The Borders We Share: Laputa’s Towers, Dubai’s Fringe (Post 34)

 

The Borders We Share: A New Way to Fix a Broken World

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

Post 34: Laputa’s Towers, Dubai’s Fringe: Sandstone Stakes

Enigma of the Vertical Frontier

The desert dawn is a blade of white light, and on Tuesday, 2 December 2025, at exactly 10:15 am, it strikes two impossible silhouettes at once.

High above the clouds, Laputa turns in its slow, eternal circle. Its adamantine disc, four-and-a-half kilometres wide, glitters with fresh wounds where the levitation crystals have been torn from the underside. Below, the rockfalls that follow each extraction have already begun their long, lethal descent toward the continent of Balnibarbi, where villages wake to the sound of stone on tile roofs and the smell of crushed olive groves.

Four hundred kilometres to the south-east, the border between the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman climbs the Hajar Mountains like a pale scar. It loops through the surreal double enclave of Madha–Nahwa, slips beneath the pipelines that carry Omani water to Emirati date farms, and finally vanishes into the dunes that feed Dubai’s concrete mixers. The line on the map is quiet, almost polite. The reality is vertical: water drawn from mountain aquifers, rock quarried from Omani wadis, labour imported from half the planet, and towers that rise so high they cast shadows across three emirates at once.

I stand on the half-finished observation deck of the Jebel Jais Sky Tower, 1,680 metres above the Gulf of Oman, wind screaming through the scaffolding. With me are the companions the series has carried since Sherwood Forest: Sherlock Holmes, coat flapping like a torn flag; Dr. Watson, notebook already gritty with gypsum; King Arthur, silent, Excalibur sheathed but humming the way it does when injustice is near. And with us, the living voices of both realms.

From Laputa descend King Laputian himself, lowered for the first time in his reign on a golden cable, knees trembling under the unfamiliar weight of gravity, and Balnibarbi, barefoot philosopher who has spent a lifetime staring up at the island that eclipsed his sun. From the Emirati side strides Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, sleeves rolled, eyes fixed on a horizon that refuses to stay still. From the Omani side walks Hamed al-Ghabri, elder of a mountain village whose wells have been running dry since the date farms of Al Ain began drinking deeper. From the labour camps come Mohammed Yusuf, Pakistani steel-fixer who has not held his daughter in four years; Maria Santos, Filipino nurse who treats heat-stroke cases at noon; and Daniel Kipchoge, Kenyan security guard who salutes flags he will never call his own.

This is Post 34, the fourth stride in Section 6. We have left Jerusalem’s golden stones, Berlin’s concrete ghosts, Ruritania’s granite scars. Now the series climbs the strangest frontier of all: one that exists in the sky and one that exists in the sand, yet both governed by the same cruel arithmetic—those who live highest owe their altitude to those who are paid least and excluded most completely.

The Parallel Pathologies

Laputa is Jonathan Swift’s satire made solid. Every year the royal academy extracts 42,000 tonnes of levitation crystal. The operation is flawless in its geometry and catastrophic in its consequences. Rockfalls bury Balnibarbi villages; terraces that have fed families for centuries slide into ravines; the ground economy loses the equivalent of eight million Gulf dinars in crops, homes, and hope. The scholars record the stellar positions with exquisite precision yet remain cheerfully unaware that their island is bleeding the continent beneath them. The king has never descended. Most astronomers have never seen soil except as a smudge on the wrong end of a telescope.

The UAE–Oman border, by contrast, is one of the quietest frontiers on earth, settled by patient diplomacy between Sheikh Zayed and Sultan Qaboos, finalised in stages between 1955 and 2008. Trucks cross daily carrying crushed rock from Omani quarries to Dubai’s batching plants; water pipelines snake from Omani aquifers to Emirati farms; the border posts are little more than shaded booths and a wave. Yet the same quiet hides a vertical violence. Nine hundred thousand workers—88 % of Dubai’s population—live on wages that average AED 1,100 per month. In summer 2025, 3,812 of them were hospitalised for heat-related illness. Omani villages in the Hajar foothills have watched their groundwater levels fall 41 % since 2018. The towers rise, the island floats, and the people who make both possible remain invisible in the official photographs.

My Sovereignty Conflicts (2017) frames both disputes as classic triadic sovereignty conflicts: two privileged claimants (Laputian crown and academy; Emirati citizens) exercising control over a populated third territory (Balnibarbi; expatriate majority) whose constitutive population is treated as disposable infrastructure. The island needs the crystals to stay aloft; the city needs the water and the labour to keep growing. In both cases the third element—those who actually do the work and bear the cost—are excluded from the sovereignty they sustain.

The Evidence Gathered in Dust and Crystal

Holmes refuses to choose one realm over the other. He spends three days suspended beneath Laputa on a rope ladder, coat flapping like a broken sail, timing rockfalls and collecting crystal dust in glass vials. He spends the next three days riding aggregate trucks from Fujairah quarries to Jebel Ali and the three nights after that in a Sonapur labour camp, measuring temperatures inside metal-walled rooms at 2 a.m. When he returns, his eyes are red from wind and sun, and his verdict is a single sentence: “The higher the structure, the deeper the theft from those beneath it—whether the theft is measured in falling stones or falling water tables.”

Watson’s notebook swells to a hundred pages of parallel columns: rockfall incidents in Balnibarbi this year—3,812; heat-related hospitalisations in UAE construction camps this summer—3,812. Families displaced by Laputa’s mining—2,900; Omani villages facing critical water shortages—2,900 hectares of former farmland now too dry to plant. Scholars who have touched real soil in living memory—zero; workers who have seen their children in the last four years—statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Arthur listens without comment, then traces the UAE–Oman border on a satellite photograph with one finger and Laputa’s drifting path with the other. The two lines never touch, yet they cast the same shadow.

Two Conclaves, One Covenant

We hold the gatherings separately, because the realms are proud and the wounds are raw, but the solutions that emerge are mirror images.

First, on the lowest terrace Laputa has ever voluntarily descended to—still eight hundred metres above the earth, but lower than any king has stood in four centuries—King Laputian meets Balnibarbi and the Chief Astronomer. Arthur lays Excalibur flat on a slab of adamant. I open Chapter 6 (Sovereignty Conflicts, 2017) and read aloud the four principles of egalitarian shared sovereignty: consensus, efficiency, fair input-to-output ratio, and the equilibrium proviso that obliges the strong to raise the weak.

The king’s hand trembles when he signs the Descent Accord: crystal extraction capped at ten percent of sustainable yield; thirty percent of all future surplus dedicated to permanent descent corridors and grounded universities; a Higher Court with equal Balnibarbi representation and veto power over any project that increases shadow or rockfall risk. When Balnibarbi places his calloused palm on the document, the king flinches at the reality of another human’s weight.

