Green colonialism by Marja Heikkinen

Europe has discovered a wonderful way to feel morally superior while behaving like an empire. It calls it the green transition. Replace coal with wind turbines, petrol with electric cars, and fossil fuels with minerals dug out of the ground, preferably somewhere far away from the comfortable people who will enjoy the benefits. Then put a photograph of a polar bear on the government website and congratulate yourself on saving the planet.

There is just one inconvenient problem. The land belongs to someone. In Sápmi, the ancestral territory of the Sámi people stretching across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, the race towards a carbon-neutral future is colliding with the rights of Europe's Indigenous people. Reindeer herders watch their pastures fragment under the pressure of wind farms, mines, roads, power lines and other infrastructure sold to the public as environmental necessities. The green revolution arrives with promises of progress and leaves behind a familiar question: who gets to decide what happens to Indigenous land?

Apparently, not always the people who have lived there for generations. The irony is almost too grotesque to tolerate. Europe congratulates itself on defending human rights, confronting colonialism and learning from the crimes of its industrial past. Yet when the demands of economic growth collide with Indigenous rights, governments suddenly develop a remarkable talent for selective deafness. Sámi traditions become an administrative complication. Reindeer migration routes become obstacles on a planning map. An ancient relationship between people, animals and land becomes a negotiable inconvenience in the grand spreadsheet of national prosperity.

Apparently, the planet must be saved, but the people who have protected their environment for centuries must first explain why their existence matters. Nobody seriously disputes the urgency of the climate crisis. Renewable energy is necessary. Fossil-fuel dependence must end. Europe cannot continue burning its way towards ecological disaster and expect future generations to thank it for the smoke. But urgency is not a blank cheque, and climate change is not a magical legal exemption allowing governments and corporations to disregard Indigenous rights.

A wind turbine does not become morally innocent simply because its blades turn in the name of sustainability. A mine does not become an instrument of justice because its minerals end up inside an electric vehicle. Extractive colonialism does not disappear when the machinery is painted green.

The real question is not whether Europe needs renewable energy. It is whether Europe can imagine a renewable future that does not reproduce the same old hierarchy: powerful institutions decide, corporations profit, politicians celebrate, and Indigenous communities are expected to absorb the damage.

This is where the Scandinavian reputation for progressive governance deserves some uncomfortable scrutiny. Truth and reconciliation are attractive concepts when they involve historical apologies, solemn speeches and carefully arranged ceremonies. They become considerably less attractive when reconciliation requires governments to change present-day decisions, surrender some control and accept that Indigenous consent cannot be treated as a decorative paragraph in an environmental impact assessment.

The Sámi do not need another lecture about the importance of sustainability from politicians whose definitions of sustainability conveniently accommodate the destruction of traditional livelihoods. They need meaningful participation, enforceable protections for their land and culture, and decision-making processes that respect their rights rather than treating consultation as a public-relations exercise.

International human rights standards, including the principle of free, prior and informed consent in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, exist for a reason. Consent is not the same as being informed after the important decisions have already been made. Nor is consultation meaningful if the answer that communities give can simply be ignored when it becomes inconvenient.

And let us abandon the patronising suggestion that reindeer herding belongs to a romantic past that must inevitably surrender to modernity. The future is not automatically superior because it arrives with a billion-euro investment, an engineering team and a minister holding a hard hat. Cultural survival is not backwardness. Indigenous land rights are not an obstacle to civilisation. And economic development is not a sacred entitlement that automatically outranks every other human interest.

Europe stands at a crossroads. It can build a climate policy worthy of its democratic principles, or it can use the climate crisis to excuse another round of dispossession. It can recognise that Indigenous people have rights, knowledge and political agency, or continue treating their homeland as an empty warehouse of resources.

The industrial revolution once transformed land, labour and human lives into raw material for somebody else's prosperity. The green transition risks repeating that history with cleaner machinery and better advertising. Europe cannot claim to be saving the future while sacrificing the people whose past it has never properly respected.

If the price of a green Europe is the disappearance of Sámi livelihoods, the destruction of their cultural landscapes and the denial of their right to determine their own future, then this is not a revolution in justice. It is colonialism with a conscience-free carbon footprint. The planet deserves a future. So do the Sámi. And if Europe cannot defend both, perhaps its green credentials are not as brilliant as it thinks.

