Robert M. Hutchins: Building on Earlier Foundations by Rene Wadlow

Much of our current work for a more just and peaceful world builds on the thinking and efforts of earlier foundations.  An important foundation is the leading role of Robert M. Hutchins, long-time President of the University of Chicago  (l929 -1951) whose birth anniversary we mark on 17 January.

Hutchins' father, William,was President of Berea, a small but important liberal arts college, so Robert Hutchins (1899-1977) was set to follow the family pattern.  He went to Yale Law School and stayed on to teach. He quickly became the Dean of the Law School and was spotted as a rising star of US education.  When he was 30 years old, he was asked to become President of the University of Chicago, a leading institution.  Hutchins was then the youngest president of a US university.

In the first decade of his presidence, the 1930s, his ideas concerning undergraduate education − compulsory survey courses, early admission after two years of secondary school for bright and motivated students, a concentration on “Great Books” - an examination of seminal works of philosophy in particular Plato and Aristotle − divided the University of Chicago faculty.  There were strong and outspoken pro and anti Hutchins faculty groups.  Moreover Hutchins' abolition of varsity football and ending the University's  participation in the “Big Ten” university football league distressed some alumni whose link to the university was largely limited to attending football games. For Hutchins, a university was for learning and discussion, not for playing sports. As he famously said “ When I feel like excersizing, I sit down until the feeling goes away.”

It is Hutchins' creation and leadership of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution in 1945 which makes him one of the intellectual founders of the movement for world federation and world citizenship. After the coming to power of Hitler in Germany in 1933 and his quick decision to ban Jewish professors from teaching in German universities, many Jewish scientists and professors left Germany and came to the USA.  Some of the leading natural scientists joined the University of Chicago.  Thus began the “Metallurgy Project” as the work on atomic research was officially called. The University of Chicago team did much of the theoretical research which led to the Atom Bomb.  While Hutchins was not directly involved in the atomic project, he understood quickly the nature of atomic energy and its military uses.  He saw that the world would never return to a “pre-atomic” condition and that new forms of world organization were needed.

On 12 August 1945, a few days after the use of the atom bombs, Hutchins made a radio address “Atomic Force: Its Meaning for Mankind” in which he outlined the need for strong world institutions, stronger than the UN Charter, whose drafters earlier in the year did not know of the destructive power of atomic energy.

Several professors of the University of Chicago were already active in peace work such as Mortimer Adler, G.A. Borgese, and Richard McKeon, Dean of the undergraduate college.  The three approached Hutchins saying that as the University of Chicago had taken a lead in the development of atomic research, so likewise, the university should take the lead in research on adequate world institutions.  By November 1945, a 12-person Committee to Frame a World Constitution was created under Hutchins' chairmanship. The Committee drew largely on existing faculty of the University of Chicago − Wilber Katz, Dean of the Law School and Rexford Tugwell who taught political science but who had been a leading administrator of the Roosevelt New Deal and Governor of Puerto Rico. Two retired professors from outside Chicago were added − Charles McIlwain of Harvard, a specialist on constitutions, and Albert  Guerard of Stanford, a French refugee who was concerned about the structure of post-war Europe.

From 1947 to 1951, the Committee published a monthly journal Common Cause  many of whose articles still merit reading today as fundamental questions concerning the philosophical basis of government, human rights, distribution of power, and the role of regions are discussed.  The Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution  was published in 1948 and reprinted in the Saturday Review of Literature edited by Norman Cousins and in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists some of whom were in the original “Metallurgy Project”.  The Preliminary Draft raised a good deal of discussion, reflected in the issues of Common Cause.  There was no second draft.  The Preliminary Draft was as G.A. Borgese said, quoting Dante “...of the True City at least the Tower.”

In 1951, Hutchins retired from the presidency of the University of Chicago for the Ford Foundation and then created the Ford Foundation-funded Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions where he gathered together some of his co-workers from the University of Chicago.

Two ideas from The Preliminary Draft are still part of intellectual and political life for those concerned with a stronger UN.  The first is the strong role of regional organizations.  When The Preliminary Draft was written the European Union was still just an idea and most of the States now part of the African Union were European colonies.  The Preliminary Draft saw that regional groups were institutions of the future and should be integrated as such in the world institution.  Today, the representatives of States belonging to regional groupings meet together at the UN to try to reach a common position, but regional groups are not part of the official UN structure. However, they may be in the future.

The other lasting aspect of The Preliminary Draft is the crucial role that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should play.  The then recently drafted UN Charter had created a “consultative status” for NGOs, but few of the UN Charter drafters foresaw the important role that NGOs would play  as the UN developed.  The Preliminary Draft had envisaged a Syndical Senate to represent occupational associations on the lines of the International Labour Organization where trade unions and employer associations have equal standing with government delegates.  In 1946, few people saw the important role that the NGOs would later play in UN activities.  While there is no “Syndical Senate”, today NGOs represent an important part of the UN process.

Hutchins, however, was also a reflection of his time.  There were no women as members of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution, and when he created the Center for the Study of Democratic  Institutions with a large number of “fellows”, consultants, and staff, women are also largely absent.

The effort to envisage the structures and processes among the different structures was an innovative contribution to global institution building at the time, and many of the debates and reflections are still crucial for today.

