Giorgos Vardinoyannis, one of the best-known figures in Greek business and sports, who also had a significant presence in the commercial shipping industry, died on Friday at the age of 90. Widely known by the nickname “The Captain”, Vardinoyannis was associated not only with the Athens soccer team Panathinaikos FC but also with the Vardinoyannis […]

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A powerful explosion on Thursday afternoon at the refinery of MOTOR OIL in western Attica has injured two workers seriously and another four slightly. it is the second explosion at the refinery within a week. Two serioylsy injured workers, aged 40 and 59, were transported to a hospital in Athens where they underwent surgeries for […]

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Human rights NGOs in Europe are not doing well. Funding cuts, legal restrictions, administrative burdens and smear campaigns are taking their toll.

I see organisations drastically downsizing or closing altogether and staff burning out. If we are to reverse our fortunes, the traditionally legally-focused movement needs to rebalance its skill-set to include more communicators and organisers.

Traditionally, human rights NGOs have been staffed mainly by lawyers. This is understandable. Human rights are legal standards contained in national, European and international law. If your main tools for getting human rights implemented are advocacy and litigation, then you need legal experts. But advocacy is becoming less effective because decision makers increasingly see supporting human rights as politically risky.

And litigation as a tool is partly limited by increasing political interference with the courts in some countries, or because – again – politicians see potential political brownie points in not complying with (or see potential political costs in complying with) judgments that enforce human rights standards.

It’s not just that NGOs’ traditional tools are losing their power. It’s that legal training does not equip us with the tools do we need to reverse our fortunes.

Our main lever for restoring human rights and the organisations that promote them is public opinion. For as long as we live continue to live in democracies, pressure from voters can have an impact on decision makers. Which means we need communicators who can help the public realise how important human rights are to them.

David Attenborough pointed out a few years ago that “saving our planet is now a communications challenge. We know what to do, we just need the will”.

The same goes for human rights. 

But legal training does not make you good at communicating with folks outside your bubble.

‘Legal-ese’ is not the right lingo

I know from personal experience. I trod a path to human rights through a law degree, masters, doctorate and then academia. Human rights folks talk about them in a way that conveys a fraction of their value and power. If you’d asked me 15 years ago why human rights are important, I’d have said things like this: ‘they protect us from abuse by the government’, or ‘they’re minimum standards of protection the state can’t breach’, or ‘they exist to protect the vulnerable’.

These things are true. They’re also not very persuasive to people outside our base of support. Because the kinds of human rights breaches the movement foregrounds tend to affect ‘other people’. And lawyers are used to thinking about rights in the context of legal disputes.

So human rights get reduced to a shield that protects groups or institutions that most people don’t care about, don’t understand, or who live in other countries. 

Human rights are not just a passive defence. They are transformational. Human rights are tools. Tools we use to demand that our leaders use the powers and resources with which we’ve entrusted them to do what’s best for all of us. Tools that we use to create the lives we want to live and the communities we want to live in. This is how we need to talk about them, especially when it comes to civil and political rights.

People outside our base cannot be made to care about media freedom, the right to protest or democracy itself just on principle or because they’re enshrined in legal standards. To care about human rights, most people need to know what these things deliver.

Folks will see that protest is important when we explain how it allows people like them to come together and make their leaders listen to their concerns, whether it’s about climate change or better pay for teachers. I’ve seen it first-hand when testing messages in focus groups. 

Empathy, not stereotypes

The same goes for stimulating support for the rights of people from marginalised groups. Right now, most people have trouble caring because they been fed negative stereotypes that cause them to regard some people as ‘others’ and ‘outgroups’, meaning that they will tolerate lower standards of treatment for them.

Using legal arguments and evidencing rights violations by focusing on the harm being suffered doesn’t work because it does nothing to address the reason people don’t care. For that, we need to stimulate empathy and dissolve negative stereotypes through techniques like storytelling. Once people empathise and recognise our common humanity, they’re much more likely to support equal treatment. 

When we communicate in a way that allows our audience to see how human rights deliver things they find important to them, they don’t just start to support human rights as standards. They also start to support the organisations that promote them. That means they’re more likely to listen to them, stand up for them, get involved in their work and even donate. 

It’s not just about communicating better. We also need organisers who can help people come together to carry effective messages and make the strength of public support felt by our leaders. 

Folks with legal training are still essential.

If you’re going to make phones, you need engineers. But we don’t see the engineers being given the job of persuading folks to buy the phones, do we?

Unless they’ve had proper communications training. The human rights movement’s legalistic centre of gravity needs to shift to make room for knowledge and skills that can meet the moment.

In the short-term we could achieve this by retraining staff and joining forces with other progressive movements that know how to organise and mobilise, like environmental NGOs.

We could also tackle the issue upstream by working with universities that produce human rights graduates to develop more holistic curricula that cover communications and organising and not only law. 

Macron’s France: 15% approval, war prep with Russia, now dissolving Soral’s E&R for “extremism.” Elections loom. Romania-style manipulation?

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Macron is, today, quite possibly, the most unpopular president on the planet, with only 15% approval, according to an Ipsos BVA-Cesi poll. Under his command, France faces economic stagnation (0.6% growth in 2025) and indebtedness (120% of GDP). Under Macron, France has also seen the accelerated deindustrialization of the country, with industries accounting for only 9% of GDP, the lowest level in the European Union, and not surprisingly, purchasing power has plummeted, with half of French people saying their income only covers the essentials and only 70% of citizens of working age currently holding a job.

As if that were not enough, in approximately 10 years of Macron’s government, approximately 4 million immigrants entered the country (many of whom do not work but receive social benefits); an amount that makes economic absorption as well as the ethnocultural assimilation of newcomers impossible. Naturally, linked to the immigration失控 are crime rates, the formation of slums in urban centers, and increased social tensions. Many ethnic French people feel demographically replaced in their homeland, and not by chance, everything indicates that Marine Le Pen will (finally) win the French presidential elections in 2027.

We do not know what the results of a Le Pen presidency would be and it is reasonable to be skeptical about it, but clearly France’s current course is extremely dangerous, including in its foreign policy.

Gradually, over the last 2 years, numerous signs have begun to appear that Macron would be preparing the country for a war with Russia. The French government created a voluntary military service and approved the expansion of the permanent armed forces to 275,000 men, as well as a budget increase for defense. General Fabien Mandon, of the General Staff, stated in 2025 that France should prepare for a high-intensity conflict with Russia within three to four years, and now in September 2026 Macron declared that France “could” become a target of explosive drones. Constantly, too, one hears speeches about the need to transform the French economy into a “war economy.”

Therefore, it may be surprising to many (but not to us) that amid all this that has been happening in the country, the Macron government still finds time for the implementation of a censorship and repression apparatus of totalitarian levels.

Its new victim is the association Egalité et Réconciliation (Equality and Reconciliation), created by sociologist and writer Alain Soral. The association identifies as “left-wing nationalist” and has as its main slogan “left of work, right of values,” appealing to an overcoming of the false dichotomy between left and right and, even more importantly, for a national reconciliation among all social sectors; in recent years, it has been involved in the Yellow Vests protests, in some activities linked to the National Rally party (despite, simultaneously, maintaining a posture of “constructive criticism” against certain Zionist and liberal tendencies present in the party) and in pro-Palestinian activism.

It happens that, on October 9, the Interior Minister of Macron’s government, Laurent Nuñez, announced the opening of a dissolution procedure against the association Egalité et Réconciliation, under the accusation of “political extremism.” Its legal team was given a deadline of 1 week to defend itself, and the decision on the matter should occur, still, in October.

Alain Soral himself is a figure of high nonconformist spirit, which is why he has already been the victim of countless judicial persecutions – dozens in fact – mostly for “opinion offenses,” that is, for critical comments against specific people or “protected minorities.” In convictions, Soral has already accumulated millions of euros to be paid in indemnities to various globalist NGOs, an obviously unpayable sum, as well as having already been imprisoned several times, also for the same reasons. The judicial persecution was so intense that Soral had to exile himself from his homeland, first in Switzerland and then in Russia.

Now, beyond the official justifications, for what reason would the French State ban a relatively small organization with few financial resources?

It is possible to analyze the “angle” of Alain Soral’s presence in Russia in more than one sense. First, because by being in Russia Soral finally became immune to the constant judicial persecution and threats of imprisonment he suffered in France, while at the same time continuing to take an active part in the French political and cultural debate, even from a distance. In this, he was able to exercise and expand his influence, “under the protection of the Russians,” which certainly feeds the typical current paranoias of the French elite about a Russian “informational war.”

There is, however, also an internal aspect. Recently, Alain Soral has again been much discussed by the French media for two reasons. One is the “Bardella case,” which concerns the discovery of supposed “politically incorrect” writings by Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally party, and the information that in his youth Bardella’s main intellectual influence was Alain Soral. The second is an opinion poll indicating that 15% of French men under 35 years of age identify with Soral’s ideas.

This, on the eve of the presidential elections, represents a significant risk for Macron and for the French establishment. Although, apparently, there is no chance of victory for any candidate against Le Pen, we cannot doubt the possibility of manipulation of the electoral process, as happened in Romania.

This silencing is even more concerning due to the fact that Soral and E&R are practically the only socially and culturally relevant figures in France today who defend national reconciliation and who avoid inciting internal tension, promoted by the most Islamophobic elements of the RN and by the very leadership of Mélenchon’s LFI with its “army” of antifa and immigrants.

Nearly 93 million EU residents were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025, with the latest regional figures revealing sharp differences both between and within member states. The findings raise questions about how effectively European investment is addressing longstanding economic inequality.

More than one in five people living in the European Union remained at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2025, according to Eurostat figures that reveal substantial differences in living conditions across the bloc’s regions.

Approximately 92.7 million people, representing 20.9 per cent of the EU population, fell into the category during the year. Although the total declined slightly from 93.3 million in 2024, regional data show that economic vulnerability remains heavily concentrated in particular areas.

In 26 of the 243 EU regions for which figures were available, at least 31 per cent of residents were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. At the opposite end of the distribution, 24 regions recorded rates below 13 per cent.

The regional figures published by Eurostat show that the highest rate was recorded in French Guiana, at 54.8 per cent, while Slovakia’s capital region, Bratislavský kraj, recorded the lowest at 2.9 per cent.

National averages conceal substantial differences

The contrast is not confined to richer and poorer member states. In several countries, internal regional disparities are more pronounced than comparisons of national economic performance might suggest.

Within Slovakia, the proportion of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in Východné Slovensko was 9.1 times the rate recorded in the Bratislava region.

In Italy, the equivalent rate in Calabria was 8.1 times that of Valle d’Aosta, illustrating the persistent economic divide between parts of the country’s north and south.

These differences are recorded in Eurostat’s regional living-conditions statistics, which provide a more detailed picture than EU-wide or national averages.