Silhouettes of Love and Lust #Poem by Strider Marcus Jones

 

i love to watch the chocolate
slowly melt
between your lips
of silky liquid felt,
then lick and lap
soft suck sips
in rhythm with your hips,
making such moments of motion
plough tidal waves in your ocean
as each surge of storm
throbs to be born
until the stone and dust
of autumn yellow moon
casts silhouettes of love and lust
that burst and bloom
through every love-soaked scented night
shuttered from politics so coccooned
in plutocracies of blight.

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Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, nominated for the Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3, his five published books of poetry https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms.

The tracks across Africa by Thanos Kalamidas

Africa’s great infrastructure debate is often conducted as if roads, ports, electricity grids and telecommunications were separate problems. They are not. They are parts of the same problem; whether a continent can move people, goods, information and opportunity across borders quickly enough to turn geography from a handicap into an advantage.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Africa’s war zones and dangerous regions. A road that disappears into mud during the rainy season is not infrastructure in any meaningful economic sense. A bridge that can be destroyed by one armed group is not a reliable commercial corridor. A port without dependable rail connections is little more than an expensive parking place for ships. And a country whose capital is effectively disconnected from its frontier may possess sovereignty on a map while lacking it in practice. Africa needs infrastructure not merely to grow. It needs infrastructure to become governable.

This is particularly urgent in countries affected by insurgencies, civil wars, terrorism and chronic political instability. The instinct is understandably to treat these areas primarily as security problems. Governments deploy soldiers, purchase surveillance equipment and build checkpoints. International organisations discuss stabilisation. Yet an isolated village remains isolated. A remote town remains dependent on a single road. Farmers remain unable to reach markets. Hospitals remain difficult to supply. Young people remain trapped in economies where the fastest route to employment may be joining an armed group.

Security without connectivity is an expensive form of postponement. Railways are especially important because Africa has an opportunity to rethink the geography inherited from colonialism. Too many railway systems were designed to carry minerals, agricultural commodities and other resources from the interior towards a coastal port. They were not designed to create a dense economic network between African societies.

That logic should be reversed. The African railway of the future should not simply connect a mine to a port. It should connect cities to cities, farmers to markets, landlocked countries to seaports, industrial zones to consumers and neighbouring states to one another.

A functioning continental railway network could become one of Africa's most powerful instruments of economic integration. It could make regional trade cheaper, reduce dependence on imported goods from outside the continent and allow businesses to think beyond national borders. A manufacturer in one country could obtain components from another, assemble them in a third and sell them across a fourth without treating every border crossing as an expedition.

This matters enormously for the African Continental Free Trade Area. Free trade is a wonderfully simple idea until someone has to move a container across 1,500 kilometres of inadequate roads, unreliable border posts and fragmented transport systems. Tariff barriers can be negotiated in conference rooms. Infrastructure barriers are encountered every kilometre.

Africa cannot trade itself into integration if it cannot physically connect itself. The security argument is equally compelling. Infrastructure can make dangerous regions less remote. A railway does not defeat an insurgency by itself, but it changes the economics of isolation. Regular transport brings commerce, workers, engineers, teachers and medical supplies. Communication networks follow transport corridors. Markets develop around stations. Towns that were once peripheral can become economically relevant.

The point is not to militarise infrastructure. It is precisely the opposite. Economic activity creates an alternative to the armed economy.

An unemployed young man in a forgotten border region does not necessarily become a militant because he is ideologically committed to violence. Sometimes the militant organisation is simply the only institution offering money, status, food, transportation or a sense of belonging. Building a railway station does not magically defeat extremism, but building an economy around that station can begin to make extremism less attractive.

There is also a strategic dimension. Africa's enormous distances make communication itself a matter of national security. Governments cannot effectively administer territory they cannot reach. Emergency services cannot respond to communities that are practically inaccessible. Soldiers cannot protect populations they cannot rapidly reinforce. Markets cannot function where transport is unpredictable.

Infrastructure is therefore not merely an economic category. It is an instrument of state capacity. But Africa should avoid another familiar mistake: building impressive infrastructure that serves photographs better than economies. Grandiose airports, isolated highways and prestige railways can consume billions while leaving the underlying transport system fragmented. The objective should be connectivity, not monuments.

A railway from nowhere to somewhere is useful. A railway from somewhere to everywhere is transformative. That requires regional planning. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, for example, cannot sensibly plan their transport futures as completely separate national projects. Nor can West Africa afford to regard each national railway as an independent undertaking when its economic future depends increasingly on cross-border commerce.