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Notes
For an understanding of the thinking of those involved in writing The Preliminary Draft see:
Mortimor Adler. How to think about War and Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944)
Rexford Tugwell. Chronicle of Jeopardy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)
G.A. Borgese. Foundations of the World Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1953)
Scott Buchanan. Essay in Politics (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953)
For a life of Hutchens written by a co-worker in the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions: Harry Ashmore. Unreasonable Truths: the Life of Robert Maynard Hutchens (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1989)

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Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

fARTissimo #020 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

fARTissimo is what people do not see when they see a piece of expression
but what they project in what they think they see.

For more fARTissimo, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Orbán’s assault on the planet by Brea Willis

In the age of wildfires, unprecedented floods, and storms that seem scripted by a dystopian novelist, one would think that every world leader would instinctively recognize the urgency of protecting the planet. And yet, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán appears determined to swim against the tide of reason, championing policies that not only resist environmental responsibility but actively undermine it. It is a peculiar brand of governance, one that masquerades as pragmatism while leaving the air thick, the rivers choked, and future generations to inherit a broken ecosystem.

Orbán’s political philosophy, when it comes to the environment, reads almost like a case study in willful blindness. The man who built fences to keep people out seems equally eager to erect walls against the climate crisis. Renewable energy initiatives are stalled or sabotaged; green innovation is sidelined in favour of state-favoured fossil fuel ventures. There is no elegant denial here, no clever doublespeak about “market forces” or “economic necessity.” Hungary’s defiance is blunt, unapologetic, almost boastful. In a world where the atmosphere itself has become a battleground, this posture is not mere policy it is a moral statement, albeit a troubling one.

It is tempting to frame Orbán’s environmental negligence purely as a domestic concern, a quirk of Hungarian politics. Yet in truth, the implications ripple far beyond the Danube. Climate change, like gravity, does not recognize borders. Floodwaters rising in Budapest echo the deluge threatening Venice or Jakarta. Droughts that parch Hungarian farmland are kin to the infernos consuming California or Australia. In resisting global efforts to curb emissions, Orbán and his government are not merely failing their own citizens, they are flouting an increasingly fragile international consensus on survival. There is no domestic wall high enough, no clever rhetoric that can shield a nation from a planet in revolt.

One must wonder what drives this obstinacy. Is it ideology, or merely opportunism? Hungary under Orbán has become a showcase for crony capitalism, where energy contracts and construction projects often favour political allies over environmental logic. Fossil fuels are not simply an energy source; they are a political currency, a way to consolidate power while dismissing inconvenient truths. It is a reminder that climate denial is rarely about science, it is about profit, influence and the comforting illusion that someone else will pay for the consequences. And when the rivers run dry or the floods arrive, it will indeed be someone else: the ordinary citizens, the farmers, the children, and the elderly who cannot vote their way out of a climate disaster.

Orbán’s approach is also culturally telling. He frames environmental concern as a kind of foreign interference, a Western imposition on Hungary’s sovereignty. To care about the planet is, in this view, unpatriotic, a distraction from more “pressing” national interests. It is a narrative that resonates with those who feel threatened by globalization, yet it is fundamentally myopic. The environment, unlike borders or ideologies, is indifferent to political loyalty. The climate does not negotiate; it simply reacts. Denying it, delaying action, or pretending it is someone else’s problem will not protect Hungary, and it will not protect the world.

And yet, despite the bleakness, the absurdity of it invites a kind of grim humour. Orbán’s rhetoric often evokes a parody of eco-scepticism, grandiose declarations about national pride juxtaposed with the very real images of smokestacks, depleted rivers, and choking smog. One might imagine him standing on the banks of the Danube, gesturing nobly toward the water, and declaring that Hungary is “safe” because it refuses to participate in international climate accords. It is tragicomic, a blend of theater and recklessness, but it is also deadly serious.

The global community watches with a mixture of frustration and incredulity. Orbán’s Hungary is not alone in its obstinacy, yet it is emblematic of a growing pattern: nations and leaders who reject environmental stewardship in favour of short-term gain or political theater. In the grand calculus of history, this will be remembered not as a quirk of policy but as a profound moral failing. The cost is not abstract; it is lived experience: the heatwaves, the floods, the displacement, and the incremental erosion of hope.

At the heart of the matter is accountability or the lack of it. Citizens, journalists, and neighbouring nations may debate, protest, or write scathing columns, but the consequences of inaction are unyielding. The climate does not negotiate, the rivers do not wait, and the air does not pardon neglect. Hungary’s path under Orbán is not merely environmentally reckless; it is ethically reckless, an abdication of responsibility in a moment when responsibility has never been more urgent.

If there is any lesson to be drawn from this era of environmental threat, it is that leadership matters. Courage matters. And stubborn denial, when wielded by those in power, can transform a nation’s natural heritage into a cautionary tale. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has chosen a defiant path, one that prioritizes politics over survival. The rest of the world watches, waits, and, if history has its way, remembers.

Vatican’s quiet wall around Trump by Sabine Fischer

There is something almost monastic in the way Pope Leo XIV, at least in the public imagination, seems to deal with Donald Trump, no thunderbolts, no ringing condemnations, no dramatic excommunications hurled from the balcony of Saint Peter’s. Instead, there is distance. Protocol thickened into fog. Invitations that never quite materialize. Language polished until it reflects nothing. To some observers this restraint looks like weakness or indecision. To others, myself included, it resembles an older, colder strategy: containment. Not the kind built with stone and barbed wire, but the kind the Church has long practiced when confronted with figures it considers spiritually radioactive. The heretic was not always burned; sometimes he was simply isolated until his voice echoed only inside his own skull.