The comparison requires care. Eurostat’s measure of poverty or social exclusion combines three indicators: relative income poverty, severe material and social deprivation, and very low household work intensity.

Consequently, the figures do not mean that every person included lacks sufficient income to meet basic needs. They identify people experiencing at least one of the defined forms of economic disadvantage.

Differences in income, employment, household composition and living costs can also influence the results, making direct comparisons between metropolitan areas, rural districts and overseas territories more complicated than a single percentage might imply.

Nevertheless, the scale of regional variation illustrates why national economic growth does not automatically produce equivalent improvements in living standards throughout a country.

Poverty reduction remains an EU commitment

The European Union has set a target of reducing the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion by at least 15 million by 2030, including at least five million children.

The limited annual reduction recorded in 2025 indicates that progress remains modest relative to the scale of that objective.

The problem has become increasingly important for European policymakers as housing costs, energy prices and employment insecurity affect household finances in different ways across member states.

In May, the Commission presented an anti-poverty and housing policy package, bringing together measures concerning social inclusion, housing exclusion and child poverty.

The regional figures indicate that such initiatives will need to account for considerable differences in local economic conditions.

Policies designed for prosperous urban economies may have limited relevance in regions characterised by low employment, weak infrastructure or dependence on a small number of industries. Conversely, economic activity and relatively high average incomes do not necessarily prevent serious poverty problems within major cities.

Cohesion funding becomes a central question

The findings have direct relevance to negotiations over the EU’s next long-term budget, covering 2028 to 2034.

The European Commission’s proposal envisages roughly €450 billion for economic, social and territorial cohesion under national and regional partnership plans, including at least €218 billion for less developed regions.

The proposed structure would combine several funding programmes within broader national plans, with the Commission arguing that the changes could improve coordination and make spending more responsive to local requirements.

However, regional authorities have expressed concern that greater national control over financial allocations could weaken their influence over investment decisions.

As EU Today reported earlier this week, representatives of European regions have warned that the proposed budget arrangements could concentrate decision-making in national capitals.

The latest poverty statistics provide a concrete context for that disagreement. Investment priorities may differ considerably between a region experiencing industrial decline, an agricultural area with limited employment opportunities and a metropolitan district facing severe housing affordability problems.

A central question for EU institutions is therefore how funding allocations will reflect measurable regional needs rather than being driven primarily by national political negotiations.

The Commission maintains that its proposed partnership arrangements will protect allocations for less developed regions and continue supporting social inclusion.

Negotiations over the financial framework will determine how those commitments are translated into enforceable rules, while Eurostat’s figures provide a statistical basis against which future claims of progress can be assessed.

With 92.7 million people still at risk, the debate is not simply about the overall size of the EU budget. It is also about whether spending reaches the communities where economic disadvantage remains most concentrated.

Decolonialismo impede estudo sério da História: mestiçagem não é só estupro, Inquisição freou senhores todo-poderosos e índios tinham escravos.

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No mês passado, o Brasil viu a historiadora Mary Del Priore pedir uma escolta policial para lançar História das Mestiçagens no Brasil, uma coletânea de ensaios organizada por ela junto com Gian Melo. Pelo simples fato de ser sério, o livro contradiz a o dogma do movimento negro brasileiro de que a mestiçagem deve ser lastimada, pois decorre exclusivamente do estupro perpetrado por senhores de escravos. Esse amável segmento da nossa sociedade não tem escrúpulos em fazer ameaças de violência física, e os hooligans de uma Federal recentemente espancaram um estudante de história por usar uma camisa da banda “Death in June” sem que ninguém fosse punido. Depois de se esclarecer que era uma camisa de banda e não uma homenagem nazista, os estudantes justificam a agressão alegando que o estudante era racista e xingou o colega de macaco.

Tudo isso é muito cansativo, pois já faz 13 anos que o sociólogo Demétrio Magnoli foi fisicamente impedido de falar num evento literário pelo crime de ser contra as cotas raciais – como o leitor pode ler aqui, neste veículo financiado pela abominável Fundação Ford que elogia a ação dos vândalos e chama Magnoli de racista. A essa altura, a gente suspira e pergunta: Quousque tandem? Até quando?

Na História tal como na Ciência

No artigo anterior, apontei que a partir do século XIX o establishment científico aboliu a ideia do Criador versado em matemática do cristianismo e instituiu, tacitamente, o materialismo, que é compatível tanto com o deísmo de alguns iluministas quanto com o ateísmo dos darwinistas. O problema é que admissões tácitas não são combatidas, pois para refutar é preciso enunciar. Quando há uma instituição por detrás de tal enunciado, a crítica tem um alvo claro.

No caso das ciências naturais, a instituição que ocupou a posição de vidraça era a Igreja Católica. Depois do caso Galileu, porém, a Igreja conseguiu recompor suas relações com a ciência e entregou cientistas do quilate do Pe. Lemaître. E mais: participar do processo de uma canonização atestando milagres não destrói a reputação de cientista nenhum, mesmo que suas conclusões contrariem os pressupostos do materialismo. Quando canonizações acontecem, porém, nenhum destaque é dado ao lado científico – e o divórcio entre religião e ciência permanece no público. Do lato materialista, não temos nenhuma autoridade científica de peso enunciando e provando o materialismo – temos apenas propagandistas aparentemente avulsos como Sagan e Dawkins que apenas pressupõem o materialismo e são apresentados como arquétipos de cientistas. E a mesma mídia fica promovendo cristais, horóscopo e outras bobagens New Age.

Ocorreu-me que algo similar se dá com a disciplina de História, trocando a Igreja pelo Estado. É fácil atacar uma historiografia oficial; no entanto, os críticos raramente oferecem uma contra-história coesa, que possa ser atacada. A Fundação Ford financia gente de toda qualidade: desde Florestan Fernandes (1920 – 1995), que tinha formação demais para dizer que mestiçagem é consequência de estupro, até ONGs de militantes acerebrados que fazem o papel de hooligans e difamadores. Há uma institucionalidade, mas é oculta e não oferece uma visão do todo – só tece críticas à visão positiva que o Estado ou estudiosos importantes como Gilberto Freyre ofereçam. As consequências disso para a educação nacional são esse adestramento à Paulo Freire, no qual a criança tem que aprender a ser “crítica” porque o “conteudismo” é ruim.

O acriticismo decolonial

O resultado é essa prepotência arrogante que tanto caracteriza os wokes: eles objetivamente não sabem de nada – pois não há um currículo “conteudista” –, mas se sentem a palmatória do mundo porque são “críticos”. A postura arrogante é um fim em si mesmo, e o próprio conceito de estudo é difícil de captar por uma mente criada nestes moldes. Quanto à objetividade, ela é abertamente criticada.

Porém, é evidente que também é possível aderir acriticamente ao decolonialismo pregado pela Fundação Ford e similares, segundo o qual o Brasil jamais deveria ter sido descoberto pelos portugueses e o povo brasileiro jamais deveria ter se formado. Segundo essa cartilha, a descoberta do México pela Espanha é o pior dos crimes… mas o verdadeiro genocídio indígena, perpetrado pelos anglófonos no território tomado do México, é tratado como uma nota de rodapé pela História. Pouco importam os sacrifícios humanos aos quais os astecas submetiam os demais ameríndios; o certo é que as Américas jamais deveriam ter sido descobertas pelas coroas ibéricas. Não é nem descoberta, é “invasão”. O Brasil é o país mais racista do mundo porque teve escravidão; já os EUA, que tiveram escravidão sem alforria e chegaram à II Guerra Mundial discriminando negros, são um modelo em que o Brasil tem que se inspirar para ser melhor.

Adesão por um bom historiador

É possível aderir a esse credo tácito de maneira irrefletida sem ser uma pessoa burra ou incompetente – muito pelo contrário. Tomemos como exemplo a obra A heresia dos índios (1995), do historiador Ronaldo Vainfas. No caso em tela, a hercúlea tarefa do historiador é, munido de conhecimentos antropológicos conquistados no século XX, consultar aos arquivos da Inquisição Portuguesa para reconstruir um pouco da realidade brasileira quinhentista a partir de uma história maluca que consta num processo.

A história maluca é a do português Fernão Cabral, senhor de escravos de Jaguaripe, Bahia, que em 1585 se tornou Tupã ou Deus para os índios rebeldes que queriam escravizar os portugueses e viver cultuando Tupã-Açu (Deus Grande) sob a sua própria Igreja. Esta tinha o seu próprio Papa, um certo índio Antônio que fora batizado e fugira para o mato. Em sua igreja, os índios cultuavam uma pedra antropomórfica à qual chamavam de Tupã-Açu (Deus Grande) e faziam festas em que todos fumavam tabaco, bebiam álcool e bailavam. Os índios fugiam das outras propriedades e das reduções jesuíticas para as terras de Fernão Cabral, onde podiam ter várias mulheres e comer carne nas sextas-feiras, conforme os costumes antigos. Diante da insatisfação dos outros proprietários, o governo acaba destruindo a Igreja dos índios e tudo volta ao normal.

Tudo poderia ter sido esquecido, se a primeira Visitação do Santo Ofício não tivesse ocorrido em 1591. Aí, uma montanha de gente correu para denunciar Fernão Cabral; e o visitador do Santo Ofício, preparado para lidar com cristãos novos judaizantes, falsos padres, bígamos e sodomitas, viu-se metido com a indecifrável cosmovisão tupi compartilhada por mestiços e até por brancos. Nisso, acabou achando que os maiores crimes dos homens tatuados era comer carne às sextas-feiras, sem saber que as tais tatuagens eram feitas em rituais antropofágicos.

Moralização sem lastro

Sem dúvida, é um trabalho de fôlego e que não está ao alcance do militante woke. No entanto, chama a atenção a moralização não-argumentada por parte do autor. A epígrafe já dá o tom: “Povos e povos indígenas desapareceram da face da terra como consequência do que hoje se chama, num eufemismo envergonhado, o encontro de sociedades do antigo e do novo mundo.” Uma epígrafe curiosa para uma obra que não versa sobre extermínio de índios, mas sim sobre sua aculturação forçada. É muito fácil encontrarmos no Brasil obras – quase sempre lacrimosas – sobre a aculturação de índios, mas não tanto sobre real genocídio. As palavras perdem o sentido.

A despeito de toda a qualidade da pesquisa, a tônica do livro é a de que o Brasil não deveria ter sido descoberto, que o “colonialismo” é mau e que a religião pré-cabralina dos índios, dotada de “conteúdo anticristão e antiescravista [sic!]”, era boa. Os tupis viviam procurando a Terra Sem Mal – por isso eram nômades – e os portugueses transformaram o Brasil na “Terra dos Males Sem Fim”. No fim do livro, chega a dizer: “É com algum constrangimento que devo reconhecer esta máxima vitória do sistema colonial, capaz de invadir a própria mitologia tupi, colonizando-lhe o imaginário: a Terra Sem Mal dos tupinambás se converteria numa utopia escravocrata.” (p. 277) Pelo que Vainfas escreve de maneira mais livre, fica parecendo que os tupis não tinham escravos. A Terra Sem Mal original não tinha escravos porque se parecia com a Cocanha, onde a comida vem sem esforço e o trabalho é desnecessário. Se a nova Terra Sem Mal tem escravos brancos, isso é apenas sinal de um humaníssimo desejo de vingança.