Africa needs corridors rather than isolated projects. And it needs redundancy. In dangerous regions, a single road or railway should not become the sole artery of an entire economy. Multiple transport routes, functioning ports, bridges, air links, digital networks and energy connections create resilience. When one corridor is disrupted by conflict, floods or political disputes, another can carry traffic.

That is what mature infrastructure does: it gives societies options. There is a deeper political lesson here. African states have spent decades debating borders inherited from colonial rule. Yet the most effective way to make those borders less economically important is not necessarily to redraw them. It is to build through them.

A railway does something diplomats often struggle to accomplish. It creates a practical reason for neighbours to cooperate. Once a railway crosses a frontier, customs officials, businesses, railway authorities, security agencies and communities acquire a shared interest in keeping it functioning. Infrastructure creates interdependence, and interdependence can become a form of peace.

Africa does not need another generation of speeches about the "potential" of the continent. Potential has become one of Africa's most overused words. What matters is whether that potential can physically move.

Move the grain. Move the copper. Move the manufactured goods. Move the workers. Move the medicine. Move the information. Move the people. And, above all, connect the places that have been allowed to remain disconnected.

The continent's dangerous zones will not become safe simply because someone builds a railway. But they are unlikely to become sustainably safe while they remain economically abandoned.

Africa's infrastructure challenge is therefore much larger than concrete, steel and asphalt. It is a question of whether distance will continue to dictate poverty, insecurity and political weakness.

For too long, Africa has been described as a continent waiting for development. Perhaps the more useful description is a continent waiting to be connected.

Berserk Alert! #127 #Cartoon by Tony Zuvela

 

Tony Zuvela and his view of the world around us in a constant berserk alert!
For more Berserk Alert! HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Trekking Chat #018 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

They trek across surreal cartoon streets, armed with quirky sarcasm
and boundless humor. They map uncharted valleys, befriend bizarre creatures
and find the real adventure in their square frames.

For more Trekking Chat, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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The price of principles by Robert Perez

There is something very convenient about imposing economic sanctions when you are not the person checking the heating bill. You can condemn Moscow over breakfast, announce another package of restrictions before lunch, and deliver a magnificent speech about democratic values in the afternoon. Then winter arrives, energy prices climb, inflation eats another hole in household budgets, and suddenly the champions of economic warfare discover that principles, like everything else, have a price tag.

Welcome to the Western sanctions dilemma, where geopolitical morality meets the supermarket till and loses some of its rhetorical confidence. Sanctions against Russia were never supposed to be painless. The objective was to restrict the Kremlin’s financial oxygen, weaken its capacity to wage war, and demonstrate that territorial aggression carries consequences. There is a legitimate argument for all three objectives. The question is whether Western governments have confused imposing punishment with achieving results, as if every additional restriction automatically brings Moscow closer to surrender.

It does not. Russia has adapted, redirected trade, cultivated alternative buyers and developed mechanisms to survive the economic siege. That does not mean sanctions are useless, nor does it mean they have failed completely. It means economic warfare is a contest of endurance, adaptation and political will. And political will is precisely where the cracks begin to appear.

The Kremlin can afford to treat hardship as a strategic instrument. Authoritarian governments routinely transfer the cost of their ambitions onto populations with limited opportunities to challenge them. Western democracies, meanwhile, must explain to pensioners why heating their homes has become a luxury, to workers why transport costs keep climbing, and to families why the weekly shopping basket resembles a financial ambush.

A government can survive an unpopular winter, perhaps. Repeated winters of rising bills, stagnant purchasing power and political lectures about sacrifice are another matter. The danger is not simply inflation. It is the growing suspicion that ordinary citizens are being asked to finance a geopolitical strategy whose objectives remain distant, whose timetable is uncertain and whose costs are distributed with astonishing unfairness. Wealthier households can absorb expensive energy. Poorer families must choose between warmth, food and other essentials. Apparently, the defence of the international order comes with a means-tested heating policy, although nobody has had the courage to advertise it.

And here lies the hypocrisy. Politicians celebrate national resilience while quietly hoping that voters will confuse endurance with consent. They demand sacrifices from citizens but rarely explain what measurable outcome would justify them, how long the sacrifice might last, or what happens if the adversary simply refuses to break.

