Global Humanity Vs. Insanity of Perpetuated Animosities by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

Global Leaders Besiege Humanity with Absurd Propositions of Peace and Security

Global peace and security sounds more a trajectory of delusional statements and broken alliances. It is a controversy of power, not reason and accountability. Truth and global conscience appear missing in all official conducts. A fraudulent scenario unfolds Gaza Peace Plan  and ceasefire while Palestinians continued to be bombed by Israel, forcibly displaced and their olive gardens burnt by Israeli IDF supported settlers putting a finished answer to peacemaking or the Two State solution.

The implications are erroneous for the future of the Middle East. How come the Western proponents of human rights or the UNO could not organize a civilian defense force to protect the Palestinian victims of Israeli planned atrocities? It is all linked to the plan of Greater Israel. Despite spending hundreds of  billions of dollars on the US military hardware, the Arab world lacks security and capacity to defend itself. The Arab oil exporting world faces the most pernicious consequences of allying with the US for security, conflict resolution and peace in the region. The US-Israel war against Iran and its aftermath shattered  all trust on its commitment to the authoritarian Arab leaders. Ironically, all the oil producing Arab leaders look for an irresistible impulse of necessity to find other hubs of political power for change and future-making. The US and Israel appear isolated and lost of moral and political values across the globe. Israeli leaders could not have committed genocide without the complicity of the US leaders. If sea storm, earthquakes or radiation overflows (Israel is reported to possess 100 or so nuclear arsenals) the state of Israel, how would rescue it from the Divine punishment for its alleged crimes?

The leaders having unbridled ambitions and power unleash violent assumptions of hatred, secret intrigues and animosities and killings overwhelm the daily thinking process, a society - a nation no matter how normal claims to be, cannot function as normal beings to co-exist with their own self, the surroundings - in the human culture and make any positive contributions to human change and progress. This state of affairs reflects complete societal breakdown and march towards self-annihilation. Despite hollow claims, no moral and ethical behavior is seen in the sudden and inexplicable plunge to human wickedness. Nobody takes Trump’s America seriously on its commitment and behavior. Most Western politicians cannot adapt to the absurdity of leadership originating from the US. President Trump foiled the Ukraine peace plan by agreeing to get diesel from Russia. The EU leaders simply watch and witness daily horrors, killings of civilians and devastation of habitats across Ukraine and Russia. It was a test lab for Western mythologists, not a pursuit to end the conflict for peacemaking and harmony. The Arab world is reignited with ethnic conflict between two factions of Yemen. If the Arab leaders had any vision and wisdom, the Yemen war should be resolved on a diplomatic table not with ballistic  missiles. If not, the future of Arabia looks fractured and lost. 

Glory lives in the conception of human consciousness of good and honesty, not the warriors of genocide, robotic machines, weapons of wars and hollow aims of egoistic power and politics. They favor the Hobbesian formula: “war of all against all.” The on-going wars in Gaza and other parts of Palestine and between Russia, NATO, the EU and Ukraine have far reaching impacts on imperatives of life across the globe- be it the security of the civilians, end of famine, supply of oil, food grains, gas supply and peacemaking. German philosopher Immanuel Kant (“Perpetual Peace”, 1795), was more proactive and realist when he noted that: “Intellectuals must be seated in chosen assemblies and systems of public governance to overt individualistic insanity against the people.” But the vices and moral weaknesses of leaders are not invincible as ignorance and animosities could be replaced by nobler and more proactive visionary and competent leaders to resolve the conflicts.

God created all human beings to view life as a test of vice or virtue. None can claim infinity but would face an end time and accountability for actions. The earth and universe are meant for human beings and are enriched to support all of their needs over time and space. Are we living in a disconnected world of our own making? How strange we are so abhorrent and neglectful of our own present and futuristic sustainability? Jesus is quoted in the Bible saying: “If the world hates you, you know it hated me before it hated you…if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you…John 15:18-25” Truth is One and the same unchanging as it was many centuries earlier. We, the human beings are a creation of God, not the creator and We “indeed created man (human being) in the best of moulds” 4: 95 the Quran), and “taught man that which he knew not- Nay but man doth transgress all bounds.” (5-6: 96 the Quran.).

