<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Open Forum]]> 10 <![CDATA[They are not the dinghies. They are the policies of the PP and of Marga Prohens]]> The Balearic Islands are experiencing one of the most difficult moments in their recent history. It has never been so complicated to access housing. Never have so many young people seen the possibility of emancipating themselves so far away. Never have so many families had to dedicate such a large part of their salary to paying rent or a mortgage. And never have so many people felt that, despite working every day, living with dignity in their own land is becoming a privilege reserved for a few.

]]> <![CDATA[The eclipse: manage it as an emergency to avoid it]]> On August 12, thousands of people will look to the sky to observe the total solar eclipse. And our goal is precisely that: to have all eyes on the sky. When everything is going well, the work of security and emergency services is almost unseen. Because our job is precisely to anticipate the things that no one wants to happen.For many months, the Government has been working on the security plan for the solar eclipse on August 12th. An extraordinary phenomenon requires extraordinary measures to enjoy it safely and without surprises.The special visibility conditions of the eclipse — at dusk and just before sunset —, the date — in mid-summer and at the point of maximum human pressure — and the unique geography of our Archipelago — with four islands, forests, mountains, cliffs and the sea — make this event an exciting management challenge for the Government and, especially, for the Directorate General of Emergencies and Internal Affairs.For this reason, from the very beginning we have planned the management of the entire operation as if it were a major emergency, precisely so that it does not become an emergency. However spectacular, historic, and unrepeatable the eclipse may be, it will never be more important to us than the safety of people and the protection of our natural environment.With this objective, we have designed a specific action protocol, ECLIPBAL, which complements the Territorial Civil Protection Plan of the Balearic Islands (PLATERBAL), activated in the pre-emergency phase since July 9.These plans are what allow us to manage and coordinate a device in which a multitude of administrations and security and emergency forces and bodies participate: the Government, the Government Delegation of Spain in the Balearic Islands, the island councils, the town councils, the General Directorate of Traffic, the Civil Guard, the National Police, the Local Police, firefighters, forest firefighters, environmental agents, maritime and port authorities, and municipal Civil Protection groups.The collaboration of all these institutions is as admirable as it is essential. Thanks to this joint effort, we have been advancing for months, from the collection of necessary scientific information to the design of ECLIPBAL, including the identification of risk and observation zones.There is no improvisation. Every decision responds exclusively to technical safety and civil protection criteria. Although there are thousands of places from which to watch the eclipse, the Government proposes 26 official observation areas distributed among the four islands, selected not only for their visibility, but also for their accessibility, capacity, and safety conditions.It is not a whim either to protect the Serra de Tramuntana, other environmentally sensitive areas and the posidonia meadows. The restrictions planned for about twenty roads are an essential preventive measure to minimize the risk of fire and other emergencies, protect our natural heritage, and guarantee the intervention of emergency services, if necessary. The objective is to avoid a massive influx of vehicles that could pose a risk. However, access will be permitted for residents and people who can prove the necessity.The plan is designed for all the people who will be on our islands that day, without distinctions or priorities. Yes, I want to take advantage of these lines to ask for your collaboration. I am convinced that Balearic society will once again act with the responsibility and good sense that it has always shown in situations of risk, be it storms, floods, or fires.We are facing a historic day. Consult the website eclipsisegur.caib.es, plan in advance where to see it (and, if possible, from home, the better), get approved glasses and enjoy a unique phenomenon.We want it to be an unforgettable experience because of what happens in the sky and not because of what happens on Earth. If we all remember the emotion of looking up on August 12th, it will mean that together we will have done our job well.

]]> <![CDATA[Change or die: Less Tourism, More Life]]> Tourism is killing us. I'm not saying it, economists are. Until now, this was a taboo. The economic academy, with a clearly neoliberal tendency, insisted on selling us tourism as the golden goose, thanks to which we all live and don't starve. There are still people who, when you criticize the tourist model, respond: "And you, what do you live on?". We are not talking about tourism in general, but about the current system of tourist monoculture and limitless growth that we suffer from, the model that is killing us. First, due to evidence that became apparent during the pandemic. When I took the Political Economy course, we learned that a monoculture economic system (like the tourism monoculture) is a weak system, exposed to uncontrollable external factors, such as pandemics, geopolitical crises, and fluctuations in transport prices, among others. In the case of tourism, we also depend on the good economic performance of the emitting countries, and let's not forget climate change and rising temperatures. Who will want to come and suffer scorching summers? First lesson: For an economy to be strong, it cannot put all its eggs in one basket; it must diversify. Less tourism and more development of other economic sectors. Secondly, this model, if it once served to improve the Balearic economy, is now impoverishing and expelling the resident population. The Fènix Report (coordinated by Xavier Roig) has just been presented. Although the document was initially focused on Catalonia, its authors maintain that the tourism economy of the Islands is an extreme example of what they denounce, an economy that generates macroeconomic growth, but which impoverishes residents and reduces productivity. The Balearic Islands are increasing their global GDP and population, but GDP per capita and the quality of life of their citizens are not improving. The continuity of this model not only poses technical challenges – such as access to housing, the availability of natural resources, and the sustainability of public services – but also generates general impoverishment and can lead to a growing social fracture, placing us at a crossroads: either structural reforms are adopted to correct current dynamics, or the risk of progressive deterioration of the economic model is assumed. These economists have not been the first to say this. It is fair to mention the Consell Econòmic i Social de les Illes Balears (CES), the collegiate body for participation, study, deliberation, advice, and proposal in economic and social matters, according to the Statute of Autonomy, because in its reports it had already denounced the impoverishment of the Balearic Islands, even though no one, starting with the governments that should be the main recipients of its reports, paid any attention. According to the CES, the Islands are the community that has most impoverished itself in the last twenty-five years. Despite the good macroeconomic figures, household disposable income is falling notably, and we are the territory where it is most difficult to acquire housing. Despite the Balearic Government's effort to decouple the housing problem from tourism, there is a direct relationship. That increased demand causes prices to rise is a fundamental principle of economics. Before, housing was for living. Now it is for tourist rental, second homes for non-resident foreigners, for renting rooms (often abusively, without a contract, without rights, and without a receipt), an investment and speculation asset for vulture funds, etc. According to the Bank of Spain, 10.6% of the total housing stock in the Balearic Islands are tourist homes and those owned by non-residents. In the urban area of Palma, tourist use dwellings represent 7.6% of the rental market, and we assume this refers just to 'legal' rentals. The PP government uses the housing problem as an excuse to destroy territory, but it is tourism where we must look. The tourism that expropriates our homes and rights, as we see now with tourism sector workers and the war on false 'absenteeism' launched by the employers' association. Therefore, we invite you to the demonstration on July 26 called by the Platform Less Tourism, More Life. We want another possible economy at the service of citizens and not of tourism companies, with housing, labor rights, where the territory, natural resources, water are preserved. United, combative and joyful, no one will stop us. Less tourism, more life. 