Sanctions are not a moral trophy. They are an instrument of policy, and instruments must be judged by their effectiveness, not by the righteousness of the hands holding them. Yet abandoning sanctions whenever energy prices rise would be equally foolish. It would teach Moscow, and every other government contemplating aggression, that Western resolve has an expiry date determined by the next electricity bill. Apply enough economic pressure, wait for voters to become angry, and watch democratic governments negotiate against their own domestic exhaustion.

That is not a sustainable strategy either. The answer is neither unconditional escalation nor an embarrassing retreat disguised as pragmatism. It is a sanctions policy connected to clear objectives, coordinated enforcement, serious investment in energy security, diversified supplies and targeted protection for vulnerable households. Governments must close loopholes, confront evasion and stop pretending that announcements are equivalent to achievements. They must also be honest about the costs and establish criteria for reviewing measures that produce diminishing returns.

Most importantly, Western leaders must stop selling sanctions as a painless substitute for difficult foreign policy decisions. Economic pressure can constrain an aggressor, but it cannot guarantee political capitulation. Anyone promising otherwise is selling certainty in a market where none exists.

The fundamental problem is not that principles have become too expensive. It is that politicians have repeatedly behaved as though principles can be defended without a credible plan for paying the bill. Democracy cannot demand infinite patience from citizens while offering them an infinite supply of slogans. Nor can it abandon international law every time the price of heating rises.

The West must decide what it is prepared to sacrifice, for how long, and towards what achievable end. Otherwise, sanctions risk becoming a magnificent exercise in moral theatre: Moscow adapts, politicians congratulate themselves, and ordinary Europeans keep paying for the performance. Principles matter. But if governments cannot explain how their economic weapons are supposed to win the war they were designed to influence, perhaps the first thing requiring sanctions is their own political complacency.

Siren Songs Of Sydney #Poem & #Painting by Nikos Laios

 

On a dark velvet night
I discovered the soul of this city;
Pulsating beats wrapped in
The rushing sounds of traffic,
And the tree-tops bent by a
Cold breeze on a windy night,
The sounds and the aromas
Of boulevards, streets and alleyways
Mingling with fat drops of rain splashing
The pavements as I strolled among
The steel and glass towers,
Bars, pubs and clubs.
The colours of neon signs
Reflecting on the wet pavements
Like a fauvist painting,
And I was mesmerised by it all;
The intoxicating stimulation
And the beautiful smiling
Faces of this vibrant metropolis,
Seduced by its siren songs
As I navigated the night
Like a modern Odysseus
Returning home.

 *******************************
With a digital painting from Nikos Laios

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Check Nikos Laios' eBOOK, HERE!

The beautiful debt by Kasie Hewitt

Football is not going broke. Not officially, anyway. The stadium lights are on, the television contracts are astronomical, the shirts cost more than a week's groceries, and somebody has just paid a small nation's annual budget for a striker who might remember how to score after Christmas. Everything is wonderful. Until FIFA bans the club from signing players.

Suddenly, the beautiful game discovers the existence of arithmetic. Transfer bans are not merely administrative punishments or embarrassing interruptions to the summer shopping season. They are warning shots fired at an industry that has spent decades confusing money with success, debt with ambition, and reckless spending with sporting greatness. When clubs cannot pay their obligations, honour their contracts or satisfy financial requirements, the machinery begins to seize up. FIFA may deliver the punishment, but the disease is considerably older and far more widespread.

Modern football has become a casino dressed in club colours. Owners arrive promising glory, executives gamble on expensive transfers, agents collect their commissions, and supporters are invited to finance the spectacle through increasingly expensive tickets, subscriptions and merchandise. Everybody wants to win immediately. Nobody wants to discuss who will pay when the winning stops.

The transfer market is the perfect theatre for this collective delusion. A talented young player becomes an investment opportunity, a middle-aged executive becomes a financial visionary, and a club already drowning in liabilities convinces itself that one more expensive signing will magically transform its fortunes. If the player succeeds, somebody receives a bonus. If he fails, the supporters inherit the bill.

And if the money runs out? There is always another loan, another investor, another accounting manoeuvre, another promise that next season will be different. Until it isn't. The greatest absurdity is that football's financial madness is frequently presented as evidence of its extraordinary commercial health. Billions circulate through the global game, yet financial security remains elusive for countless clubs. Revenue is not profit, wealthy ownership is not sustainable management, and a transfer fee is not proof that a club can afford the player. These elementary distinctions seem to disappear whenever a wealthy chairman develops an appetite for headlines.

