Which Fifteen Lives Do We Remember? By Javed Akbar

Every killing of Palestinians should jolt the world with the same force as the massacre at Bondi. Each death toll emerging from Gaza should press upon our conscience with the same gravity as the names and numbers recited in Sydney. If grief is the true measure of our humanity, then applying it selectively is not restraint—it is failure. A life does not lose its worth because it ends beneath a different sky, in another language, or among a people whose suffering has been rendered routine. Until Palestinian deaths unsettle us as deeply as those mourned closer to home, we are not bearing witness to tragedy; we are practising indifference.

On March 23 this year, Reuters ran a brief and chilling headline: “Israeli strikes kill 15 people in Gaza over past day, Palestinian medics say.”

Pause—and ask an unsettling question: do you remember them?

Do their names linger? Their faces? Their interrupted lives? Did that day register as a moment of reckoning on the global conscience? Were solemn statements issued? Did broadcasts pause? Did public spaces fill with grief?

No. I don’t remember them either That admission is not incidental—it is the point. Fifteen Palestinians died that day, absorbed almost invisibly into the statistical hum of a long-running catastrophe. Their deaths occurred near the end of a performative “ceasefire,” shortly before Israel resumed large-scale bombardment with renewed political sanction. By Gaza’s brutal standards, it was not an exceptional day. And that is precisely why it vanished.

Now consider another fifteen.

When fifteen people were murdered in Sydney’s Bondi area, the shock was immediate and visceral. A nation recoiled. Streets fell quiet. Flags were lowered. Grief radiated outward—from families to communities to the national psyche. And rightly so. This is how fifteen deaths should feel. This is how mass killing should register in a society that has not learned to domesticate horror.

The contrast is not about geography; it is about moral conditioning. Western societies have been trained—patiently and persistently—to feel intensely for certain lives and abstractly for others. Palestinian suffering has been normalized, stripped of urgency, framed as permanent background noise rather than human calamity. It is documented, not mourned.

This is more than a failure of media framing or political language. It is a collapse of ethical imagination. When Western lives are lost, the world halts. When Palestinian lives are erased, the world scrolls.

There is no justification for this.

Palestinians love their children no less. They grieve no less deeply. Their futures are no less singular, no less irreplaceable. There exists no moral arithmetic by which their deaths warrant diminished outrage, thinner remembrance, or quieter sorrow.

What made Sunday in Sydney feel like catastrophe is not unique to Sydney. That same scale of devastation is inflicted upon Gaza with numbing regularity. Familiarity dulls outrage. Repetition breeds acceptance. But normalization is not neutrality—it is complicity.

At its core, this crisis exposes the narrow limits we have placed on compassion—or rather, how tightly we have been taught to draw its borders. Albert Einstein warned of an “optical delusion of consciousness,” the illusion that we are separate from one another. Our task, he argued, is to widen our circle of compassion to include all humanity—not flawlessly, but sincerely.

That task is no longer philosophical. It is existential. A civilization incapable of feeling the pain it inflicts—especially when that pain is distant, racialized, or politically inconvenient—cannot endure. We are too powerful, too technologically advanced, and too adept at rationalizing cruelty to afford such moral blindness.

If humanity is to outgrow its adolescence, it must mature ethically. That requires resisting propaganda, rejecting selective empathy, and refusing to rank lives by passport or proximity. It demands that every massacre—whether in Sydney or Gaza—shake the world’s conscience with equal force.

Fifteen lives deserved remembrance, not erasure. That they are forgotten speaks not to their value, but to the poverty of our moral memory.

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Javed Akbar is a freelance writer with published works in the Toronto Star and across diverse digital platforms. He can be reached at: mjavedakbar@gmail.com

Beyond thoughts and prayers action becomes the moral choice by Virginia Robertson

Mass shootings are rare in Australia, and that rarity is not accidental. It is the product of political courage, collective memory, and a refusal to accept violence as an inevitable cost of modern life. Yet Sunday’s deadly massacre has reopened an old wound and, more importantly, an old conversation. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other officials have signalled a willingness to revisit Australia’s gun laws, not because the system has failed entirely, but because complacency is its own kind of failure. This reaction matters. It demonstrates something increasingly absent elsewhere, the understanding that tragedy demands action, not ritualized mourning alone.