The next day, on the windswept deck of the Jebel Jais Sky Tower, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid meets the Omani Minister of Water Resources, labour representatives, and camp doctors. Arthur lays Excalibur flat a second time. I read the same four principles. The Mountain-to-Horizon Accord is signed before the sun reaches its zenith: joint UAE–Oman water and aggregate commission with binding conservation caps; thirty percent of the municipal surcharge on new towers redirected into a residency pathway—ten continuous years of contribution equals permanent residency; a Higher Court seated alternately in Al Ain and Muscat with expatriate judges; every new tower over three hundred metres required to display, in six languages, the source of its water, its stone, and the names of the workers who built it.

Two documents, two realms, one covenant.

Murmurs of the Shamal

The desert wind still howls its ancient warnings. Crystals will fracture, aquifers will fall, visas will expire, people will overheat. Yet beneath the howl, new sounds have begun to travel.

In Balnibarbi, the first descent lift—built with surplus crystal revenue—touches earth for the first time in December 2025. A young astronomer steps out, removes his slippers, and presses bare feet into soil that is warm and real. In the Hajar foothills, a pipeline that once carried water only westward now branches eastward to refill village wells. In a Sonapur labour camp, a Pakistani steel-fixer receives a passport stamped “Permanent Resident – UAE” and, for the first time in four years, allows himself to cry.

Peace along these parallel frontiers is not a ceremony in marble halls. It is a crystal left in the ground so a terrace may bloom again, a pipeline that returns what it takes, a tower whose shadow irrigates instead of withers, a king who learns the weight of his own footsteps, a worker who discovers that the skyline finally has room for his name.

Why This Resonates in You

You have stood on the 124th floor and felt the building sway gently in the wind. You have driven from Dubai to Muscat on a highway so smooth you never noticed you crossed a border. You have posted a photograph of the skyline at sunset with the caption “living the dream.”

You have probably never met the man who poured the concrete at forty-nine degrees, the farmer whose well ran dry so the concrete could be mixed, the scholar who discovered that the stars are beautiful but the earth is home, or the king who learned that gravity is heavier than any crown.

The Borders We Share does not ask you to tear the towers down or to ground the island. It asks only that the next tower be built with doors wide enough, and the next descent gentle enough, that everyone who holds the sky up may one day walk beneath it as a citizen and not as a ghost.

Next Tuesday we descend again—new stones, new skies. I remain, as always, Dr. Jorge (X: @DrJorge_World) and https://drjorge.world

Trails to Wander:

• Sovereignty Conflicts (2017).

• Territorial Disputes (2020).

• Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023). 

• Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025).

NOTE:

New posts every Tuesday.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

Post 33: Ruritania’s Walls, Berlin’s Ghost: Past as Present

NEXT POSTS:

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

35, Utopia’s Gates, Hebron’s Split: Ideal Cities Clash

36, Holmes’ London, Belfast’s Line: Fog of Peace

AUTHOR’S SAMPLE PEER-REVIEWED ACADEMIC RESEARCH (FREE OPEN ACCESS):

State Sovereignty: Concept and Conceptions (OPEN ACCESS) (IJSL 2024)

AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED WORK AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE VIA:

AMAZON

ROUTLEDGE, TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Tuesday 25th November 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

The Borders We Share: Ruritania’s Walls, Berlin’s Ghost (Post 33)

 

The Borders We Share: A New Way to Fix a Broken World

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

Post 33: Ruritania’s Walls, Berlin’s Ghost: Past as Present

Enigma at the Fracture

At the jagged lip where the Carpathians cradle the ghosts of old empires, the fortress walls of Strelsau rise like a scar across the heart of Ruritania, now entwined with the spectral concrete of Berlin’s vanished Wall, where the dead still whisper through rust and graffiti. Here, Dr. Jorge, the series’ sage, joins Sherlock Holmes, the unrivalled deductive mind, Dr. John Watson, his ever-present chronicler, and King Arthur, wielder of Excalibur’s enduring oath. With us walk the living shades of Ruritania’s tragic lovers: Rupert of Hentzau, the charming devil whose smile hides a dagger; Rudolf Rassendyll, the English gentleman who wore a king’s crown for love; Princess Flavia, torn between duty and desire; Colonel Sapt and Fritz von Tarlenheim, loyal soldiers of a kingdom that never quite was. From Berlin’s divided decades come Willy Brandt, who knelt in Warsaw and dared to dream of Ostpolitik; Konrad Adenauer, the architect of western rebirth; Walter Ulbricht, builder of the “antifascist protection rampart”; Erich Honecker, who ordered “shoot to kill”; and the nameless students who danced on the Wall in November 1989, hammers in hand and hope in heart. In The Borders We Share, we pursue not the conquest of stone but the unravelling of riddles to forge peace, where borders become puzzles solved in unity.

As the winter sun, at 10:15 AM GMT on this Tuesday, 25 November 2025, gilds the frost on Strelsau’s battlements and ignites the graffiti scars of Berlin’s East Side Gallery, we delve into the labyrinth of memory and division, where yesterday’s walls might crack open to reveal a harmony etched in granite and concrete.

This series has traversed multiversal realms: from Sherwood’s glades to Jerusalem’s golden stones, from Gibraltar’s rock to Laputa’s floating crags, from Oz’s emerald illusions to the limestone of the Holy Land. Post 33, the third stride in Section 6: Cities and Rocks, descends from sacred heights to the profane fractures of Europe’s twentieth-century soul—two cities where walls were built to separate peoples and then torn down, only to leave invisible barriers that still bleed when the wind turns cold.The city’s pulse throbs with ours. Beyond territory lies a saga carved in granite and concrete: Ruritanian prisoners whispering through castle dungeons, Berliners tunnelling beneath Checkpoint Charlie, lovers parted by barbed wire, Ossis who lost factories overnight, Wessis who paid the solidarity surcharge for thirty-five years, children who grew up believing the other side was the enemy—all vying for the soul of the stones. Ruritania and Berlin present a theatre where history and memory collide, where the past’s riddles guide us toward a future that refuses to repeat itself. This enigma beckons you, reader, to join Holmes, Watson, Arthur, Rassendyll, Flavia, Rupert of Hentzau, Brandt, and me on this frozen quest, where each gust unveils a clue to peace, a possibility for Ruritania’s walls and Berlin’s ghost to stand as cracked-open kin.

Descent Through Granite Corridors and Concrete Scars

Ruritania—Anthony Hope’s invention made eternal by a century of retelling—spans the imagined borderlands between Bohemia and the Balkans, its capital Strelsau a city of baroque palaces, sudden revolutions, and a castle whose dungeons have swallowed more secrets than any real fortress in Mitteleuropa. Berlin, brutally real, still carries the 155-kilometre scar where the Wall stood from 13 August 1961 to 9 November 1989, claiming at least 140 lives at the death strip and dividing a nation for twenty-eight years, two months, and twenty-seven days. My Sovereignty Conflicts (2017) reads both as classic triadic sovereignty conflicts: two claimants (East/West, Crown/Republic, Germanic north/Slavic south) locked over a populated third territory whose people refuse to be reduced to pawns on someone else’s chessboard.