Meanwhile, smaller clubs are left fighting a different battle. They develop young talent, sell their best players to survive, struggle to compete against artificially inflated budgets, and watch the richest institutions turn financial muscle into a permanent competitive advantage. The gap widens, competition becomes predictable, and football's supposedly open pyramid begins to resemble a private members' club with a very expensive entrance fee.

This is not simply unfair. It is dangerous. A football club is not an ordinary disposable business. It carries the memory of neighbourhoods, generations and communities. Its supporters cannot simply transfer their loyalties to another corporation when the accounts collapse. Yet the people making the financial decisions are often protected by limited liability, distant ownership structures and the comforting belief that somebody else will eventually rescue the brand.

FIFA and national football authorities cannot solve this crisis with transfer bans alone. Such sanctions may be necessary, but enforcement must be consistent, transparent and proportionate. Clubs need meaningful financial disclosure, credible oversight, effective protection for players and employees, and consequences that reach the decision-makers responsible for reckless management. Otherwise, punishment becomes another temporary inconvenience in a system designed to forget its mistakes.

Football does not need to abandon ambition or commercial success. It needs to abandon the childish fantasy that spending without discipline is ambition. The next financial collapse will not arrive with a referee's whistle. It will arrive through unpaid wages, broken contracts, abandoned academies and supporters discovering that their beloved club has been sacrificed to somebody else's financial experiment.

And when that happens, the executives will issue statements, the lawyers will negotiate, and the owners may quietly disappear. The supporters will still be there. They always are. Perhaps that is precisely why football's financial gamblers have become so comfortable playing with other people's futures.

Insert Brain Here: PolarBear Office #Cartoon by Paul Woods

 

Originally from Port Macquarie, Australia, Paul Woods is a Cartoonist and Illustrator based in South London who also plays drums, works as a Cameraman and likes bad horror films. His series of cartoons is entitled "Insert Brain Here"

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Carpond #023 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

A cacophony of singalongs, stifled yawns,
and surprisingly insightful debates
on the existential dread of a four wheeler vacuum

For more Carpond, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Europe is in the downward footsteps of the Roman Empire by Christos Mouzeviris

Last weekend (17/10/2026), we all witnessed the horrible escalation of student and youth protests in France, that turned into violence, destruction and civil arrest. The country was in flames with numerous demonstrations ongoing in most of its cities, while sadly, looting of countless local businesses also took place.

However, these protests did not errupt over a weekend. They were ongoing since September even though the media were rarely extensively reporting on them or the reasons behind the student mobilization, not until things turned ugly; it is a well known technique of the European establishment and media, to avoid delving in uncomfortable truths about the state in their countries, or the European Union itself.

These protests were not confined in France alone, but they also occured in Italy, Albania, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and even Austria and Serbia. Young people marched to protest against the rising cost of living, poor school and economic conditions, teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, run-down buildings, and limited public investment in social programs and infrastructure.

Yet, the European elites are turning a blind eye to the fact that the continent's economies are failing, while they support the war in Ukraine, which has cost us billions over the past 4 years, plus more are needed to continue funding a lost war; Ukrainian President Zelensky has asked for further $78 billion in European aid for Ukraine, days before the riots in France turned ugly. Since the United States pulled back from funding Ukraine, Europe has become Kyiv’s chief backer. It has spent more than $255 billion so far, and Ukraine is seeking additional support.

Billions of euros are spent without our consent or opinion in a war, that only continues because of European tax payer's money. Billions that could fund all that the students need and require, or that European families and citizens need to cope with the rising fuel prices, however the EU under Ursula von der Leyen's leadership, opts to spend on supporting a non-EU member, Ukraine.

The result? Europe is burning while Mrs von der Leyen and her collaborators in EU, as well in our governments, continue to revel in the flames, just like the Roman Emperor Nero did, centuries ago. They refuse to listen to the European citizens, who they simply cannot live any longer with rising costs, the degradation of our living standards and all that because the European leadership decided to go to war against Russia and Vladimir Putin. And yet, it is Russia's economy that is failing according to our leaders, forcing the Russians to fight with washing machine parts!

This war was never about supporting Ukraine, rather securing the country's resources, plus counting on a potential Russian defeat, getting additional access to the Russian ones. Europe is getting poorer and is in desperate need of new resources, as the developing world is turning away from Western hegemony, it is forming BRICS and is seeking new ways of conducting business away from the dollar and Western market rules.