]]> <![CDATA[Mallorca needs limits]]>

In the year 2000, 10 million tourists arrived in the Balearic Islands. In the year 2026, 20 million will arrive. For years, some political leaders tried to make us believe that tourist saturation was just a perception. Today, however, hardly anyone doubts that the Balearic Islands are suffering from a serious problem of overmassification.

]]> <![CDATA[The grammar of bodies]]> Today's tribune is born from the experience with val flores –an Argentine writer, teacher, and activist linked to feminisms and sexual dissidences–, who recently visited us, through the Mallorcan artistic and pedagogical association La Lioparda, with the workshop Leer es un verbo del cuerpo. From my experiment with her performative practice, I approach two verbs of the body: 'to read' and 'to write'.‘To read’, ‘to write’: two verbs that are the same water, made of syntactic orders woven by invisible threads, slippery, unpredictable. Torrents that calm, momentarily, the languages of the butterflies of thought. Because thoughts are, perhaps, the murmur of the flight of the butterflies that we capture with writing.This space is too brief to explain the corporal anatomy of writing, the syntactic organization of moving bodies —remembering Socrates—, and we already know that both thought –poetic– and the expression of bodies are dissident, if we are willing to risk the self and remove it from the middle or, at least, displace it, transfigure it, as Clarice Lispector would prefer. Personally, I haven't achieved it yet; I only make humble attempts and collect the best failures from them.When we approach the body – the text is also that – from heretical affections, normative semantics crack and reveal latent syntaxes. Body syntax – the relationships between movements, emotions, thoughts, and perceptions that create meanings – investigates new links, but, to do so, it must start from familiar patterns. The body cannot throw itself into the abyss of creation without some point of support. That would be chaos, and creation demands decisions. Not necessarily control, but risk: risk of clumsiness, of losing thresholds. I improvise the grammar of my body by making decisions. There is no improvisation without this risk.In the same way, I try to order this text according to the laws of normative grammar, the point of support. The polemic or I leave it be with its doubts, routes, failures, intuitions. Why do we prevent the text —and the body— from being disorder? And if we let it remain in the background? This is the place where the seed of the creative act remains: on our back, in what we cannot look at directly without losing. Perhaps that is why I am an orphic poem.Bodies, in motion or at rest, have their own rhythm, punctuation, and internal relationships. The poem, for example, is a body that reads whoever approaches it. We should approach it with respect for its timings and for whatever it wishes to show us of its intimacy and vulnerability – logocentric norms should only be sources of consultation, never an unquestionable discourse. We should allow it to transform us: we are not the same when the poem has read us. It does so with a body of eyes that dips us into the milk of our mother, the mystery of the unformed. The body-text perceives with patience the rhythm and fluctuations of the white feather. Hélène Cixous and Clarice Lispector already knew this: their experience of feminine writing is testament to it.Reading and writing distort time, as there is also a strange form of reading-writing: the déjà-vu of everything you haven't yet read and written. When it is finally revealed —like a mystical algorithm—, you recognize yourself in the writing, because writing is always rewriting. And the act of reading is its blessing.Whether the self is capable or not of getting out of the way is not a matter of rational will. There is only one beacon, one purpose: the strangeness of moving through places that one has crossed hundreds of times and, despite the present uncertainty, rewriting in aeternum a certainty: the void. One must eat this void. Oh, what an absolute and marvelous failure the body made of the fear of the void. I must stop for a moment here: the last words have revealed déjà-vu. Will I be able to be present when something happens, here and now?It is from this void that we approach the body of our neighbor. We do so with the desire to understand the principles that govern the use of our own grammar, with the aim of converging in communication. My experience is that this approach is a performative gesture carried out from the fantasy of entering into communion with each person's wound. We seek a syntax that gives meaning to the gift that each wound hides. This syntax is presyllabic, written with mother's milk, as I said before.You, dear reader, do not read this text: you inscribe yourself in it as you move with it. The paradox is that I still do not know how to write —I doubt if I really know how to read—, because every time I move between these two verbs I do so with unease and discomfort. Cultivating patience and curiosity, but also frustration and the joy of discovery, is the only way I have found to continue experimenting. If in one of these silent movements of the pen we are moved together, we will have tricked time for an instant. Perhaps this was val flores's invitation: to read from the body to rewrite it.