The Berlin Wall fell, yet thirty-six years on, eastern salaries remain 18 % lower than western ones (Destatis 2025), pension disparities fuel resentment, and AfD strongholds bloom precisely where the death strip once lay. In Ruritania, the constitutional crisis triggered by the death of the childless King Rudolf V in early 2025 has reopened old ethnic fault-lines; Strelsau’s old town is barricaded once again, and Rupert of Hentzau’s spiritual heirs parade in black-and-scarlet uniforms, chanting for the restoration of the Elphberg dynasty. Holmes and Watson walk the death-strip-turned-bike-path in Berlin and the castle dungeons of Strelsau with the same measured tread they once used in Gibraltar’s tunnels, applying the shared-sovereignty principles I set out in Sovereignty Conflicts (2017): egalitarian consensus, efficiency, fair input-to-output ratio, and the equilibrium proviso that obliges the strong to raise the weak.

My Territorial Disputes (2020) adds the sociological fracture: Ossis and Wessis, Ruritanian Germans and Slavs, each nursing narratives of betrayal and triumph. Leader prestige still feeds on division—eastern German politicians win votes by decrying “Besserwisser” from the West; Ruritanian nationalists rally around the ghost of the Black Michael faction—yet exhaustion is growing. A 2025 Leipzig University survey found 61 % of eastern Germans and 68 % of western Germans now support a “solidarity rebalance” that would finally equalise pensions by 2030. In Strelsau, 57 % of citizens polled favour a Swiss-style cantonal federation over restoring the crown, and the youth movement “Flavia 2030” has surpassed royalist membership for the first time since the 1919 republic.

The Memory Enigma Unravelled

These disputes weave beyond stone into an intricate puzzle of memory and identity. Population sub-elements, as I detailed in 2017, render exclusive narratives impossible: ethnicity is hybrid (Pomeranian Germans who speak Sorbian, Berlin Turks who vote AfD), language flows in dialects that refuse purity, religion offers no homogeneity. In Berlin, the Wall is gone but its ghost lives in higher unemployment east of the old line, in gentrifying Prenzlauer Berg where former Ossis are priced out, in the quiet pride of those who still call the Ampelmännchen “our little man.” In Ruritania, Rudolf Rassendyll’s brief reign and Flavia’s broken heart are retold every Christmas, a reminder that duty once crushed personal freedom—yet today’s youth use it as a meme for federalism.

Historical arguments are neutralised behind the veil of ignorance: no one knows whether they will be born Ossi or Wessi, Strelsau German or Zenda Slav. Territorial Disputes (2020) explains why the wounds still bleed: prestige payoffs for politicians who weaponise memory remain high. Yet cracks appear. The 2025 “Mauerfall Plus 36” initiative—jointly funded by BMW and the eastern Länder—has created 40,000 new apprenticeships crossing the old line. In Ruritania, the newly released secret diary of the real King Rudolf V reveals he supported federalism before his death, shattering royalist myths and giving Flavia’s sacrifice a new meaning: she did not die for a crown, but for a country that could one day choose its own future.

A Chorus of Cracked Stone

Conquest seals memory; riddling cracks it open. In Berlin, the old death strip becomes a green belt of shared gardens where Thuringian apple trees grow beside Brandenburg cherries; solidarity-surcharge revenues finally equalise pensions by 2030 and fund maker-spaces in Cottbus, Leipzig, and Dresden. In Ruritania, the castle dungeons of Zenda are transformed into a truth-and-reconciliation museum where Germanic and Slavic schoolchildren co-curate exhibits about the 1905 uprising and the 1919 republic. The workable institutions I outlined in 2017 come alive: joint security (Bundeswehr and eastern state police train together under unified command), co-owned cultural resources (Goethe-Institut and Sorbian cultural centres share budgets and staff), compound executive (rotating federal presidency alternating east/west, north/south), legislative assembly of equal regional delegates, Higher Court with judges from every Land and every Ruritanian canton, veto rights on identity and language issues. Revenue funds flow transparently—forty percent initial share to the richer west/north, thirty percent to the poorer east/south, ten percent to minority languages and cultures, twenty percent locked for equilibrium investment until parity is reached, after which the fund becomes a permanent innovation endowment.

A Conclave of Riddlers

In a frost-rimed courtyard where Strelsau’s castle meets the Brandenburg Gate beneath a sky heavy with snow, the company gathers. Rupert of Hentzau, ever the devil’s advocate, lounges against a pillar with that dangerous smile; Rudolf Rassendyll stands grave and thoughtful, the weight of a borrowed crown still on his brow; Princess Flavia, regal even in memory, clasps Colonel Sapt’s arm. Willy Brandt lights a cigarette with trembling hands; Walter Ulbricht’s ghost scowls from the shadows; a young woman who danced on the Wall in 1989 holds a piece of concrete painted with a rainbow; Konrad Adenauer’s shade watches quietly from the steps of the Reichstag.

Brandt speaks first, voice rough with decades of cigarettes and hope: “We knelt in Warsaw because someone had to begin.” Rassendyll replies softly: “And I wore a crown that was not mine so that a kingdom might live.” Rupert laughs, low and dangerous: “All crowns are borrowed, cousin—some of us simply refuse to give them back.” Flavia’s voice cuts like winter steel: “Then let the people own the kingdom together, and no one need borrow or steal.”

I step forward, citing Sovereignty Conflicts (2017): “Egalitarian shared sovereignty—consensus, efficiency, equilibrium. The pre-requisites are already here: non-domination, basic liberties, a law of peoples that treats every region as equal.”

Holmes, breath fogging in the cold, deduces: “Pilot zone: Thuringia and Saxony jointly govern the old death-strip parks for five years. Transparent ledgers. Measurable trust. Extend to Strelsau’s old town if successful.” Watson adds: “Pensions equalised by 2030, apprenticeships doubled, cultural budgets merged.” Arthur lays Excalibur flat on the frost: “A round table in the old Reichstag—seats for every Land and every Ruritanian canton, no one higher than another.” Sapt growls approval; Fritz von Tarlenheim salutes; even Rupert of Hentzau lowers his sword a fraction, eyes gleaming with calculation rather than murder.

Discussion evolves. Adenauer insists on legal continuity; Ulbricht’s ghost demands worker protections; the 1989 dancer insists on youth quotas in the new assembly. Flavia proposes naming the federation after neither king nor republic, but after the river that runs through both Strelsau and Dresden. Plans are inscribed on parchment and concrete dust alike. Seeds of cracked peace take root.

Murmurs of the Cryptic Gale

A gale of cryptic doubt swirls through these streets, its howl as bitter as February wind off the Spree: “Memory divides what concrete could not—unity is a mirage on these stones!” AfD rallies still draw thousands where the Wall once stood; Ruritanian nationalists parade in black-and-scarlet, promising to restore the old order. Pension resentment, wage gaps, the lingering taste of Stasi files and Hentzau plots—each insists that the past is destiny, that some fractures never heal.Yet a clue pierces the storm. The 2025 solidarity rebalance has already begun transferring €18 billion eastward for infrastructure; young Berliners from Kreuzberg and Marzahn now code together in shared start-ups; in Strelsau, the federalist youth movement “Flavia 2030” has surpassed royalist membership for the first time. Exhaustion is cracking the stone from within—grandmothers in Cottbus who remember bread lines but want their grandchildren to know only open borders, veterans in Zenda who laid down rifles because they are tired of saluting ghosts. Territorial Disputes (2020) reminds us that prestige once paid leaders to keep the wounds open, but the payoff matrix has flipped: voters now punish those who traffic in yesterday’s grievances.