The Earth is Living Entity and We, the People are its Trustees

We live on earth that sustains all forms of living things, yet human ignorance and arrogance are at work to destroy the essential foundation of our own lives. The creation of Earth, Moon, the Sun and all working systems are a trust to humanity. Have We, the People, We, the Humanity honored and protected that natural trust and its obligations? In a recent article (“Conflict Beyond Reason: a dialogue to end the war is desperately needed”) https://www.uncommonthought: this author encompassed the truth not for geological or meteorological explanation but for the understanding of fellow human beings that the earth spins at 1670 km per hour and orbit the Sun at 107,000 km per hour. Imagine, if this spinning fails, what consequences could occur to the living beings on Earth. Think again, about the average distance of earth from moon is 93 million miles -the distance of Moon from Earth is currently 384,821 km equivalent to 0.002572 Astronomical Units - (https://www.newscientist.com/question/fastearthspin/#ixzz7C8p37S9X). If this God given system of distance between the Earth-Sun and the Earth-Moon were ever to change, there will be no sign of life, human civilizations or habitats left on Earth.

The War in Palestine and Ukraine Needs Urgent Dialogue for Peace and Security

We are witnessing a time when most conventional wisdom is liable to big surprises. Canons of rationality call for an urgent ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine leading to peacemaking - the core value of the canon of fairness for peace, human unity and security. The Arab world needs public institutions, educated and intelligent leaders of accountability. Israel could disappear if they failed to elect people of reason, honesty and peace. If history is relevant and is seen as a source of learning and warning, undeniably all those superpowers well equipped with weapons and animosity to destroy others or all have met the same fate of self annihilation. It is beyond doubts that when they challenged the sanctity of the Laws of God governing the Earth and the living Universe, and invaded small and poor nations in far fetched lands, they ultimately met their own ending by natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions and exploding lava, sound blasts, landslides, lightning and lot more. Are there any Thinking people to take heed from the prevalent facts of human history? Truth must be conveyed in a language of universal brotherhood to unite mankind, not to divide humanity. Every beginning has its end. It is just that most powerful nations have failed to learn from the living history- a slap to EH Carr’s precious thoughts of human history. Eric Bogle wrote “The Green Fields of France”, and it was sung by Fureys:

Did you really believe, when they told you the cause,
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again -
And again, and again, and again, and again.

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Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: Global Humanity and Remaking of Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution for the 21st Century and Beyond, Barnes and Noble Press, USA, 2025 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/global-humanity-and-remaking-of-peace-security-and-conflict-resolution-for-the-21st-century-and-beyond-mahboob-a-khawaja/1147150197 and We, The People in Search of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Kindle Direct Publishing-Amazon, 05/2025 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6V6CH5W and https://pdfhost.io/v/BZkFa7FYPR_Wars_on_Humanity_-_Mahboob_A__Khawaja__PhD_

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Wars on Humanity:
Ukraine, Palestine and the role of Global Leaders
HERE!

The consulate test by Yash Irwin

Diplomacy used to have doors. They could be slammed, guarded, protested outside, or occasionally kicked in by angry mobs, but they were still doors into another world, the world of negotiation, communication and the stubborn belief that even enemies needed somewhere to talk.

That assumption is now being dismantled. The crisis surrounding Britain’s nearly two-century-old diplomatic presence in Jerusalem is not simply another ugly chapter in the increasingly poisonous relationship between Israel and its Western allies. It is a warning about what happens when sovereignty becomes an excuse for political punishment and diplomacy becomes hostage to the domestic politics of the moment.

Israel ordered Britain to close its East Jerusalem consulate after London announced measures against goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The deadline has now produced a compromise: the building survives, but the consulate has effectively been downgraded into a “UK Mission,” with Britain temporarily withdrawing personnel. The name change may look like diplomatic housekeeping. It is nothing of the sort.

It is a precedent. For generations, consulates and diplomatic missions have existed precisely because political disagreements should not automatically destroy channels of communication. They are not merely offices handing out passports. They are listening posts, meeting places, emergency channels and, sometimes, the only remaining telephone line between governments that have stopped speaking politely.

Once governments can threaten those channels because they dislike another government's policy, diplomacy becomes a hostage. And the particularly ugly part is that the people who pay the price are rarely the diplomats. They are ordinary people. The Jerusalem consulate has served Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, while also providing consular services to British nationals. Its history predates the State of Israel itself.

So what exactly is being defended when such a presence is squeezed out? Not merely British prestige. It is the principle that international diplomacy can operate even inside disputed political territory without becoming an extension of whichever government currently controls the street outside.