Trump, of course, is not a theologian wandering into doctrinal error. He is a political animal, loud, transactional, allergic to humility. Yet the resemblance is uncanny. Leo XIV does not argue with him, flatter him, or try to convert him into a model Catholic statesman. He treats him as a weather system, something to be monitored, prepared for, and never invited indoors. This is not moral cowardice. It is an institutional reflex born of two thousand years of surviving emperors, warlords, messiahs, and self-anointed saviours. The Church learned long ago that some personalities feed on resistance. They metabolize outrage into legitimacy. Starve them instead, and they begin to consume themselves.

What unsettles Trump is not criticism but irrelevance. He thrives on spectacle, on being framed as either adored or persecuted. The Pope’s silence offers neither. It is a velvet rope around a man who expects red carpets. Each careful non-statement, each diplomatic shrug, each homily that floats just wide of his name but close enough to singe his hairstyle, becomes another brick in a wall that says: you may be powerful, but you are not central. For someone whose theology consists largely of his own reflection, this is a deeper insult than any public rebuke. It denies him the sacramental oxygen of attention.

There is also something faintly medieval in this approach. The Church once dealt with dangerous preachers by surrounding them with procedures, councils, letters, delays, and layers of authority so thick they could barely move. They were not crushed; they were wrapped. The modern version is subtler but familiar: drown the personality in process. Trump speaks in slogans; the Vatican replies in footnotes. He improvises; it drafts. He seeks conflict; it schedules meetings for three months from now and then reschedules them again. In this mismatch, charisma bleeds out.

Critics will argue that this is moral evasion dressed up as prudence. They want fire, names, and a Pope who points directly at the man and calls him what he is: corrosive, divisive, intoxicated by his own mythology. I understand the hunger for clarity. But clarity is not always volume. Sometimes it is architecture. By refusing to recognize Trump as a legitimate moral counterpart, Leo XIV frames him as something else entirely: a disruptive force to be managed, not a leader to be engaged. That is a theological downgrade disguised as courtesy.

The comparison to how the Church once handled cult leaders is uncomfortable but revealing. Cult leaders demand total loyalty, invent their own truths, and replace shared reality with a narrative centered on themselves. Sound familiar? The Vatican’s classic response was never debate; debate flatters the cult by implying equivalence. Instead, it was separation, protect the community, limit contact, reduce contamination. You do not wrestle the fever; you quarantine it. In that sense, the Pope’s distance is not political strategy but ecclesiastical instinct.

Whether this wall is working is another question. Trump still commands millions. He still bends news cycles around his moods. The Vatican’s quiet does not weaken him in polls. But it does something slower and stranger. It strips him of transcendence. It refuses to let him cosplay as a persecuted prophet or misunderstood saviour. In the long memory of institutions, that matters. Empires fall, personalities fade, but archives remain. And in those archives, Trump may end up not as a rival to the Church, nor even as its enemy, but as a footnote: a noisy layman the Pope declined to dignify.

So yes, it does look like a wall. Not dramatic, not photogenic, not built for television. A wall of etiquette, delay, ritual, and deliberate dullness. A wall that does not shout “you are wrong,” but murmurs, “you are not essential.” In the vocabulary of Rome, that is not indifference. It is judgment.

Elon Musk’s Grok, deepfakes and the irony of outrage by Nadine Moreau

Elon Musk’s latest tantrum over the UK government’s decision to limit his AI model Grok’s ability to generate sexually explicit deepfakes of real people is not just another episode in the billionaire’s long-running feud with authority and it’s a perfect distillation of his contradictions. Here we have a man who pillars his identity on free speech absolutism yet made a career out of firing anyone who dared to disagree with him and who now screams “fascism” because someone ...shockingly, wants to protect people from being digitally violated.

Let’s be clear, there’s nothing remotely noble about defending the right to produce manipulated images of real individuals in explicit contexts. None of the high-minded rhetoric about freedom of expression holds up when the tool being defended is weaponised to harm, humiliate or exploit actual human beings. The problem with sexualised deepfakes isn’t hypothetical. It’s a real-world assault on people’s dignity and safety, disproportionately women, often already vulnerable, who find their faces pasted onto images they would never consent to. This is not free speech. This is digital assault.

Musk’s outrage is rich, if predictable. The same man who has repeatedly made unilateral decisions at his companies, decisions that cost people their jobs, their livelihoods and sometimes, their professional reputations, now howls at the injustice of someone else exercising regulatory power. Fire everyone who questions you? That’s bold leadership. Government curbing a harmful use of AI? That’s fascism. This warped valuation of power says everything you need to know about his version of “freedom.”

We can parse Musk’s grievance on two levels, principle and performance. On the level of principle he’s framing the UK move as an attack on civil liberties. But there’s nothing principled about defending tools that can create non-consensual intimate imagery. In fact, insisting that an AI should be free to produce such content under the banner of liberty is a distortion of what liberty is supposed to mean. Liberty doesn’t mean the freedom to trample others’ rights. It doesn’t mean unbounded power to create harm with impunity. The moment your freedom begins to directly harm another person; it is no longer a noble exercise but an abuse of it.

Then there’s the performance aspect, Musk’s response isn’t measured grievance it’s theatrical rage. “Fascist,” “against freedom of speech” the language is designed to provoke, to inflame, to recruit an audience. It’s rhetorical pyrotechnics, not reasoned argument. Musk has mastered the art of turning himself into both protagonist and victim in any story where he gets challenged. If you oppose a harmful feature in his AI, you’re not a thoughtful regulator; you’re an enemy of freedom.