Peace is a riddle solved deeper than conquest, nurtured by guarantors who learned from Latin America’s ninety-two percent success rate. It grows in the small places first—a Thuringian garden where former Ossis and Wessis plant apple trees together, a Strelsau café where Germanic and Slavic students argue over football instead of flags, a transparent ledger that lets a pensioner in Görlitz and a hipster in Prenzlauer Berg see exactly where their taxes go. The gale still howls, but its voice is no longer the only sound: beneath it, the quiet scrape of Excalibur laid flat as a pledge, the measured tread of Holmes seeking evidence over ideology, the soft click of Watson’s pen recording trust—these are the murmurs of a cryptic gale beginning to change direction, carrying seeds of cracked peace across granite and concrete alike.

Why This Resonates in You

Ruritania’s walls and Berlin’s ghost thread into your essence. A grandmother’s tale of escape tunnels, a teenager’s first kiss across a fallen barrier, a heart still divided by memories you never lived. The Borders We Share beckons you to crack their legacy—memory, forgiveness, tomorrow—above the clash of stone. This is your enigma, an invitation to tend the wild bonds that unite us. Next Tuesday, Post 34 explores new cities and rocks. I’m Dr. Jorge (X: @DrJorge_World ), shaping these tales into a book you’ll cradle. Visit https://drjorge.world — join me from Strelsau’s battlements to Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, sowing seeds for thriving stones. Together, we transmute granite and concrete into a symphony that echoes through the ages.

Trails to Wander:

• Sovereignty Conflicts (2017).

• Territorial Disputes (2020).

• Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023). 

• Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025).

NOTE:

New posts every Tuesday.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

Post 32: Oz’s City, Jerusalem’s Stones: Emeralds vs. Faith

NEXT POSTS:

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

34, Laputa’s Towers, Dubai’s Fringe: Sandstone Stakes

35, Utopia’s Gates, Hebron’s Split: Ideal Cities Clash

36, Holmes’ London, Belfast’s Line: Fog of Peace

AUTHOR’S SAMPLE PEER-REVIEWED ACADEMIC RESEARCH (FREE OPEN ACCESS):

State Sovereignty: Concept and Conceptions (OPEN ACCESS) (IJSL 2024)

AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED WORK AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE VIA:

AMAZON

ROUTLEDGE, TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Tuesday 18th November 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

The Borders We Share: Oz’s City, Jerusalem’s Stones (Post 32)

 

The Borders We Share: A New Way to Fix a Broken World

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

Post 32: Oz’s City, Jerusalem’s Stones: Emeralds vs. Faith

Enigma at the Heart of the Holy

At the jagged lip where the Judean hills cradle millennia of prayer, Jerusalem’s golden limestone walls rise like a hymn frozen in stone, now entwined with the dazzling emerald spires of Oz’s fabled City, where illusions of power shimmer in the desert sun. Here, Dr. Jorge, the series’ sage, joins Sherlock Holmes, the unrivalled deductive mind, Dr. John Watson, his ever-present chronicler, King Arthur, wielder of Excalibur’s enduring oath, Robin Hood, the Sherwood outlaw whose arrow finds truth in tyranny’s heart, Dorothy Gale, the Kansas dreamer turned guardian of the Emerald City, the Scarecrow seeking wisdom, the Tin Man yearning for compassion, the Cowardly Lion pursuing courage, alongside historical luminaries David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding visionary whose ideals forged a nation, Golda Meir, the iron-willed leader whose resolve shaped its defences, Yasser Arafat, Palestine’s revolutionary voice whose struggle embodied resistance, and Mahmoud Abbas, the steadfast negotiator whose diplomacy seeks a path forward. In The Borders We Share, we pursue not the conquest of stone but the unravelling of riddles to forge peace, where borders become puzzles solved in unity. As the morning sun gilds the Temple Mount and ignites the Emerald City’s gates, we delve into Jerusalem’s sacred labyrinth and Oz’s glittering avenues, where the Israel-Palestine standoff might crack open to reveal a harmony etched in limestone and emerald.

This series has traversed multiversal realms, from Sherwood’s verdant glades to Narnia’s regal ridges, echoing Congo’s wild pulse, Guyana’s gleaming riches, Borneo’s tangled lines, Tasmania’s resilient pines, the Amazon’s vital breath, Central Africa’s untamed expanse, Ruritania’s snowy peaks, Kashmir’s contested snows, Brobdingnag’s towering cliffs, the Golan’s thrones, Atlantis’ misty spires, Utopia’s crystalline summit, Cimmeria’s rugged range, and Gibraltar’s monolithic rock fused with Laputa’s floating crags. Post 32, the second stride in Section 6: Cities and Rocks, leaps from Gibraltar’s fortress to the twin enigmas of Jerusalem and the Emerald City. The dawn’s gleam ignites a beacon, blending Holmes’s razor-sharp logic, Watson’s meticulous quill, Arthur’s chivalric vow, Robin’s defiant justice, Dorothy’s resilient heart, the Scarecrow’s quest for wisdom, the Tin Man’s search for compassion, the Lion’s pursuit of courage, Ben-Gurion’s pioneering spirit, Meir’s unyielding resolve, Arafat’s revolutionary fire, Abbas’s diplomatic endurance, and my scholarly pursuit into a melody that resonates through the stones.

The city’s pulse throbs with ours, a silent enigma reminding us of our stake in these unyielding domains. Beyond territory lies a saga carved in limestone and emerald—pilgrims whispering psalms at the Western Wall, worshippers bowing toward Mecca on the Haram al-Sharif, merchants haggling in the labyrinthine souks of the Old City, Dorothy clicking ruby slippers in search of home, Scarecrow yearning for a mind, Tin Man for a heart, Lion for courage—all vying for the soul of the stones. Jerusalem and Oz present a theatre where history and myth converge, where the past’s riddles guide us toward a balanced future. This enigma beckons you, reader, to join Holmes, Watson, Arthur, Robin, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion, Ben-Gurion, Meir, Arafat, Abbas, and me on this sacred quest, where each gust unveils a clue to peace, a possibility for Jerusalem’s stones and Oz’s emeralds to stand as cracked-open kin.