That principle is already looking dangerously fragile. The modern international system has always been imperfect. Powerful states have bullied weaker ones, diplomats have been expelled, embassies have been threatened and international law has been selectively interpreted. But there was at least an institutional fiction that diplomatic space deserved protection because tomorrow's crisis might require today's enemy to become tomorrow's negotiating partner.

Now we are increasingly replacing that fiction with something uglier: if you disagree with us, we will make your diplomatic life impossible. That is not sovereignty. That is diplomatic blackmail. And Western governments should stop pretending otherwise.

Britain, France, Canada and other European governments can argue about sanctions, settlements, recognition of Palestine or the future of a two-state solution. They should argue. Loudly. Diplomacy without disagreement is just public relations.

But if disagreement leads to the destruction, downgrading or intimidation of diplomatic channels, then the damage extends far beyond one building in Jerusalem. Because once consulates become bargaining chips, the next crisis will have fewer doors. And when there are no doors left, everyone start

The base view by Kingsley Cobb

The modern military base has become one of those comforting ideas that survive long after the world that created it has disappeared. Concrete runways, hangars, radar towers, ammunition depots and rows of permanent housing still look like power. They photograph beautifully. They reassure nervous allies. They give politicians something solid to point at when explaining why their country is protected.

But in a war increasingly defined by drones, precision missiles, cyberattacks and cheap technologies capable of reaching expensive targets, a fixed base can also become an enormous bullseye.

The sudden American withdrawal of bombers from RAF Fairford should therefore be read as more than a temporary security decision. It is a small but revealing glimpse into the contradiction at the heart of contemporary military planning: the more valuable a base becomes, the more attractive it becomes as a target. And the more predictable its location, the easier it is to plan against.

That is the uncomfortable lesson. Lithuania, understandably worried about its security environment, has offered to pay for a permanent American military presence. From Vilnius, the logic is obvious. American troops are not merely soldiers; they are a political tripwire. Their presence tells Moscow that an attack on Lithuania would immediately involve Washington. Permanence becomes reassurance.

But reassurance is not the same thing as survivability. A permanent American installation in the Baltic would inevitably become part of the strategic geography of any future confrontation. Its coordinates would not be secret. Its infrastructure would not move. Its fuel supplies, aircraft shelters, communications systems and personnel would exist in a known location. The very permanence that makes the base politically reassuring could make it militarily vulnerable.

This is where Europe risks buying the wrong century. The twentieth-century military imagination loved the fortress. The twenty-first century is becoming obsessed with dispersion. Instead of concentrating expensive aircraft and personnel in a handful of giant installations, modern forces increasingly need to be able to scatter, move, hide, deceive and reassemble.

The logic is almost brutally simple: if the enemy knows where you are, assume the enemy will eventually find a way to reach you. Ukraine demonstrated how relatively inexpensive unmanned systems can threaten enormously expensive military assets. The lesson is not that airbases are obsolete. It is that concentration is increasingly dangerous. A hundred-million-dollar aircraft does not need to be destroyed by another aircraft to become a strategic loss. A swarm of cheap drones, a cyberattack against logistics, sabotage of fuel supplies or a precision strike against a runway can achieve disproportionate effects.

And this changes the meaning of American power in Europe. Washington does not necessarily need more giant monuments to military permanence. It needs more options: dispersed airfields, temporary operating locations, hardened shelters, mobile logistics, redundant communications and the ability to move aircraft before an adversary knows where they are going.

That is harder politically because mobility is invisible. There is no grand ribbon-cutting ceremony for a strategy based on not being there tomorrow. Small European states have understandable reasons for wanting permanent American bases. Geography can be frightening when your neighbor is a nuclear power. But the answer to insecurity cannot simply be to build a more expensive target and call it deterrence.

The future battlefield will punish predictability. America's most useful military installation may increasingly be the one that does not look like an installation at all: dispersed, temporary, flexible and difficult to target. That is not weakness. It is adaptation. The dangerous illusion is believing that concrete equals security. In the age of cheap drones and long-range precision weapons, sometimes concrete simply tells the enemy where to aim.

Carpond #022 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

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

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The enemy in the cockpit by Maddalena Conti

Aviation security has become very good at imagining the enemy outside the aircraft. Terrorists. Hackers. Drones. Missiles. Saboteurs. Cybercriminals. Foreign intelligence services. Every year brings another sophisticated threat model, another security conference, another technological solution promising to make the skies safer.

