WHEN THE WORLD CONFRONTS THE WORLD - AND THE PEOPLE CONTINUE TO PAY

Luis Munguambe Junior"

The world lives in a state of permanent conflict. Not just with tanks or missiles, but with decisions made behind closed doors, far from real life, far from the bread that's missing from the table, far from the salary that doesn't last the month. While the great powers discuss influence, security, and strategic interests, the people are doing calculations that don't add up. Modern wars no longer need bombs to destroy entire cities. Economic sanctions, financial blockades, and rehearsed speeches, delivered in a solemn tone as if they were acts of historical justice, are enough. The impact is felt in the pocket, in the empty plate, in the collective anxiety. It's a war without smoke, but with real victims. Freedom and democracy are discussed as if they were exportable products, packaged in beautiful speeches and universal slogans. But, on the ground, what is exported is suffering. What reaches ordinary people is not freedom, but inflation, unemployment, and scarcity. The people do not participate in the decisions, but they always participate in the consequences, and this seems to be the unwritten rule of the contemporary world. When the world confronts itself, leaders speak in the name of high values. They speak of principles, of morality, of the future. But those who live the reality of the facts realize that these values rarely reach the streets. Down here, where people catch public transport, where they buy food on credit, where they juggle to pay rent, the global confrontation translates into a single word: hardship. The sanctions, presented as surgical political instruments, never only affect those at the top. They affect the small business owner, the informal worker, the family that depends on an unstable salary. They affect the ordinary citizen who is not to blame for the decisions made in their name, but who pays as if they had signed the contract. There is a cruel irony in this power game: those who decide almost never suffer, and those who suffer almost never decide. The architects of the confrontation live protected by privileges, while the people learn to adapt to the crisis as if it were a natural part of life. Crisis after crisis, suffering is normalized, institutionalized, treated as inevitable. When the world confronts itself, there are no visible winners among those who work, pay high taxes, and still see public services fail. There is no glory in daily survival. There is only silent, weary, stubborn resistance. A resistance that doesn't appear in official statements, but sustains everything. The dominant discourse insists that these sacrifices are necessary, that they are part of a larger path, that the future will compensate. The problem is that this future always seems further ahead, while the cost is always the present. Patience is asked of those who have already exhausted all their reserves. In the midst of this confrontation, the people are transformed into statistics, into collateral damage. There is talk of macroeconomic impacts, but no mention of concrete lives. There is no mention of the worker who accepts any condition to avoid falling into the abyss. The people are never called to the table where the confrontation is decided. They never have a say on sanctions, wars, or strategic alliances. They only receive the bill—always higher, always urgent, always unavoidable. And perhaps the biggest problem isn't the confrontation between powers, but this old normality of accepting that the same powers always pay the price for the disputes of others. While the world confronts the world, the people continue to do what they've always done: survive. Even when that shouldn't be all they're doing anymore.

2025/12/3