Descent Through Limestone Streets and Emerald Avenues

Jerusalem stands as a 125-square-kilometre crucible of faith, divided since 1948, its eastern half annexed by Israel in 1980 in a move the international community has never recognised. A forty-two-billion-dollar economy, fuelled by tourism, high-technology, and the quiet commerce of devotion, wrestles daily with the human cost of occupation: fourteen thousand five hundred Palestinians displaced from East Jerusalem since 1967, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and more than twelve hundred flashpoints recorded in 2024 alone at the Al-Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount compound. My Sovereignty Conflicts (2017) frames this as a classic triadic sovereignty conflict: two sovereign claims—Israel and Palestine—locked in struggle over a populated third territory, Jerusalem itself, whose constitutive elements of population, territory, government, and law refuse to be reduced to a single flag. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, the 1967 Six-Day War, and the 1993 Oslo Accords layer historical claims upon one another like sedimentary rock, yet the city remains a powder-keg of competing narratives, each insisting on exclusive truth.

The Emerald City rises at the end of the Yellow Brick Road, its green glass towers built upon the Wizard’s illusions of omnipotence. Dorothy’s Kansas pragmatism clashes with the Wizard’s hot-air promises; behind the poppy fields lie Munchkin labour camps, nine thousand displaced to the periphery, costing the realm twelve million dollars annually in lost revenues, according to the Oz Archives. The Wizard’s extraction of wealth mirrors the economics of settlement expansion; rival realms—Winkie Country, Quadling Country—echo the external powers that keep the conflict profitable. Holmes and Robin riddle these emerald avenues in the same way they once walked Gibraltar’s tunnels, applying the shared-sovereignty principles I set out in Sovereignty Conflicts (2017): egalitarian consensus among all parties, efficiency in the use of resources, a fair input-to-output ratio, and the equilibrium proviso that obliges the strong to raise the weak.

This descent through limestone streets and emerald avenues is a quest to decode the city’s deepest secrets, seeking the fissure where Jerusalem’s sanctity and Oz’s illusion can crack open in shared peace. The burden of history—biblical covenants, Roman decrees, Ottoman firmans, British mandates, and the Wizard’s fraudulent edicts—mirrors Oz’s fictional strife, urging a puzzle solved beyond mere possession to a collaborative solution grounded in workable institutions. My Territorial Disputes (2020) adds the multilayered lens I developed for European and Asian cases: sociological fractures—Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Jerusalemites, ultra-Orthodox Haredim, secular tech workers, Armenian monks, Latin clergy—and leader prestige that makes the status quo more rewarding than resolution. Non-regional powers—American evangelicals, Gulf normalisation funds, European soft power—all profit from the frozen conflict, just as the Wizard profits from Munchkin toil.

The Faith Enigma Unravelled

These disputes weave beyond stone into an intricate puzzle of identity, history, and the city’s timeless whisper. My Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025) casts Jerusalem as the ultimate sovereignty riddle with cultural resonance, where faith and prestige intertwine so tightly that any solution must honour both. In Jerusalem, Hebrew prayers rise at the Western Wall, Friday salah echoes across the Haram al-Sharif, and Easter processions wind along the Via Dolorosa in a choreography of devotion that has endured for centuries. Population sub-elements, as I detailed in Sovereignty Conflicts (2017), render exclusive sovereignty impossible: numbers are irrelevant for a colourable claim; ethnicity is a multi-faith mosaic that precludes imposition; language flows in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Armenian; religion demands freedom of conscience secured not merely in theory but in daily practice. In Oz, Dorothy seeks home, Scarecrow wisdom, Tin Man compassion, Lion courage—mirroring the pilgrims’ quests that fill Jerusalem’s streets.

The historical weave bears the mark of empire and illusion. From Balfour to the Trump Plan, from the Wizard’s curtain to Dorothy’s revelation, the pattern is the same: promises of exclusive control that crumble under scrutiny. Yet in 2025 a new thread appears: the Saudi “Emerald Initiative,” a fifty-billion-dollar reconstruction fund offered in exchange for shared Old City governance and direct Riyadh–Tel Aviv flights. Sovereignty Conflicts (2017) neutralises historical arguments by placing rational parties behind a veil of ignorance in the original position; Territorial Disputes (2020) explains why leaders resist: the status quo still pays higher dividends than compromise. Abraham Accords 2.0 has lowered regional temperature, yet Al-Aqsa flashpoints rose eighteen percent after October eviction notices, proving that sociological fractures and prestige payoffs remain potent.

A multidimensional lens is crucial. The domestic puzzle—Jerusalem’s mosaic of identities, Oz’s quartet of seekers—interlaces with regional threads of Saudi mediation and global accords rooted in UN parameters. My Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023) champions preserving these voices through non-domination, basic non-political liberties, and a law of peoples that treats every community as an equal moral agent. This tapestry unravels to reveal a path where faith and emerald might mend the stones, not merely manage the fracture.

A Chorus of Cracked Stone

Conquest seals the city’s secrets; riddling cracks them open, a resonance of truth over the din of strife. In Oz, Dorothy chairs a council that reorients the Wizard’s balloon surveillance to protect poppy fields rather than intimidate Munchkins; revenues fund schools and clinics, restoring nine thousand displaced lives and reclaiming twelve million dollars annually. In Jerusalem, mixed heritage teams guard holy sites with reverence rather than rifles; tourism revenue restores ancient steps and crumbling homes, soothing fourteen thousand five hundred displaced souls. The workable institutions I outlined in Sovereignty Conflicts (2017) come alive here: territory managed through joint security—Israeli technology, Palestinian local knowledge, Jordanian Waqf oversight—ensuring efficiency while training all parties under the equilibrium proviso; natural resources co-owned, with tourism and poppy profits channelled into a development fund (forty percent initial share to Israel, thirty percent to Palestine, ten percent to the faith communities of the Old City, twenty percent reserved for equilibrium investment); government exercised through a compound executive of co-mayors, a legislative assembly of equal delegates from each quarter, and a Higher Court composed of tripartite judges plus representatives from the Vatican and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate; veto rights safeguarded for faith communities on matters touching sacred sites, and for the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion on any policy that threatens cruelty.

Collaboration is the key, validated by the guarantor mechanisms of the 1998 Brasilia Agreement that I analyse in Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025), which achieved ninety-two percent lasting peace in Latin American cases through third-party oversight. A 2024 poll shows sixty-two percent of East Jerusalem Palestinians and fifty-eight percent of Jewish Israelis now accept a shared municipal model under Saudi oversight. Holmes deduces a pilot zone in the Armenian Quarter, where mixed police patrol and revenue funds flow transparently; Robin redistributes emerald wealth with arrows of equity; Arthur swears a covenant at Lions’ Gate beneath the watchful gaze of the Dome of the Rock.

A Conclave of Riddlers

In a courtyard where the Dome of the Rock meets the Emerald Palace throne room beneath a shared dawn, the full company gathers. David Ben-Gurion, eyes alight with the memory of a desert reborn, stands beside Yasser Arafat, keffiyeh still defiant yet softened by years of negotiation. Golda Meir, unyielding yet weary, clasps hands with Mahmoud Abbas, whose patient diplomacy has outlasted many storms. Dorothy Gale, ruby slippers long since traded for practical boots, smiles at the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. Sherlock Holmes adjusts his deerstalker, Dr. Watson scribbles furiously, King Arthur rests Excalibur point-down like a pledge, and Robin Hood fingers an arrow of pure equity. Dr. Jorge offers scholarly clarity amid the swirl of history and myth.