In many countries, particularly those where gun violence is routine, the response to mass shootings follows a tired script. Leaders offer condolences, flags are lowered, social media fills with prayers, and then nothing changes. The cycle repeats with grim predictability. Australia chose a different path decades ago, after Port Arthur, when it decided that public safety outweighed political convenience. Gun buybacks, strict licensing, and cultural shifts around firearms were not easy decisions, but they were decisive ones. The result has been clear: fewer guns, fewer shootings and fewer graves.

What makes the current moment significant is not panic, but principle. Albanese’s response does not suggest a nation abandoning its values in fear; it suggests a nation reaffirming them. Revisiting gun laws after a massacre is not an admission of weakness. It is an acknowledgment that laws, like societies, must evolve. Threats change. Technologies change. Human behaviour changes. To freeze policy in time out of pride is to mistake stubbornness for strength.

Critics will argue that further restrictions punish the many for the actions of the few. This argument resurfaces every time reform is proposed, and it is emotionally persuasive but intellectually hollow. Laws exist precisely because a small minority can cause enormous harm. We do not abolish traffic regulations because most drivers are responsible. We do not repeal safety standards because most buildings do not collapse. The point of regulation is prevention not punishment.

Australia’s approach stands in sharp contrast to nations that treat gun ownership as a near-sacred identity rather than a regulated responsibility. In those places, even the slaughter of children is not enough to overcome political paralysis. The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become shorthand for moral surrender, a way of appearing compassionate while avoiding accountability. Australia’s leaders, by contrast, are signalling that grief should sharpen resolve, not dull it.

There is also something deeply democratic about this response. It trusts citizens to understand nuance, to accept inconvenience in exchange for safety, and to recognize that freedom is meaningless if it comes at the cost of constant fear. Australians have lived with strict gun laws for years without descending into tyranny or chaos. Life went on. Rural communities adapted. Sporting traditions survived. What did not survive, thankfully, was the normalization of mass death.

Revisiting gun laws does not mean assuming perfection is possible. No legal framework can eliminate violence entirely. But the goal of governance is not perfection; it is harm reduction. Every life saved is a moral victory, even if tragedies still occur. To argue otherwise is to adopt an all-or-nothing fatalism that excuses inaction.

This moment also challenges other nations to confront uncomfortable truths. Australia’s experience disproves the claim that gun violence is simply the price of freedom. It shows that cultural change is possible when leaders lead and citizens demand better. The choice is not between liberty and safety, but between courage and cowardice.

Sunday’s massacre should not define Australia, but the response to it might. By choosing reflection over resignation and policy over platitudes, Australian leaders are reminding the world that sane societies do not confuse mourning with solutions. They grieve, they act, and they adapt.

In the end, the real question is not whether further restrictions are politically risky. It is whether doing nothing is morally acceptable. Australia has answered that question before, and it appears ready to answer it again. That willingness to act, even when the odds are low and the cost is high, is what separates symbolic leadership from real leadership. It is what turns tragedy into resolve, and resolve into lasting change.

History will remember not only the violence itself, but the decisions made afterward. When leaders choose responsibility over rhetoric, they redefine what is normal. Australia’s example is imperfect, human, and evolving, but it proves that action, not ritualized grief, is how societies honour the dead with dignity.

How many rulings before the robes crack? By Kingsley Cobb

How many more pro-Trump decisions can the Supreme Court take before it loses whatever credibility it still holds in American public life? That question is no longer whispered by law professors or muttered by activists on social media. It is now asked openly at dinner tables, in newsrooms, and even in courtrooms themselves, where judges increasingly feel the need to explain that they are not politicians in black robes. The problem is not that the Court sometimes rules in ways that benefit Donald Trump. The problem is that it keeps doing so in ways that appear calculated, selective, and structurally protective of one man and one movement.

