We have a discourse of anti-Wokism that is spreading in the West.Do you use the word Wokismo or not, but would you say that among the Basques there is also this ideological and political position?

When the 'status quo' enters a crisis, system alarms are triggered and multiple mechanisms are put in place to stop or prevent that crisis. Wokism comes from the word woke, which means “awake” and has long been used by African Americans in the United States to be “awake” for social justice and against racism. Over time it has become an ethico-political position to combat all social injustice and has gained strength again in recent years thanks first to the Black Lives Matter movement and later to the MeToo movement. In the Basque Country we also experience the erosion of some dimensions of the 'status quo', and here those who use it as an insult are those who oppose social justice. In short, even in the Basque Country, woke is all that Trump and Milei hate.

How do you define anti-Wokism?

Anti-Wokism is an ideology opposed to social justice, racist, anti-feminist, and in general it is a political and economic position opposed to any framework, practice and ideology that does not defend the supremacy of the white man as a political group. It has variants, from territory to territory, and it can often be subtle, so we must draw attention to it. One clue, if you hear "identity politics," watch out! Today, identity politics is used to hierarchize grassroots struggles by naming every struggle that doesn’t put white men at the center with the word “identity politics,” as Black Lives Matter and the LGTBIQ+ movement say. For anti-Wokism, identity and matter are two entities or unicorns; as in the liberal enlightened world, they also have political identities that are not material, as they say, in the anti-Wokic world, which is very good for fascism. On the other hand, in our “woke” world, all political identity is material, because political identities are created within the systems of domination, that is, political subjects, and they are all material. Therefore, even if they say no, anti-Wokism is in the end a supremacism against the poor and the workers, because statistically racialized women, migrants and trans people are the poorest.

Anti-Wokism is usually adapted to the reality of the place, in order to take some of the questions of the place as an excuse and to spread its own. Do you see anything special about what we have in the Basque Country?

Is it the anti-Wokism of the Basque Country that makes this kind of supremacism in Basque? [laughs] . They would be those who want white Basques or a white Basque nation. Nothing new, because this has always been right-wing nationalism. And like all racial and national supremacism, these are anti-feminist and, of course, anti-trans.

In the book Politeismo bastarta, which you have published, you say: "And those who call for the abolition of the feminine and masculine gender but do not want the disappearance of men and women, what do you say? They think what makes you a woman is the uterus, but not all women have a uterus, so the breasts, but men also have breasts, much bigger than mine, then the XX chromosomes, but many women have XY, we are XXY, or we sold an X on the way...”

That's what it is. From materialist feminism, what makes women are material and historical relations of production, as well as racialized and proletarian ones; not primitive ideas (idealism), nor gonads, phenotypes or hormones. In the Basque Country we will find this essentialist and biologist idea of women being born on the right and on the left.

This is also the peculiarity of anti-Wokism, which has also been associated with this ideological and political product of the extreme right by some of the leftists. How do you explain that?

It’s no coincidence, because both sides often share the same patriarchal philosophical framework, that’s why left-wing and right-wing anti-Woks are delighted when they have reduced the “woman” in the UK to a gonad, or (in practice) to joy. Precisely because for them the woman is born; it is not done through power relations, it is born like blacks and whites, where the race is also a gene, an “eternal biological unicorn” or an eternal identity. That is, curiously, the basis of the identitarianism that they criticize, the essentialization and naturalization of identities. That's why women and men for these people can't disappear, we were created in the Big Bang, or with Eva and Adam? [laughs] . This framework or worldview has not gone through Darwin’s theory of evolution, much less evolutionary genetics. They are the banner of misogynistic racist biology.

What does anti-Wokism hide in it?

Hatred for fear. The king of hetero-capitalist modernity, the white man who until now has been a universal subject – understood as a political group, not as an individual – the most rational, intelligent, handsome and powerful of all living beings, is suddenly not universal, has no kingdom, is neither handsome nor strong. And according to the latest research, he's not even very smart. And every time we say this, whether it's on the nets, on the street, in the factory, a racist misogynist's army starts shooting at us. Because they see the ideological framework that gives them power in jeopardy, for many things. Because, as the decolonial and postcolonial feminists of Abya Yala and Africa claim, the heterosexual capitalist regime is a totalitarian regime that consists in maintaining the power of certain specific white men and, therefore, their system of production. In other words, sleepiness and hunger are “natural”, but the way we eat and sleep corresponds to a political regime; the same with biological reproduction, let alone desire. Political regimes create their subjects, which means that men are not born either, that they are not a natural class, that they are not a chromosome; that they are made, through material relations of power, as well as racialized, and that Obama or Meloni rule, does not turn white women or men into biological unicorns, as anti-Wokism, the Family Forum and the TERF would like.

