<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - YOUTH]]> 10 <![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[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 number of young people from the Balearic Islands living abroad has doubled in ten years.]]>

The number of young people registered in the Balearic Islands but residing abroad has steadily increased in recent years. According to data included in the 2025 Balearic Islands Youth Yearbook, this year there were 13,330 young people between the ages of 15 and 34 registered in the Balearic Islands but living elsewhere, a figure that almost triples the number recorded in 2009, when there were 3,409 (+291%). The increase is also very significant when compared to 2015, when 6,425 young people were in this situation. The sustained growth of this indicator points to a possible exodus of educated young people abroad, in a context that, paradoxically, shows a recovery in the demographic weight of the young population in the Islands. In fact, the Yearbook confirms that the young population is growing again after years of a downward trend. Young people up to 34 years old currently represent 24% of the total population. For the first time, municipalities like Palma and Manacor have exceeded 20% young population, while no municipality now has less than 12%, demonstrating a more homogeneous territorial distribution of young people.

]]> <![CDATA[The Government endorses Pedro Sánchez's proposal to ban social media for minors under 16.]]>

The Government views favorably the proposal of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to prohibit access to social networks for minors under 16 years of ageAccording to a statement made this Tuesday by the Minister of Education and Universities, Antoni Vera, the government is committed to implementing a ban on mobile phones on screens in the Balearic Islands. Vera emphasized the importance of establishing clear mechanisms for the measure to be effectively applied in the islands. He stated that he was "in complete agreement" with the measure and reiterated the government's hope that the situation would not repeat itself, as with the mobile phone ban, which was left to regional regulations after its national approval, and which the Balearic Islands had ultimately implemented through a specific order. The minister explained that the government wants to see how the new legal proposal will be processed and implemented, as well as how it can be applied in the islands, stressing the importance of having clear mechanisms for its implementation within the territory.

She also highlighted other initiatives already implemented in the Balearic Islands along these lines, such as the ban on digital screens up to the fourth grade of primary school and the launch of an awareness campaign for families about the risks of the "harmful overuse" of digital devices, which will be rolled out in the coming months. Despite her positive assessment, Vera considered the announcement to be "just another smokescreen" by President Sánchez, since the People's Party had already submitted an amendment to the law on the protection of minors in digital environments to propose a similar ban. Sánchez made the announcement during his speech at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he indicated that the government will approve the measure next week in the Council of Ministers. The proposal includes, among other things, requiring platforms to implement effective age verification systems and creating a tracking and tracing system to combat hateful and illegal content. It will also address potential legal violations by platforms such as Grok, TikTok, and Instagram.

]]> <![CDATA[I've also gone back to 2016: we had more collagen but half the grace]]>

On this straight, arrow-shaped line that is life, any invitation to stop and look back becomes a disturbing experience. We rush so fast toward the future that we forget it's with that same speed that we move away from the present and leave the past behind. And I no longer know if it's deliberate: to avoid having time to consider whether we've made a mistake, because we don't know exactly who we are or what we want, for fear of having taken the wrong shortcut at some point and not knowing how to retrace our steps. Or perhaps this is the only pace to get there. The fact is, at least for me, my relationship with time is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

]]> <![CDATA[What María de la Paz Janer was like, according to her friend: "She's seductive and flirtatious, it comes out without her meaning to."]]>

Real life can be very much like a movie. Sometimes, it even seems like time goes in slow motion. One of these cinematic moments is when two people start running from two different points to meet and hug. This was the bread and butter of every summer when vacations arrived in times before cell phones and summer friends could go months—the entire school year—without knowing anything about each other. This was the childhood and adolescence of María de la Paz Janer (Palma, 1966), who arrived in Llubí every August, dazzling everyone. Her friend, Maria Llompart, tells us this, as she recalls how they would run to hug each other. "You'll be friends," her aunt, who lived across the street from María de la Paz's godmother's house, told them. She wasn't wrong.

]]> <![CDATA["Mallorca in Struggle": Aplec Jove announces this year's program]]>

Housing, self-defense, solidarity with the Palestinian people, defense of the territory, and the wave of migration: these are the topics that Aplec Jove 2025 will focus on. Under the title 'Mallorca in Struggle,' the meeting, which will take place on August 30 at the Sineu Teleclub and will be open to the public, will focus on open access. "We have chosen this topic to trace a transversal route through some emerging and other established fronts in Mallorca," the meeting organizers explained in a statement. This is the fifth edition of the event, which has been held on the island every summer since 2021.

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