Initally the Americans and Europeans were on the same page and staunch in their support of Ukraine, however as we witness lately, USA under Donald Trump's Presidency is clearly moving on from its support for Ukraine, and focusing on America's interests first; something that Europe still hasn't managed to agree on.

Trump announced on October 9 that he had struck a deal to purchase diesel from Russia, pivoting away from a years-old Western policy that placed massive economic pressure on Moscow. The move is expected to strain Washington’s relationships with its European allies. So while the EU citizens are told that the high fuel and goods prices are necessary to support Ukraine, America goes and makes deals with Putin to secure Russian oil, that most likely will end up in Europe, but triple the price.

Consequently, not only we have to spend billions to arm Ukraine, we got to pay higher oil and gas prices, because in their wisdom our leaders decided to cut ties with Russia and apply 20+ rounds of sanctions to harm its economy and force it to wield to Western demands, but now thanks to Trump who went on and started a war on Iran which made the energy costs and shortage even worse, there is no end in sight to the spiraling upwards prices of almost everything!!

And to make matters even worse, the media and social media, focused mostly on the damage and looting that took place in France, but failed to discuss the root of the problem; wasting money on the war in Ukraine, rising fuel costs due to the embargo on Russian energy and the war in Iran, to the detriment of the European economy. The financial powerhouse of our continent- Germany, has been economically stangnant for some years now, since it relied on cheap Russian energy to fuel its growth. Now with the EU sanctions against Russia, persistently high energy prices, competition from China and excessive red tape which are adding to its structural crisis, Germany's export-led economic model faces unprecedented strain just as support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party reaches a new peak.

Only in last September, the far-right political party AfD, won key German state election, only falling just short of majority. Alternative für Deutschland surged to victory in Saxony-Anhalt as Friedrich Merz’s CDU slumped to disastrous result. The far-right is rising across Europe for years now, since the economic crisis, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the countless refugee crises and now the war in Iran, have eroded European economies and the continent's citizens' living standards for the past 15 years.

Just two days after the French riots, there were demonstrations and counter-demonstration in Copenhagen, Denmark. One of them was organized by the movement Det Danske Folk in central Copenhagen, with slogans supporting what it called “fair and realistic remigration” and opposing Islamization, Sharia law and social control. The counterprotesters gathered under the slogan “No to remigration.”

This comes to no suprise, as the images that were pouring in on social media, showed a dispoportionate number of French youths of immigrant background, notably African-North African, being on the forefront of the looting and violence in most French cities. With countless photographs of non-European rioters being published on social media, another sign of decline as a European society became evident.

Europe’s far right, but also US MAGA supporters, seized on protest violence to push authoritarian anti-immigration agenda across the Western world. Calls for re-migration are becoming more prominent, as they reveal a divided, unequal and toxic society. This is of course partially understandable, as Europe never had a viable solution and clear immigration policies to deal with an issue that has been going on for over a decade now, since the Syrian refugee crisis.

You see, Europeans are dealing with immigration based on ideological debates and divides, while the phenomenon should be approached pragmatically. Left wing leaning politicians, campaigners and followers support the opening of borders and a multiethnic society, believing that "a brotherhood of man" will prevail and a harmonious society will emerge miraculously. The nationalists and right wing suporters on the other hand, support a nation state and less or no immigration at all, something that is unrealistic in the modern world and with economies that rely on immigration for cheap labour.

I am sorry to say, but both are delusional. How many Europeans would aspire to work as kitchen porters and how would anyone expect some jobs to be filled without legal immigration? On the other hand, bringing countless migrants in your country without proper integration or housing and jobs to offer them, while you keep them as second class citizens who rely on benefits and free housing, create bitter angry youths that hate the society they were born in. They consequently are easily radicalized by the Far Left or Islamist organizations and thus in every opportunity they get, they show their discontent.

I am an immigrant myself and although not too often, I also had to face injustice, racism and discrimination in my adopted country, which of course led to temporary bitterness. If these conditions were ongoing for years or generations, when immigrants are cramped in ghettos with no equal opportunities to the rest of the native population, that bitterness becomes toxic, anger, and even hate. So why do European countries import more immigrants than they really want or need? Is it because of the colonial guilt, leftist ideology or a need to portray themselves with an image of an open society, for PR like purposes?