And yet, sometimes the most dangerous person on an aircraft is already inside the cockpit. That is the uncomfortable lesson aviation still struggles to absorb. An international security review following an incident in which a flydubai co-pilot assaulted the captain during a flight should not be treated as some bizarre personal drama, an unfortunate exception caused by one unstable individual. It should force a much more disturbing question: what happens when the human being operating the machine becomes the threat?

The aviation industry has spent decades building layers of technical redundancy. Aircraft have multiple engines, navigation systems, communication systems and increasingly sophisticated automation. Cockpits are designed around procedures, checklists and disciplined cooperation. But there remains one primitive assumption buried beneath all this technological sophistication: that the two people sitting in the cockpit will remain psychologically capable of cooperating.

That assumption is no longer good enough. Pilots are human beings. They experience exhaustion, depression, anxiety, rage, financial pressure, relationship breakdown, grief, medication problems, addiction, professional humiliation and private crises. They can have extraordinarily bad days while being expected to perform an extraordinarily precise job thousands of metres above the ground.

And the industry has historically preferred not to look too closely. The reason is obvious. Aviation depends on confidence. Airlines do not want passengers wondering whether the pilot is psychologically fit to fly. Regulators do not want to create systems that appear intrusive. Pilots understandably fear that admitting psychological difficulties could damage their careers. The result is a dangerous silence disguised as professionalism.

The cockpit is not a normal workplace. Two people can become a closed operational system with enormous responsibility and very limited escape. If one of them suddenly becomes aggressive, irrational or incapacitated, the other may have seconds or minutes to understand what is happening and respond correctly.

Yet crew training remains overwhelmingly focused on technical competence and predictable emergencies. Human conflict is often treated as a communication problem when it can become something much uglier.

The answer is not to create a flying police state where every pilot is psychologically interrogated before boarding. Nor should mental-health difficulties automatically become grounds for professional exile. That would simply encourage pilots to hide problems even more effectively.

The answer is honest prevention. Airlines need stronger confidential psychological support, meaningful fatigue monitoring, better peer-intervention systems and clearer procedures for recognising behavioural deterioration before it reaches the cockpit. Crew members should be trained not merely to manage disagreement but to identify when a colleague's behaviour has crossed from stress into operational danger.

And there must be mechanisms allowing a crew member to say, “Something is wrong,” without being branded disloyal, weak or professionally suicidal. This is where aviation's obsession with technology becomes almost absurd. We can build an aircraft capable of navigating oceans with extraordinary precision, yet we remain remarkably primitive when it comes to recognising a human crisis sitting behind the controls.

The future of aviation security cannot simply be another firewall, another biometric scanner or another automated warning system. It must include the messy, unpredictable, uncomfortable human being. Because the cockpit does not become safe merely because the aircraft is technologically brilliant.

The machine can be redundant. The software can be monitored. The doors can be reinforced. But the people behind those doors remain human. And pretending otherwise may be the most dangerous security failure of all.

The Peace Defender by Marja Heikkinen

There is something beautifully offensive about giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a woman whose life has been devoted to international law, human rights and the stubborn idea that power should answer to justice. Offensive, that is, to the warmongers, the political bullies and the self-appointed emperors who believe that the law is something for other people to obey. If Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is being celebrated for promoting peace and international law, then perhaps the greatest achievement of such recognition is the number of powerful people it might make uncomfortable.

And frankly, some discomfort is long overdue. Pillay represents precisely the kind of international responsibility that today's political circus finds inconvenient. A South African jurist of Tamil descent, a survivor of the injustices of apartheid, a former judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, she has spent decades confronting the uncomfortable truth that justice means very little if it bends its knee before political power.

Her career is a reminder that international law was not invented to decorate diplomatic speeches, provide impressive quotations for United Nations ceremonies or give politicians something to invoke when their enemies commit crimes. It exists because human beings have repeatedly demonstrated what happens when power is allowed to operate without consequences.

Apparently, this is a dangerously radical proposition in the twenty-first century. The modern political strongman has a remarkably simple philosophy: international law is magnificent when it prosecutes the other side, suspicious when it examines an ally, and intolerable when it dares to investigate him personally. Human rights are sacred when useful for propaganda and disposable when they interfere with strategic interests. Civilians become statistics, refugees become political weapons, and the dead are conveniently buried beneath the vocabulary of national security.