Após passar páginas e páginas criticando a demonização dos índios pelos inquisidores (mesmo frisando que os portugueses não fossem afeitos a tal coisa), Vainfas escreve: “Não resta dúvida de que [o visitador] Heitor Furtado derrotou, no teatro da Inquisição, o arrogante senhor de Jaguaripe, apesar de jamais ter entendido, realmente, o que fora a santidade [dos índios]. Bastava-lhe, porém, rotulá-la como idolatria e, por conseguinte, como heresia; bastava-lhe obrigar Fernão Cabral a curvar-se perante ele, visitador, com súplicas de misericórdia. No teatro barroco da Inquisição, mais valia a representação da heresia, creio eu, do que a vitória da fé” (p. 238, ênfase minha). Ou seja, os inquisidores agiam por puro sadismo, em vez de ter alguma intenção nobre.

Na verdade, porém, a rotulação de heresia é uma obsessão de Vainfas, já que não aparece em momento nenhum na pluma de Heitor Furtado para aplicar aos índios. Os pagãos eram idólatras sem serem hereges, pois só pode ser herege o batizado que alega crer em Cristo. Se uma pessoa abandona o cristianismo após o batismo, ela é apóstata, não herege. Essa obsessão custou nada menos que o título do livro, que anuncia uma coisa cuja existência não se prova. Por tudo quanto Vainfas descreve, depreende-se que os índios criaram uma nova religião sincrética que misturou a devoção mariana dos jesuítas com os ritos pré-cabralinos em torno de uma maraca antropomórfica. Não há menção a Cristo; só a Deus Grande (a pedra), Deus (o próprio Fernão Cabral), Mãe de Deus (uma índia) e Santinho (um índio).

Mas vamos ao que me parece mais prejudicial: toda essa moralização não tem anúncio, nem justificativa. Por tudo quanto o próprio Vainfas escreveu, o leitor pode concluir que a vida tupi anterior à chegada dos portugueses era infernal. Os tupis tinham grande honra em tomar vários nomes e fazer várias tatuagens de jenipapo. Cada nome e cada tatuagem valia para um guerreiro morto e devorado por eles num ritual. Seu horizonte de vida era seguir os conselhos de um pajé (um feiticeiro, um sacerdote avulso) que se comunicava com espíritos e dizia para onde eles deviam seguir. Tudo isso – os deslocamentos e as guerras – para chegar à Terra Sem Mal, que, antes de os portugueses chegarem, eles acreditavam estar no litoral. Como o litoral não estava inabitado, é claro que isso envolveu fazer guerra, ganhando nomes, tatuagens e escravos. Você queria viver assim, numa eterna peça “Esperando Godot” adaptada por Tarantino?

É digno viver desse jeito? Vainfas não gosta da escravidão. Eu tampouco. Acrescento que não gosto de guerras vãs, nem de canibalismo ou morte na flor da idade. A sociedade tupi tinha alguma perspectiva de acabar com todos esses males? A Terra Sem Mal, onde as flechas caçam sozinhas, estava ao seu alcance?

De minha parte, acho engraçado que a frase “é a cultura deles” só serve para os ditos ocidentais (isto é, europeus e seus descendentes não-miscigenados na América e na África). Ninguém diz que matar judeus é da cultura dos alemães e que o auto de fé é uma tradição da cultura espanhola. Dos europeus, exige-se elevação moral. Aos índios, o relativismo moral e a angustiosa vida sangrenta que sua cultura acarretava.

Avaliação com os dados disponíveis

Um dado relevante, que já abordei noutra ocasião aqui na SCF, é que o modelo espanhol de ocupação ultramarina é muito mais institucional e estatizante do que o Português – e o português, a seu turno, muito mais institucional e estatizante do que o holandês. Enquanto a Inquisição Espanhola tinha tribunais na América, a Inquisição Portuguesa, mesmo sob os Filipes, não tinha nenhum. Por isso as pessoas precisavam esperar a Inquisição vir para poder denunciar senhores de terra que viviam no Brasil oprimindo os outros, sem nenhuma restrição.

Chamou-me a atenção, na pesquisa de Vainfas, que a recepção aos índios apóstatas era um dos dois malfeitos de Fernão Cabral que chocaram a população baiana: a outra era o assassinato cruel de uma índia grávida. Por desgostar do mexerico da índia Isabel com a sua esposa, ele ordenou que fosse lançada viva à fornalha, e que quem tentasse impedir tivesse semelhante sorte. As súplicas da índia à Virgem Maria não surtiram efeito. O fato, passado em Jaguaripe, foi bem conhecido pela Cidade da Bahia (de que dista cerca de 100 km em linha reta). Ainda que os maus tratos aos serviçais não fosse do escopo da Inquisição, já houve até denunciante dando piruetas hermenêuticas para tentar fazer do tratamento pouco cristão um assunto inquisitorial, como revelou o historiador Luiz Mott em “Tortura de escravos e heresias na Casa da Torre”.

Querendo ou não, Vainfas mostra muito bem que o típico senhor de terras luso-brasileiro se considerava um Deus em suas terras, e só a Inquisição poderia colocar-lhe freios. Fernão Cabral passou quase um ano preso e foi condenado a dois anos de degredo, bem como a pagar uma pesada multa equivalente ao preço de 20 escravos africanos. Certamente merecia mais, e talvez só tenha escapado de arder na fogueira por ser cristão velho. Mas já é alguma coisa. A moral da história, para mim, é que a Inquisição Portuguesa foi um importante contrapeso aos senhores todo-poderosos da iniciativa privada – figuras encontradiças no Brasil, mas não na América Espanhola. A caracterização da Inquisição como essencialmente malvada dificulta a percepção do real equilíbrio de poder no Brasil, e pinta os déspotas desta terra de iniciativa privada como vítimas de um sadismo maniqueísta, como se o inquisidor não pudesse ter nenhuma preocupação política e social. Visão pobre que em nada ajuda a compreensão histórica.

A avaliação da história deveria se dar em termos de valores positivos, tais como a dignidade das pessoas que vivem numa dada conjuntura, ou a distribuição do poder na sociedade estudada. É isso permite a construção de uma agenda positiva para o país e a compreensão da realidade.

Delhi Police’s unpunished brutality has its roots in a colonial, casteist, and masculinist institutional culture that Indian cinema’s heroic cop has taught the public to applaud, making genuine reform as much a cultural critique as a legal one.

Shop visits and public information stands bring a Scientology-supported education campaign to families in Paris, Marseille and south-western France. KINGNEWSWIRE / PRESS RELEASE / PARIS, France — 15 October 2026 — Volunteers from Non à la drogue, Oui à la vie have distributed more than 16,000 drug-prevention booklets across France, working through neighbourhood shops, market […]

Moral relativism applies only to Amerindians – never to Europeans. History needs positive values, not dogma.

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Last month, historian Mary Del Priore required a police escort to launch História das Mestiçagens no Brasil (A History of Racial Mixing in Brazil), a collection of essays she co-edited with Gian Melo. Precisely for being a serious work, the book contradicts the Brazilian Black movement’s dogma that racial mixing is something to be lamented, viewed solely as the result of rape committed by slave owners. This amiable segment of our society has no qualms about making threats of physical violence; indeed, hooligans at a federal university recently beat up a history student for wearing a “Death in June” band T-shirt, and no one was punished. Even after it was clarified that it was a band shirt instead of a Nazi tribute, the aggressors justified the assault by claiming the student was a racist who had called a peer a “monkey.”

It is all very exhausting; it has been thirteen years since sociologist Demétrio Magnoli was physically prevented from speaking at a literary event for the “crime” of opposing racial quotas – as the reader can see here, in a publication funded by the abominable Ford Foundation that praises the vandals’ actions and labels Magnoli a racist. At this point, one sighs and asks: Quousque tandem? How much longer?

In history, as in science

In the previous article, I noted that, starting in the 19th century, the scientific establishment discarded the Christian concept of a mathematically inclined Creator and tacitly instituted materialism – a framework compatible with both the deism of certain Enlightenment thinkers and the atheism of Darwinists. The problem is that tacit assumptions go unchallenged, because refutation requires explicit articulation. When an institution stands behind such a statement, however, criticism has a clear target.

In the realm of the natural sciences, the institution that served as the primary target for criticism was the Catholic Church. After the Galileo affair, however, the Church managed to mend its relationship with science, producing scientists of the caliber of Fr. Lemaître. Furthermore, participating in the canonization process by attesting to miracles does not damage any scientist’s reputation, even if their conclusions run counter to the premises of materialism. Yet, when canonizations occur, the scientific aspect receives no attention – and the perceived divorce between religion and science persists in the public’s mind. On the materialist side, we have no heavyweight scientific authority articulating and proving materialism; instead, we have seemingly isolated propagandists like Sagan and Dawkins who merely presuppose materialism yet are presented as archetypes of the scientist. Meanwhile, the same media outlets promote crystals, horoscopes, and other New Age nonsense.

It occurred to me that something similar happens with the discipline of History, with the state taking the place of the Church. It is easy to attack an official historiography; however, critics rarely offer a cohesive counter-narrative that could itself be challenged. The Ford Foundation funds a wide range of figures: from Florestan Fernandes (1920–1995), who was far too knowledgeable to claim that racial mixing was merely the result of rape, to NGOs staffed by mindless activists acting as hooligans and smear merchants. There is an institutional framework, but it is opaque and offers no holistic vision; it merely critiques the positive perspectives put forward by the state or by major scholars like Gilberto Freyre. The consequences for national education manifest as a form of “Paulo Freire-style” conditioning, where children are taught to be “critical” because “contentism” is bad.

Decolonial uncriticality

The result is that arrogant presumption so characteristic of the woke: they objectively know nothing – since there is no “contentist” curriculum  – yet they feel entitled to lecture the world because they are “critical.” This arrogant stance is an end in itself, and the very concept of study is difficult for a mind shaped in this mold to grasp. As for objectivity, it is openly criticized.

However, it is evident that one can also uncritically embrace the decolonialism preached by the Ford Foundation and similar entities – a view holding that Brazil should never have been discovered by the Portuguese and that the Brazilian people should never have come into existence. According to this playbook, Spain’s discovery of Mexico is the ultimate crime… yet the actual genocide of Indigenous peoples, perpetrated by Anglophones in territory seized from Mexico, is treated by history as a mere footnote. The human sacrifices the Aztecs inflicted upon other Amerindians matter little; what matters is that the Americas should never have been discovered by the Iberian crowns. It is not even a discovery, they claim, but an “invasion.” Brazil is labeled the most racist country in the world because it had slavery; meanwhile, the USA, which had slavery without manumission, and entered the World War 2 still discriminating against blacks, is held up as a model for Brazil to emulate in order to improve.