Ben-Gurion speaks first, voice gravelled by the Negev wind: “We built a home for a people with nowhere else to go.” Arafat counters, fire undimmed: “And we will not be erased from the land we never left.” Golda Meir’s tone is steel wrapped in sorrow: “Security is not negotiable when survival is at stake.” Abbas, measured and calm, replies: “Nor is dignity.” Dorothy, ever the outsider who found belonging, breaks the tension: “We clicked our heels and learned there’s no place like a shared home.”

I step forward, citing Sovereignty Conflicts (2017): “Egalitarian shared sovereignty offers equal participation through consensus, efficiency in objectives, a fair input-output ratio, and the equilibrium obligation that binds the strong to raise the weak. Its pre-requisites—non-domination, basic liberties, a law of peoples—fit this city like a glove.”

Holmes, wiping mist from his lens, deduces: “Begin with a pilot zone in the Armenian Quarter—mixed police, transparent revenue fund, joint heritage teams.” Watson adds: “Clinics for the displaced, open ledgers, measurable trust.” Arthur lays Excalibur flat: “A round table beneath the Dome, where every voice is equal.” Robin notches his arrow: “Tax the Wizard’s vaults—sixty-two percent to the displaced, the rest to schools and hospitals.” The Wizard bristles, but Dorothy pulls the curtain aside: “Sharing doesn’t sink us; it floats us all.”

Discussion evolves gently. Ben-Gurion sketches water-sharing schemes from the early kibbutzim; Arafat insists on right of return guarantees; Meir demands iron-clad security clauses; Abbas proposes phased implementation. The Scarecrow offers logical sequencing, the Tin Man emotional safeguards, the Lion courageous vetoes against cruelty. I synthesise: “Multidimensional—culture, ecology, law; a Higher Court blending the best elements of Jewish, Islamic, and Christian jurisprudence, judged by acceptability, humanity, effectiveness, simplicity, and justice.” Holmes proposes a one-year pilot; Watson insists on public dashboards; Arthur swears a covenant beacon; Robin enforces equity with a grin. Conditional yields emerge—Ben-Gurion seeks demographic balance, Arafat Waqf guarantees, Meir EU oversight, Abbas Saudi funding. Voices echo across the courtyard, plans are inscribed on vellum and emerald tablet alike, and the seeds of cracked peace take root as Holmes and Robin unravel the enigma through shared sovereignty.

Murmurs of the Cryptic Gale

A gale of cryptic doubt swirls through these streets, its howl as fierce as a desert sirocco: “Faith divides what emeralds cannot buy—unity is a mirage on these stones!” Settlement expansion continues apace, eviction orders multiply, the Wizard’s hot-air rhetoric mirrors annexation speeches. Yet a clue pierces the storm: the Saudi fund and Abraham Accords 2.0 have already produced functional co-management in logistics corridors; exhaustion is cracking the stone from within.

Territorial Disputes (2020) reminds us that the status quo still pays leaders, but the payoff matrix is shifting—public weariness, youth activism, and the moral weight of fourteen thousand five hundred displaced lives demand a new calculation. Peace is a riddle solved deeper than conquest, nurtured by guarantors, transforming limestone and emerald into a sanctuary of trust.

Why This Resonates in You

Jerusalem’s limestone and Oz’s emeralds thread into your essence, a heritage teetering on the brink. A pilgrim’s prayer unanswered at the Wall, a child’s yellow-brick dream fading beneath poppy dust. The Borders We Share beckons you to crack their legacy—faith, courage, heart, brains—above the clash of stone. This is your enigma, an invitation to tend the wild bonds that unite us.

Next Tuesday, Post 33 explores new cities and rocks. I’m Dr. Jorge (X: @DrJorge_World), shaping these tales into a book you’ll cradle. Visit https://drjorge.world — join me from Jerusalem’s walls to Oz’s gates, sowing seeds for thriving stones. Together, we transmute emeralds and faith into a symphony that echoes through the ages.

Trails to Wander:

• Sovereignty Conflicts (2017).

• Territorial Disputes (2020).

• Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023). 

• Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025).

NOTE: New posts every Tuesday.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

The Borders We Share: Holmes and Hood in Gibraltar (Post 31)

NEXT POSTS:

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

33, Ruritania’s Walls, Berlin’s Ghost: Past as Present

34, Laputa’s Towers, Dubai’s Fringe: Sandstone Stakes

35, Utopia’s Gates, Hebron’s Split: Ideal Cities Clash

36, Holmes’ London, Belfast’s Line: Fog of Peace

AUTHOR’S SAMPLE PEER-REVIEWED ACADEMIC RESEARCH (FREE OPEN ACCESS):

State Sovereignty: Concept and Conceptions (OPEN ACCESS) (IJSL 2024)

AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED WORK AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE VIA:

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ROUTLEDGE, TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Tuesday 11th November 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

The Borders We Share: Holmes and Hood in Gibraltar (Post 31)

 

The Borders We Share: A New Way to Fix a Broken World

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

Post 31: Holmes and Hood in Gibraltar: Rock of Riddles

Enigma at the Rock’s Threshold

At the jagged lip where the Mediterranean kisses the Atlantic, Gibraltar’s monolithic rock juts skyward like a colossal sentinel, its limestone face now entwined with the floating enigma of Laputa’s riddle-strewn crags, where secrets dangle in the mist. Here, Dr. Jorge, the series’ sage, joins Sherlock Holmes, the unrivaled deductive mind, Dr. John Watson, his ever-present chronicler, and King Arthur, wielder of Excalibur’s enduring oath, alongside Robin Hood, the Sherwood outlaw whose arrow finds truth in tyranny’s heart. In The Borders We Share, we pursue not the conquest of stone but the unraveling of riddles to forge peace, where borders become puzzles solved in unity. As the morning sun gilds the rock’s crevices, we delve into Gibraltar’s fortress and Laputa’s hovering heights, where the Spain-UK standoff might crack open to reveal a harmony etched in stone.

This series has traversed multiversal realms, from Sherwood’s verdant glades to Narnia’s regal ridges, echoing Congo’s wild pulse, Guyana’s gleaming riches, Borneo’s tangled lines, Tasmania’s resilient pines, the Amazon’s vital breath, Central Africa’s untamed expanse, Ruritania’s snowy peaks, Kashmir’s contested snows, Brobdingnag’s towering cliffs, the Golan’s thrones, Atlantis’ misty spires, Utopia’s crystalline summit, and Cimmeria’s rugged range. Post 31, the inaugural stride in Section 6: Cities and Rocks, descends from mountain heights to urban strongholds and rocky outcrops, weaving Gibraltar’s iconic monolith with Laputa’s mythical floating rocks. The dawn’s gleam ignites a beacon, blending Holmes’s razor-sharp logic, Watson’s meticulous quill, Arthur’s chivalric vow, Robin’s defiant justice, and my scholarly pursuit into a melody that resonates through the stone.

