Italian
“The only thing that human beings want is called freedom and the Taliban have taken it away from us. We cannot study, we cannot play sports, we cannot leave the house, we cannot love as we want and pursue our dreams…”.
These are the words of a young athlete from the Afghan women’s football team. In May 2021, with the departure of the Americans and allies and the return of the Taliban to power, 23 girls were forced to seek refuge abroad to continue living safely and practicing the sport they love. In just a few days, everything that had been built over years of occupation and that was hoped to transform a primitive and violent territory into a free and democratic nation had literally vanished. The West was withdrawing poorly, allowing people to return to living as they did before, as if nothing had happened.
Today, after a struggle lasting several years, FIFA has finally authorized the team to compete under the flag of Afghanistan, while not representing the current regime. The West, which had abandoned them, has finally recognized their dignity by accepting their petitions. A step forward against cultural decay, demonstrating that the thirst for freedom goes beyond institutional politics.
Yet, while people seek ideal values and are willing to sacrifice everything to feel free, states stubbornly continue to focus almost exclusively on finance, economy, and power.
What happened in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Africa, on July 31, 2026, will not be forgotten. Over fifty thousand people from Morocco flooded into European territory in an event of historic proportions. There is discussion about responsibilities, talk of an emergency, but the perception is that no one really wants to address the root of the problem. Public opinion is distracted by summer vacations, a collective ritual that no one wants to escape, including those who should bear the full weight of the situation and adopt remedies that are not just temporary.
The story of Ceuta is not just a matter of news or border management: it is a heavy and complex prompt to reflect on colonialism and neocolonialism, on the exportation of lifestyles based on conspicuous and unnecessary consumption. It forces us to question cultural and ethnic integration, widespread well-being against the privileges of a few, and the fundamental right to desire a life under a different sky. Ultimately, it is a test of the values and disvalues of a West whose predictable, and perhaps inevitable, decline we are narrating.
As in 2021, so in 2026, public opinion is not at all engaged, rather distracted to remain indifferent, regarding events considered “inevitable,” without any attempt at historical and cultural comprehensibility. Slogans and electoral-style controversies are supported, but there is no way to make it clear that our world is destined to change, and that we must defend what we have been and still want to be.