What’s deeply ironic here is that Musk’s crusade for absolutist free speech has always been selective. It’s only absolutist when it serves his interests. It’s only about his platforms, his products, his worldview. Internal dissent? Instant termination. Journalistic scrutiny? Petty complaints. Investors or employees who balk? Replaced or silenced. Yet when a government seeks to reign in a potentially predatory use of a technology he controls suddenly he’s the guardian of civil liberties. The inconsistency isn’t accidental; it’s foundational to his personal brand.

It’s worth asking why this matters beyond Musk’s ego. Because the debate over deepfakes isn’t abstract. We are living through a moment where our digital and physical realities are bleeding into each other with alarming ease. The capacity to generate convincing fake audio, video or images of real people, especially in compromising contexts, has already been used to intimidate, defame and harass. Limiting the distribution of sexually explicit deepfakes isn’t censorship in the oppressive sense; it’s harm reduction. It’s a recognition that technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum and that unregulated digital manipulation tools can be used to ruin lives.

Critics of regulation often paint such efforts as slippery slopes, if you regulate this, what’s next? But this exaggeration ignores the nuance that any responsible society must balance rights with protections. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democratic life but it is not and has never been, absolute. We have laws against defamation, obscenity and threats of violence. We prosecute harassment and stalking. Protecting someone from a sexually explicit synthetic image of themselves isn’t a step toward tyranny; it’s a measure against exploitation.

Of course, Musk isn’t really arguing for free speech in this context. He’s arguing for unfettered platform power. He wants the ability to say “Grok can do anything,” and to portray any limitation as existential oppression. That’s not advocacy; it’s marketing disguised as moral outrage. It’s the same tactic that tech platforms have used for years to resist accountability: frame every safety measure as an assault on liberty, every restraint as censorship, every critic as an enemy of progress.

But we don’t have to be techno-pessimists to see the need for constraints. Technologies that can fabricate explicit content of identifiable individuals should be governed with care. We can support innovation while also insisting that innovation doesn’t become a free-for-all where the collateral damage is human dignity. That’s not authoritarianism, that’s responsibility.

So if Elon Musk wants to huff and puff about fascism while defending Grok’s right to generate deepfake pornography, let him. The real conversation shouldn’t be about his grievances, but about the very real harm that unregulated AI content generation can inflict. And in that conversation, defending human beings from exploitation should outweigh defending an AI billionaire’s fragile sense of insult.

Ma-Siri & Co #116 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

Ma-Siri is a mother and a grandmother with a mechanical companion
searching for the meaning of life.

For more Ma-Siri & Alexa, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Henry Usborne (January 16, 1909 – March 16, 1996) World Citizen Activist by René Wadlow

Henry Usborne was a British Member of Parliament (MP) elected in the Labour Party landslide in 1945. He was re-elected in 1950. He was an engineer and Birmingham businessman yet a socialist. Born in India, he always had a broad view of world politics. He was concerned that the United Nations (UN) whose Charter had been signed in June 1945 before the use of the atomic bombs had the same weaknesses as the League of Nations. Soon after his election, he spoke in Parliament for the UN to have the authority to enforce its decisions, an authority which the League of Nations lacked. He spoke out for a code of human rights and for an active world bank.

The early years of the UN were colored by the growing tensions between the USA and the USSR – the start of the Cold War. There were deep disagreements over the future of Germany. Non-official contacts between English and Soviets became more difficult. Proposals for international control of atomic energy were refused or not acted upon within the UN.

Thus Usborne, while still favorable to the efforts of the UN. felt that more popular support for a stronger UN was needed. He was influenced by the experience of the 1934 Peace Ballot which had been organized by the British League of Nations Association. Voters in this non-official vote were asked if they were in support of Britain remaining in the League of Nations. Over 11 million votes were cast with some 10 million in favor of remaining in the League. It is likely that those who wanted out did not bother to vote. Nevertheless, the 1934 Peace Ballot showed strong popular support for the League.

Usborne played a key role in 1946 in the creation by world citizens and world federalists from Western Europe and the USA in the creation in a meeting in Luxembourg of the Movement for a World Federal Government. With these new contacts he envisaged a vote in the USA and much of Western Europe to elect delegates to a Peoples’ World Convention which would write a constitution for a stronger world institution. He proposed that there be one delegate per million population of each State participating. He did not envisage that the USSR and its allies would participate, but he hoped that India would as Jawaharlal Nehru had played a key role in developing support for the United Nations. (1)

In October 1947 he went on a speaking tour of the USA. His ideas were widely understood as they followed somewhat the pattern of the United States (U. S.) Constitutional Convention. The delegates had originally been chosen to develop amendments to the existing Articles of Confederation. They set aside their mandate to draft a totally other basis of union among the states which became the U. S. Constitution. Understanding did not necessarily mean support; yet a fairly large number of organizations were willing to consider the idea.

However, in June 1950, war was started in Korea. Usborne and many others were worried that this was the start of the Third World War. Usborne as many other world citizens turned their activities toward the need for a settlement with the USSR and forms of arms control if there was no possibility for disarmament. The idea of the creation of an alternative world institution stronger than the UN was largely set aside. The focus became on strengthening the UN by finding programs in which the USSR and the USA could participate such as some of the early proposals for UN technical assistance programs. (2)

Usborne, as other world citizens, put an emphasis on developing a sense of world citizenship and a loyalty to all of humanity without spelling out the institutional structures such world citizenship should take. At the end of his second term in Parliament, he left party politics but remained an active world citizen always willing to share his convictions.