The Supreme Court survives on a fragile illusion: that it stands above politics. It has no army, no power of the purse, and no democratic mandate. Its authority rests almost entirely on public acceptance of its legitimacy. Once that acceptance erodes, the Court becomes just another political actor, issuing commands that large parts of the country feel no moral obligation to respect. History shows that courts without legitimacy eventually find their rulings ignored, circumvented, or openly defied.

What has changed in recent years is not merely the ideological composition of the Court, but the brazenness of its interventions. Longstanding norms are brushed aside with alarming ease. Precedents that once seemed settled are suddenly described as flawed, outdated, or wrongly reasoned, while others are treated as sacred, untouchable truths. The pattern is hard to miss. When Trump’s interests are at stake, the Court moves quickly, creatively, and generously. When democratic safeguards or institutional accountability are on the line, restraint magically disappears.

Supporters of the Court’s current majority insist this is all coincidence, that conservative jurisprudence naturally aligns with Trump’s positions. That explanation grows thinner with every ruling. Legal philosophy does not require contortions that consistently shield one political figure from consequences faced by everyone else. Nor does originalism demand selective urgency, where some cases are rushed through emergency dockets while others languish for years.

The damage goes beyond Trump himself. Each such decision sends a clear message: power now determines justice more than principle. That message corrodes faith not only in the Court, but in the legal system as a whole. Why should ordinary citizens believe the law applies equally when the most powerful man in the country appears to operate under a different set of rules? Cynicism spreads faster than any constitutional theory can contain it.

There is also a deeper institutional danger. By aligning itself so visibly with one political camp, the Court invites retaliation. Court expansion, jurisdiction stripping, term limits, and other once unthinkable reforms move from fringe ideas to mainstream debate. The justices may dismiss these discussions as political noise, but they are in fact warning signals. Institutions that refuse to self-correct eventually get corrected by force.

Ironically, the Court’s majority may believe it is securing conservative dominance for a generation. In reality, it is gambling with the Court’s long-term survival as a respected arbiter. Victories achieved through perceived bias are unstable. They provoke backlash, mobilize opposition, and delegitimize future rulings, even those grounded in sound reasoning.

The Supreme Court does not need to be liberal or conservative to regain credibility. It needs to be believable. That means consistent standards, transparent reasoning, and a visible willingness to rule against allies when the law demands it. It means understanding that restraint is not weakness, and that legitimacy, once lost, is almost impossible to restore.

So how many more pro-Trump decisions can the Court take before losing any credibility? The uncomfortable answer is that it may have already crossed that line for millions of Americans. The real question now is not whether the Court will lose credibility, but whether it recognizes the danger in time to change course. If it does not, the black robes may remain, but the authority they once symbolized will continue to fade.

And that fading matters. Courts function on consent, not coercion. When citizens stop believing that justice is blind, they start treating rulings as partisan suggestions rather than binding decisions. That is how constitutional systems decay, not with tanks in the streets, but with shrugs and workarounds. The Supreme Court still has time to step back from the edge, but time is not infinite. Every decision that looks like favoritism accelerates the slide, turning skepticism into settled belief, and belief into indifference, which is the most dangerous verdict any democracy can render. Once indifference sets in, even correct rulings sound hollow, and the Court’s voice becomes just another opinion in the noise. Alone.

Under every rock a familiar name by Markus Gibbons

 

There is a peculiar feeling that creeps in when the same name appears wherever money, power, and geopolitical chaos intersect. In the United States today, that name is Jared Kushner. It is not paranoia to notice patterns; it is civic awareness. From Ukraine to the Balkans, from Gaza to Hollywood boardrooms, Kushner’s shadow seems to stretch across continents, deals, and moral gray zones, always accompanied by staggering sums of money and unanswered questions.

This is not about ideology. It is about influence without accountability. Kushner did not rise as a traditional diplomat, investor, or public servant. He emerged through proximity, marriage, and access, inheriting not just wealth but corridors of power that most people never see. What followed was a dizzying tour of global hotspots and financial arrangements that would raise eyebrows even in a far less cynical age.