]]> <![CDATA[Three years governing for the people from here]]> Citizens and citizens of the Balearic Islands, this week marks three years since my investiture and taking of office as president of this Autonomous Community, of this immense honor that I have thanks to the trust of a broad majority of citizens, who three years ago called for a change in policies and in the way of doing politics in these Islands. A change from centrality, from moderation, from good sense and for the people from here.After three intense years and a lot – a lot – of work, I am aware that there is still a lot to do, I am aware of the challenges ahead of us, and I am aware of the concerns of the families of these Islands, and I will not fall into conformity, self-satisfaction, or indifference. Because we cannot afford it, and, therefore, my commitment is to give it my all.With these lines I want to share with all of you my balance of these three years of work, of these three years of legislature, which I believe can be summarized mainly in three evidences.The first, what has been my obsession since day one: the fulfillment of the given word. Because that's how they taught me at home, the value of the given word, to fulfill what is promised. The first commitment fulfilled was to form a government on my own. A promise that no one believed in, that some saw as impossible and even mocked. But I said that if I had a sufficient majority of citizens, I would do so. The citizens responded, and I delivered. And, obviously, governing in a minority has not been easy, but this has allowed us to set the tone and pace, and to prevent the instability that has been experienced in Parliament from ever being transferred to the Government.From that moment on, we have not only not crossed any of our red lines, but we have fulfilled and launched 95% of our government program. 10 days later we began to lower taxes with the elimination of the inheritance tax —which has already benefited more than 35,000 families— and with the elimination or bonus of the tax for the purchase of the first home, which has benefited more than 5,000 young people. 50 days later we fulfilled by making the free education for the entire stage from 0 to 3 years a reality, which today benefits more than 15,000 families. 100 days later we approved the Royal Decree-Law on residential emergency, as a first package of measures to address the housing challenge. And so we have been fulfilling our program for three years, with the zero quota for the self-employed, the recovery of numerical grades, more hours of mathematics and languages, the plan to attract health professionals, the Work-Life Balance Law, the Simplification Law, the Coastal Law, as well as so many and so many measures that we included in our program and that today are a reality.Secondly, the fact that the script predicted by the left-wing parties has not been fulfilled, that the discourse of fear of cuts in public services, cuts in rights, and social tension has not been fulfilled. On the contrary, for three years we have allocated more resources than ever to our public services; we have improved the conditions of our healthcare professionals, our teachers, and all our public employees; we have advanced in new rights, such as aid for ALS patients, 24-hour care for pediatric palliative care, free adapted leisure for children with disabilities, the price limit for school canteens and psychologists in classrooms and health centers, among other advances.Everyone, through dialogue and agreement. Because we are a government of pacts and understanding, as demonstrated by the achievement of such important agreements as the Pact for Sustainability, the Pact for Health, as well as the Pact for the Legislature with the public service board, the agreement for the recovery of the healthcare professional career, and the Pact for Marine Conservation.And, finally, an evidence of which, as I began by saying, I am fully aware: that there is a lot of work to be done. We were faced with a poisoned inheritance, with soaring housing prices, with the Islands at their limit, the result of 115,000 tourist places authorized in eight years, and with public services strained by a population growth pattern that is today absolutely unsustainable. During these three years we have laid the foundations to change course, changing laws, planning and allocating resources, because there are no magic solutions and the situation does not change in a day, but thanks to our different laws we have more than 10,000 affordable homes in process; affordable homes and for the local people, among which there are more than 1,000 of public promotion, the works of which will begin this legislature. And, of course, we are talking about housing at affordable prices, with prices between 30% and 50% below market price and for the local people, with at least 5 years of residence. Because it is about housing for those who already live in the Balearic Islands.Although there is still a long way to go for it to reach citizens, we are beginning to see signs of a change in trend with the reactivation of multi-family housing development, with a 60% increase in one year, and which for two years now has again surpassed single-family homes, that is, more apartments than houses, according to the latest data from the College of Technical Architects and Surveyors. Also with a 33% decrease in housing purchases by foreign citizens, according to data from the College of Notaries. Because now, housing development is once again oriented towards affordable housing and for local people.And we are working to transform our economy and move from growth in volume to growth in value, a model that bets on the diversification of our economy towards innovation and knowledge, as we have done with the ParcBit boost plan and the Law for the acceleration of strategic projects, and with a clear strategy of tourism containment, which sets zero growth for new tourist places, prohibits new tourist apartments, and agrees to reduce the number of cruise passengers, the purchase of public land to protect our natural spaces. And we will end the legislature with the entry of rental tourist vehicles and cars limited to the four islands. Because yes, we have reached the limit.We must move towards a model that does not require the continuous recruitment of workers from outside, because we have to change the pattern of population growth. As we also need to put a stop to the continuous arrival of irregular immigration to our Islands. Because we have always been a land of welcome, but we need immigration not only linked to a work contract, but one that also takes into account the integration capacity of our land, always demanding respect for our laws and values. Otherwise, the result is that we see how the physiognomy of our towns and neighborhoods is becoming blurred. No, not everyone fits here.We are the Government that most resembles the people of this land, a Government that makes decisions with common sense and tranquility, that does not hide problems in drawers. We have come to roll up our sleeves to solve the structural problems of these Islands.From here on, some policies need a final push and others need to consolidate over time to bear fruit. And with this objective we will work this coming year, working hard to respond to the main concerns of citizens, to broaden their trust and to achieve a majority of stability that allows us to continue with the change from centrality, from moderation, from common sense and governing thinking only of the people here.

]]> <![CDATA[Aporophobic policies]]> When at the end of the 90s Attac warned about the consequences of the financialization of the economy, we could not yet guess how far the destructive power of today's digital and financial capitalism would go.Saskia Sassen already announced the evolution of the economic system towards a massive extractive capitalism (Expulsions, 2014). In the 20th century, the economy was based on the production of material goods and it was necessary to have citizens with the economic capacity to acquire them, which is why the political axis was inclusion, the welfare state. On the contrary, in a world where profit comes from financial speculation, people have ceased to have value as producers and consumers, and worrying about the welfare of the middle and lower classes is a waste of resources. Thus, the system now pivots around a radical logic of massive exclusion or expulsion of a large part of the population to the margins of the system. The current configuration of financial capitalism no longer generates generalized well-being, but rather the growth of inequality. While some elites enrich themselves disproportionately, the working and middle classes are being displaced towards precariousness and impoverishment. To austerity policies and reduction of public services, unemployment, and the loss of labor rights, is added the dynamic of financial capital which, in order to continue expanding, needs to commodify and appropriate the basic goods and services of life, such as housing, healthcare, education, and pensions, and cause their scarcity or elitization. The consequences of this economic evolution are incompatible with the cultural framework that has governed us since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN (1948). To affirm that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and […] should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” has a revolutionary scope today, because capitalism needs to expropriate and undermine lives and rights to extract value.The far-right is the instrument of extractive capitalism not only to promote its deregulatory proposals and suppressors of rights and guarantees in various areas of life, but also to generate in society another mental framework that facilitates the advancement of these expropriatory economic and social policies, not only without citizen resistance, but with acceptance and adhesion, by influencing schools, education, culture, and the media. As E. J. Díez says, “neoliberalism and neofascism constitute two inseparable expressions of the same current configuration of the capitalist system”. Thus, the far right generates and generalizes discourses that break the basic consensus of equal rights based on human dignity, and legitimizes inequality and restriction of rights to some groups. Rights? Not for everyone. The far right points the finger at those who are already in an initially disadvantaged situation to accentuate it. Their apparent fight is against feminism, against migrants, against the most excluded social sectors, making them appear as culprits of economic and social problems or scarcity to justify their expulsion from the welfare system, while the real culprits are hidden. Starting to cut rights first for some, in the future for many more. In this context of growing social exclusion, aporophobic policies emerge, executed wherever the far-right and its follower right-wing parties govern, including on our island. When Mrs. Prohens, president of the CAIB, opposes the administrative regularization of migrants and says that “not everyone who arrives is a being of light,” she is saying that it is no longer enough to be a person to have rights; they are granted or not according to the power's pleasure and convenience. And in general, they are taken from the most disadvantaged. Why spend money on them? We see it nearby. For example, the massive deregistration of precarious residents in Palma, the refusal to register homeless people and caravanners. The harassment of homeless people. The dehumanization and criminalization of minors in transit to deprive them of their rights as minors. The suppression or restriction of benefits such as the guaranteed social income. The transfer of designated land (intended for services) to real estate developers with the excuse of a lack of housing. There is a future for everyone, but we must defend it today.