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Notes
(1) See Manu Bhagavan. The Peacemakers: India and the Quest for One World (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2012)
(2) See Stringfellow Barr, Citizens of the World (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1952)

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Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

From Infrastructure to Intelligence: The Next Frontier in Urban Development by Annelie Marchestainer

From the bustling streets of Babylonia to the soaring skyscrapers of New York, from the intellectual hubs of Alexandria to the megacities of Shanghai, cities have always been engines of innovation, economic activity, and social transformation. They are also deeply political creations—rising or declining depending on how well societies anticipate, respond to, and manage change. Today, urban administrations face a 21st-century version of an age-old question: how can cities make decisions that remain viable for the future?

This question has taken on unprecedented urgency. Rapid urbanization, technological disruption, fiscal constraints, climate risks, and widening social inequality are converging in ways that challenge traditional approaches to planning and governance. Every urban development project is confronted with two unavoidable queries: How much will it cost? And what benefits will it bring? Yet, as urbanist and systems thinker Ian Banerjee emphasizes, these questions cannot be answered solely through short-term financial logic.

In his upcoming lecture, alongside with Edna dos Santos (former UNCTAD Creative Economy Programmeoriginator and its Chief) and J Scott Younger, OBE (International Rector of the President University), Banerjee frames cities as dynamic, interdependent systems rather than as a collection of isolated projects. Urban development, in this view, is a complex interplay of economic constraints, social outcomes, institutional capacity, and long-term resilience. Costs and benefits do not unfold evenly across time, social groups, or spatial scales. What appears efficient in the short run may generate fragility in the long term, while modest, carefully targeted interventions can produce disproportionate systemic gains.

Banerjee’s key research interest during the last 25 years was to identify theinfrastructural and institutional preconditions that have proven to be necessary for cities to increase their capacity to solve problems, to learn continuously and to generate continuous flow of ideas and innovations for the future.

Central to Banerjee’s argument is the need to integrate innovation with social realities. Particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions of the Global South, urban development must balance limited budgets with technological solutions that are frugal, context-sensitive, and socially embedded. Employment creation—especially for youth—social inclusion, and security are not peripheral concerns but critical components of resilient urban systems. Governance, he argues, should focus on enabling conditions for adaptation and learning rather than attempting rigid control. Cities, in this view, are living systems capable of evolving when nurtured thoughtfully.

The stakes in the Global South are particularly high. By 2050, it is projected that nearly two-thirds of the world’s urban population will live in cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These regions are urbanizing faster than infrastructure, services, and governance capacity can keep pace. Informal settlements, peripheral suburbs, and sprawling urban peripheries often grow faster than regulatory frameworks can accommodate, leaving populations vulnerable to poverty, unemployment, and insecurity. At the same time, these same cities represent extraordinary opportunity: hubs of innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural dynamism capable of reshaping economic and social futures.

It is within this context that the Global Academy for Future Governance (GAFG)along with its consortium of international partners (such as Modern Diplomacy) has stepped forward to convene policymakers, practitioners, and scholars in its forthcoming half-day public event dedicated to the systemic challenges of urbanization. The Academy’s mandate—to foster anticipatory governance, systems leadership, and long-term resilience—directly addresses the pressing need for holistic approaches to urban development. By providing a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue, the event seeks to bridge the gap between urban theory and practical policy interventions, particularly in the Global South where challenges are most acute and immediate.

The event is designed for decision-makers and stakeholders whose coordinated action is critical to shaping resilient cities. Government officials in finance, economic development, construction, technology, security, health, social and family affairs, and immigrant integration, metropolitan and regionalauthorities, as well as private-sector actors including businesses, developers, insurers, and transport operators, are all integral to this conversation. GAFG recognizes that no single actor can navigate the complexity of urbanization alone; systemic solutions demand collaboration across sectors and disciplines.

Banerjee’s lecture at the event emphasizes that rapid urbanization cannot be treated as a purely technical or financial problem. It is fundamentally interdisciplinary, requiring insights from economics, social policy, urban design, public health, technology, and governance. For example, attempts to improve public transport in rapidly growing suburbs will falter if they fail to account for employment patterns, informal economies, or security concerns.

Similarly, digital innovations designed to optimize city services must be aligned with local capacity, budgetary constraints, and social inclusion goals. Systems thinking provides a framework for integrating these considerations, allowing decision-makers to anticipate unintended consequences and leverage synergies.

A particularly urgent issue highlighted by Banerjee is youth unemployment. Cities in the Global South are growing predominantly through young populations, many of whom enter urban labour markets without adequate education, training, or access to opportunity. Failure to integrate employment creation into urban planning exacerbates inequality and can intensify insecurity, social unrest, and informal settlement growth. Yet, as Banerjee notes, strategically targeted interventions—such as skills hubs, micro-enterprise support, and incremental infrastructure investments—can generate cascading benefits that strengthen social cohesion and economic resilience.

The lecture also stresses the importance of frugal innovation. High-tech solutions imported wholesale from the Global North often fail to account for the unique economic, social, and institutional realities of urban Global South. Instead, innovation must be context-sensitive, scalable, and socially embedded. Examples include modular housing, locally managed digital platforms, renewable energy microgrids, and community-led planning initiatives. Each of these approaches illustrates how systems thinking transforms urban development from a series of projects into a coherent, adaptive strategy that balances cost, benefit, and social impact.