Consider the pattern. A conflict erupts or simmers. Reconstruction looms. Strategic land, infrastructure, or political leverage suddenly becomes “available.” Then, somehow, Kushner-affiliated ventures or interests appear nearby, speaking the language of investment, stability, and opportunity. The rhetoric is always clean. The optics are always troubling. When war and displacement become backdrops for luxury developments or financial windfalls, something has gone deeply wrong.

Take Gaza. While civilians endure devastation and uncertainty, discussions about “revitalizing” the region circulate among elites far removed from the rubble. Real estate fantasies dressed up as peace plans are not new, but when the same figures pitching them stand to profit personally, the cynicism becomes unbearable. The idea that catastrophe is merely an inconvenient phase before monetization should outrage anyone who believes human suffering is not a business model.

Ukraine tells a similar story. Amid invasion, death, and economic collapse, whispers of future deals and strategic positioning grow louder. Reconstruction is necessary, yes, but when the same well-connected actors position themselves early, quietly, and lucratively, it blurs the line between rebuilding and exploiting. War should not be a venture capital opportunity for the politically privileged.

Then there are the quieter deals, the ones that don’t involve bombs but still reek of insider advantage. Media, technology, and entertainment, including ties circling Warner Bros, suggest a man who moves effortlessly between public crises and private profit. The transitions are seamless. One moment it is foreign policy, the next it is intellectual property and streaming empires. The common denominator is access, not expertise.

The Balkans, long treated as a chessboard by global powers, fit neatly into this narrative. Fragile states, corruptible systems, and leaders eager for Western favor create ideal conditions for shadowy agreements. When American political royalty shows up with investment plans, locals are told it is progress. Rarely are they asked who truly benefits in the long run.

Defenders argue this is simply capitalism at work, that success breeds opportunity, and that Kushner is no different from any other global investor. That argument collapses under scrutiny. Ordinary investors do not shuttle between peace negotiations and billion-dollar funds. They do not help shape policy and then profit from its consequences. The conflict of interest is not subtle; it is structural.

What makes this more disturbing is the absence of consequences. Investigations stall. Questions fade. News cycles move on. Kushner’s wealth grows, his reach expands, and his name continues to surface wherever instability meets money. It sends a dangerous message: that power insulates, that connections absolve, and that democracy is negotiable for the right price.

This is not a call for conspiracy theories. It is a demand for skepticism. Democracies rot not only from authoritarian threats but from normalized corruption dressed as sophistication. When citizens stop asking why the same figures profit from every global crisis, accountability evaporates.

Jared Kushner may not be the disease, but he is a symptom. A symbol of a system where politics is a launchpad for private enrichment, where suffering is an investment thesis, and where the public interest is secondary to elite comfort. Until that system is confronted, there will always be another rock to turn over, and under it, the same familiar name.

History will judge this era harshly if silence continues. The issue is not personal animosity but democratic survival. Transparency must replace reverence, scrutiny must replace shrugging indifference. If citizens accept that influence can endlessly monetize crisis, then elections become theater and justice branding. The question is not why Kushner profits everywhere, but why society allows such convergence to feel normal, inevitable, and untouchable. This complacency corrodes institutions faster than any external enemy ever could combined.

Ant-biotics #071 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Ant-biotics is a type of antimicrobial cartoon strip active against boredom’s bacteria.

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The borders and the mirror we refuse to face by Marja Heikkinen

International Migrants Day arrives each year like an inconvenient mirror, held up to societies that prefer slogans to self-examination. It asks a simple question that many political movements now desperately avoid: who gets to belong, and on what terms? In an era shaped by Donald Trump, MAGA politics, and the emboldening of the far right across Europe, migration has stopped being discussed as a human reality and has been recast as an existential threat. This shift is not accidental. It is strategic, emotional, and deeply revealing.

Trump did not invent hostility toward migrants, but he perfected its branding. He turned fear into a campaign logo and cruelty into proof of strength. Walls, bans, cages, and deportation flights were never just policies; they were performances. MAGA politics thrives on the idea that the nation is under siege, that decline has a foreign accent, and that complexity can be solved with brute exclusion. Migrants, stripped of individual stories, became a convenient symbol of everything supposedly “wrong” with the country.