Then these same politicians stand before cameras and lecture the world about civilisation. One could almost admire the efficiency of the hypocrisy if its consequences were not so bloody. Donald Trump provides a particularly revealing example of the political contempt for international institutions that has become fashionable among authoritarian-minded leaders. His hostility towards international constraints, his attacks on institutions that challenge his authority and his transactional understanding of diplomacy embody a worldview in which power is not merely a means to an end; power itself becomes the argument. The strongest man in the room decides what is legitimate, and everyone else is expected to applaud.

But international law cannot function as a restaurant menu from which presidents select their favourite rules and reject everything they dislike. Nor can peace mean simply the silence that follows the destruction of a weaker nation's ability to resist. Peace without justice is submission. Security without accountability is privilege. And sovereignty without responsibility can become an elegant excuse for brutality.

This is where Pillay's work matters. Her contribution is not that she has somehow persuaded the world to abandon its conflicts, nor that international courts possess magical powers capable of stopping every war criminal. They do not. International justice remains painfully vulnerable to political obstruction, selective enforcement, inadequate resources and the cowardice of governments that prefer profitable alliances to uncomfortable principles.

Yet the existence of these weaknesses makes her work more necessary, not less. International law is not discredited because powerful governments violate it. It is discredited when the rest of the world decides that violations are acceptable whenever the perpetrators possess sufficient military strength, economic leverage or political influence. A system that prosecutes the powerless while protecting the powerful is not justice. It is

The rent revolt by Thanos Kalamidas

For years, European governments have treated housing as an irritating technical problem for housing ministers, economists and property developers. Build a few thousand apartments, announce another investment programme, subsidise a mortgage, blame planning regulations and congratulate yourself on having done something.

Meanwhile, rents climb, house prices become obscene and an entire generation is being told that adulthood is apparently an unaffordable luxury. This is no longer a housing crisis. It is a political crisis wearing a mortgage. Spain is only one of the clearest warnings. When housing policy becomes powerful enough to destabilise governments and trigger political confrontation, the message should be screaming across every European capital: people do not riot over architecture. They riot when they believe the system has decided that their lives are less important than somebody else's balance sheet.

And politicians still don't get it. They keep talking about "the housing market" as if they are discussing potatoes. Housing is not just another market. A person can live without a new car. They can postpone buying a television. They can survive without the latest smartphone.

Try postponing the need for a roof. Housing is the foundation underneath employment, family life, education, health, security and dignity. Without it, the rest of society becomes a grotesque exercise in pretending that everything is functioning.

Europe has created cities where the people who actually keep those cities alive increasingly cannot afford to live in them. Nurses commute ridiculous distances. Teachers struggle to rent near schools. Young workers remain trapped with parents. Couples postpone children. Students compete for tiny rooms at absurd prices. Elderly people fear losing homes they have occupied for decades.

And then the political class produces another PowerPoint presentation about productivity. Enough. The European housing system has become a machine for transferring wealth upward while politicians stand beside it holding a microphone and explaining that market forces are complicated.

Of course they are complicated. So is poverty. So is homelessness. So is watching your salary disappear into rent while someone who already owns five apartments becomes richer without lifting a finger.

The most poisonous consequence is not even economic. It is democratic. People who cannot afford to participate in society eventually stop believing society belongs to them. When the young are told that ownership is for their parents' generation and stability is for people who already possess capital, democracy starts looking less like representation and more like an exclusive club with elections every four years.

That is political dynamite. And the far right is perfectly happy to pick it up. The extremists do not need to manufacture people's anger. Governments are manufacturing it for them. All they have to do is point at immigrants, refugees, Brussels, foreigners, environmental regulations, universities or whatever convenient enemy happens to fit the day's propaganda.

The tragedy is that the original grievance is often completely legitimate. A young European who cannot afford an apartment does not need a lecture about tolerance. They need an apartment. A family crushed by rent does not need another speech about competitiveness. They need security.

A nurse who cannot afford to live anywhere near the hospital does not need politicians praising essential workers. She needs somewhere to live. This is where Europe's supposedly sophisticated political establishment has become intellectually bankrupt. It has treated housing as an investment opportunity when it should have treated it as national infrastructure.

Nobody argues that roads should exist only where property developers can make money. Nobody suggests that hospitals should be built exclusively for the wealthy. Nobody tells soldiers that national defence should depend entirely on whether private investors find missiles sufficiently profitable.

Yet when it comes to housing, suddenly the sacred invisible hand must be protected from the vulgar demands of ordinary human beings. That is ideological nonsense. Markets have a role. Property owners have rights. Private construction matters. But when the market systematically produces a society where working people cannot afford to live where work exists, governments have a responsibility to intervene.

