He spent most of his time in Japan until 1968. When he returned to the USA, the Beat Generation of San Francisco had gone on its way. Allen Ginsberg had gone back to New York to lead a Zen-poetical battle against the war in Vietnam.

Snyder’s return to the USA was on the eve of a broad ecological consciousness that took its political form with the UN-sponsored 1972 Stockholm conference on the environment.  Synder was influenced by the most famous of the American “back to nature books, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854). For Snyder “Human economies are based on utilizing whatever nature makes available, and it would be very prudent and healthy for all complex societies to be informed about ecological and economic systems at the same time. A lot of what happens in the economic realm runs counter to the health of the ecological system.”

Gary Snyder has become the poetic spokesman for bioregionalism. “The differing regions of the world have long had each their own precise subsistence pattern developed over millennia by people who had settled in there and learned what particular kinds of plants the ground would ‘say’ at that spot. Countless local ecosystem habitation styles emerged. People developed specific ways to be in each of those niches: plant knowledge, boats, fishing, the smaller animals and smaller tools — a spirit of what was to be there evolved, that spoke of a direct sense of relation to the ‘land’ — which really means, the totality of the local bio-region system, from cirrus clouds to leaf-mold. Bio-regional problems are always linked to the larger biological world. But paying attention to your immediate region gives us a quicker way to monitor and understand what is happening and thus to be able to apprise our citizens more swiftly.”

For Gary Snyder, there is a close link between the spirit of a region and creativity.

“Creativity is an expression of gratitude and a celebration of a place.  All art is essentially devotional. A place will specifically express itself through the colours and shapes and materials used by the artist.  Many natural cultures transform their landscape into the very clothes and designs they wear.  The old Scottish tartans, for instance, reflect the deep purples and blues, oranges and reds of the colour of the Highlands in the autumn.  Craft, and art come together as part of the pure expression of the place.  You make your art out of that which grows there, you dye your clothes from plants that grow there. It is wonderful reinforcement of the whole picture — and of course it is spiritual. It is the song of the place to itself.”

Snyder's poetry, deeply influenced by the Zen tradition, is the opposite of the much-practiced 'confessional poetry' which is a confrontation with the self and the ways the ego has been twisted by social determinants. Confessional poetry is much influenced by Freudian theory in which the inward voyage is a dense tangle of repressed memories, forbidden desires and multiple associations.  On the other hand for Snyder “the practice of meditation, for which one needs only the ground beneath one's feet wipes out mountains of junk being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket universities. The belief in a serene and generous fulfillment of natural loving desires destroys ideologies which blind, maim and repress.”  Zen allows the person to calm the ego and to discover the order and value within the world as it is.

Snyder brings his long study of Eastern religious thought to present wholeness and a sense of time. While we live in a world of seeming separation and division, our universe is a unified whole brimming with life and infused with a spiritual presence.  He writes “I try to hold both history and wildness in my mind, so that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our time.” A good introduction to the writing of Gary Snyder is his 1974 book Turtle Island. The title comes from the native Indian name for North America. The book was awarded in 1975 the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – a leading award for literature.

 ***********************

Rene Wadlow; President, Association of World Citizens
Drawing: Evgueni Bosyatski

War on Humanity and Earth and the US-Israeli Moral, Intellectual and Political Bankruptcy by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

The US-Israel War on Mankind and Fear of the Future

Wars are paradoxes of conflicting political and individualistic interests - gains in the present and loss in the future. At times America supports Israel’s war on Iran and the Arab world as if a child of a surrogate mother but knows little of what puzzles are in play by PM Netanyahu’s naive egoism. The unwarranted war has global consequences of systematic socio-economic and political destabilization and degeneration. The war unleashed dreadful tragedies which could result in goading humanity unthinkably to catastrophic ends. Wars and continued conflicts are lifelines for the Israeli leadership. It is widely reported that the current war against Iran was instigated by PM Netanyahu for his own political survival and re-election Israel.