]]> <![CDATA[Not before, not now, not ever: the Trenc is NOT touched]]>

There are places that are more than a natural space, they are symbols, because their conservation represents a way of understanding the country and the landscape. El Trenc is one of these places. For decades, society has mobilized to defend this space against urban, speculative and economic threats.Today, this defense is once again necessary. The modifications introduced with the Omnibus Law are not simple technical adjustments. They do not imply an immediate reduction in the protection of Trenc or the rest of the natural parks of the Islands. The problem is not today, but what these reforms make possible tomorrow. Until now, the main guarantees of the park were included in Law 2/2017. Any substantial modification required political debate, transparency, and a parliamentary majority. With the reform promoted by the PP, modifications are simpler.The protection of natural spaces does not depend on a single norm. It is the result of a legal architecture built over decades, made up of laws, territorial guidelines, management plans, and public participation mechanisms. Wanting to modify this framework reveals a strategy aimed at weakening the guarantees that sustain protected natural spaces.First, limitations previously enshrined in law are eliminated or relaxed. In the case of Trenc, certain protections will no longer depend on Parliament and can be modified by decree of the Governing Council. The change is profound. What previously required parliamentary debate and democratic control now disappears. Current regulations limit tourist, commercial, and recreational activities, set authorized uses, and establish essential prohibitions to preserve the natural values of this area. Now, with the reform, everything can be reviewed more easily.The central piece of this operation is the Land Use Plans for Natural Resources (PORN), which are the main barrier against the intensification of urban and tourism uses within protected areas. In the case of El Trenc, it prevents, among other things, the increase of tourist spots. If the legal limitations that define them are now lowered, future PORNs may be more permissive.But the strategy does not end here. The future agrarian law foresees the modification of the Territorial Planning Directives (DOT), one of the main guarantees for the protection of rural land in the Balearic Islands. Now, the aim is to reduce these limitations and facilitate complementary activities linked to the tourism and recreational business. This combination will weaken the legal guarantees of natural parks and lower the limitations imposed by the DOT. The result is a progressive reconfiguration of the environmental protection system built over the last decades.This decriminalization facilitates future modifications of tourist, recreational, and commercial uses within the park and opens the door to reviewing the qualification of a Natural Area of High Protection Level. The urbanistic projects that for decades had put Es Trenc in the spotlight still exist and from now on will be possible.Therefore, it is surprising that we are accused of alarmism. The fundamental difference between the ecological view and the short-term political view is found here. President Marga Prohens and counselor Joan Simonet maintain that there is no intention to deprotect El Trenc, because today there is no formal proposal to modify its protection. It is an electoral view. On the other hand, natural spaces require a much longer-term view. Major territorial transformations are prepared over years through small regulatory modifications that eliminate limitations, reduce controls, and facilitate changes. We must be very clear that, like democracy, the protection of natural spaces is not an irreversible conquest, and that we must fight continuously, because those who would want to reverse the situation continue to pressure. And in the case of El Trenc, Prohens has the pressures very close.The same is repeated with the future Balearic Coastal Law which proposes a simplification of procedures and uses. Therefore, the defense of El Trenc goes far beyond a specific natural park. The Omnibus Law, the future agrarian law, the reform of the DOTs and the new Coastal Law are part of the same intention of deprotection of the territory. In isolation, they may seem like simple modifications, but, together, they outline a clear territorial model: fewer limitations, fewer guarantees, and more ease for private economic interests.The defense of Trenc is the defense of all protected natural spaces in Mallorca. Thousands of Mallorcans already understood this decades ago. Citizen mobilization was decisive then and will be again now. Because Trenc is not just a beach. It is memory. It is collective heritage. It is one of Mallorca's great environmental victories and, precisely because of this, it is still the subject of dispute.

]]> <![CDATA[Mental health is also a matter of territory]]> When we talk about mental health, we often think of psychologists, psychiatrists, hospitals, and medication. All these resources are essential and necessary. But the reality is that mental health begins long before a person needs a consultation or treatment.Mental health also does not depend exclusively on biological or individual factors. There is growing scientific consensus that emotional well-being is influenced by the conditions in which we live: housing, working conditions, economic situation, social relationships, mobility, and the quality of the environment, among others. Mental health is also built, or deteriorated, from the factors that surround us every day.The World Health Organization has been insisting on this idea for years. The so-called social determinants of health have a decisive influence on people's well-being. Therefore, when we talk about mental health, we are also talking about housing, work, social cohesion, territory, and quality of life.In the Balearic Islands, this debate takes on special relevance. Tourism represents a fundamental part of our economy and generates thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Without tourism, the economic and social reality of our islands cannot be understood. In fact, activities directly or indirectly linked to the tourism sector represent 85% of our country's gross domestic product.Precisely because it is so important, we must be able to analyze all its impacts. Not only the economic benefits, but also the consequences it can have on the living conditions of the people who live and work here.In recent years, Mallorca has undergone a profound transformation. Each season breaks visitor records while a growing part of the population expresses concern about access to housing, mobility problems, congestion of public spaces, and the rising cost of living.These concerns are not just urban or economic issues. They are also health issues.Scientific literature shows that the perception of saturation, the loss of control over the daily environment, the difficulty in accessing basic resources, and the feeling of constant pressure on the territory can affect the quality of life and increase the stress levels of the resident population.The time we spend in a deadlock. The uncertainty regarding the renewal of a rental contract. The impossibility of accessing housing. The feeling that the spaces of our daily life are no longer accessible. None of these factors alone explains the mental health problems a person suffers from. But when they accumulate, they generate an emotional wear and tear that we cannot ignore.This debate is especially relevant if we consider the evolution of work absences related to mental health. According to recent data, absences for this reason have increased very significantly in recent years, while anxiety has consolidated as one of the main reasons for temporary incapacity, especially among young people.What impact do current living conditions have on this increase in emotional distress?There is no single answer or automatic relationship between tourism and mental health. It would be an unfair and incorrect simplification. But it would also be a mistake to ignore that the conditions arising from the pressure the territory endures can influence factors that science identifies as determinants of psychological well-being.For a long time we have measured the success of a territory through the number of visitors, overnight stays and the income generated. They are important indicators, but they are probably no longer sufficient.Perhaps the time has come to incorporate new questions into public debate. How does the economic model affect the quality of life of residents? How should we manage it? And within the scope of management, how do we incorporate the emotional well-being of people? How can we improve the living conditions of the people who live and work in Mallorca?When we talk about mental health, we don't just have to look at what's happening inside people. We also have to look at what's happening around them. And this includes housing, mobility, working conditions, the territorial model, and the pressure that an island like Mallorca endures.Talking about mental health is talking about rights, dignity, and quality of life. But it is also talking about housing, work, territory, and community.Because a healthy island is not just an island that generates wealth. It is also an island where you can live well.And the possibility of living well there is, probably, one of the best mental health policies we can build as a society.