If European nations feel that they need to make up for the damage they did to their former colonies, they could instead repay or assist their former colonies to develop economically, so that their youths can have a future in their homeland. These aspiring migrant young people will have to realize that Europe is not a solution to their problems and only a handfull of them will be successful. Therefore, allowing thousands to settle for years in Europe, since the process of approving or rejecting someone's refugee status across the EU is a very slow process and in many cases like in Ireland, four-in-five asylum seekers issued with deportation orders in the last five years remain unaccounted for, is simply unsustainable.

New Freedom of information figures in Ireland, show that 4,631 deportation orders were issued to people whose application for asylum was rejected between 2018 and last year. The figures show that Gardaí enforced 314 of the orders – which makes up around 7%. The question is why are our governments so slow in applying the law and solving the immigration crisis, when they clearly see that the native population is having enough of paying, and the immigrants are getting frustrated and angry in the process, resulting in a dangerous toxic mix in our societies.

Only last September we saw another migrant crisis taking place, this time in Spain's African enclave, Ceuta. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Spain on 2 September over the government's handling of the migration crisis in Ceuta, following weeks of unrest in the Spanish enclave itself. Anger over the arrival of more than 70,000 migrants has developed into sustained mobilization involving residents and migrants, with violence becoming increasingly prominent in late August. Residents have protested against the central government's handling of the crisis and the accommodation of migrants, with some demonstrations escalating into direct attacks on migrants. Migrants, meanwhile, have protested over access to asylum and poor living conditions, with some also clashing with security forces.

The problem is why this continues to happen, why our governments unable to deal with it and potentially who is behind the weaponization of this problem and to what cause. Ultimately, perhaps the Hungarian and Polish approach in this issue is more honest and feasible. I have been recently in Budapest and although it has certainly become a more cosmopolitan multicultural city since I last visited, as you see migrants of all backgrounds working in hotel, tourism and hospitality industries, you notice the lack of refugees and unemployed migrants hanging around, waiting for the application to be approved.

They decline to accept scores of illegal immigrants and opt to control of how many people will get working permits, often clashing with EU institutions and other member states. You may dislike their approach, but it works much better than the pretentious messy reality that exists in Western European nations, which now are struggling to keep the Far Right at bay and from seizing power. The AfD in Germany is vowing to abolish the Schengen and Germany to leave the euro, while in France after the riots, the looting, and the images of young migrants destroying cities and burning historic buildings, the French Far Right leader Marine Le Pen is now widening her lead ahead of 2027 presidential vote, against both centre-right Édouard Philippe and hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

If both Germany and France move to right-wing, nationalist policies, we may as well forget Europe as we know it. A continent where rich nations vote either to leave EU (Brexit), or never to fully join as the recent rejection of full EU membership by Iceland last August shows us, opting to safeguard national interests against European ones in an increasingly changing and multipolar world. Additionally, we got plenty of poorer nations in Eastern Europe aspiring to become members in order to raise their living standards, but their aspirations are put on hold by the EU and could potentially be entirely derailed, should Le Pen and the AfD win the upcoming elections.

All the above are painting a very sad and bleak picture for Europe and its future, when even its closest ally USA, is turning away from it and seeks to engage with all rising players of a new multipolar world. Europe on the other hand, opts to hold on to outdated ideologies and morality that existed since the end of WW2, the collapse of Communism, the end of the colonization era, and instead of viewing things pragmatically and taking action, they thrive on chewing on old ideas and doctrines, in a never ending philosophical inner struggle.

The only positive occurence of the past 6 months, was when Canada was invited by the EU Commission to become the EU’s first-ever “associate member”, in order for both parties to deal with the increasingly hostile and unpredictable USA, their former close ally. That is a good move, especially if more countries like Australia follow, as is discussed. However, this won't be enough to save Europe from decline, or a social and economic blight. We need to push back against the Far Right in order to maintain what we have built over the past decades, and finally end the war in Ukraine and re-engage with Russia and all BRICS economies. We need cheap energy in order to re-industrialize our continent and catch up with giants such as China and USA in technological achievements, when Europe's amount close to nothing when compared with the two aforementioned competitors.

It is necessary to better the living conditions for Europeans, as is dealing with the migrant crisis effectively, to aspire security, law and order among our citizens, which in turn will stabilize our societies and in extend our economies. If we fail, there is no going back. Europe's future is a stake, but our leaders are proving to be short-sighted, corrupt and increasingly unequipped for this task, hence I fear more riots, instability and even a total collapse of the EU and Europe as a whole and that will be the greatest disaster we will have to live through in our generation.

First Published in The Eblana European Democratic Movement