Adoption by a competent historian

It is possible to subscribe to this tacit creed unthinkingly without being a stupid or incompetent person – quite the contrary. Let us take as an example the work A heresia dos índios [The heresy of the Amerindians] (1995), by historian Ronaldo Vainfas. In the case at hand, the historian’s herculean task is, armed with anthropological insights gained in the 20th century, to consult the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition to reconstruct a fragment of 16th-century Brazilian reality based on a crazy story found in the trial records.

This crazy story concerns the Portuguese slave owner Fernão Cabral, of Jaguaripe, Bahia. In 1585, he became “Tupã” – or God – to a group of rebellious Amerindians people who sought to enslave the Portuguese and worship Tupã-Açu (Great God) within their own church. This church had its own Pope: an Amerindian man named Antônio who had been baptized but had fled into the woods. Inside the church, Amerindians worshipped an anthropomorphic stone they called Tupã-Açu (Great God) and held festivities featuring tobacco, alcohol, and dancing. Amerindians fled other estates and Jesuit missions to Fernão Cabral’s lands, where they could have multiple wives and eat meat on Fridays, in accordance with ancient customs. Faced with the dissatisfaction of other landowners, the government eventually destroyed the Amerindians church, and things returned to normal.

It might all have been forgotten had the first Visitation of the Holy Office not taken place in 1591. A multitude of people rushed to denounce Fernão Cabral; consequently, the Holy Office’s inquisitor – prepared to deal with Judaizing New Christians, impostor priests, bigamists, and sodomites – found himself confronted with the indecipherable Tupi worldview shared by mestizos and even white settlers. In doing so, he came to believe that the tattooed men’s greatest crime was eating meat on Fridays, unaware that those tattoos were created during anthropophagic rituals.

Unsubstantiated moralizing

Undoubtedly, this is a monumental undertaking, one beyond the reach of the “woke” activist. Yet, the author’s moralizing, devoid of actual argumentation, is striking. The epigraph sets the tone: “Peoples and indigenous groups vanished from the face of the earth as a consequence of what is today called, in a sheepish euphemism, the encounter between Old World and New World societies.” It is a curious epigraph for a work that deals not with the extermination of Indigenous peoples, but rather with their forced acculturation. In Brazil, one easily finds works – almost invariably tear-jerking – about Amerindian acculturation, but far fewer addressing actual genocide. Words lose their meaning.

Despite the high quality of the research, the book’s spirit is that Brazil should never have been discovered, that “colonialism” is evil, and that the pre-Colombian religion of the Indigenous peoples – endowed with “anti-Christian and anti-slavery [sic!] content” – was good. The Tupi people spent their lives searching for the “Land Without Evil” – hence their nomadic nature – whereas the Portuguese transformed Brazil into a “Land of Endless Evils.” Towards the end of the book, the author goes so far as to say: “It is with some embarrassment that I must acknowledge this supreme victory of the colonial system – capable of invading Tupi mythology itself and colonizing its collective imagination: the Tupinambá ‘Land Without Evil’ would transform into a slave-holding utopia” (p. 277). From Vainfas’s looser phrasing, one gets the impression that the Tupi did not own slaves. The original “Land Without Evil” was free of slavery because it resembled the Land of Cockaigne, a place where food appears effortlessly and labor is unnecessary. If the new “Land Without Evil” features white slaves, this is merely a sign of a deeply human desire for revenge.

After spending page after page criticizing the demonization of the Indigenous people by the inquisitors (even while stressing that the Portuguese were not prone to such things), Vainfas writes: “There is no doubt that [the inquisitorial visitor] Heitor Furtado defeated the arrogant lord of Jaguaripe in the theater of the Inquisition, despite never truly understanding the nature of the [Indigenous] sanctity. It sufficed for him, however, to label it idolatry and, consequently, heresy; it sufficed to force Fernão Cabral to bow before him – the visitor – pleading for mercy. In the Baroque theater of the Inquisition, the performance of heresy mattered more, I believe, than the victory of the faith” (p. 238, emphasis added). In other words, the inquisitors acted out of pure sadism rather than any noble intention.

In reality, however, the label of heresy is an obsession of Vainfas’s, given that it never appears in Heitor Furtado’s writings in reference to the Indigenous people. Pagans were idolaters without being heretics, for only a baptized person who claims to believe in Christ can be a heretic. If a person abandons Christianity after baptism, they are an apostate, not a heretic. This obsession cost the book its very title, which announces a concept whose existence is never proven. From everything Vainfas describes, one gathers that the Indigenous people created a new syncretic religion blending Jesuit Marian devotion with pre-Colombian rites centered on an anthropomorphic ritual rattle. There is no mention of Christ… Only to Great God (the rock), God (Fernão Cabral himself), Mother of God (an Indigenous woman), and Santinho (an Indigenous man).

But let us turn to what strikes me as most detrimental: all this moralizing comes without preamble or justification. Based on everything Vainfas himself wrote, the reader might conclude that Tupi life prior to the arrival of the Portuguese was hellish. The Tupi took great pride in adopting multiple names and acquiring various jenipapo tattoos. Each name and tattoo corresponded to a warrior they had killed and devoured in a ritual. Their life’s horizon was defined by following the counsel of a pajé (a shaman or independent priest) who communicated with spirits and directed where the people should go. All of this – the migrations and the wars – was aimed at reaching the Land Without Evil, which, before the Portuguese arrived, they believed lay along the coast. Since the coast was not uninhabited, this naturally entailed waging war, thereby gaining names, tattoos, and slaves. Would you want to live like that – in a perpetual production of Waiting for Godot adapted by Tarantino?

Is such a way of life dignified? Vainfas dislikes slavery. So do I. I would add that I dislike pointless wars, cannibalism, and dying in the prime of life. Did Tupi society have any prospect of putting an end to these ills? Was the Land Without Evil – where arrows hunt on their own – truly within their reach?

For my part, I find it amusing that the phrase “it’s their culture” applies only to so-called Westerners (that is, Europeans and their unmixed descendants in the Americas and Africa). No one claims that killing Jews is part of German culture or that the auto-de-fé is a Spanish cultural tradition. Moral elevation is demanded of Europeans. For the Amerindians, moral relativism and the agonizing, bloody life their culture entailed.

Assessment based on available data

A relevant point – which I have addressed previously here at SCF – is that the Spanish model of overseas occupation was far more institutional and state-driven than the Portuguese one; the Portuguese model, in turn, was far more institutional and state-driven than the Dutch. While the Spanish Inquisition maintained tribunals in the Americas, the Portuguese Inquisition, even under the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs, had none. Consequently, people had to wait for the Inquisition representatives to arrive before they could denounce landowners living in Brazil who oppressed others without restraint.

Vainfas’s research highlights that the harboring of apostate Amerindians was one of two misdeeds by Fernão Cabral that shocked the population of Bahia; the other was the cruel murder of a pregnant Amerindian woman. Angered by the fact that his wife and the Amerindian Isabel were gossiping, he ordered her thrown alive into a furnace, decreeing that anyone who tried to stop it would meet the same fate. Her pleas to the Virgin Mary were to no avail. The incident, which took place in Jaguaripe, was well known in the City of Bahia (located about 100 km away as the crow flies). Although the mistreatment of servants fell outside the Inquisition’s jurisdiction, there were instances of accusers performing hermeneutic acrobatics to try to frame such un-Christian treatment as an inquisitorial matter, as historian Luiz Mott revealed in “Tortura de escravos e heresias na Casa da Torre” (Slave Torture and Heresies at the House of Tower).

Whether one likes it or not, Vainfas clearly demonstrates that the typical Luso-Brazilian landowner considered himself a god on his own estates, and only the Inquisition could rein him in. Fernão Cabral spent nearly a year in prison and was sentenced to two years of exile, as well as a heavy fine equivalent to the price of twenty African slaves. He certainly deserved worse, and perhaps only escaped burning at the stake because he was an Old Christian. Still, it was something. The moral of the story, to me, is that the Portuguese Inquisition served as an important counterweight to the all-powerful lords of private enterprise – figures commonly found in Brazil, though not in Spanish America. Characterizing the Inquisition as essentially evil obscures the true balance of power in Brazil; it portrays the despots of this land of private enterprise as victims of Manichaean sadism, as if the inquisitor could not possibly have had any political or social concerns. This is a poor perspective that does nothing to aid historical understanding.

Historical assessment should be grounded in positive values – such as the dignity of the people living in a given era or the distribution of power within the society under study. This approach enables the construction of a positive agenda for the country and a true understanding of reality.

La vittoria del Parti Québécois e il referendum del 19 ottobre in Alberta riportano al centro il problema della coesione canadese. La separazione resta minoritaria, soprattutto nell’Ovest, ma il riemergere simultaneo delle spinte centrifughe rappresenta una sfida politica per Mark Carney.

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A pochi mesi dal consolidamento parlamentare del governo liberale di Mark Carney, il Canada si trova ad affrontare una questione che sembrava essersi progressivamente allontanata dal centro della scena politica: quella della propria coesione interna. La vittoria del Parti Québécois (PQ) nelle elezioni provinciali del Québec del 5 ottobre e il referendum previsto per il 19 ottobre in Alberta, nel quale gli elettori saranno chiamati a pronunciarsi sull’eventuale avvio del procedimento verso un successivo referendum vincolante sulla separazione dal Canada, hanno riportato contemporaneamente alla ribalta due forme molto diverse di contestazione dell’assetto federale.

Sarebbe eccessivo sostenere che il Canada si trovi alla vigilia della disgregazione. In Alberta, soprattutto, tutti i dati disponibili indicano che l’opzione favorevole alla permanenza nella federazione dovrebbe prevalere con un margine molto ampio. Tuttavia, il fatto stesso che una delle province economicamente più importanti del Paese abbia ritenuto politicamente possibile sottoporre agli elettori una domanda di questo genere dimostra il malcontento di una parte della popolazione: una questione che fino a pochi anni fa apparteneva soprattutto alle frange più radicali del cosiddetto western alienation è entrata nella sfera della politica istituzionale.

Il caso del Québec, invece, ha radici molto più profonde. Le elezioni provinciali del 5 ottobre hanno riportato al governo, dopo oltre un decennio, il Parti Québécois guidato da Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Il PQ ha conquistato 59 dei 127 seggi dell’Assemblée nationale, fermandosi cinque seggi sotto la maggioranza assoluta. Ottenendo circa il 28% dei voti, ha chiuso la consultazione elettorale davanti al Parti Libéral du Québec, attestatosi poco sopra il 24%, al Parti Conservateur du Québec, con circa il 21%, e a Québec Solidaire, che ha raccolto oltre il 12% conquistando nove seggi. La Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), al governo dal 2018, è invece crollata al 13,3% senza ottenere alcun seggio.