]]> <![CDATA[Water crisis or governance crisis?]]> Last Saturday, the new Law 4/2026 on urgent measures to accelerate strategic projects was published, which reduces water sufficiency controls on urban planning. It is another step in reducing controls and further promoting the urban growth initiated with the decrees on administrative simplification and urgent actions approved during the last two years. These regulations have been approved at a time when we were suffering one of the strongest droughts we remembered and in which urban development is the main cause of the overexploitation of aquifers, which reach 91% in Ibiza and 94% in Formentera of total water consumption, and up to 70% in Mallorca and Menorca. The island of Ibiza is a good example of this trend. In 1996, the main use was agricultural (54%) and to a lesser extent, urban and residential uses (45%). Thirty years later, agriculture has almost disappeared and its consumption now only accounts for 7% of the total. In contrast, urban development does not stop.

]]> <![CDATA[The crisis/the crises]]> The internal crises of social movements often generate a strange fascination. From the outside, they tend to be given simplistic and biased readings, and some even interpret them – conveniently – as definitive proof of their incoherence; from the inside, they are often experienced as a dispute between incompatible narratives and forms. But transformative organizations rarely enter into crisis for a single cause. And when we try to explain them based on good and bad guys and opposing factions, we almost always fail to understand what is really happening. Much honesty is needed to want to address the issue in all its diversity, complexity, and depth.In recent weeks, the crisis experienced at GOB Mallorca has caused a flood of comments, speculations, and positions. The resignation of ten women, members of the board of directors who had promoted an ecofeminist candidacy in 2023, has brought to light discrepancies regarding governance, occupational health, ways of understanding leadership, and organizational models. For all this, a broader and deeper reading is appropriate about what this conflict tells us in relation to the challenges that environmental organizations and many other social movements face today.Environmentalism is experiencing a paradoxical moment. Never has the validity, urgency, and necessity of its denunciations been so evident – the monster is growing larger, with more tentacles, refining its narrative and strategies, and accelerating devastation beyond the real capacity for impact of social movements – nor has the necessity of its proposals been so urgent. The climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, touristification, and the depletion of resources, but also their vital consequences in ecological, environmental, and social justice terms, provide ever more arguments for decades of environmentalist struggles and lead us to the need to join forces from the grassroots and converge with other active struggles and demands (the struggle for housing, the union struggle, the struggle for public services, the feminist struggle, the anti-racist struggle, the anti-fascist struggle, the peace movements...) in order to drive the ecosocial transformations we desire. It is a confluence to which all transformative social movements tend, and proof of this are initiatives such as Revoltes de la Terra, the state Social Forum that works for the 'Beyond Growth' Eco-Social Pact, the meetings of international networks against touristification, the reflections at anti-capitalist summer universities, to which GOB has been invited in recent years as a benchmark, and the debates (and also conflicts) within reference environmental organizations such as Ecologistas en Acción and Greenpeace. We are no longer just in time to resist, but to go on the offensive and advance as a lever for change, and for this we need a broad and cohesive social base that works hand in hand with a common and transversal objective: to guarantee the sustainability of life in a world that ferociously attacks it from all sides. And, however, and perhaps precisely because of this, the movements that drive them, especially those with years of trajectory, as is the case with GOB, experience tensions, wear and tear, and difficulties in sustaining themselves.It is not just a confrontation between conservationists and those who defend social ecology (no one questions the defense of territory and biodiversity, as axes around which the entire environmental movement pivots; because without territory and its resources, no life is possible). It is not, only, a matter of clashing generational visions, of nostalgics versus young and critical visions, of reformists versus revolutionaries. Nor is it simply about clashes regarding governance models between those who try to incorporate the values of the changes and transformations we would like to promote externally, within organizations themselves, and those who would like a directive organizational model measured in terms of performance indicators. It is not just a question derived from the discomfort generated by critical review from feminisms of the structures, values, hierarchies, and objectives of entities that should be a lever and tool for social transformation and the furious reactions it generates. It is not just any of these questions on its own. It is all of them together and at the same time and amplified by the urgency to act in a world where the margins of possibility for the real changes we urgently need seem increasingly narrow.The challenge for social movements in general, and for GOB in particular, lies precisely in their capacity, or lack thereof, to incorporate all this complexity and dimension into their strategic reflections in order to become something useful to the society of these islands in the present and future scenarios that we will have to face, marked by the eco-social crisis and multiple uncertainties. Today we need all organizational structures and, even more so, entities with a track record and solvency like the GOB has been and continues to be –despite certain mantras that are repeated until they function as accepted truths (that the capacity for mobilization has been lost, that street presence has been lost, that what was done before is no longer done) even though major mobilizations have been driven, even though new fronts of struggle have been opened, even though the capacity for social and political impact has been expanded– to be the pillars for driving the changes we need, understanding the defense of the territory and the biodiversity that sustain us as another tool for social justice, democracy, and collective action.I believe this is a truly necessary reflection at a time when it is tempting to read any internal conflict as a demonstration of failure by some and victory by others, and to move forward without incorporating any element of critical review that conflicts oblige us to if the goal is to advance as a collective and as a society. If this is not done, we will not be facing progress, but a major setback that will eventually be regretted.

