Time for change. The ideological distance between young men and women increases like never before, with them leaning to the right like never before. All of them face, however, threats that are not at all unthinkable: war, digital scares... but above all, uncertainty, a lot of uncertainty.
Maps, maps and more maps. Maps are key to understanding the world around us, and if numbers, numbers and more numbers are added to them, everything indicates that the world, yes, is changing.
The threats change. Uncertainty grows. Ideas evolve. And young people, once again, reflect this well. A fact that speaks for itself: young men between 18 and 34 years old in Spain are moving to the right and increasing the ideological gap with women. Its distance is, in fact, the greatest in all of democracy. The same thing happens in Europe. And in other countries like the US or South Korea.
Some of them base it on believing that equality has gone too far... Others on highlighting that the way of socialization and consumption of young men and women, today, bifurcate... Furthermore, the context also changes in a serious and unthinkable does hardly anything. Its main indicator: the threat of war in Europe and the nuclear danger are growing so much that prominent German politicians propose that the EU Europe have its own nuclear arsenal.
For now what there is is a general rearmament. But the map that follows and the growing tension with the Kremlin do not help us think otherwise.
It is known, in fact, that Putin ordered to prepare a nuclear attack in the fall of 2022 in case the defenses of Crimea fell in the context of the war in Ukraine, in which no end is intuited and there are elements that deepen general unrest. . For example, due to the Ukrainian naval drones that immobilize the Russian Black Sea fleet and have already sunk several of its ships so far this year. Also the attack on Russian refineries on Russian soil. And also to guess, on the map, critical points far from Ukraine but close to the EU after the enlargement of NATO, such as the Suwalki corridor (which connects Russian allied territory with the Kaliningrad enclave and which, if Russia intervenes , would isolate the Baltic countries) or the Gulf of Finland, the Russian exit to the sea through Saint Petersburg.
The future of Europe thus points to more NATO to stop Russia and draws a globe barely imagined two years ago. They are critical changes that call to another world and add more and more uncertainties.
But there is more…
In parallel to the war in Gaza, weaknesses are brought to the table that fully touch the world in which youth are immersed. Another example: the patent weakness of digital communication networks in a world focused on digital communication, as demonstrated by the Houthi rebels in Yemen damaging three submerged communication cables off their coasts. It is estimated that a large part of the globe's data traffic passes through them.
And more: there is the accident still to be explained in detail of a practically new container freighter that, out of control after two consecutive blackouts, sank a bridge in one of the main US ports. And there is the diversion of ships through the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to avoid passing through the Red Sea – which is key in trade between Asia and the Mediterranean and which has the magic of making the world bigger and more distant or smaller and closer depending on whether the passage is open or is closed.
All of them are central infrastructures for globalized international trade that, today, every so often, suffers a blow.
And, given the context, what remains...
Young people, in addition, experience other uncertainties – which start from contradictions – in their daily lives. For example, when Spain is close to reaching a record in job creation and, however, housing, food and transportation continue to eat up the budget of the majority of households, particularly young people, although the increase in food prices food is finally moderated.
The unstoppable rise of private label consumption is its best indicator.
More uncertainties? More: water is needed, but what is available is not kept in good condition and almost 40% of groundwater continues to be contaminated by nitrates of agricultural origin. Or worse: it is believed that it is “foreseeable” that the problem will increase.
These are times of change, but above all of uncertainty, and in them the ideological distance between young men and women increases like never before, with them prominent on the right as threats even unimaginable almost nothing ago are added.
And what remains.
The positive comes from Africa, which is as close on the maps as it is far away in the imagination of many. The reason is worth it: a cross-border conservation project creates “an Eden” the size of Spain for wildlife.
Kaza, between Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, is already the new natural paradise to discover.
Let the example spread.
PS: Apologies for receiving this newsletter, which is usually sent every last Sunday of the month, a week late. Covid was to blame, because although it seems archived in the history books and is no longer news, it is still alive and the writer attests to it. Health!