After Gaza, occupied West Bank territories, border towns of Syria, Iran and Lebanon are the latest victims of collaborated hegemonic war by Israel. The ceasefire and protection of civilians are daily violated by Israel without any check. The people and nations once colonized remain colonized forever in time, traditions and history. A recent revelation by American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (interview with Tucker Carlson, 02/22/26), exposes the monstrous claim: “Israel would be justified in taking over a vast stretch of the Middle East on Biblical grounds.... from Nile to Euphrates.”Tucker Carlson, asked Huckabee whether Israel had a right to an area which the host said was, according to the Bible, "essentially the entire Middle East". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn5gkkgdzkyo

The ruling Arab elite have no idea of whether living in the present, past and how the future is going to be sustainable? Instigating the unwarranted war on Iran, America and Israel would entice and entrap the oil producing Arab states of UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to react with military actions against Iran. They would watch and coordinate as America occupied the Arabian states with its own military bases causing deaths and destruction of the whole Arab region. America and Israel would not put boots on but conspire to engage Arab-Iran battles. Huckbee would be foretelling the outcomes as Arab and Iran could go on fighting and ending in demise of the Muslim world. Israel’s death grip (AIPAC) on the US political system is also documented in “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

An Israeli Professor and Rabbi of Philosophy and Religions narrates his story to this author, why he left Israel seeking a new life in Canada.There was no peace and normalcy in life.... Jews are divided, atheist, secular, Zionists and lost precepts of the faith of Moses - the Divine Judaism. Israeli leaders are misleading people for their own political power, not for the good of Israeli masses or for peace or a sustainable future. Israel, to the Rabbi, could be at an edge of unknown disasters of survival in the Middle East unless it rethinks and reshapes its policies and practices to co-exist with the people of Palestine.

Israel Pursues Political Objectives by Military Assaults

The UNO was supposed to be the body to stop this war to ensure civilian safety and security and try to embark on a peaceful resolution. But it working is at standstill as the US and Israel have made it impotent to play any useful role in global peace and security. Gaza and West Bank territories are the scene of insane cruelty and daily killings by the IDF. Suspicious and embittered PM Netanyahu unleashing violent assumptions of hatred, animosities for his own political survival, Are the Israeli leaders purging America and its history of national freedom and democratic values?

America and Israel are fearful of the phenomenon of change as it could make them obsolete and misfit for the future even with all the imaginary power and monetary influence. They are bewildered with no sense of time, strengths and weaknesses - how to collaborate for an uncertain future. Do civilizations grow out of moral mire, tyranny and military conquests? America according to its thinking hubs lost more than it gained by supporting Israel unequivocally.Sigmund Freud(Civilization and its Discontent, 1930), noted that: “the inclination to aggression is an original self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man, and that it constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.” Consequent to the Israeli bloodbath of civilians in Gaza, all futuristic imagination of peace with Arabs is gone. Was the discovery of “oil” an obsession - a stigma, a conspiracy (“fitna”) to forfeit the Arab culture and Islamic civilization? Please see: “How Arab Leaders Betray Islam and Defy the Logice of Political Change, Peace and Security.” https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2023/10/07/how-did-arab-leaders-betrayed-islam-and-defied-the-logic-of-political-change-peace-and-security.php

Every beginning has its end but nothing in sight how America wants to end the war and how Israel prefers its own agenda to surprise the American political intellect.  Jerome Irwin (“America Is Israel, Israel Is America, and the Military-Industrial Corporate Fascism Is What It Is”: Global Research: 3/01/24), author of The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey, a  criminology professional and a Canadian-American former CIA agent explains: https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-israel-israel-america-military-industrial-corporate-fascism/5851096 What is happening today to the Palestinians in their former homelands of Palestine can be likened to what happened to indigenous Indians, Black slaves and Mexican peasants in the 18^th & 19^th century history books of America and Canada’s Wild West or Southern ante-bellum states. ......Yet now in 2024, thanks to America’s latest shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel’s settler-colonial racist apartheid state, its Zionists are able to even more effectively kill or wipe out whole families, villages, refugee camps and settlements of Palestinians; ruthlessly pushing aside, or totally removing, whatever still recalcitrant defenders still remain in their former territories.