]]> <![CDATA[The immoral wars of our time]]> Be part of a generation that has grown up with the conviction that war was a defeat, a defeat for politics, for diplomacy, and above all, for humanity. Those of us who have been trained in the political culture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have done so with the conviction that all war is an injustice, especially for the civilian population that suffers it, accepting, however, that there are international norms that, in situations of extreme gravity, can justify an armed intervention, approved and recognized by the international community.This was the moral and legal pact that emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. The world had known horror as never before, and that is why attempts were made to build mechanisms to prevent barbarism from once again becoming the ordinary way of relating between states. From this arose the United Nations Organization, international relations based on norms, and the idea that human rights constitute an upper limit to the political or economic interests of states.Undoubtedly, it was not a perfect system; there would be countless occasions when the UN acted conditioned by the influence of superpowers or was unable to enforce its resolutions. It is also true that numerous military interventions have been justified for humanitarian reasons, for justice, to protect threatened minorities, or democracy itself, but too often they have hidden real geostrategic objectives that had nothing to do with the speeches. However, even in these cases, a fundamental element was maintained: the need for military actions that went beyond the margins of diplomacy to have an appearance of legitimacy, within the legal and moral framework established by the international system. This is why "the Azores trio" saw it necessary to justify the invasion of Iraq by the existence of weapons of mass destruction that were never found. Even if it was a lie, it sought not to deviate from the legitimacy granted by the norms recognized by the states that make up the international community.Nowadays, even this minimum is alarmingly disappearing, because if before it was necessary to seek complex explanations for any military action, now everything seems valid. The big change is not the injustice of the wars that have been initiated, the profound change is that it is intended that the use of force no longer needs to be justified, or, in any case, the arguments that granted legitimacy seem secondary: they attack Venezuela in the name of democracy, but suddenly they admit that the important thing is oil and months later the transition to democracy remains in stand-by.Another case, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a clear example of violation of international law, however, even Putin tried to build an alibi that would give him an appearance of legitimacy: the protection of Russian minorities or the security of Russia's borders against NATO expansion. There is no doubt that it is a questionable discourse and, in fact, incompatible with international legality, but even so, he maintained the need to justify the aggression with some type of legitimacy.The great danger right now is that after these arguments that have crossed the line of acceptable justifications, we find ourselves with other leaders who completely break with the previous paradigm, and this idea comes above all from the Trump administration. The current North American president represents this dangerous change in international relations like few others; he has sought to normalize politics based exclusively on immediate, economic, and national interest. He does not see the need to build a coherent narrative within the framework of international relations as we have understood them until now. This is a break with the norms and international relations built after 1945. With this new paradigm, wars cease to be considered an extreme evil justified only in exceptional circumstances to become simple (and destructive) tools of power.We cannot overlook the case of Gaza, which, like few others, reflects this crisis in international relations. Israel initially justified its military operations in the name of the fight against terrorism after the Hamas attacks, but this justification loses all meaning when it turns into the systematic destruction of an entire region, the expulsion of its inhabitants, the indiscriminate murder of civilians, attacks on basic infrastructure such as hospitals and schools, and humanitarian corridors. Attacks against international cooperation and solidarity organizations; actions, all of them, that can be considered war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, and are so denounced at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Beyond the legal debate, the result of this unpunished aggression by the Israeli government of Netanyahu in Gaza, and now also in Lebanon, demonstrates the erosion and progressive destruction of a system of international relations based on norms and on the idea that the main goal of the international system is the maintenance of world peace.Therefore, we affirm that the wars of our time are, more than ever, immoral, because they have turned people, as has not happened since 1945, into expendable pawns in the service of economic gain, into simple figures, if political objectives are achieved from the most absolute selfishness. It is immoral because human life ceases to have value and remains subordinate to the interests of the powerful. For decades, the world at least tried to maintain the fiction that there were limits that democratic states in particular should never cross. Today we are witnessing the destruction of these limits, of a system of relations based on norms, a destruction that contemplates a public opinion saturated with information and that feels powerless, if not pushed to justify the unjustifiable according to an extreme polarization that some promote.In this context it is very important that voices opposing it are heard, loud and clear. One of these voices is Pope Leo XIV, who has repeatedly denounced the trivialization of war and the glorification of force. To him should be added political leaders from different countries, such as the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, who represent the democratic and internationalist response to the rise of new authoritarianisms, main promoters of the new culture of force.Here lies an essential part of the issue we are analyzing today: authoritarian governments exalt force over law, in line with how they manage their internal policies (let's recall Trump's anti-immigration policies, ICE, and the brutality they employ). Today it is once again time to demand the 'no to war', or the 'yes to peace', to advocate for pacifism, to reject those who treat peace as naivety. It is not naivety, it is a necessity. Defending peace, international law, and human dignity is once again an act of resistance. Being a pacifist is once again revolutionary.

]]> <![CDATA[Unity and courage. For a left-wing front in Palma]]> Often taking a step is not a simple task. However, doing so is necessary if we want to move forward collectively. Today, in Palma, in the Balearic Islands, and throughout the Catalan Countries and the state, we are living through difficult times. The threat of the far-right and an increasingly right-wing PP is absolute. That is why it is a moment for unity and courage, the terms that my tandem partner Xisca Mir and I have wanted to adopt as a slogan for the MÉS per Palma primaries. Unity and courage to win.We need the sovereignist left, represented by MÉS per Palma – the result of decades of work by different and valuable councilors: from Sebastià Serra, Nanda Ramon, Joan Perelló, Lila Thomàs, Tomeu Carrió, Maria Costa and Jordi López to Antoni Noguera, Marisol Fernández, Antoni Verger and Neus Truyol – to articulate an anti-fascist front that brings together all the Palma citizens who do not want our lives to be in the hands of characters like Fulgencio Coll and Jaime Martínez. I feel like an heir to the left-wing and green Mallorcanism people I have mentioned, yes, but also to wonderful anti-capitalist councilors who were part of Som Palma and Podem, such as Aligi Molina and Aurora Jhardi. I am presenting myself to lead a broad and generous candidacy where, precisely, Esquerra Unida, Sumar, Podem, the Socialist Movement and the Independent Left are also present in the form they deem appropriate. Because they are, fundamentally, our comrades. I want this list to be a starting point, a catalyst, embracing independent citizens who fight for housing, for the defense of small businesses, for the neighborhood movement – which I know well in the Santa Pagesa neighborhood –, for feminism, for the Catalan language movement, for culture, for unionism, and against social exclusion. There is room for everyone.Only with a brave, plural and united tool that generates enthusiasm can we focus the debate. And the debate is very clear: we must tackle people's real problems and their material solutions. If what affects us has collective causes, the response must undoubtedly be collective and in no case individual. The people of Palma do not make ends meet, they have nowhere to live, they suffer from precarious jobs, they see how the city and its corners no longer belong to them and they live with pain the linguistic, cultural, heritage and commercial depersonalization of the capital of Mallorca. We must fight with conviction the terrible effects that unbridled tourism and the business of a few friends of the right leave in our lives. The current critical situation of the city and the times we live in demand forcefulness and radicality in the etymological sense of the term that I know as a Latin professor. People need proposals and a hard, cheerful and uninhibited political action. To break free from the frameworks that the extreme right wants to impose on us: those who harm the people of Palma are not someone with an Arab, Asian or sub-Saharan name, poor and with dark skin, but vulture funds, international extractive capitalism and the worst rent-seeking tied to the PP and Vox, who have no empathy or sensitivity for families, youth and workers.There is hope. I see municipalist role models across Europe, in the south and the north, that inspire me: Die Linke, in German cities; Adelante Andalucía; La France Insoumise; Plaid Cymru, in Wales; Sinn Féin, in Ireland; and the Green Party, in England. Brave left-wing movements, rooted in the territory and that face 21st-century urban problems head-on. The historical moment demands courage and decisiveness from us.I am 45 years old. I have been active in social movements my whole life. I know the street. I know Palma and our neighborhoods. I will lead the MÉS per Palma candidacy, aware that it will be the first time an independent person does so in the long history of the parties that form this space. Someone who is not an organic part of MÉS nor of the traditions that compose it (PSM, Iniciativa Verds, and ERC). It is an opportunity to grow, to face the new times ahead with freshness, and to do so, in the words of Manuel Monereo, by confronting the great issue that will shape the urban future of our days: “What is at stake is the soul of the working class.” And if one thing is clear to me, it is that in May 2027, the soul of the popular classes of the city that saw the biographies of the neighborhood activist Rosa Bueno and the poet Josep Maria Llompart develop cannot, in any way, be conquered by the obscurantism of PP and Vox.