Ultimately, Banerjee reframes urban governance as an act of stewardship. Rather than seeking control over every variable, city administrations can cultivate conditions for adaptability, learning, and resilience. This requires long-term thinking, cross-sector collaboration, and continuous feedback loops between policy, practice, and local communities. Urban systems that embrace this approach are more likely to withstand shocks, whether economic, social, or environmental, and to deliver inclusive, sustainable outcomes over time.

The Global Academy for Future Governance, through its half-day event, embodies this philosophy by bringing together a diverse group of actors to explore solutions in a systemic, interdisciplinary way. Participants are invited to engage with questions such as: How can technology and innovation be optimized to serve urban populations under budgetary constraints? How can employment, security, and social inclusion be addressed simultaneously in informal settlements and expanding suburbs? And how can urban policy anticipate long-term challenges rather than merely reacting to immediate pressures?

By positioning these questions at the heart of public discourse, GAFG and thought leaders like Ian Banerjee are advancing a vision of cities as living, learning systems. This perspective is particularly vital for the Global South, where rapid urbanization presents both unprecedented risks and extraordinary opportunities.

Ever since the Industrial revolution, the urbanisation was a rapid trend. However, over the past two decades the world has urbanised exponentially: globally the share of people living in urban areas rose from roughly 47 % in 2000 to about 56 % by 2020, and is projected to reach around 68 % by 2050, with rural shares declining accordingly. In OECD countries, already highly urbanised, urbanisation increased from approximately 39 % in 2000to about49 % in 2020, and is expected to hit85–86 % by mid-century, as rural populations shrink and city living becomes dominant. In contrast, the Global South — where most population growth now occurs — had a much lower urban share in 2000 but saw sharp increases by 2020 (often moving from majority rural to majority urban in many regions), and will continue rapid urban expansion such that a growing majority of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will live in cities by 2050, driving most of the world’s urban growth. This global shift reflects broader economic and social transformations, with faster urban growth in developing regions shaping new opportunities and challenges for infrastructure, services, and sustainability.

The challenge is never merely to build infrastructure, but to design cities that are adaptive, equitable, and capable of fostering innovation while supporting social cohesion, mitigating exposures and reducing the tangible and intangible costs – something so close to the core mandate of GAFG.

In the end, the future of urban development depends not on short-term calculations or single-sector solutions, but on a holistic understanding of cities as interdependent, evolving systems. By integrating economic, social, technological, and environmental perspectives, policymakers and urban practitioners can make decisions that are robust under uncertainty, inclusive in their outcomes, and transformative in their impact. Events like GAFG’s half-day public forum, combined with the insights of systems thinkers like Banerjee, dos Santos, and Younger, offer a path toward urban governance that is truly future-ready—where costs, innovation, and social change are understood not in isolation, but as part of a living, adaptive whole.

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Annelie Marchestainer Austria-Australia-based Social Pedagogy specialist and the former European Youth Parliament (EYP) member. 

When doubt rewrites diplomacy by Gabriele Schmitt

Giorgia Meloni’s recent call for the European Union to resume high-level dialogue with Russia reads like a sober whisper amid a continent on edge. In suggesting the appointment of a special envoy, Italy’s Prime Minister is not simply offering a procedural solution; she is signalling the creeping unease in Brussels, a sense that the conventional architecture of European diplomacy is being strained to its breaking point. Yet beneath the veneer of pragmatism lies something more unsettling, the shadow of fear cast across Europe, a fear that is not so much about Moscow as it is about Washington or more precisely, about the idiosyncratic pulse of its current leader, Donald Trump.

For decades, Europe could navigate its alliances with a degree of confidence, balancing cooperation with caution. NATO, the EU, and bilateral ties with Washington provided a stable latticework through which foreign policy could move with predictable friction. But stability is a delicate art, and Trump has, with uncanny consistency, demonstrated how quickly it can be unravelled. In a few years, the norms of American leadership, reliability, prudence, subtlety, have been replaced by uncertainty, performative volatility, and a transactional view of allies. Meloni’s statements, and the broader discussions unfolding in European capitals, are inseparable from this context: a continent now second-guessing its most enduring alliances because the anchor of certainty has been shaken.

It is tempting, when analyzing Meloni’s proposal, to focus purely on the Russia angle. There is, after all, a war raging in Ukraine that has redrawn the map of European security in dramatic ways. Yet the subtext of her remarks is equally revealing. She is articulating a quiet anxiety that has been building in the halls of European power: the sense that the transatlantic alliance might not be as stable as once believed, that the United States’ commitment to European security could pivot on whims, tweets, and domestic political theatrics. That anxiety, more than any bombed-out Ukrainian city, is the invisible weight dragging at Brussels’ decision-making.

Consider the optics: European leaders are suddenly discussing options that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. High-level talks with Moscow, the appointment of special envoys, recalibrations of diplomatic posture, these are not born from a sudden spike in optimism about Russian intentions. They are born from strategic fear, from the recognition that the guarantees once provided by the U.S. may no longer be certain. Fear, in this sense, has become a policy driver, quietly dictating the contours of European thought even as leaders speak of pragmatism and dialogue.

Trump’s influence on this dynamic is subtle, insidious. He does not merely challenge policies; he reconfigures expectations. The psychological impact on allies is profound. Countries that once assumed they could count on Washington are now compelled to hedge, to prepare for scenarios where America’s support is contingent, conditional, or absent entirely. In this climate, Meloni’s push for a renewed conversation with Russia is less a sign of pro-Moscow sentiment than a manifestation of defensive realism. If your most powerful ally feels unreliable, you begin to explore every other avenue, however uncomfortable, however politically fraught.