The Earth is a  Divine Trust to Humanity Those Bombing the Earth are Ignorant and Insane People

The earth is living and spins at 1670 km per hour and orbits the Sun at 107,000 km per hour. Imagine, if this spinning fails, what consequences could occur to the living beings on Earth. Think again, about the average distance of earth from moon is 93 million miles -the distance of Moon from Earth is currently 384,821 km equivalent to 0.002572 Astronomical Units. Earth is a “trust” to mankind for its existence, sustenance of life, survival, progress and future-making. Wherever there is a trust, there is accountability. The Divine warning (Chapter 7: 56: The Quran), warns:Do no mischief on the Earth after it hath been set in order, but call on God with fear and longing in hearts; For the Mercy of God is always near to those who do good. (44:38-39), the reminder is explicit: We created not the Heavens and the Earth; And all between them merely in idle sport. We created them not, Except for just ends. But most of them do not understand. The Divine Message  (Quran:40:64),clarifies:   It is God Who made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; And has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful, And has provided for your Sustenance, of things pure and good; Such is God your Lord. So Glory to God, The Lord of the Worlds.

And killing of innocent people is prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Torah):

'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it."According to Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague: ‘Jewish law forbids the killing of innocent people, even in the course of a legitimate military engagement.

The War on Gaza is a stigma of political survival for PM Netanyahu as the Ultra Nationalist groups aligned with him continuously violate the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Arab-Muslim leaders are simply the spectators watching the provocations. Please see: “Al-Aqsa Mosque Waiting for the Arab Leaders.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57491.htm 

Intelligent leaders always heed voices of reason and rational advice but American and Israeli’s  warmongering and crimes against humanity are contrary to the Nature of Things. Netanyahu and Trump both lack the capacity and foresight to end the war or win the unthinkable consequences. Our failure to grasp the compelling realities of Israeli atrocities against the helpless 2.5 million civilians of Gaza makes us feel to be standing at some of the darkest timeline of history. The time and opportunities call for urgent rethinking and reshaping  of new visions and creative ideas to reject violence, genocide and vengeance as contrary to the nature of humanity, peace and intellect. We, the People of Global Conscience and thinkers share seamless common bonds of truth, universal morality and being One Humanity and must reject tyranny of war and genocide as a means to solve political problems and stand united to facilitate dialogue and globalization of one people for conflict resolution and peace-making.

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Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: Global Humanity and Remaking of Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution for the 21st Century and Beyond, Barnes and Noble Press, USA, 2025 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/global-humanity-and-remaking-of-peace-security-and-conflict-resolution-for-the-21st-century-and-beyond-mahboob-a-khawaja/1147150197 and We, The People in Search of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Kindle Direct Publishing-Amazon, USA: 2025 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6V6CH5W

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Check Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD. eBOOK,
Wars on Humanity:
Ukraine, Palestine and the role of Global Leaders
HERE!

Rollercoaster #poem by Abigail George

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
Henry James

Dear King,
You’re made of glass
Glass toes

Glass hands
Glass elbows, glass neck
your nose is a lake

You play with the duck
in the blue lung of bathwater’s
wet molecule

You follow my instructions
call me teacher
and something

quietly erupts within me
fades away into dark chocolate

You wail, Vertigo!
and reach for the Starship Enterprise
of my mother

Tourist, your shoebox
of toys turns into hours of silence
A white bunny

on a shelf
You read the ingredients on the back
of the petroleum jelly label

(six verses follows on next page)
You wipe a sea
of brown sticky fingers
on my dress

in the runny apricot
jam tin a cloud nestled in subtle orange light

The wood is salt,
a map, a fire extinguisher

Inside your brown eyes, exists a ballroom
your tears, salt, light

I want you to remember
that you summoned the ancestors

with the wave
of your little hand, that is all it took
for democracy

The persistence of belief by Abbie O'Connor

It is one of the more perplexing features of modern American politics that Donald Trump continues to command fierce loyalty from millions of voters despite a record that, to his critics, appears riddled with contradictions, failures, and moral dissonance. The explanation is not simple ignorance, nor is it purely ideological alignment. It is something deeper, more emotional, and far more resilient than facts alone.

For many supporters, Trump is not merely a political figure, he is a symbol. Symbols are powerful precisely because they are not easily dismantled by evidence. When critics point to economic instability, controversial foreign policy decisions, or legal troubles, including convictions and associations that raise ethical questions, supporters often interpret these not as disqualifications but as attacks from a system they already distrust. In this framing, every accusation reinforces the narrative that Trump is an outsider under siege.