If the university is the target of anti-Wokism, it is declared a "cultural war" on critical knowledge. After all, anti-Wokism is an ideological political organization to ensure a hegemonic vision and organization.

That's what it is. The ideological framework is to maintain a concrete political-economic organization, this is the first basis of materialism, because who works the most in the world? The racialized women. Who has the most economic capital in the world? The white men. Who is the vast majority of anti-Wokism in the empire? White men, and analyze the latest elections in different countries of the world. What do antiwokes say, including college antiwokes? Well, that Pakito works a lot, hell, a lot more than Mohamed, and that Merkel has a lot more money than Pakito. Yeah, and I'm sure Pakito helps a lot at home. But that’s why statistics and science in general were invented. To show that there is a whole world beyond Pact and Merkel, and that in each and every country of that world, women work more than men in their community or family, and at the same time have less economic, cultural and symbolic capital than those men. And the same rationalized compared to white. The most dangerous in the university are not the teachers who are offended in the networks, they are very easy to identify, the problem is the teachers who naturalize the daily political violence. In what way? Through the baggage, through the referents that they use and impose in class, through what they silence, and of course, by repeating over and over again that feminism and anti-racism are not real struggles, that they are “identity politics”... I have said that when you hear this, wake up the alert that supremacism is in the air (if supremacism works).

How is the University of the Basque Country doing? Is hegemony as fast as ever in its daily organization, reflections and productions? Are there gaps in this hegemonic mindset? Are there gaps and so this front is organized?

There are many students, professors, and scholars who oppose this ideology. Our educational framework is based on (neo)liberal illustration, so it is supposed to be "universal", that is, education that goes without adjectives, because the category of universality mutates adjectives; because universal often means "equal or equal everywhere for all", which is what education is not: equal for all. Because we don't all fit into the set of "equals." Because the set of equals is created with respect to those who are different and this is what "universal enlightened education" hides. This is also symbolic violence, violence that is hidden or mutated. What happens when mutated violence begins to scream through a feminist, anti-racist and socialist organization, and when they begin to say that this universal education is a patriarchal, capitalist and colonial education, both students and teachers? Cracks are formed. There are outrages in the educational and university governing bodies, in the centers of power, anti-Wokism is armed, and then you realize that we are doing well, that the anti-fascist bloc is also in operation in higher education, and that it is also international.

Outside the university, ideas and reflections are also exchanged on social networks. There are some who go up and down spreading their transphobic, racist and/or misogynistic attitude. How do you see the evolution of the social networks among the Basque community?

The Basque community has always been dominated and dominated, and remains the same, on social networks or on the street. Social networks are changing, we have to see what will be the network that unites the Basque community, because what is the "Basque community"? Do you speak Basque or live in Basque? [laughs] . There are those who say that it is always necessary to do it in Basque on social networks in order to create a "Basque community of social networks". The problem is that social networks are part of the world and our struggles in the world are not only in Basque. It is a political choice to live in Basque, yes, just as it is a political choice to reject racist and heterosexual practices. But half of those who say that "Basque is a political choice" believe that heterosexuality is not a political choice, it is natural or biological. So watch out, because I see many pure souls in the networks saying that with those who don’t speak Basque they don’t want to know anything. Well, that's perfect. If your priority is to form the Basque community and not the feminist, socialist and anti-racist Basque community, all the fascist Basques for you. To Allah! To Allah! Because we don’t have the opportunity to make alliances only in Basque, because in the first place, most of the whores in the Basque Country don’t know Basque, because eighty percent of the domestic workers don’t know Basque. And, you see, we have to take into account the entire working class to organize strikes, we are building a transocialist feminist Basque state [laughs], we don’t have the privilege of considering a single axis. We have to take into account many axes, so if the complexity bothers them, the community of Basque innocent souls for them. If it is going to be a political struggle for the Basque language, it must be framed within the anti-fascist struggle.

What should be the strategy for fighting anti-Wokism?

All supremacism must be the same to fight, and therefore capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism must be the same to fight. Territorials are always struggles, multiple, but we know how to deal with them, at least partially, we know what framework to expand and what strategy to put in place, we are in it, and that is why they are so angry. Hard times are coming, but what you sow will bear fruit. This has to be said loud and clear, because this historical certainty irritates many [laughs].