Yet this is not merely a story of international strategy; it is a story of trust or the erosion of it. Diplomacy is built on the assumption that agreements, once reached, will be respected. Fear, by its nature, corrodes that assumption. When European leaders begin to structure policy around the possibility of American caprice, they are not just hedging against a political figure, they are reshaping the very nature of alliances, the implicit contracts of centuries-long partnerships. Trust, once frayed, demands more than pragmatism; it demands constant recalibration, a ceaseless vigilance that in itself reshapes foreign policy in profound ways.

Meloni’s statements, then, are less a roadmap to peace than a mirror held up to the continent. They reveal the fragility of a European consensus, the ways in which fear can become a guiding hand, and the disquieting power of unpredictability in an age that was supposed to prize stability. There is irony here, of course: a continent worried about Russian aggression is simultaneously most unsettled by the behaviour of its own ally. And it is this irony that underscores the peculiar moment in which Europe now finds itself—one where the traditional hierarchies of power are destabilized, and where leaders are compelled to act not purely on strategy or principle but on a pervasive, almost existential anxiety.

In the end, Meloni is articulating a simple, if uncomfortable, truth, alliances are only as strong as the trust that underpins them. When that trust is shaken, the world does not wait for philosophical clarity; it waits for survival instincts. And so, Europe searches for dialogue with Russia not because the threat of Moscow has suddenly softened, but because the once-reliable scaffolding of the transatlantic order has wavered, leaving fear as the unintended architect of policy.

It is, in the most precise sense, the quiet tyranny of uncertainty, a lesson in how the actions of one nation, or one individual, can ripple outward to reshape an entire continent’s perception of safety. And for Europe, for Brussels, for the very heart of a fragile post-war order, the task is simple but agonizing: navigate the world not as it is, but as it might suddenly appear under the shadow of fear.

Smoke without fire by Timothy Davies

In the midst of a grinding economic downturn and a swelling wave of mass demonstrations, Iran today stands at a crossroads. Ordinary citizens, fed up with soaring inflation, a collapsed currency and the spectre of repression, have taken to the streets in cities across the country. Their chants, once focused on bread and jobs, have grown into cries against the very foundations of the theocratic state. But as Iranians try to make history on their own terms, an unmistakeable external actor has inserted himself into the drama, Donald Trump.

Trump’s recent warnings to Tehran, that if the regime slaughters peaceful protesters, the United States is “locked and loaded” to respond with significant force, are being touted by his supporters as a courageous defence of freedom. Yet beneath the bombast lies a far more self-interested calculus, one that has little to do with human rights and everything to do with grand strategic posturing. This is not solidarity; this is strategy. And the Iranian people and their struggle, deserve better than to be pawns in a geopolitical chess game.

Trump’s embrace of the Iranian protest movement mirrors, in disturbing ways, his recent actions in Venezuela. There, a shock “operation” that purportedly captured Nicolás Maduro was sold as a blow for democracy, yet it looked instead like a heavy-handed attempt to reshape regional power dynamics and secure access to energy resources. In both cases we see a pattern, lofty rhetoric about liberation paired with exercises of raw power that do more to consolidate U.S. control than to empower the people said to be at the centre of the narrative. These aren’t acts of empathy; they are permutations of a blueprint that views foreign populations not as sovereign actors, but as instruments of U.S. influence abroad.

Let’s be clear, the protests in Iran are real. They are born of genuine grievances, economic despair, political stagnation and a yearning for dignity in daily life. They are Iranians’ own story to write, driven by their own voices. Yet here is the paradox, Trump’s very interventions, his threats of military action, his tariffs, his muscular declarations, might in the end accomplish something quite different from what he intends. They might actually bolster the regime he claims to oppose.

Repressive governments thrive on narratives of foreign threat. From Moscow to Beijing to Tehran, authoritarian leaders understand that the spectre of an external enemy is a potent glue, capable of smoothing over internal fractures. When a foreign power threatens attack, national identity hardens. Citizens who might grumble quietly about bread lines or joblessness can be rallied behind flags and slogans, urged by state media to unite against outsiders. Trump’s bluster provides Tehran exactly that kind of leverage, enabling it to dismiss domestic dissent as not merely criminal but as dangerously influenced by imperial hands.

It’s a cruel irony. A president who claims to champion protesters’ rights may end up strengthening the very regime responsible for crushing them. Hard-liners can point to Trump’s words and say: “See? This is not an organic movement for reform. It is a foreign plot to destabilize us.” In Tehran’s tightly controlled media environment, that message resonates far more effectively than any distant tweet. And once that seed is planted, it’s fertile ground for nationalism, not revolution.

Furthermore, Trump’s selective concern for democratic movements reveals an inconvenient truth: concern for human rights is often unwavering only when it suits broader policy goals. In some moments, Trump has championed freedom abroad; in others, he has overseen crackdowns at home without a peep of similar outrage. This inconsistency suggests that backing for protesters is less about universal principles and more about the projection of power, power that often leaves local populations worse off than before.

Indeed, the Iranian people are acutely aware of this. Decades of U.S. sanctions and geopolitical hostility have left many Iranians suspicious of American motives. To protesters inside the country, Trump is not a liberator; to many, he is a symbol of the very forces that have contributed to their hardship. When you’ve lived under punitive economic pressures and seen foreign intervention touted as a panacea, it’s no surprise that skepticism blossoms instead of gratitude.