The paradox becomes even sharper when examining the values often attributed to him: Christian, family-oriented, patriotic. These are not casual labels; they are identity markers deeply embedded in the cultural fabric of many American communities. Yet the tension between these ideals and Trump’s personal history is frequently dismissed or rationalized. Why? Because for his base, these labels are less about personal conduct and more about perceived alignment in a broader cultural struggle.

Trump speaks in a language that resonates emotionally. He frames issues in stark, binary terms: us versus them, strength versus weakness, patriotism versus betrayal. This rhetorical simplicity cuts through the noise of complex policy debates and appeals directly to people who feel overlooked or dismissed by traditional political discourse. In doing so, he offers not just political positions, but validation.

There is also a sense of defiance embedded in his support. Backing Trump has, for many, become an act of resistance against elites, political, media and cultural. Criticism from these institutions often has the unintended effect of strengthening his appeal. The more he is condemned by figures perceived as part of the establishment, the more his supporters feel justified in standing by him.

None of this means that facts are irrelevant. Rather, it highlights a fundamental truth about human behavior: people do not make decisions based solely on evidence. Identity, emotion, and belonging often outweigh objective analysis. When political allegiance becomes intertwined with personal identity, changing one’s mind is not just an intellectual shift, it feels like a betrayal of self.

This is the challenge facing those who oppose Trump. Simply presenting more evidence or amplifying criticism is unlikely to sway those who view him as a champion of their values and grievances. If anything, it may deepen the divide.

Understanding this dynamic does not require agreement, but it does demand recognition. Trump’s enduring support is not an accident or a mystery. It is the result of a political environment where trust is fractured, identities are entrenched, and belief, once formed, proves remarkably resistant to change.

AntySaurus Prick #129 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Dino is a vegetarian virgin dinosaur and his best friend is Anty,
a carnivorous nymphomaniac ant.
They call themselves the AntySaurus Prick and they are still here
waiting for the comet to come!

For more AntySaurus Prick, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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A superpower’s uneasy mirror by Thanos Kalamidas

There is a pattern in Donald Trump’s posture toward Europe that is too consistent to dismiss as improvisation. The troop reductions in Germany, the tariff threats against European industries, the rhetorical jabs at Spain and Italy, even the theatrical suggestion of siding with Argentina over the Falklands. These are not isolated provocations. They form a worldview. And at its core lies something less strategic than it is psychological, a deep discomfort with a Europe that acts as one.

Trump’s politics have always thrived on asymmetry. He prefers bilateral relationships where leverage can be applied directly, where pressure can be personalized, where outcomes can be framed as wins or losses. A fragmented Europe fits neatly into that approach. A united Europe does not. The European Union, for all its bureaucratic inertia and internal disagreements, represents something Trump instinctively resists, a rules-based bloc that negotiates collectively, sets standards, and dilutes the kind of transactional bargaining he favors.

This is why the economic argument, often cited by Trump himself, feels incomplete. Yes, trade imbalances matter. Yes, American administrations across party lines have long criticized aspects of European trade policy. But Trump’s rhetoric goes further. It is not merely about correcting terms; it is about undermining the structure that allows Europe to negotiate as a peer. Tariffs, in this context, are less about steel or cars and more about signalling that the United States will not passively accept a competitor that can match its regulatory and economic weight.

There is also a strategic layer that is harder to ignore. A more cohesive Europe, especially one that deepens its defence coordination, inevitably raises questions about NATO’s future balance. For decades, American power has been amplified by alliances in which Washington sets the tone. A Europe that invests seriously in its own security architecture and speaks with one voice, introduces a subtle shift. It becomes less dependent, less predictable and from a certain perspective, less controllable.

Trump’s instinct, then, is not necessarily fear in the traditional sense. It is resistance to a redistribution of influence. His foreign policy has consistently favoured a hierarchy with the United States at the unquestioned top. A united Europe complicates that hierarchy. It does not replace American leadership, but it demands negotiation rather than deference. For a leader who measures success in dominance rather than balance, that distinction matters.

At the same time, it would be a mistake to romanticize Europe’s position in this dynamic. The European Union has often struggled to articulate its own strategic identity. Internal divisions, over fiscal policy, migration, defence spending, have made it an easy target for external pressure. Trump’s approach exploits those fractures. His criticisms resonate in part because they touch on real inconsistencies within the European project. The challenge for Europe is not merely to respond to American pressure but to resolve its own ambiguities.