What is striking is how easily this script crossed the Atlantic. From Italy to France, from Germany to the Netherlands, far-right parties have learned that migration is the fastest route to relevance. It bypasses economic nuance and historical responsibility and speaks directly to anxiety. Declining wages, housing shortages, stretched public services, and cultural change are all laid at the feet of newcomers. The message is seductive because it is simple, and it is powerful because it is false.

International Migrants Day exposes the gap between political theater and lived reality. Migrants are not abstractions. They are workers keeping hospitals running; fields harvested, and care systems alive. They are students, parents, taxpayers, and neighbours. Europe in particular suffers from a demographic contradiction; aging societies loudly reject the very people who sustain their economies. The far right responds not by addressing this contradiction, but by denying it, insisting that purity is preferable to practicality.

The language used matters. When leaders speak of “invasions,” “floods,” or “replacement,” they deliberately dehumanize. This rhetoric is not harmless. It normalizes suspicion, justifies violence, and pushes policy toward ever harsher extremes. Trump’s legacy is not only in laws passed, but in the tone he legitimized. European counterparts have followed suit, borrowing not just talking points but moral indifference.

Yet there is a deeper hypocrisy at work. Western nations celebrate globalization when it moves capital, goods, and profit across borders, but recoil when people do the same. The freedom of movement is treated as a privilege for the wealthy and a crime for the desperate. International Migrants Day challenges this double standard by reminding us that migration is not an anomaly; it is a constant of human history. Borders are political inventions, not moral absolutes.

The far right frames itself as the defender of culture, but culture is not a museum exhibit. It is dynamic, shaped by interaction and exchange. The idea that societies were once static, homogenous, and harmonious is a fantasy sold to those fearful of change. Migrants do not erase identity; they reshape it, as generations before them have done. The real threat to democratic culture is not diversity, but authoritarianism dressed up as nostalgia.

Opinion journalism must be honest about discomfort. Migration brings challenges. Integration requires investment, planning, and empathy. Ignoring these realities fuels resentment. But exploiting them for votes is far worse. MAGA politics and Europe’s far right offer anger instead of solutions, scapegoats instead of policy. They promise control while delivering division.

International Migrants Day is not about sanctimony or open borders without debate. It is about refusing to surrender humanity to fear. It asks whether democracies can hold complexity without collapsing into cruelty. The test is not how strongly we defend borders, but how firmly we defend values.

History will remember this period not for the number of walls built, but for the choices made when fear was loud and compassion was inconvenient. The question remains whether we will look into the mirror this day provides, or smash it and applaud the sound.

For Europe especially, the danger is normalisation. What once shocked now barely registers. Policies that would have ended careers a decade ago are defended as “realism.” This slow erosion is how democracies hollow themselves out. When cruelty becomes administrative routine and exclusion becomes patriotic duty, something fundamental is lost. Migrants become the first target, but rarely the last. The political cost is measured later, usually when repair is hardest and trust has already vanished.

David Sparenberg’s ‘Troubadour and the Earth on fire’

In an era often defined by digital noise and fleeting attention the return of a voice dedicated to the timeless rhythms of the human soul is a profound event. David Sparenberg makes such a return to the Ovi eBook shelves with his latest offering: ‘Troubadour & the Earth on Fire.’

This new collection is not merely a book; it is a journey, an evocative pilgrimage through the intertwined landscapes of our wounded world and our resilient inner spirits. True to the ancient calling of the troubadour, David does not shy away from the harsh realities that shape our existence. Instead he picks up his poetic lyre to sing of them transforming raw experience into resonant art that seeks not to distract, but to connect.

The title itself is a powerful dialectic, a testament to Sparenberg’s holistic vision. The ‘Troubadour’ represents the enduring human capacity for creation, storytelling and hope. The bearer of light and melody. ‘The Earth on Fire’ is the stark reality we inhabit, a planet and a society grappling with ecological crisis, conflict and profound sorrow.