Un tale esito impone certamente una lettura prudente, in quanto il successo del PQ non equivale a un mandato maggioritario per l’indipendenza. Il partito, infatti, ha beneficiato della frammentazione del voto e ha ottenuto la percentuale più bassa mai registrata da una formazione vincitrice nella storia elettorale del Québec, mentre i sondaggi continuano inoltre a collocare il sostegno alla separazione dal Canada intorno al 30%, ben lontano da una maggioranza sociale. Lo stesso St-Pierre Plamondon ha indicato che non intende convocare un nuovo referendum finché Donald Trump resterà alla Casa Bianca, sostenendo che la pressione tariffaria e l’instabilità derivante dai rapporti con gli Stati Uniti rendono necessario evitare, per il momento, un’ulteriore crisi costituzionale.

Ciò non riduce tuttavia la portata della vittoria del PQ. Per la prima volta dopo molti anni, il governo della seconda provincia più popolosa del Canada sarà guidato da una formazione che considera esplicitamente l’indipendenza del Québec il proprio obiettivo storico. Inoltre, sommando i 59 deputati del PQ ai nove di Québec Solidaire, anch’esso favorevole alla sovranità del Québec sebbene attraverso un percorso politico e sociale profondamente diverso, nell’Assemblée nationale esiste una maggioranza numerica di deputati eletti sotto le insegne di partiti indipendentisti. Questo non significa che PQ e Québec Solidaire formeranno automaticamente un blocco comune, né che un referendum sia imminente, ma conferma che la questione nazionale québécoise è tutt’altro che scomparsa.

La sua natura, inoltre, resta profondamente diversa dal separatismo emergente in Alberta. Il nazionalismo del Québec dispone di una propria continuità storica, linguistica e culturale, di una tradizione intellettuale e politica consolidata e di istituzioni che hanno progressivamente acquisito un grado considerevole di autonomia rispetto a Ottawa. I referendum del 1980 e del 1995, quest’ultimo perduto dagli indipendentisti per uno scarto inferiore all’1%, hanno mostrato quanto la questione possa arrivare a mettere in discussione l’esistenza stessa della federazione canadese.

La situazione dell’Alberta nasce invece prevalentemente da fattori economici, fiscali ed energetici. La provincia, cuore dell’industria petrolifera canadese, ha sviluppato da tempo un forte risentimento nei confronti del governo federale, accusato da settori rilevanti dell’opinione pubblica occidentale di utilizzare la ricchezza prodotta dalle province delle praterie per finanziare politiche redistributive decise nell’Est, imponendo contemporaneamente vincoli ambientali e normativi penalizzanti per il settore degli idrocarburi.

Sebbene tutti i sondaggi siano concordi sul fatto che il referendum non dovrebbe avere esito positivo, la trasformazione di una rivendicazione precedentemente marginale in una questione sottoposta ufficialmente all’intero corpo elettorale provinciale rappresenta un passaggio qualitativo da non sottovalutare. Significa che una parte della classe politica dell’Alberta considera ormai il ricorso alla minaccia separatista uno strumento legittimo di pressione nei confronti del governo federale. La premier Danielle Smith ha annunciato che voterà per la permanenza nel Canada e non sostiene personalmente la separazione, ma è stato il suo governo ad aggiungere la domanda al referendum provinciale (che consiste di un totale di dieci quesiti). La stessa Smith ha presentato la consultazione come uno strumento attraverso il quale permettere agli albertani di esprimere il proprio malcontento nei confronti di Ottawa.

Una vittoria del 70% o persino superiore dell’opzione federalista non cancellerebbe il fatto che circa un quinto dell’elettorato di una provincia fondamentale per l’economia canadese sia disposto a considerare almeno l’avvio di un processo di separazione. Nel gennaio 2026 Ipsos aveva addirittura registrato un sostegno iniziale alla prospettiva separatista del 28% in Alberta, praticamente identico al 31% rilevato in Québec, salvo poi constatare che il consenso si dimezzava quando agli intervistati venivano prospettati i costi concreti dell’indipendenza. In altre parole, per una parte consistente degli elettori il separatismo albertano funziona soprattutto come voto di protesta e strumento negoziale nei confronti del centro federale.

Per Mark Carney, la contemporaneità dei due fenomeni costituisce una sfida particolarmente delicata. Il primo ministro ha costruito la propria strategia economica e internazionale attorno al concetto di “autonomia strategica” canadese. Di fronte all’uso crescente delle tariffe, delle catene di approvvigionamento e delle dipendenze economiche come strumenti di pressione, soprattutto da parte dell’amministrazione Trump, Carney ha sostenuto che il Canada debba ridurre la propria vulnerabilità nei confronti degli Stati Uniti, diversificando mercati, partner e infrastrutture.

Nel suo discorso al Lowy Institute di Sydney dello scorso marzo, il premier aveva affermato esplicitamente che l’integrazione economica non deve più trasformarsi in subordinazione e che le medie potenze devono costruire capacità sovrane nei settori strategici, dall’energia ai minerali critici, dall’intelligenza artificiale ai sistemi di pagamento. La stessa impostazione è stata successivamente ripresa nei rapporti con l’Unione Europea e nell’apertura di nuovi canali economici verso l’Asia.

Particolarmente significativa, in questo senso, è stata la normalizzazione dei rapporti con la Cina. Nello scorso mese di gennaio Carney è stato il primo capo di governo canadese a recarsi ufficialmente a Pechino dal 2017, incontrando Xi Jinping e Li Qiang e inaugurando un nuovo partenariato strategico sino-canadese incentrato su energia, commercio, agroalimentare, sicurezza e multilateralismo. Ottawa ha indicato apertamente la Cina come uno dei mercati necessari per ridurre l’eccessiva dipendenza economica dagli Stati Uniti.

Questa strategia incontra però un paradosso fondamentale. Per ridurre la dipendenza dagli Stati Uniti e rivolgersi maggiormente ai mercati asiatici, il Canada ha bisogno proprio delle risorse energetiche dell’Alberta. Il nuovo oleodotto Pacific Link, che dovrebbe trasportare un milione di barili al giorno verso la costa della Columbia Britannica, è uno dei pilastri materiali di questo progetto. Il 1° ottobre Carney ha annunciato l’accelerazione dell’iter autorizzativo, definendo il progetto di interesse nazionale e collegandolo esplicitamente all’obiettivo di raddoppiare le esportazioni canadesi verso mercati diversi dagli Stati Uniti. Oltre il 90% delle esportazioni petrolifere canadesi è stato storicamente diretto verso il mercato statunitense: aprire una nuova grande direttrice verso il Pacifico significa tentare di trasformare l’Alberta da provincia dipendente dall’accesso al mercato statunitense in piattaforma energetica della proiezione canadese verso l’Asia.

Non è dunque casuale che Carney abbia scelto di presentare il progetto proprio a Fort McMurray, nel cuore delle sabbie bituminose albertane, accanto a Danielle Smith e a poche settimane dal referendum. La politica energetica diventa così contemporaneamente politica estera e politica di coesione nazionale. Offrire all’Alberta infrastrutture, accesso diretto ai mercati mondiali e un ruolo centrale nella strategia di diversificazione canadese significa rispondere alle spinte centrifughe non attraverso una semplice riaffermazione dell’autorità federale, ma cercando di modificare le condizioni economiche che le alimentano.

Una logica analoga, sebbene applicata a un contesto completamente diverso, emerge nel rapporto con il Québec. Dopo la vittoria di St-Pierre Plamondon, Carney ha evitato un confronto frontale con il nuovo governo provinciale, insistendo invece sulla necessità di un “federalismo cooperativo” fondato su infrastrutture, abitazioni, crescita economica e difesa degli interessi canadesi di fronte alle pressioni statunitensi. Il premier sa che trasformare immediatamente la questione in uno scontro tra Ottawa e Québec City potrebbe offrire agli indipendentisti esattamente il terreno politico di cui hanno bisogno per allargare un consenso alla sovranità che oggi resta minoritario.

L’atteggiamento dell’amministrazione Trump produce quindi un duplice effetto sulla politica del vicino settentrionale. Da un lato, le pressioni economiche statunitensi hanno accelerato la ricerca canadese di una maggiore autonomia e hanno reso più urgente la costruzione di un mercato interno maggiormente integrato. Dall’altro, proprio la percezione di una minaccia esterna contribuisce per il momento a frenare i separatismi: St-Pierre Plamondon ritiene troppo rischioso organizzare un referendum sull’indipendenza mentre il Canada è impegnato in uno scontro commerciale con Washington; parallelamente, in Alberta la ricerca di nuovi mercati per il petrolio può ridurre alcune delle ragioni economiche del malcontento verso Ottawa.

Il Canada non appare dunque prossimo alla dissoluzione. Ma il ritorno simultaneo della questione nazionale del Québec e del separatismo albertano indica che il modello federale sta attraversando una fase di crescente tensione. In una fase nella quale Mark Carney cerca di costruire un Canada più autonomo dagli Stati Uniti, più presente sui mercati asiatici e dotato di maggiori capacità economiche e strategiche proprie, emerge con forza una contraddizione: per conquistare maggiore autonomia all’esterno, Ottawa deve prima garantire la propria coesione all’interno. Il petrolio dell’Alberta, il peso demografico ed economico del Québec, le infrastrutture interprovinciali e il consenso delle popolazioni che compongono la federazione non sono questioni separate dalla politica internazionale canadese, ma ne costituiscono la condizione materiale.

Per Carney, la costruzione dell’“autonomia strategica” canadese passa ormai anche dalla capacità di dimostrare che il Canada possiede ancora un progetto federale sufficientemente credibile da tenere insieme le sue componenti.

A new Council of Europe protocol is intended to strengthen cross-border investigations, confiscation and the recovery of criminal wealth. European authorities currently recover only a small proportion of the proceeds generated by organised and financial crime.

The European Union has signed an international agreement strengthening the recovery of criminal assets, as Brussels seeks to address the failure of national authorities to confiscate the overwhelming majority of wealth generated through organised crime, corruption and money laundering.

The agreement, opened for signature in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 14 October, introduces additional provisions governing the identification, freezing, confiscation and management of assets held across national borders.

It supplements the Council of Europe’s Warsaw Convention, which established an international framework for cooperation against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The Additional Protocol adopted by the Council of Europe extends existing asset-recovery mechanisms and strengthens the ability of national authorities to cooperate when criminal proceeds are transferred beyond the country where an offence occurred.

The financial foundations of organised crime

European authorities have long struggled to deprive criminal organisations of the profits generated by their activities.

An estimate frequently cited by European institutions suggests that only around one per cent of criminal proceeds are ultimately confiscated.

The figure highlights a persistent weakness in criminal enforcement. Police and prosecutors may identify offenders and secure convictions without recovering the money used to finance further criminal operations.