What makes this moment particularly striking is how openly the tension is expressed. Previous administrations might have pursued similar objectives, pressuring allies on spending, pushing for better trade terms but they did so within a framework that emphasized partnership. Trump strips away that language. He frames allies as competitors, agreements as zero-sum, and diplomacy as a series of transactions. In doing so, he reveals a belief that alliances are valuable only insofar as they reinforce American primacy.

So the question is not whether the United States needs Europe. It clearly does, economically and strategically. Nor is it whether Europe depends on the United States. That interdependence remains undeniable. The real question is whether the relationship can evolve beyond a model rooted in post-war assumptions. Trump’s answer appears to be no. He does not seek adaptation; he seeks recalibration in America’s favour.

If there is unease in Washington about a united Europe, it is not because such a Europe would destroy the American economy. It is because it would force the United States to share the stage in ways that feel unfamiliar. And for a political philosophy built on winning, sharing has always looked suspiciously like losing.

Uninvited guests by Mia Rodríguez

Two US citizens, reportedly tied to the CIA, die in a car crash in northern Mexico and suddenly the silence that usually cloaks intelligence work gives way to something louder; anger, suspicion and a familiar sense of intrusion. The operation they were linked to, an anti-drug raid in Chihuahua, was apparently unknown to Mexico’s own federal government. That detail alone tells you almost everything about why this incident has struck a nerve.

Sovereignty, after all, is not an abstract principle. It is the basic expectation that what happens within a nation’s borders is not orchestrated by outsiders acting unilaterally, however noble their stated aims. When that expectation is violated, even in the name of fighting drug cartels, the message received is not one of partnership but of disregard. Mexico’s reaction, particularly from its president, has been predictably sharp, but also justified. This is not simply about two lives lost in a tragic accident. It is about a pattern.

The CIA carries with it a long, complicated reputation in Latin America, one that is not easily softened by time or rhetoric. From Cold War interventions to more recent allegations of covert influence, the agency has often operated in ways that blur the line between cooperation and manipulation. In that historical context, even a narrowly focused anti-drug mission begins to look less like assistance and more like a familiar script being replayed. The suspicion is not that every operation is malicious, but that the logic behind them rarely prioritizes local autonomy.

What makes this case particularly combustible is the lack of transparency, not only after the fact, but beforehand. If Mexico’s federal authorities were indeed unaware of the raid, then the issue is not miscommunication; it is exclusion. That exclusion undermines trust, and without trust, cross-border cooperation becomes performative at best. It also raises uncomfortable questions about accountability. Who authorized the operation? Under what legal framework? And perhaps most importantly, who gets to decide what risks are acceptable when those risks unfold on someone else’s soil?

There is a tendency in Washington to view the fight against narcotics as a shared battle that justifies extraordinary measures. But shared battles require shared decision-making. Otherwise, they are simply unilateral campaigns dressed up as collaboration. Mexico has its own institutions, its own strategies, and its own political realities. Ignoring those in favor of covert action does not strengthen the fight against drug trafficking; it complicates it, introducing diplomatic friction where coordination is most needed.

At the same time, it would be too simple to reduce the situation to a morality play of foreign overreach versus national dignity. Drug cartels operate across borders with a fluidity that governments struggle to match. They exploit legal gaps, corrupt officials, and move with a speed that bureaucracies cannot easily replicate. This creates a constant pressure for more aggressive, more unconventional responses. Intelligence agencies thrive in that space. But thriving there does not absolve them of the consequences when their actions collide with political realities.

The crash in Chihuahua has, in a grim way, forced a conversation that might otherwise have remained buried. It has exposed the fragile architecture of U.S.-Mexico cooperation, where public agreements coexist uneasily with private operations. It has also reminded both countries that even the most secretive missions can have very public repercussions.

In the end, the question is not whether intelligence agencies should be involved in combating transnational crime. They already are, and likely always will be. The question is whether they can do so without eroding the very partnerships that make such efforts sustainable. If the answer continues to be murky, then incidents like this will not be anomalies. They will be symptoms.