David, my friend David, masterfully bridges this divide, understanding that one cannot honestly sing of hope without acknowledging the flames that threaten to consume it. His narratives and verses reach for the reader’s soul with vivid, aching images of our Mother Earth in her beauty and her fragility, making a compelling case for peace, reverence, and urgent healing.

What lends this collection its profound authenticity is its refusal to offer easy solace. David Sparenberg writes from a place where pain and sorrow are not abstract concepts, but intimate companions. He acknowledges this shadowed terrain as part of his life, and by extension, part of our shared human inheritance. This is not poetry that observes from a safe distance; it is poetry that sits beside you in the darkness, offering the solidarity of a shared gaze. In giving voice to grief, both personal and planetary, he performs an act of alchemy transforming despair into a strange, hard-won kind of beauty.

Ultimately, ‘Troubadour & the Earth on Fire’ is a crucial work for our moment. It is a call to witness, to feel deeply and to remember our capacity for compassion amidst the chaos. David Sparenberg emerges not as a distant commentator but as a fellow traveller, using the age-old tools of word and image to kindle a flame of awareness. He invites us to listen to the song rising from the smoke, a song that mourns what is lost, cherishes what remains, and steadfastly believes in the possibility of renewal. To engage with this eBook is to accept that invitation, and to perhaps rediscover, within its pages, the resonant echoes of your own soul’s response.

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Thanos Kalamidas

STREETS of AMERICA #Poem by David Sparenberg

 

(& Citizens of Creation)

1.
The look of the white man
Is feared and hated
The look of the white man
Is fared and hated
The look of the white man
Is feared and hated
On the streets of America

I hasten to assure
People of color – brother
Sister – my friends
I am not one of them.
I am not one of them.

I look at you
In the beauty of your dignity.
I look at you
With our shared humanity.
And I stand beside you
In the struggle for equality.
I stand beside you
Always
In the struggle for equality.

We too are together
In the streets of America
We too are together
In the streets of America
We too are together - here
In the conflicted streets of America.

2.
Everyone ever born
Is born on the Earth.
Everyone born on the Earth
Belongs here.

There is no “human scum”*
Except those who lie
Defraud and deceive
Those who use
An ideology of race to
Inflict suffering.
And those who kill - Kill for power - Kill
For the pathology of greed - Kill
In the sadistic (ego-
centric sadism) of domination.
False hierarchies
In the halls of power
Empires of untruth
On the streets, the streets, the streets
The broken streets of traumatized world history.

Who is superior by birth?
Who is inferior by skin color?
By what law contrived
Of hypocrisy and corruption?
By what criminal
Code and malicious intention?

There are no “shithole nations”*
Except those which betray freedom
For tyranny. Those that justify
Ruining lives and happiness – Leaders
Who violate human right – Agendas
For war – arrogant-ignorance
And charnel profiteering.

If we want a habitable future
For our children and grandchildren
The time is upon us
Today tomorrow, the day after.
If we insist on peace and justice
Unite and make the impossible possible
Make peace happen
Make justice universal..
Make peace and justice
Integral to human-planetary identity.
A solemn sacred signature enshrined
In our species sentience for
Generations – eons upon eons.

I hasten to assure
People of color
Good people everywhere
I am not one of those
The haters
I am not one of those
Implementing social division – not
Participating in persecution - a cog
A thug in the reign of violence.

I remain true to nonviolence.
My creed is my goal.
My goal is biocracy.

I look at you
(face to face) in the
Beauty of your dignity.
I look at you
With the eyes of our shared humanity.
I stand beside you
In the struggle for equality
I stand beside you
Always (soul to soul)
In the struggle for equality.

Everyone born
Is born on the Earth.
Everyone born on the Earth.
Belongs TO the Earth.
We are Citizens of Creation.

*Human scum and shithole nations are terms
used by the American President to describe
immigrants from impoverished, war torn and
disaster stricken 3rd World Nations.