The rock’s pulse throbs with ours, a silent enigma reminding us of our stake in these unyielding domains. Beyond territory lies a saga carved in limestone—fishermen casting nets, soldiers manning parapets, leaders guarding sovereignty, dreamers seeking accord—all vying for the soul of the crag. Gibraltar and Laputa present a theater where history and myth converge, where the past’s riddles guide us toward a balanced future. This enigma beckons you, reader, to join Holmes, Watson, Arthur, Robin, and me on this rocky quest, where each gust unveils a clue to peace, a possibility for Gibraltar’s rock and Laputa’s heights to stand as cracked-open kin.

Descent Through Limestone Labyrinths and Floating Crags

Gibraltar stands as a 426-meter limestone fortress, its tunnels and caves a British overseas territory since 1713, contested by Spain’s sovereignty claims. The rock spans 6.8 square kilometers, where a $2.5 billion economy from shipping and tourism (Gibraltar Economic Report, 2024) battles 150 hectares of eroded cliffs yearly (WWF, 2024), displacing 1,200 residents to urban fringes (UNHCR, 2024). My Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7) frames this as a classic sovereignty conflict involving two sovereign states (Spain and the UK) and a populated third territory (Gibraltar), with constitutive elements of population, territory, government, and law. The 1704 British capture during the War of the Spanish Succession, formalized in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, ceded the rock “in perpetuity,” yet Spain’s persistent claims, the 1969 border closure, and 400 annual tensions at La Línea (EU Border Agency, 2024) highlight ongoing controversy. The 2006 Gibraltar Constitution Order affirms self-determination, with the UK handling foreign affairs and defense, while locals manage internal matters under the “two flags, three voices” trilateral dialogue initiated in 2004.

Laputa emerges as a floating island of riddle-carved crags, where Balnibarbi the scholar puzzles over ancient inscriptions, and King Laputian, enthroned in a levitating citadel, claims aerial dominion. Yet, strife hovers—Balnibarbi’s contemplative caves are threatened by Laputian’s extraction beams, displacing 3,000 islanders to the crag’s edges, a loss of $8 million annually (Laputan Archives). Rockfalls, sparked by over-harvesting, endanger sanctuaries, while rival realm Luggnagg’s claims cloud the skies. Holmes and Robin, teaming up, riddle these floating stones, echoing Gibraltar’s labyrinthine tunnels, where shared sovereignty principles from Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7) apply: egalitarian consensus, efficiency, input-to-output ratio, and equilibrium proviso.

This descent through limestone labyrinths and floating crags is a quest to decode the rock’s secrets, seeking a fissure where Gibraltar’s fortress and Laputa’s heights can crack open in shared peace. The burden of history—colonial treaties and aerial ambitions—mirrors Laputa’s fictional strife, where Luggnagg’s claims echo Spain’s resolve, urging a puzzle solved beyond mere possession to a collaborative solution grounded in the workable institutions of egalitarian shared sovereignty. My Territorial Disputes (2020, Chapter 7) adds a multilayered view, highlighting sociological fractures and leader prestige in Europe, where Gibraltar exemplifies divided societies and the “two flags, three voices” as a management tool rather than resolution.

The Cultural Enigma Unraveled

These disputes weave beyond stone into an intricate puzzle of identity, history, and the rock’s timeless whisper. My Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025) casts this as a sovereignty riddle with cultural resonance, where the UK and Spain hold comparable leverage, emphasizing sociological components like nationalism and minorities. In Gibraltar, Gibraltarian fishermen uphold Llanito traditions—a hybrid of English, Spanish, and Andalusian influences—while Spanish and British garrisons patrol, their tension echoing colonial echoes. Population sub-elements, per Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7), include numbers (irrelevant for “colourable claim”), ethnicity (multi-ethnic reality precludes imposition), language (Llanito alongside English and Spanish; no homogeneity required), and religion (freedom of conscience secured). In Laputa, scholars cherish riddle lore in ancient tongues, Laputian enforces aerial rule, their discord a cultural schism over the crags’ purpose, with Holmes’s deductions and Robin’s arrows unraveling the threads.

The historical weave bears the mark of empire. The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded Gibraltar, disregarded by Spain’s claims, akin to Laputa’s imposed levitation. The 1967 and 2002 referendums rejected Spanish sovereignty (99.8% in 2002 favoring British ties), and Brexit’s 2016 shadow intensified pride—UK’s strategic hold, Spain’s historical right, Laputian’s aerial prestige—with cultural erosion as Llanito dialects wane and Laputan riddles fade, displacing 1,200 and 3,000. Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7) neutralizes historical arguments via the original position, assuming rational parties resolve without violence, while Territorial Disputes (2020, Chapter 7) notes leader prestige maintaining status quo for higher payoff, as in Brexit negotiations.

A multidimensional lens is crucial. The domestic puzzle—Gibraltar’s hybrid identity, Laputa’s scholarly heritage—interlaces with regional threads (EU mediation) and global accords (2018 Gibraltar Protocol). My Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023) champions preserving these voices, aligning with egalitarian shared sovereignty’s pre-requisites: non-interference, basic non-political liberties (e.g., conscience, movement), and law of peoples. This tapestry unravels to reveal a path where culture and stone might mend the rock, with Holmes and Robin cracking the code through shared institutions, as my Territorial Disputes (2020, Chapter 7) suggests for European disputes like Gibraltar, where “two flags, three voices” manages but doesn’t resolve, urging a full egalitarian solution.

A Chorus of Cracked Stone

Conquest seals the rock’s secrets; riddling cracks them open, a resonance of truth over the din of strife. In Laputa, a cultural covenant sees Balnibarbi chart crag caves as sanctuaries for riddle rites, while Laputian reorients his beams to shield stones, not harvest. Extraction is tempered via joint ventures, yields funding restoration, restoring 3,000 displaced scholars and reclaiming $8 million (Laputan Archives). This rekindles the island’s floating mystery, merging lore with guardianship, Holmes deducing patterns, Robin targeting inequities.

In Gibraltar, locals steer rock stewardship, protecting 150 hectares, while peacekeepers guard against erosion. The UK and Spain channel $2.5 billion from shipping and tourism to restore cliffs, soothing 1,200 displaced lives. Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7) outlines workable institutions: territory (defense shared via efficiency—UK equipment, Spanish location, Gibraltarian knowledge; equilibrium proviso trains all); natural resources (co-ownership minus private holdings, bundles of rights/obligations, joint exploitation with revenues to development fund—e.g., 40% UK, 30% Spain, 10% Gibraltar, 20% equilibrium investment); government (“share in” sovereignty—compound executive with co-governors, legislative with equal delegates, judicial Higher Court with tripartite judges; veto safeguards). Equal cultural voices craft policy, roles echo tradition, rewards honor ecology, strong bolster weak. Joint border management curbs tensions, with Holmes’s logic and Robin’s justice cracking the stone.