Organised crime networks can distribute their assets through bank accounts, companies, property holdings and intermediaries operating in different jurisdictions.

Investigators must establish the origin and ownership of those assets, obtain the necessary legal orders and secure cooperation from foreign authorities before funds or property can be transferred again.

The problem has become increasingly serious as criminal organisations operate across several countries while enforcement powers remain largely national.

In an earlier examination of Europe’s response to drug-trafficking networks, EU Today reported on the importance of confiscating criminal assets rather than concentrating exclusively on arrests and drug seizures.

The financial structures supporting trafficking organisations can survive the prosecution of individual members, allowing criminal enterprises to replace personnel and continue operations.

New powers for cross-border investigations

The protocol is intended to address practical obstacles encountered when authorities seek assistance from another country.

Its provisions cover international cooperation in asset recovery, the management of seized property and the execution of confiscation decisions.

They also address circumstances in which confiscation may be possible without a conventional criminal conviction, subject to the safeguards and legal requirements established by participating states.

Such arrangements can be particularly relevant when suspects have fled, proceedings cannot be completed or assets are held through structures designed to conceal their ownership.

The protocol also provides for improved cooperation between designated asset-recovery authorities.

These mechanisms are intended to reduce the delays that can arise when investigators must navigate different national procedures while attempting to secure property that may be rapidly moved or disposed of.

The Council of Europe’s treaty documentation explains that the protocol seeks to update the Warsaw Convention in accordance with developments in international anti-money laundering standards.

The revised framework has also been developed with reference to EU rules and the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force.

Existing European legislation

The agreement builds on legislation already adopted within the European Union.

The 2024 Asset Recovery and Confiscation Directive established stronger provisions concerning the tracing, freezing, confiscation and management of assets associated with criminal activity.

That directive is intended to improve national asset-recovery systems and strengthen cooperation between authorities.

The EU has separately developed a new anti-money laundering framework, including the establishment of the Frankfurt-based Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism.

The authority has responsibilities concerning the supervision of high-risk financial institutions and coordination between national bodies combating illicit financial activity.

The new Council of Europe protocol addresses a related but distinct problem: how authorities recover assets once suspected criminal proceeds have been identified, particularly when those assets are located in another jurisdiction.

An earlier EU Today report on criminal enforcement of sanctions violations illustrated the importance of asset confiscation in cases involving breaches of European restrictions.

Although sanctions enforcement and organised crime investigations operate under different legal arrangements, both can require authorities to identify property, obtain judicial orders and prevent assets from being moved beyond their reach.

Ratification and implementation

The protocol was adopted by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers on 15 May 2026 and opened for signature on 14 October.

The European Union’s participation requires further legal procedures before the new provisions become binding.

The Commission had previously submitted proposals authorising the EU to sign the agreement, reflecting the division of responsibilities between the Union and its member states in criminal justice and financial regulation.

Individual governments must also determine how the international obligations interact with national procedures governing investigations, property rights and confiscation.

The effectiveness of the agreement will depend on the speed of its implementation and the resources available to investigators, prosecutors and financial intelligence authorities.

Criminal organisations can transfer funds internationally through transactions completed in minutes. Judicial cooperation and the enforcement of confiscation decisions frequently require considerably longer.

The protocol offers governments additional instruments for narrowing that gap, but cannot eliminate the administrative and legal obstacles without corresponding improvements in national enforcement.

For European authorities, the practical measure of success will be the amount of criminal wealth that can be identified and recovered.

The Strasbourg agreement provides a wider legal framework for that task at a time when the profits generated by organised crime continue to exceed the assets confiscated by enforcement agencies.

A few key principles: War as a Foundational State, Primacy of Jewish Identity over Democracy, Rejection of the Independent Existence of Arab States, The US is a declining power...

Assembly backs specialised justice, victim safeguards and a €3 billion programme, but Senate approval still lies ahead France’s National Assembly has approved an extensive legislative package intended to transform how public institutions prevent, investigate and prosecute sexual, gender-based and intrafamilial violence. The measures range from specialised police units and courts to stronger protection for victims […]

Satire, however over-the-top, never quite measures up to reality.

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A thought experiment

Imagine that Giorgia Meloni, as Prime Minister, launches an app for newborns through which the government credits 1,000 euros to each child. She does so in an official capacity, via a government website and under a specific name: “Conto Giorgia.” Suppose the campaign promises parents that this capital will grow based on the historical performance of the FTSE MIB – the former MIB30 – provided they invest it on the stock market. Suppose the money comes largely from Italian taxpayers’ money and that the initiative has the blessing of a public statement signed by the nation’s capitalist elite: the Del Vecchio heirs, Marina Berlusconi, Giovanni Ferrero, Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, and company. Such an initiative would raise an institutional issue even before a political one. Article 97 of the Constitution requires the public administration to act with due diligence and impartiality, and placing a personal brand on newborns’ savings is at odds with both.

In the United States, this is not just a hypothetical scenario. The Trump Accounts, accessible at trumpaccounts.gov, have been operational since July 4, 2026 – a date chosen to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. They were established by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by Donald Trump in the summer of 2025: tax-advantaged savings accounts governed by Section 530A of the federal tax code. The Treasury makes an initial contribution of $1,000 for children born during the pilot program period, from 2025 to 2028, and anyone else can add money: parents, relatives, employers, states, and private individuals. By default, the funds are invested in a State Street index fund, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF; among the alternatives that can be selected at a later date, the Treasury has included funds from BlackRock and Vanguard.

The launch followed the ritual one might expect. From the Oval Office, Trump rang the opening bell for the NYSE and Nasdaq, flanked by Michael and Susan Dell, who pledged $6.25 billion: $250 each into the accounts of 25 million children under the age of ten living in areas where the median income does not exceed $150,000. The president joked that those present “aren’t doing this for that reason,” and invited everyone to buy a Dell computer. BlackRock, State Street, Visa, and Mastercard had already joined the summit organized by the Treasury, alongside Dell Technologies and the Dells; the underlying idea is attributed to financier Brad Gerstner. The $1,000 in public funds serves as the initial capital to open the account, while the private funds carry less weight than the scene surrounding them.

What’s the problem?

It’s important to distinguish between what is documented and what is interpretation. The name is documented: the sitting president lends his last name to a government product, hosted on a government domain. There are precedents for policies named after individuals, such as the Roth IRA, named after Senator William Roth, but in that case the person was a lawmaker and the name remained a colloquial label, whereas “Obamacare” began as a controversial acronym and was only later adopted. Here, the name is official. Citizens receive the benefit from a man, not from a law, and with three weeks to go before the November 3 midterm elections, the effect of this personalization is far from neutral.

The chain of interests is also well documented. BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard manage the funds from which families will have to choose; Visa and Mastercard thrive on payment flows. That they derive a commercial advantage from this is an inference and should be treated as such. The fact remains that their brands appear alongside that of the government in the promotion, and that every dollar deposited into the accounts becomes assets under management. The Treasury, for its part, makes no secret of its ambition: Scott Bessent described the measure as the “greatest merger in history between Main Street and Wall Street,” within a framework – Parallel Prosperity – in which the two grow together.

Then there is the risk, which shifts from the government to families. One thousand dollars left for eighteen years at a nominal annual return of 7% – a theoretical scenario, not a forecast – grows to about $3,400. A useful sum, but one that does not constitute a safety net. The outcome will depend on market conditions in the year the child comes of age, and the family – not the one who made the promise – will bear the responsibility. A promise based on an index’s past performance sells confidence, yet past performance guarantees nothing.

The strongest objection must be taken seriously. The Treasury presents these accounts as a way to make the American Dream accessible to every citizen, and the idea of providing every child with a starting capital is defensible: stock ownership is concentrated among already affluent families, and an account opened at birth brings even those who would never have entered the market into it. This demonstrates that starting capital is a legitimate concept. It does not prove that it must bear the president’s name, nor that the sponsors can be the same as the fund managers, nor that stock capital can replace the guarantees that a welfare state should offer regardless of market conditions.

The Corpse

What remains is the political judgment, which is mine and not based on the facts. When the state links its authority to the name of a single man, entrusts promotion to those who manage savings, and promises newborns a future through the stock market, democracy recedes into the background and ceases to be the guiding principle. To speak of desecrating a corpse is a harsh turn of phrase, but it gets the point across: democratic rhetoric continues to circulate while its bulwarks – the impersonality of institutions and the separation between public and private interests – are being dismantled one by one. Those who exported it for decades through a series of interventions, it seems, left little of it at home.

On a friend’s recommendation, last night I watched Digger, a dystopian and grotesque film starring Goodman and Cruise. You leave the theater with the same impression: the satire, however over-the-top, never quite measures up to reality, and not even two excellent actors can push beyond a caricature that has since become everyday news.

If the day should ever come where Islamophobia gets concrete legal backing in Europe, it could be soon.

The European Parliament (EP) just voted to “condemn the strategies of Islamist entryism” and to develop ways to disrupt Muslim political movements in a resolution on 8 October.

Some 381 out of 720 MEPs worry Muslims are seeking to infiltrate democratic institutions, weaken European rule of law, gender equality, and what they deemed “European values”. 

And almost every one of the centre-right and rightwing MEPs in the house voted to surveil EU funding for anti-racism organisations, so as to ensure none of it gets into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The brotherhood is a transnational Muslim group founded in 1928 in Egypt, involved in religious revival, social welfare, and political activism.

But according to a French government memo from May 2025, as well as the EP resolution, it is guilty of “entryism”, to sabotage French democracy.

The EP resolution and French memo were dubbed “a political witch-hunt targeting racialised people – particularly Muslim, migrant and refugee communities” by academics and civil society, like the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).

The group called the EP motion “a stain” on the EU Parliament, belonging “within the tradition of discredited far-right conspiracy theories.”

ENAR is among those the EU has sought to defund, due to rightwing views that its work aligns with Islamist threats.

The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO), a pan-European anti-Islamophobic group, which also risks EU defunding, said it had faced “relentless targeting and demonisation.”

Young Muslims in Europe were being forced “to choose between their identity and their right to belong,” FEMYSO president Hiba Latreche told EUobserver.

And the EP “witch-hunt” resolution, which was drafted by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group and authored by its French MEP, Céline Imart, comes at a bad time for this demographic. 

Advocacy group Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) recently looked at 876 incidents of anti-Muslim hatred in Europe in 2025.

Four out of five incidents targeted Muslim women, 41 percent of which involved discrimination or violence linked to their headscarves.

Disturbingly, the documented episodes “occur predominantly in public or institutional spaces, highlighting the persistence of forms of institutional racism.”

But seeing as the EU Commission’s own anti-Muslim hatred group has been inactive since 2024, the prevailing view in Brussels appears to be that rampant Islamophobia in the EU is less of a problem than the imputed influence of a nebulous Islamic movement from Egypt, which is better known for providing social care to deprived communities, than aiming to overthrow French president Emmanuel Macron.