That’s the other coin here, while Trump’s threats might alienate Iranians from their own economic suffering and political aspirations, they might inadvertently unite them in resistance. Not just against their government, but against the notion that change must come at the barrel of a foreign gun. Street movements driven by authentic local demand for justice don’t need external champions. What they need are conditions in which they can negotiate peacefully, without the shadow of warplanes or tariffs looming overhead.

In foreign policy, the line between support and interference is thin and Trump’s recent gambits over Iran risk crossing it in ways that could have disastrous consequences. Real solidarity with protest movements is about amplifying local voices, respecting national sovereignty, and using diplomatic pressure judiciously. What we’re seeing instead is the projection of old power politics dressed up as moral clarity.

In the end, it’s worth asking, do we want to be the architects of liberation, or the inadvertent architects of resistance to liberation? Because in Iran today, those two things are not the same. What might unite the Iranian people is not the threat of American bombs, but the common resolve to shape their own destiny, free from the coercion of both their own rulers and foreign patrons. Let’s hope the world gives them that room, rather than another script written on their behalf.

Canvas of contempt by Felix Laursen

One thing Donald Trump has succeeded at in both his presidential terms and he’s barely into the first year of his second, is angering the people of culture and arts. Not subtly. Not incidentally. Not as an accidental outcome of broader policy. No, this has been a deliberate, blustering, unapologetic push that has made artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, actors and even casual appreciators of beauty feel targeted, misunderstood, maligned, and under siege. In Trump’s America, the cultural sector didn’t just become a political punching bag; it became a rhetorical boogeyman, a scapegoat for everything from societal unrest to the erosion of “traditional values.”

It’s important to stress that culture and arts are not some abstract luxury reserved for the elite ivory towers of big cities. They’re the threads that stitch together human experience, identity, memory and emotion. Culture isn’t just paintings in museums and operas in grand halls. It’s the stories we tell our children, the songs that shape our weekends, the films that make us laugh and cry, the plays that reflect back our triumphs and tragedies. To scorn culture is to scorn the very mechanisms by which we understand ourselves and one another.

Yet that is precisely what Trump has done. With each brash tweet, each dismissive comment, each calculated act of provocation, he has positioned culture as the enemy of the “real” America, the rugged, the practical, the unpretentious. The effect has been a kind of cultural trench warfare, where artists are automatically presumed to be liberal elites and any artistic expression that doesn’t align with a narrow vision of patriotism or tradition is derided as elitist or un-American.

This isn’t simply a matter of differing tastes. Every political leader has preferences. But Trump’s approach isn’t about taste, it’s about attack. He has framed culture and the arts as frivolous distractions at best and corrosive forces at worst. He has equated nuanced artistic expression with political opposition. He has used cultural institutions as proxies in a larger cultural grievance narrative, as if museums and theaters are fronts in some ideological battle rather than spaces of reflection and creation.

To be sure, artists and cultural workers have always viewed the world through a critical lens. That’s part of the job: to challenge, to question, to push boundaries and hold a mirror up to society. But the Trump era has made that role perilous. Critique is now greeted by dismissal as “political,” and artistic expression that doesn’t fit a rigidly patriotic mould is labelled as insubordinate or unfaithful. It’s not just an aesthetic judgment, it’s a moral indictment.

This antagonism doesn’t just hurt artists’ feelings; it has real-world consequences. Funding for the arts, especially public funding, becomes easier to slash when the arts are viewed as irrelevant or antagonistic to the national good. When the leader of the country dismisses creative endeavours, it sends a message: society should devalue them too. And for students, emerging artists, and communities that rely on cultural institutions for education and unity, that devaluation is more than disappointing, it’s harmful.

In the Trump worldview, culture is reduced to caricature: abstract, pretentious, out-of-touch. It’s everything that Trump claims to not be. And therein lies the incendiary power of his rhetoric. By defining culture as the enemy of “real” America, Trump creates an us-vs-them narrative that is as simplistic as it is dangerous. Artists are not the elite; they are part of the fabric of the nation, often rooted deeply in local communities, teaching in schools, organizing festivals, engaging neighbours in shared experiences. Their “elitism” is often just intellectual curiosity and emotional empathy.

And yet, because the arts don’t yield simple slogans or easy talking points, they become easy targets for a leader who prefers soundbites over substance. A symphony isn’t as marketable as a rally chant. A complex novel doesn’t generate the same fervour as a polarizing tweet. So culture becomes the bogeyman, the out-group in a political spectacle that thrives on division.

The broader American public, not just artists, should be wary of this dynamic. When we start making enemies out of our cultural institutions, we weaken the spaces where empathy, curiosity, and understanding take root. Culture is where we learn to see from another’s perspective, where we wrestle with uncomfortable truths, where history is not taught as a monolith but examined in all its complexity. Undermining that is not a harmless pastime; it’s a fundamental threat to the richness of civic life.

What’s most striking about Trump’s antagonism toward the arts is that it isn’t rooted in any substantive critique of the value of culture itself. It’s purely transactional, a political tactic designed to mobilize a base by vilifying an easy target. And in doing so, it dismisses the profound role that culture plays in fostering community, resilience, and shared experience.

In the end, the arts are a reflection of the human spirit, messy, contested, passionate, and sometimes infuriating. They are not perfect, and they should be open to critique and evolution. But to reduce them to political pawns or ideological enemies is to impoverish the cultural life of an entire nation.

So while Donald Trump may have succeeded in angering the people of culture and arts, he has also revealed something far more consequential, a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be a society. And if art is anything, it is a society’s attempt to make sense of itself, even when that sense is messy, difficult, and beautifully imperfect.