David Sparenberg 14 December 2025

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David Sparenberg is a humanitarian & eco-poet, international essayist and storyteller. He has published four new eBooks in 2025, including Troubadour& the Earth on Fire, available from OVI starting 18 Dec. International Migrant Day. David lives in Seattle, Washington in the Pacific Northwest of the UnitedStates but identifies as a world citizen, more comprehensively, a Citizen of Creation.

International Migrants Day by Rene Wadlow

“Let us make migration work for the benefit of migrants and countries alike. 
We owe this to the millions of migrants who, through their courage, vitality and dreams,
help make our societies more prosperous, resilient and diverse.”
Ban Ki-moon
Then Secretary-General, United Nations

In December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 18 December as the International Migrants Day.  The day was chosen to highlight that on a 18 December, the U.N. had adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrants Workers and Members of Their Families. Although migration to and from countries is a world-wide flow of people, only  42 countries, basically Latin American, North and West African, Indonesia and the Philippines, have ratified the Convention.  The Convention created a Committee on Migrant Workers which meets in Geneva to review once every four years a report of the Convention members on their application of the Convention.  The Convention also created a mechanism by which the Committee could receive individual complaints.  Only three States have ratified this individual complaints mechanism: Mexico, Guatemala and Uruguay.

Today, there are some 232 million persons who reside and work outside their country of birth.  The reasons for migration are diverse − most often economic, but also refugees from armed conflicts and oppression, and increasingly what are called “ecological refugees” − persons who leave their home area due to changing environmental conditions: drought, floods, rising sea levels etc.  Global warming is very likely to increase the number of these ecological refugees.

Although migration is an important issue with a multitude of consequences in both countries of origin and destination, the Committee on Migrant Workers, a group of experts who function in their individual capacity and not as representatives of the State of which they are citizens, has a low profile among what are called “UN Treaty Bodies” - the committees which review the reports of States which have ratified UN human rights conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Since the great majority of States receiving migrants − Western Europe and North America   - have not ratifies the Convention on Migrant Workers, other ways have to be found within the UN system to look at migration issues.  Thus has been created outside the UN system but in close cooperation with the UN, the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the Global Migration Group to address the opportunities and challenges of international migration.  Within the UN, there was the  “High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development”. in 2013 and there have been a number of conferences since, given the massive flow of refugees and migrants toward Europe in 2016 and 2017.

The Governments at the Dialogue unanimously adopted a Declaration (A/68/L.5) calling for greater cooperation to address the challenges of irregular migration and to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration.  The Declaration also emphasized the need to respect the human rights of migrants and to promote international labor standards.  The Declaration strongly condemns manifestations of racism and intolerance and stresses the need to improve public perceptions of migrants.

UN conferences and such dialogues or forums serve as a magnet, pulling Governments to agree to higher ideals and standards collectively than they would proclaim individually.  This is not only hypocrisy − though there is certainly an element of hypocrisy as Governments have no plans to put these aims into practice. Rather it is a sort of “collective unconscious” of Government representatives who have a vision of an emerging world society based on justice and peace.

The role of non-governmental organizations is to remind constantly Government representatives that it is they who have written the text and voted for it without voicing reservations. Numerous States which ratified the International Convention on Migrant Workers made reservations limiting the application of the Convention on their territory. Thus, the Declaration of the High-level Dialogue was not written by the Association of World Citizens but by Government diplomats.

The Declaration is a strong text and covers most of the important issues, including human mobility as a key factor for sustainable development, the role of women and girls who represent nearly half of all migrants, the need to protect the rights of migrant children and the role of remittances to families.

Recently international attention has been drawn to slavery-like conditions of migrants trying to reach Europe and blocked in Libya. It is estimated that there are one million migrants blocked in Libya.  Migration is a crucial issue. Many governments prefer to turn a blind eye to the fate of refugees and migrants. Non-governmental organizations have responded with more compassion but are under strain by the number of peole involved. 18 December should serve as a moment of cooperative discussion and action so that broader policies can be undertaken.

 ******************

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

Worming #121 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

A family of worms and all their worm friends worming in new adventures.