]]> <![CDATA[In defense of B. Picornell, anti-Nazi]]> These days it has emerged that Balti Picornell had been summoned to testify following a complaint filed by the Vox deputy in Madrid, Jorge Campos. The reason: having taken a photo next to a graffiti that read “J. Campos, fucking Nazi”.

]]> <![CDATA[To love Mallorca is also to take care of the GOB]]>

Surely these days you have heard about GOB Mallorca. This writing aims to explain why a group of 10 women resigned from the board of directors on May 22 at the extraordinary assembly of the entity: a resignation that does not respond to differences regarding the defense of the territory or environmental campaigns, but rather to a sustained internal situation of confrontation, personal wear and tear, and lack of respect that has made the continuity of the project we defended unsustainable.

]]> <![CDATA['Homo tecnologicus': owners of the tool or slaves of the algorithm?]]> In mid-March, from the CCOO Teaching Federation in collaboration with the Federation of Pedagogical Renewal Movements and Ecologists in Action, we held the congress Technology and Education: an Ethical-Critical vision with speakers of the highest level. This congress was not for simple academic inertia, nor just another date on the calendar, but the result of a growing concern about the direction that new technologies have taken in the last decade. As we are immersed in a digital revolution, comparable to the industrial revolution of the 19th century. A revolution that is reconfiguring the human being into what we could call an Homo tecnologicus. However, this evolution does not seem to be neutral, and we must ask ourselves the question: Are we the ones who handle the tool, or is it the tool that shapes us?It is fundamental to understand that nothing in the digital world is neutral, both on the internet and in new artificial intelligence, information biases occur. This means that the results we see depend on sources that are not always objective, and today this power is concentrated in the hands of a few private companies, which by chance or causality, are among the richest on the planet: Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon (AWS).Some companies whose business model is not service, but the extraction and storage of data susceptible to be sold; because we often fall into the trap of believing that their services are free. However, in the digital economy, if you don't pay for the product, it's because you are the product. These companies have created authentic 'information farms' through algorithms – these invisible codes that decide what we see and what we don't – where they collect each of our data, movements and tastes to then sell this data to third parties. Databases designed to control our tastes and direct our consumption in a continuous, induced and compulsive manner; taking advantage of the fact that practically everyone has a smartphone available 24 hours a day.The lack of transparency in algorithms is not just a commercial problem; it can pose a democratic risk. This digital surveillance can have real consequences in fields as sensitive as law, economics, the world of work..., areas that must be urgently regulated. We cannot allow computer code to be a source of discrimination; if we do not scrutinize these processes, algorithms can become weapons of manipulation and bias, instead of instruments of progress. We need a legal framework that ensures technological processes are transparent, controllable by the user, and, above all, respectful of ethical principles. The storage of our data must be under the surveillance of representative social institutions, and not exclusively in the hands of private interests.But the impact is not only virtual, it is physical and environmental; technological development does not only stay on our screens; it has a physical and painful footprint on our planet. This excessive development often ignores that basic resources like water and energy are limited. Thousands of square kilometers are needed to store servers connected 24/7 with the necessary cooling for these data centers to function, with the resulting CO₂ emissions and the necessary use of nuclear energy for continuous operation.To manufacture batteries and devices themselves, materials such as coltan, cobalt, nickel, lithium, and other 'rare earths' are exploited; materials that are mostly extracted in mines where child labor is encouraged and toxic waste dumps are generated that severely pollute the environment; a bill that is mainly being paid by underdeveloped countries. And it can only be a true evolution if it is sustainable and respectful of human rights throughout its production chain. It is essential to responsibly manage waste, resource consumption, and the water footprint. Digital ethics must necessarily be ecological ethics.One of the most critical points of this digital revolution is how technology affects the most vulnerable, and this vulnerability is most evident in minors and especially in childhood. Digital platforms use seduction to trap us, the design of the infinite scroll –this screen that never ends and that loads content non-stop– is designed to capture our attention and generate what we now know as digital addiction. This compulsive behavior makes us lose track of time, generates immediate reward stimuli, and abusive consumption of these. The symptoms are already contrasted: anxiety when not connected, social isolation, neglect of responsibilities, lack of sleep, behavioral disorders, learning problems, lack of concentration... more than enough evidence to address this problem immediately.As educators, we view with concern how these effects, derived from screen saturation, manifest in classrooms; global reports such as PISA or GEM confirm a widespread decline in student competencies since the massive implementation of technology in educational centers. By moving so abruptly from analog to digital, essential construction processes and neural relationships for developing cognitive abilities in childhood have been lost. In many parts of the world, the return to paper, pencil, and textbooks is already being considered. And it seems we have made a conceptual error: we have confused educating in digital competence with educating through digital competence.It is not about criminalizing technology, but about demanding that it be at the service of people, social justice, and cultural plurality. It is urgent to legislate, both nationally and internationally, so that our data is protected and processes are transparent. We need to reclaim the role of technology to build a better world, and not as a tool that conditions our freedom and future.It is imperative that we stop being passive spectators of this transformation, we need brave legislation and strict regulation that ensures that technology is a driver of social justice, plurality and sustainability, and not a tool for manipulation. Technology must be a bridge to knowledge and equality; it is time for the Homo tecnologicus to regain sovereignty over their data, to demand a digital environment that protects children and respects the planet's limits. Only then will we achieve machines working for us, being owners of the tool and not slaves to its algorithms.