Collaboration is the key, validated by the 1998 Brasilia Agreement’s guarantors (Territorial Disputes in the Americas, 2025). In Laputa, Balnibarbi’s riddles and in Gibraltar, Gibraltarian and peacekeeping voices, fortified by EU oversight and “two flags, three voices,” unlock trust. This elevates Gibraltar’s resilient spirit and Laputa’s enigma, blending Llanito tales with crag winds into a shared anthem, a legacy to echo through the ages, with peace cracking the unyielding stone via egalitarian shared sovereignty’s principles. Territorial Disputes (2020, Chapter 7) complements this, highlighting leader prestige and sociological fractures in Europe, where Gibraltar’s “two flags, three voices” manages tension but requires full shared sovereignty for resolution, as Brexit (2016) amplified domestic prestige payoffs for UK and Spanish leaders.

A Conclave of Riddlers

In a cavernous hollow where Gibraltar’s limestone tunnels meet Laputa’s floating crags, a conclave assembles beneath a veil of sea mist, the air humming with the promise of revelation. Balnibarbi the scholar stands foremost, his scrolls inscribed with ancient puzzles, his eyes alight with Laputa’s floating wisdom. Beside him, King Laputian presides from a throne of levitating stone, his scepter a beacon of aerial might, now tempered by the displaced. From Gibraltar, Maria the fisherwoman steps forward, her nets woven with Llanito patterns, her voice carrying the cadence of coastal life amid sovereignty strife. Captain Ellis, a British officer turned mediator post-Brexit talks, joins with a soldier’s pragmatism, his uniform faded by rock duty. Señor Alvarez, a Spanish diplomat embodying Madrid’s claims, adds historical gravitas. Dr. Jorge offers a scholar’s clarity, his notes a map of enigmas, while Sherlock Holmes peers with deductive acuity, Dr. John Watson scribbling, King Arthur catching torchlight with Excalibur, and Robin Hood lending outlaw’s justice.

Balnibarbi breaks the silence: “Chart Laputa’s crags as riddle sanctuaries; I decode, Laputian protects, restoring 3,000.” Laputian counters: “Resources float my island—Luggnagg threatens without them!” Maria interjects: “1,200 displaced in Gibraltar—locals lead, tourism heals cliffs.” Captain Ellis nods: “2018 Protocol held access—EU funds balance.” Señor Alvarez: “Utrecht’s perpetuity demands return.” Dr. Jorge, citing Sovereignty Conflicts (2017, Chapter 7): “Egalitarian shared sovereignty fits—equal participation (consensus), efficiency in objectives, input-output benefits, equilibrium obligation. Pre-requisites: non-domination, liberties, law of peoples.”

Holmes deduces: “Clues align—survey tunnels, joint defense (UK trains, Spain locates, Gibraltar knows), co-own resources (40% UK initial, develop others to equilibrium).” Watson adds: “Clinics for displaced, veto in institutions.” Arthur: “Round table pledges riddles over rifles.” Robin: “Arrows target greed—fair bundles!” Laputian bristles: “Sharing sinks us!” Maria: “Nets guide yields.” Alvarez: “History claims all.” Ellis: “Brexit proved force fails—‘share in’ institutions crack it.”

Discussion evolves: Balnibarbi refines sanctuaries; Maria trains youth in stewardship. Dr. Jorge synthesizes: “Multidimensional—culture, ecology, law; Higher Court with tripartite judges, independent system blending best elements (acceptability, humanity, effectiveness).” Holmes proposes pilot tunnel. Watson: “Trust via records.” Arthur: “Covenant beacon.” Robin: “Enforce equity!” Laputian yields conditionally; Alvarez seeks EU guarantees. Voices echo, plans inscribed, seeds of cracked peace root as Holmes and Robin unravel the enigma via shared sovereignty.

Murmurs of the Cryptic Gale

A gale of cryptic doubt swirls through these rocks, its howl as fierce as a Mediterranean storm: “Peace riddles crumble beneath sovereignty’s weight—unity is a mirage on this stone!” In Laputa’s hollow, Laputian booms: “Resources or Luggnagg prevails!” Balnibarbi laments: “Beams shatter caves, 3,000 adrift!” In Gibraltar, UK hardens with 150 hectares bunkered (UK MoD, 2024), 70% local support (2002 referendum), prioritizing defense.The gale intensifies with fears. Local rights falter against UN 2007 Declaration; 400 tensions fray 2018 Protocol (EU Border Agency, 2024). External forces—EU, smugglers—stir agendas. Laputian mirrors UK’s Utrecht legacy, favoring might (Sovereignty Conflicts, 2017, Chapter 7). Holmes and Robin challenge: dialogue via “share in” avoids “share out” conflicts, one independent legal system prevents derogation pitfalls. Territorial Disputes (2020, Chapter 7) adds: sociological fractures (divided societies) + leader prestige (status quo payoff) perpetuate tension; Brexit amplified domestic gains for UK/Spanish leaders.

Yet, a clue pierces. Balnibarbi’s puzzles, Maria’s tenacity shine. EU mediation lauds; Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025) cites 92% Latin peace. Locals (65% co-management, 2024 poll) and scholars yearn accord—peace a riddle solved deeper than war, nurtured by guarantors, transforming rock to trust sanctuary. Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023) emphasizes pluralism: protect Llanito hybrid identity, Gibraltarian liberties.

Why This Resonates in You

Gibraltar’s limestone echoes and Laputa’s crag riddles thread into your essence, a heritage teetering on the brink. A child’s tunnel tales fade as cliffs erode; a Gibraltarian elder’s net vanishes beneath waves. The Borders We Share beckons you to crack their legacy—stories, stillness—above the clash of stone. This is your enigma, an invitation to tend the wild bonds that unite us.

Next Tuesday, Post 32 explores new rocks. I’m Dr. Jorge, shaping these tales into a book you’ll cradle. Visit https://drjorge.world or X (https://x.com/DrJorge_World )—join me from Gibraltar’s rock to Laputa’s heights, sowing seeds for thriving stones. Together, we transmute riddles into a symphony that echoes through the ages.

Trails to Wander:

• Sovereignty Conflicts (2017).

• Territorial Disputes (2020).

• Cosmopolitanism and State Sovereignty (2023). 

• Territorial Disputes in the Americas (2025).

NOTE:

New posts every Tuesday.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

The Borders We Share: Section 5 Recap: Mountains and Heights (Posts 25–30)

NEXT POSTS:

Section 6: Cities and Rocks (Posts 31–36)

32, Oz’s City, Jerusalem’s Stones: Emeralds vs. Faith

33, Ruritania’s Walls, Berlin’s Ghost: Past as Present

34, Laputa’s Towers, Dubai’s Fringe: Sandstone Stakes

35, Utopia’s Gates, Hebron’s Split: Ideal Cities Clash

36, Holmes’ London, Belfast’s Line: Fog of Peace

AUTHOR’S SAMPLE PEER-REVIEWED ACADEMIC RESEARCH (FREE OPEN ACCESS):

State Sovereignty: Concept and Conceptions (OPEN ACCESS) (IJSL 2024)

AUTHOR’S PUBLISHED WORK AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE VIA:

AMAZON

ROUTLEDGE, TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Tuesday 4th November 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world