Not with another committee. Not with another glossy strategy. Build homes. Public housing. Social housing. Affordable rental housing. Cooperative housing. Serious long-term planning. Land policies that stop cities becoming casinos for property speculation. And policies that recognise housing as infrastructure rather than another playground for wealth accumulation.

Because this is no longer about whether Europeans can buy their dream home. It is about whether Europeans can afford to remain Europeans in their own cities. Ignore that question and the consequences will not arrive politely through parliamentary procedure. They will arrive through elections, protests, rage and political extremism. The European political establishment should understand one brutally simple fact: People can tolerate many things.

They can tolerate bad governments. They can tolerate bureaucracy. They can even tolerate politicians lying to them. But when you take away the possibility of having a home, you are no longer asking them to tolerate bad policy. You are asking them to tolerate humiliation. And humiliation is where democratic patience goes to die.

Berserk Alert! #122 #Cartoon by Tony Zuvela

 

Tony Zuvela and his view of the world around us in a constant berserk alert!
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Sceptic feathers #137 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Cynicism with feathers on thin wires.

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Rent oddity by Jennifer Stephenson

Europe likes to believe that its political crises are about ideology, immigration, security, climate or the endless argument over Brussels. Increasingly, they are about something much more primitive: where people are going to live.

Spain has just provided another ugly warning. Housing decrees intended to protect vulnerable tenants, restrain rent increases and put some limits on the increasingly aggressive property market were defeated in parliament. The political arithmetic may be complicated. The social arithmetic is not. People cannot afford their homes, and governments cannot afford to ignore them.

This is where Europe's housing crisis becomes something much bigger than a dispute about rents. It becomes a crisis of democracy. For decades, European governments encouraged citizens to treat property as the safest form of retirement, family security and personal wealth. Housing became not merely somewhere to live but an investment, a pension substitute and a financial asset. Entire generations were told to buy property and watch its value rise.

And it worked. For those who already owned a home. The problem is that every successful property market eventually creates a political class with something to lose. Older homeowners want their houses to retain and increase their value. Investors want reliable returns. Landlords want higher rents. Developers want fewer restrictions. Banks want healthy mortgages. Politicians want all of them as voters.

Then there are the young. They want a home. That apparently has become the unreasonable demand. The European social model has walked directly into this trap. Governments are expected to protect citizens from unaffordable housing while simultaneously protecting the property economy that makes housing unaffordable. They are trying to be referee and bookmaker at the same time.

Spain exposes the contradiction brutally. A government can promise tenant protection, but parliament can kill it. A government can promise affordable housing, but municipalities can struggle to build enough. Politicians can denounce speculation, but property remains one of the easiest ways to accumulate wealth. Everyone knows there is a problem. Nobody wants to pay the political price for fixing it.

So the crisis gets postponed. And postponed crises become political explosives. The most dangerous consequence is not that young Spaniards, Swedes, Germans, Greeks or French citizens become angry about rent. It is that they begin to conclude that democratic politics is incapable of representing their basic interests.

That is exactly the sort of vacuum the far right loves. When a twenty-five-year-old works full-time and still cannot afford an ordinary apartment, telling that person to be patient while somebody else owns three properties is not social policy. It is political suicide. When governments lecture young people about responsibility while housing consumes an absurd proportion of their income, they should not be surprised when those young people stop listening.

And there is another hypocrisy here. Europe constantly worries about its ageing population and falling birth rates. Yet it has constructed housing markets in which starting a family increasingly resembles a luxury purchase.

Build affordable homes and suddenly demographic policy becomes more than a speech. The answer is not simply rent controls. Nor is it simply more construction. Europe needs both supply and protection, alongside serious public housing, taxation that discourages speculative hoarding and political courage strong enough to challenge the idea that every square metre of housing must produce maximum private profit.

Housing is infrastructure. It is as fundamental to a functioning society as schools, hospitals, roads and electricity. Spain's parliamentary revolt should therefore be read beyond Spain. When governments begin collapsing, weakening or becoming politically paralysed over housing, the message is brutally simple: Europe has allowed shelter to become a commodity before remembering that it is a human necessity.

And when democracy cannot guarantee people a place to live, people eventually start asking what democracy is for. That question is far more dangerous than any rent bill.

Funny Words #Poem by G David Schwartz

 

Funny words did come
From this mouth of mine
Obviously creating a new language
Full of shedssed and comjime