]]> <![CDATA[Dystopian ecstasy]]> Will I be able to become a man one day, as Ursula K. Le Guin was in her nineties performances, when, with her genuine sense of humor, she said: “I was born before women were invented, and I have spent the last decades trying to be a good man and I forgot to stay young, so I got old. [...] I can't stop thinking that a real man would have been able to do something. [...] But I failed. I did nothing. I utterly failed to stay young”? Like Ursula, I too have aged; this year I am moving into my fifties and I want to dedicate myself to a kind of urea mediocritas horaciana and to an asceticism that distances me from the worldly noise. I find myself, therefore, in an icy void, not knowing which direction to take, adjusting the tone of this transition and making efforts to step into my mature gallantry in the most dignified way possible.After much meditation and reading Ursula, I have come to a conclusion: it is absurd to continue trying to be a good man. For a long time I have wanted to be one in order to exercise my inherited rights to splash the toilet bowl with yellow water without breaking down over it, to dominate public space and feel empowered. The intensity of my youth is coming to an end. I too have failed everywhere: I am neither a man nor have I been able to stay young; however, her gaze still corrodes me from within. Let's admit it: it happens to me and it happens to all of us.At almost fifty, I still put my sexual energy at the service of anyone who notices an aspect that I myself am unable to see or value. I am excessively complacent, submissively pleasant, I perceive the desires of others as a priority and I exploit myself to feel productive and useful as sexual capital in the market. It is impossible to get rid of it. Despite no longer being a man – although it is impossible not to be one – and no longer being young, I am still crossed by the same concerns of the heterosexual symbolic order: the fantasy of being the chosen one among the rest of the competitors, the value of my abilities placed above all in their verdict. I am, therefore, neither a man nor young; but I don't exist as a woman either. Forgive me if I don't explain myself completely well, but I am still learning to transform my phallic language into a more poetic one.To avoid falling into delirium, I will try to make the right decisions. Perhaps this perspective will bring me closer to myself. The inspiration for this maturational structural shift is Doctor of the Church Saint Teresa of Ávila, who in one of her ineffable and spontaneous ecstasies felt the presence of God, and “in no case could she doubt that it was within me or I all wrapped up in Him.”Much like the mystic, in a kind of escape or dystopian ecstasy that occurred in one of my meditations, I experienced myself – Margaret Atwood saw it clearly – as a ‘woman with a man inside observing a woman’’. The rapture had transformed the masculine gaze into an eroticism that desired my body with the same intensity and care with which the land of a garden is tilled and only the fruits that belong to the one who cultivates them and for whose taking there is permission are harvested. I saw myself with a man inside observing a complete woman, free and in control of herself. All the men who ever used me to satisfy their voids and exploited my body, like the master who with his extractivist logic exhausts the resources of the South, would cease to exist in my daily cognitive habits as a result of the phenomenological illumination.No longer mother, no longer secretary, no longer savior of lost egos. No longer waiting for male validation. I had completed the first dwellings of my decolonizing journey and the nun Teresa was calling me to deepen in contemplation: to soften the gaze of the inner dwelling, to understand it, to transform it. The following mansions took me even further from the conditioning world of heterosexual thought. The stillness of maturity moved me to transcend polarities and demands, to shed the 'heteroetheric' dandruff, to love and fuck without guilt; to finally leave the market of male desire. To no longer want to please, but only to be accountable to my body and make decisions beyond what is reasonable. Light as the arms of a child who simultaneously holds and plays with the weight of new words, and allows herself this poetic parenthesis.In the full 21st century, although one of the advantages of age and maturity is that one's own desire is freer and less conditioned, women have not yet been invented, but we don't care; or at least this embodied contemplative vision came to me in my particular rapture with the approval of the Carmelite mystic and the impulse of the writer of Earthsea. Both the poetic thought of Saint Teresa and the beautiful dystopian scenarios of Ursula are inspiring in my work with other women. All of them, young and mature, continue to be inhabited by the same patriarchal pressures that I include myself in. Relating to other socially feminized bodies and supporting each other in what we commonly experience is the only antidote I have discovered to become more sexually free. This and age, of course.

]]> <![CDATA[No to war: either we defend life or we become accomplices]]> There are moments when silence is not prudence but complicity. Moments when looking the other way is not neutrality but surrender. And this is one of those moments.

]]> <![CDATA[An ignored generation]]> In the last general policy debate of the Consell de Mallorca, the president dedicated only two sentences to an entire generation. Two sentences to talk about the present and future of thousands of young people who live with anguish today. And it is not an exaggeration. Anguish for not being able to access decent housing. Anguish for a labor market that does not guarantee stability or rights. Anguish for an education that could be much better, public and of quality. Anguish, in short, for an increasingly widespread feeling, that of expulsion from our own land. Faced with this reality, what do institutions offer? Self-satisfaction, empty headlines, and showy policies. It is no use talking about travel or leisure while an entire generation does not know if they will be able to build their life project in Mallorca. But the problem goes further. Not only is youth not heard, but their participation is not encouraged either. Cutting support for youth organizations like Joves de Mallorca per la Llengua is a political mistake and also a mistake for the country. We have seen it with the strength of Acampallengua and Correllengua Agermanat; there is a generation that is alive, active, and committed. It only remains for institutions to want to listen to it. It also happens with the social fabric of the towns. The quintos, the associations, the collectives that make a town. Perhaps because organized youth is also critical youth. And critical youth questions, proposes and demands. It demands decent housing, better public transport, labor rights, quality public education in Catalan. It demands, in short, a future. And when this space does not exist, when there are no real participation channels, when debates and active listening are not generated, some young people seek answers elsewhere. And this is dangerous. Because the feeling of abandonment is the best ally of far-right options. The Council of Mallorca may not have all the powers, but it does have a responsibility, to listen, to connect and to lead. It can meet with young people, understand what they think, what they need, what they propose. It can talk about mental health, social networks, training, the future. It can, if it wants to, be useful. The question is whether he wants to be. Because today, the feeling is clear, this generation is not a priority for either the PP or Vox. And this has consequences. But there is also a certainty. In 2027, this same generation will have its say. And it can decide whether to continue with governments that ignore it or bet on a future where, finally, it is taken into account. Because Mallorca has no future without its youth. And the youth are no longer willing to wait.

]]> <![CDATA[The mayor of Santa Margalida ignores the residents of Son Bauló]]> It is not the first time we have conveyed the discontent of the residents of Son Bauló to the mayor regarding the l’Espígol apartments, which have been causing us so many headaches for many years. Until now, neither the former mayors nor you yourself have deigned to take any steps to remedy this mess of apartments, a new Son Banya in Can Picafort.

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