The EP motion did not legally bind the European Commission to propose new anti-Muslim Brotherhood measures.

But it did enforce a stereotype of Muslims “as acting in a nefarious, dangerous, anti-democratic manner, until proven otherwise,” said Omran Shroufi, a political science researcher at the Free University of Brussels.

Rightwing EU politics is pushing young European Muslims into a lose-lose, or Catch 22 situation.

The notion of “entryism holds Muslims to an impossible standard, where non-participation in public life is a sign of disinterestedness, a lack of civic duty and the growth of parallel societies, whilst active engagement in civic life is treated with suspicion,” Shroufi told EUobserver.

The centre-right EPP group used to represent a moderate EU mainstream.

But now it had joined with open racists on Europe’s far right to be “effectively calling for an institutionalised form of discrimination, where Muslim communities need to prove their European and democratic values – whatever these are supposed to mean – before being allowed a seat at a table,” Shroufi said. 

Cuanto más aleja la tecnología al actor, más debe aumentar su responsabilidad.

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De persona a objetivo

¿Qué será de la humanidad cuando la tecnología sea capaz de reconocer, clasificar, rastrear y, en última instancia, matar a seres humanos sin que quienes ejecutan los ataques los hayan visto jamás?

Mi amigo Mohammad Reza Dehshiri planteó precisamente esta pregunta, y su respuesta es contundente.

El peligro, escribe, no es la inteligencia artificial, sino la inhumanidad artificial; es decir, la posibilidad de que las máquinas se vuelvan más precisas precisamente cuando los humanos dejen de sentirse responsables de lo que esas máquinas hacen en su nombre.

Con este artículo, inicio una serie que toma el análisis de Dehshiri como punto de partida e intenta llevarlo más allá. Si el problema es la «inhumanidad artificial», la respuesta no puede estar en una IA «más ética», como si la ética fuera un módulo que se instalara a posteriori en un sistema que ya ha sido diseñado.

Necesitamos recuperar una categoría que la jerga tecnológica ha vuelto casi innombrable: la inteligencia humana, entendida no como un vestigio que hay que proteger en medio de las complejidades de la automatización, sino como una forma de conocimiento con características propias y distintivas, que ningún aumento en la potencia computacional puede reemplazar.

La llamaré Inteligencia Humana, y la ambigüedad es deliberada. En la jerga de los servicios de inteligencia, HUMINT se refiere a la más antigua de las disciplinas de inteligencia: aquella que se basa en las personas, las fuentes, los idiomas y la visita paciente y frecuente a distintos lugares.

En terminología filosófica, la expresión denota la facultad de comprender. La tesis de esta primera contribución es que estos dos significados ahora convergen, y que su convergencia tiene implicaciones geopolíticas que se extienden mucho más allá del debate sobre la ética de las armas.

Podemos describir la cadena operativa de la guerra contemporánea en siete etapas: detectar, identificar, clasificar, predecir, priorizar, seleccionar el objetivo, atacar.

Cada eslabón puede perfeccionarse técnicamente sin que la secuencia, tomada en su conjunto, se perfeccione moralmente. El fenómeno resultante se denomina «dataficación de la vida humana»: el individuo reducido a una identidad, una ubicación, un patrón de comportamiento, un índice de amenaza.

Esto no es una abstracción. En abril de 2024, una investigación de Yuval Abraham para +972 Magazine y Local Call describió a «Lavender», un sistema utilizado por las fuerzas armadas israelíes en Gaza para asignar a decenas de miles de personas una probabilidad de afiliación a grupos armados.

Según fuentes internas citadas en la investigación, la verificación humana de cada nombre a menudo no duraba más de veinte segundos: el tiempo necesario para determinar que el objetivo era un hombre.

Las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel han refutado este relato y han descrito a «Lavender» como una base de datos diseñada para apoyar a los analistas.

Sin embargo, incluso si se acepta la versión oficial, el meollo del asunto sigue siendo el mismo: había un operador humano presente, y su presencia no fue suficiente para transformar la recomendación del sistema en un juicio.

La psicología cognitiva tiene un nombre para este fenómeno, el sesgo de automatización: la tendencia de quienes trabajan con un sistema automatizado a tratar sus recomendaciones como un sustituto de su propia verificación y a no buscar la información que pudiera contradecirlas.

Ya en 1976, Joseph Weizenbaum —quien había creado uno de los primeros programas conversacionales de la historia— ya distinguía entre la capacidad de calcular y la capacidad de juzgar, y argumentaba que hay tareas que no deberían confiarse a una computadora, incluso si esta fuera capaz de realizarlas. Medio siglo después, esta distinción se ha vuelto aún más apremiante. La computación trabaja con lo que ya se ha traducido en datos. El juicio debe decidir si esa traducción ha sido fiel.

Dehshiri deja claro este punto con cuatro distinciones: la precisión técnica no es precisión ética; la exactitud no es justicia; la automatización no es responsabilidad; la superioridad tecnológica no es superioridad moral.

Yo agregaría una quinta, de naturaleza epistémica, de la que dependen las demás: la correlación no es comprensión. Un sistema de aprendizaje automático reconoce patrones estadísticos en un conjunto de datos. No sabe qué es una escuela, porque no sabe qué es un niño, y ni siquiera sabe que no sabe esto.

L’iraniano cita un interesante estudio de caso: el 28 de febrero de 2026, en las primeras horas de la guerra, la escuela primaria Shajareh Tayyebeh en Minab, en la provincia de Hormozgan, fue alcanzada varias veces durante el horario escolar.

Las cifras proporcionadas por las autoridades iraníes oscilan entre 150 y 175 muertos, la gran mayoría de los cuales eran niñas, junto con docenas de maestros y algunos padres; el fiscal del distrito fijó el número total de muertos en 156.

Washington nunca ha reconocido directamente su responsabilidad ni ha publicado los resultados de la investigación del Pentágono. Amnistía Internacional ha descrito el incidente, en el mejor de los casos, como un grave fallo de inteligencia.

Hay un detalle, revelado por imágenes satelitales, que traslada el análisis del plano moral al fáctico.

Según los medios occidentales, la escuela se encontraba junto a una base naval perteneciente a la Guardia Revolucionaria y anteriormente había formado parte de ella; entre las explicaciones que circulan en los círculos estadounidenses se encuentra la de datos de selección de objetivos desactualizados.

Si se confirmara esta hipótesis, Minab no sería un caso de una máquina que cometió un error, sino de una base de datos que había dejado de corresponder a la realidad. El edificio había cambiado. Los datos, no.

Ningún algoritmo de clasificación, por muy sofisticado que sea, puede detectar que un antiguo edificio militar se ha convertido en una escuela si nadie ha registrado el cambio. Todos los que vivían en Minab lo sabían: los padres que llevaban a sus hijas a la escuela cada mañana, el conductor del autobús escolar, los maestros.

Este es precisamente el tipo de información que recopila el HUMINT y que la guerra a distancia tiende a considerar superflua, porque es lenta, costosa y difícil de ampliar. Con base en fuentes de dominio público, la responsabilidad de EE. UU. parece altamente probable, aunque las circunstancias exactas siguen sin estar claras y el nivel de certeza en este punto es bajo: un error en la base de datos, un error de clasificación o una aceptación consciente del riesgo.

Sin embargo, las tres hipótesis convergen en la misma pregunta. ¿Quién, antes del ataque, verificó si había personas en ese edificio?

Más allá del «human-in-the-loop»

El debate internacional se ha conformado durante mucho tiempo con el principio de human-in-the-loop, según el cual un ser humano forma parte del ciclo de toma de decisiones.

Esta fórmula es insuficiente: una persona puede estar presente en el ciclo y, sin embargo, limitarse a dar el visto bueno a la recomendación del algoritmo.

Él propone sustituirlo por un principio más exigente, al que denomina humanity-in-command: la capacidad efectiva de cuestionar, rechazar, anular y detener el proceso automatizado.

La historia de la Guerra Fría ofrece dos ejemplos que aclaran lo que esto significa en la práctica. El 26 de septiembre de 1983, el sistema soviético de alerta temprana Oko señaló el lanzamiento de cinco misiles balísticos desde Estados Unidos.

El oficial de guardia, Stanislav Petrov, descartó la alarma como una falsa alarma y no la reportó como un ataque en curso, razonando que un primer ataque estadounidense nunca consistiría en solo cinco misiles.

Tenía razón: el satélite había confundido el reflejo del sol en las nubes con lanzamientos de misiles.

Veintiún años antes, el 27 de octubre de 1962, en el mar del Caribe, el submarino soviético B-59, aislado y bajo fuego de cargas de profundidad, estaba a punto de lanzar un torpedo con ojiva nuclear. El lanzamiento requería el consentimiento de los tres oficiales de mayor rango a bordo, y Vasily Arkhipov se negó a darlo.

En ninguno de los dos casos el hombre aprobó una recomendación del sistema. La contradijo. Y no lo hizo porque tuviera más datos: de hecho, los datos eran el problema.

Lo hizo porque sabía plantearse una pregunta que ningún procedimiento le exigía hacer, a saber, si lo que estaba viendo tenía sentido en el contexto de todo lo demás que sabía sobre el mundo.

Petrov estaba familiarizado con la doctrina nuclear estadounidense; Arkhipov sabía la diferencia entre un ataque y una amenaza. Es esta capacidad de comparar la señal con el panorama general, el detalle con lo que es plausible, lo que yo denomino Inteligencia Humana. Vale la pena señalar que el Dena fue hundido por un submarino. No sabemos qué se les preguntó a sus oficiales, ni qué margen de discreción tenían para tomar decisiones.

Esta propuesta debe aclararse, ya que existe el riesgo de reducirla a un llamado humanista genérico. La Inteligencia Humana, tal como yo la entiendo, se estructura en tres niveles distintos, cada uno de los cuales marca un límite estructural —más que contingente— de la inteligencia artificial.

El primer nivel es epistémico. La tradición escolástica distinguía entre intellectus, el acto mediante el cual la mente capta inmediatamente una verdad, y ratio, el proceso discursivo de pasar de un elemento a otro: para Tomás de Aquino (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 79, a. 8), ambos no son facultades distintas, sino aspectos de un único intelecto, en el que el razonamiento comienza con una comprensión y regresa a una comprensión. Los sistemas actuales de aprendizaje automático logran una ratio de una potencia sin precedentes, capaz de inferir, combinar y predecir a escalas inaccesibles para la mente humana.

Carecen del aspecto del intellectus, es decir, de la comprensión del significado de lo que procesan. Esta es una tesis filosófica y debe presentarse como tal, pero tiene consecuencias prácticas precisas: un sistema desprovisto de comprensión no puede saber cuándo su propio modelo del mundo se ha vuelto falso.