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Imported right-wing extremism by Emma Schneider

Europe has wrestled with far-right and fascist movements for decades, but what we are witnessing now is not merely a continuation of an old disease. It is an escalation, sharpened and globalized, fed by an ideological supply chain that increasingly runs through the United States. The last thirty years laid the groundwork; the present moment has poured gasoline on it.

European far-right movements once wore local costumes. They spoke the language of national grievance, historical humiliation, economic neglect, and cultural anxiety specific to each country. Their myths were homegrown, their symbols rooted in local pasts. Dangerous as they were, they remained fragmented, often marginal, occasionally restrained by social shame and political isolation. That containment has cracked.

Today’s far-right is louder, slicker, and more coordinated, borrowing narratives, tactics, and aesthetics from across the Atlantic. The American culture war has become an export product, shipped wholesale into European debates. Concepts like “deep state,” “fake news,” “globalist elites,” and “stolen democracy” now circulate fluently in languages that once had their own political vocabulary. This is not organic evolution; it is ideological importation.

The United States perfected a style of radicalization that thrives on spectacle. Rage is monetized, outrage is algorithmically rewarded, and politics is reduced to permanent performance. European extremists have eagerly adopted this model. They livestream provocations, manufacture scandals, and treat democratic institutions as stages rather than safeguards. The goal is not governance but disruption, not persuasion but domination of attention.

What makes this imported extremism especially corrosive is its simplicity. Complex European realities are flattened into crude binaries: patriots versus traitors, people versus elites, tradition versus “wokeness.” Nuance becomes suspect, compromise becomes betrayal, and expertise is reframed as conspiracy. This mindset erodes the foundations of pluralistic societies that depend on disagreement without dehumanization.

There is also a psychological shift. Older European far-right movements often framed themselves as tragic losers of history, nursing resentment. The new wave presents itself as victorious, inevitable, and unapologetic. This confidence is learned. It mirrors American far-right bravado, where losing elections is rebranded as proof of persecution and violence is rhetorically sanitized as “resistance.”

Social media accelerates this transformation. Platforms do not care about borders, but democracies still do. An influencer in Texas can radicalize a teenager in Turin by lunchtime. Memes cross frontiers faster than laws can respond. European political cultures, built around slower deliberation and institutional trust, are ill-equipped for this velocity.

The danger is not only electoral success, though that alone is alarming. The deeper threat is cultural normalization. When far-right talking points dominate conversation, even their opponents begin to frame debates on their terms. Immigration becomes panic. Gender becomes threat. Journalism becomes enemy. Democracy becomes conditional.

Europe bears responsibility too. Decades of austerity, political technocracy, and social alienation created fertile ground. When people feel unheard, they become susceptible to those who shout. But acknowledging internal failures does not mean ignoring external accelerants. The American far-right ecosystem functions like an amplifier, taking European grievances and turning them into identity warfare.

What is particularly tragic is how this imported ideology distorts European history. A continent scarred by fascism now flirts again with its language, while pretending it is something new, something rebellious, something “anti-establishment.” In reality, it is a recycled authoritarianism with a fresh accent.

The response cannot be performative outrage or shallow moralizing. It requires reclaiming democratic confidence, investing in social cohesion, and refusing to let imported paranoia dictate public life. Europe must remember that democracy is not weakness, complexity is not decadence, and solidarity is not surrender.

If this moment is allowed to pass unchecked, Europe will not simply face stronger far-right parties. It will face a hollowed political culture, where fear replaces policy and spectacle replaces truth. Imported extremism thrives where societies forget their own hard-earned lessons. Europe learned those lessons once, at an unbearable cost. Forgetting them now would not be innocence. It would be negligence.

This is not a call for censorship or moral panic, but for clarity. Europe must name what it is facing without euphemism. Fascism does not always arrive in uniforms; sometimes it arrives as a podcast, a meme, or a smirk. Resisting it demands courage that is quieter than outrage and stronger than nostalgia. It demands citizens who refuse easy lies, media that refuses lazy amplification, and leaders who understand that democracy is defended not by shouting louder, but by governing better, fairer, and with memory intact. Anything less invites history to repeat itself, this time faster, louder, and dressed as entertainment for everyone.