El segundo aspecto es práctico. La Prudentia, según la definición tomista, es la razón recta aplicada a la acción, y su tarea específica consiste en aplicar el principio universal al caso particular. La máquina generaliza: su valor radica en asignar el caso individual a una clase.

La prudencia hace lo contrario, porque debe reconocer qué es lo que, en este caso particular, queda fuera de la clase. La guerra, que es el ámbito de lo singular y lo imprevisto, es el escenario donde esta diferencia tiene mayor peso.

La nota Antiqua et nova del Vaticano, de enero de 2025, retomó esta línea de pensamiento, haciendo hincapié en la naturaleza encarnada y relacional de la inteligencia humana y su irreducibilidad a una mera función de procesamiento.

El tercer nivel es relacional, y es aquí donde el significado filosófico se encuentra con el de los servicios de inteligencia. Sherman Kent, quien de hecho fundó el campo de los estudios de inteligencia en los Estados Unidos de la posguerra, lo definió ante todo como conocimiento, incluso antes que como organización o actividad.

El HUMINT es la forma de este conocimiento que pasa a través del otro como persona: alguien que habla su idioma, conoce sus costumbres, sabe interpretar un barrio y puede distinguir una fiesta de una manifestación.

Durante las últimas tres décadas, las grandes potencias han ido desviando progresivamente recursos hacia disciplinas técnicas, desde la inteligencia de señales hasta la vigilancia satelital, pasando por las plataformas de fusión de datos. Minab ilustra el costo de este desequilibrio.

Nada de esto implica un rechazo a la tecnología. La inteligencia humana no se opone a la IA de la misma manera que un manual se opone a un mecánico. Establece una jerarquía: el algoritmo como herramienta subordinada a un juicio que no puede producir por sí mismo. Y de ahí se deriva un principio, formulado por Dehshiri, que merece convertirse en un criterio operativo: cuanto más aleja la tecnología al actor de las consecuencias de sus propias acciones, más debe aumentar —y no disminuir— la responsabilidad consciente de quien toma la decisión.

Desde el punto de vista geopolítico

Hasta ahora, el tema podría parecer una cuestión de filosofía moral. No es solo eso. La distribución de la capacidad de guerra algorítmica es una distribución de poder, y las reglas que la rigen serán redactadas —si es que llegan a redactarse— por aquellos que tienen interés en limitarlas lo menos posible.

El estado del derecho internacional lo confirma. El grupo de expertos gubernamentales establecido en virtud de la Convención sobre Ciertas Armas Convencionales ha estado discutiendo los sistemas de armas autónomas letales desde 2017 sin haber llegado a un instrumento vinculante.

En noviembre de 2023, Estados Unidos promovió una declaración política sobre el uso militar responsable de la IA, que por definición no es vinculante; en diciembre del mismo año, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas adoptó la primera resolución dedicada a estos sistemas, mientras que el Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja ha venido pidiendo desde 2021 la prohibición de los sistemas autónomos impredecibles y de aquellos diseñados para atacar a seres humanos.

En junio de 2024, en su intervención en la cumbre del G7 en Borgo Egnazia, el papa Francisco pidió que nunca se le permitiera a una máquina decidir sobre la vida de una persona. La brecha entre estas posturas y la realidad en los campos de batalla de 2026 se mide en víctimas.

También existe una asimetría más profunda. Quienes controlan los datos deciden quién es un objetivo, y las víctimas de la guerra algorítmica se encuentran en su mayoría fuera de Occidente: en Gaza, Irán, el Sahel y Yemen.

Para los Estados que no producen las plataformas ni controlan sus bases de datos, la inteligencia humana se convierte así en una cuestión de soberanía.

Un país que cuenta con pericia lingüística, conocimiento regional y redes de inteligencia humana conserva su autonomía de juicio; un país que confía su visión del mundo a sistemas diseñados en otros lugares —a menudo por empresas privadas— la cede junto con sus datos. En un orden que tiende hacia la multipolaridad, esta distinción separará a los actores que juzgan de aquellos que son juzgados.

Esto conduce a una propuesta concreta, que desarrollaré en futuros artículos. Junto con el principio general de una supervisión humana significativa, el derecho internacional humanitario podría codificar una obligación específica de verificación humana del estatus civil de cada infraestructura fija incluida en una lista de objetivos, con una fecha de vencimiento más allá de la cual la información se vuelve inválida y debe renovarse utilizando fuentes directas. Esta es una norma mínima.

Aplicada a Minab, habría requerido que alguien preguntara si ese edificio seguía siendo lo que los registros indicaban que era.

La tecnología puede determinar cómo un arma llega a su objetivo, mientras que le corresponde a la humanidad decidir si ese objetivo debe ser atacado. La pregunta subyacente a todo esto es quién, en términos prácticos, ejerce esa humanidad, con qué herramientas de conocimiento y dentro de qué instituciones.

En Minab, alguien debería haber sabido que había una escuela allí. El hecho de que nadie lo supiera, o de que nadie preguntara, es el punto desde el cual debemos volver a empezar.

Traducción:  Observatoriode trabajador@s en lucha

By John REES

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Preparations for war with Russia and complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza have set off a struggle over jobs, wages and military production

War preparation is now a reality across Europe. Within a single September week, Poland issued fresh warnings, Germany ran drills and national alerts, military exercises were held across the Baltic, and Lithuania published plans to evacuate residents of Vilnius in the event of an attack.

The Finnish government is in full cry over the prospect of war, reminding its citizens yet again that they should be ready, in mind and in practice, for the disruption it would bring.

On 18 September, French President Emmanuel Macron gathered party leaders and presidential hopefuls at the Elysee Palace to hear the heads of France’s intelligence services describe what his office called the rapid deterioration of the international situation.

Nato, meanwhile, talks ever more openly about Russian sabotage, cyber attacks, arson and drone attacks.

Many workers and citizens across the continent, though, are not convinced by the war fever.

Thousands of Airbus workers in Spain began strike action on 1 July after rejecting the company’s pay and conditions offer.

Representatives of the UGT and CGT unions said the stoppage had slowed military and commercial production and would make it harder for the company to meet its delivery target. Airbus’s eight sites in Spain produce military transport planes and parts for commercial aircraft and satellites.

As the Defence Matters website reported: “The industrial pressure is not confined to commercial aviation. Spain is central to Airbus Defence and Space, including military transport and satellite activity. European governments are asking manufacturers to increase output at the same time as companies compete for engineers, technicians and production workers.”

Supply lines are so tight that Airbus has had to hire giant Antonov An-124 heavy-lift aircraft to ferry parts from one plant to another just to keep production running.

Air Data News reported that the strike “threatens key military aircraft programmes”, noting that the Eurofighter plant near Madrid and the military transport aircraft site near Seville were both affected.

Spanish unions said about 90 percent of eligible workers took part in the stoppage on 25 August, part of an indefinite strike. The strikes were called after workers voted at plant-level assemblies to reject the company’s offer.

French unions briefed on the dispute said the three striking Spanish unions represent about 40 percent of Airbus Spain’s roughly 14,000 employees. Workers were seeking inflation-linked pay rises, the restoration of previous remote-working arrangements and sick-leave benefits.

After the intervention of Industry Minister Jordi Hereu and concessions from Airbus, the strikers paused the stoppage on 10 September, but not the movement. Two days later, around 8,000 workers from Airbus sites across Spain marched through Madrid to keep the pressure on.

On 1 October, 77 percent of those voting backed an improved offer providing for the restoration of lost purchasing power, inflation-linked pay rises and the protection of remote-working rights, a settlement that months of industrial action had forced out of the company.

The Airbus dispute shows the leverage workers hold in the very industries on which Europe’s rearmament depends.

Trains and the TUC

In Scotland, meanwhile, the rail union RMT, the drivers’ union Aslef and the white-collar TSSA have demanded that the Scottish government remove CAF, the Spanish manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, from its shortlist of contractors to build ScotRail’s new fleet of suburban trains.

The company is included in the UN human rights database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements for its role in running the Jerusalem light rail and helping to extend it into territory illegally seized by Israel.

Aslef made clear that its members would refuse to drive CAF trains, a position echoed by TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust when she urged the Scottish government to “think again”.

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay put the first minister on the spot, asking him directly: “So will the first minister agree that CAF should be blocked from this contract, and will he stand with the rail workers who have refused to drive trains produced by a company that they say profits from apartheid?”

In his response, the first minister confirmed that ScotRail was seeking advice on the contract.

For the second year running, delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a motion opposing increases in arms spending.

This year’s motion passed with even more support than last year’s, which reversed the TUC’s previous backing, advocated by the GMB and Unite unions, for higher defence spending.

Speaking in favour of the motion, Alex Gordon, a former RMT president and national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, said: “This movement is about fighting for jobs, for public services, for investment in the industries of the future that our young people, that our young workers need.

“Those industries are not military industries. The skills of the workers in the military sector are vital skills, vital skills that need to be used in civilian production.”

Ports and classrooms

Dockworkers’ unions in at least six countries are planning an international day of action and strikes on 30 October to protest against the war on Gaza and demand an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.

This coordinated mobilisation follows a strike on 6 February this year that shut down cargo operations at more than 20 Mediterranean and European ports to halt arms shipments bound for Israel.

“No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarisation of ports and strategic infrastructure from [the] EU,” the unions said in their statement. “Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.”

The signatories include CGT FNPD in France, Enedep in Greece, LAB in the Basque Country, Liman-Is in Turkey, ODT in Morocco, and Orsa Porti and USB in Italy.

The next generation, at least in Germany, seems even less enthusiastic about the prospect of a new European war. More than 45,000 school students across the country walked out of class in late September to protest against plans for compulsory military service, after hundreds of young men were summoned for medical examinations.

The School Strike Against Conscription initiative said demonstrations took place in more than 100 cities after the German defence ministry began calling in 18-year-old men for medical screening. Service itself remains voluntary for now, but the screening is compulsory.

Students took to the streets demanding a halt to the forced checks, the repeal of the new military service law and an end to what they call a step-by-step return to the draft.

This is now the ground on which European politics is being fought. It is a contest between a political establishment obsessed with war and preparations for war, and millions of workers across the continent unwilling to pay for rearmament with their wages, jobs and living standards.

These are the opening shots in that battle.

Original article:  middleeasteye.net

A 41-year-old woman has been arrested in Athens on suspicion of attempting to poison her ex-husband, a military doctor, with atropine. According to media, the man had installed security cameras at his apartment in Peristeri suburb of western Athens. Monitoring the cameras remotely, he allegedly saw his ex-wife who had keys entered the apartment and […]

The post Woman arrested for poisoning ex husband with atropine appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Caught between the methodical repression of its own youth and the shock of a global geopolitical shift that marginalizes it, Emmanuel Macron’s France sees the republican myth collapse under the combined effect of its internal cynicism and a historic strategic defeat abroad. In reality, May 1968 revealed the vulnerability of technocratic certainties in France. However, […]