Maider Barañano and Uma Ulazia, members of the Network of Young People of the Basque Country* (EHN*G), have explained that in recent years they have tried to establish “bottom-up” relationships. That is, the groups of youths from people to people have wanted to promote autonomy to work on their own, identify concrete problems and establish regional alliances among peoples. The motor group that is part of Barañano and Ulacia offers them tools and resources to perform these tasks, listening to specific needs.

Well, now everyone will be able to meet in the Unification they have organized from 13 to 15 October to exchange reflections and concretize the following steps of the EHN*G network: “Conciliar is a decision-making space within the movement, and we call on young women to take advantage of this space,” says Barañano and recalls that registration is open. Ulazia highlights the importance of these days: “It will be important for young feminists, both before the strike and online.” This meeting has been considered essential to strengthen feminists and organized women.

In fact, the particularity of the Unification of this year lies in the fact that next November 30 there will be a general feminist strike among the members of the feminist movement throughout the Basque Country, and in order to organize it, it is necessary for young women to reflect together: “Collectivity will give us tools to change reality,” Barañano said.

Girls* young and caring

What place do young women* have in the surveillance system? What do you want to claim in the feminist strike? The Usurbil Unification will open up ample space to deal with these issues, and it will be one of the central round tables for the General Feminist Strike! “We represent and articulate proposals for the revolution of the system. We think of utopias and organize collective ruptures”, explained in the presentation of Unification. The round table will have many voices, according to Ulacia and Barañano. First, the theoretical position of the surveillance system will be addressed, “what comes this strike to have and understand political tools”. To this end, they have invited members of the Homeless Workers Union and the LAB Union, as well as a member of Bilgune Feminista and the EHN*G network. To add experience to the theory, a member who has participated in strikes related to the conflict of care and feminized work will also participate.

In the second part of the round table, the theory will be put into practice and working in working groups on how to organize and place them on the 30 November strike. “This strike needs to be organized, and we believe that young women have a very important role in the villages to activate the feminist movement and the popular movement. The goal is to introduce young women on this chip,” says Barañano. It is a question of stepping out of convergence and contributing to the strike from young people.

Young girls* will reflect in depth on the effects of the current care system on Unification and organizers have emphasized that the young woman* goes through in a “differentiated” way. “It is clear that in recent years there has been a very hard privatization process in the care tasks, and they have been reincorporated into the family, which will affect us both now and in the future, and we will be young girls who will take care of that custody, because, on the one hand, men do not do their tasks and, on the other, because public institutions do not assume their responsibilities”, Ulazia and Barano criticize.

In the EHN*G network, it is clear that it is up to them to organize young girls to fly it. “Young girls* occupy many free and precarious jobs because we are women. We give private classes, we take care of the children, we are in the summer camps, and it is no coincidence that we are the ones who are performing these jobs.” In the face of this, they have claimed that they come to represent and articulate proposals for the revolution of the cyisheteropatriarchal capitalist system, to organize the fractures collectively and to “exploit the utopias”, and have translated it into the song of the Conciliation, performed at the rhythm of percussion by the musicians Aka Boni and Julu: “The truth is that the road has not been easy / migrant and racialized woman. / Where is the state of new opportunities? / Explodes those who do not recognize custody work.”

Asterisk, thickness and decolonality

The issue of the subject that emerged in the Unification of 2021 has sought to give it a greater centrality in that of 2023, and that of Asteris will be one of the three central tables: the debate on the subject. Ulazia and Barañano state that they have tried to see what topics can be discussed and brought to conferences and workshops. Laura Galar and Itziar Reguero will use the talk on obesity to “articulate coarse strategies” and claim the consideration of coarse bodies as political subjects.

Pastora Filigrana will offer a conference on decolonial feminist views and Estitxu Garai will talk about feminist communication: “There are many women who start and last little in different opinion forums or tertulias. Men are there, women go there,” he stressed.

Maider Arrangi and Nerea Valdes Infernua, members of Biziriki, will address housing issues and talk about the struggle for occupation. The land will also be provided by Mirene Begiristain: “From agroecology and feminism we have learned that the leap can be made by reviewing models of militancy and transferring food in daily life to the center; not from a logic of substitution, but from transformation”, he advances. Ulazia and Barañano say that with these topics they have wanted to remember that beyond the feminist movement, in other movements there are also many feminists organized, criticizing the feminist movement, “they must be taken into account and learned from them”.

People on the stage

They will also reflect on the place women occupy in creation and on stage, such as the sound technician workshop and the Feminist Artists conference on stage to create new worlds. Who gets on the stage and who doesn't, because it's also a political choice. “We believe that the leisure spaces created are also spaces of transformation. Who we put on the stage, why, with what attitude, what music... influences the environment that is created”, stress that they also focus on it in the elaboration of the program. This year the Olatz Salvador and Punada groups, among others, will be on stage.

Barañano and Ulacia recall that they came “very weak” to the Unification of 2021, because the popular movement in general was “very fragmented” by the COVID-19 crisis. It served to reactivate the youth* and reactivate the movement. “This year we arrived at Batasuna without losing sight of all that COVID-19 put on the table, and an example is that the feminist movement called a general strike. Some work is longer, and although we may have forgotten the issue of COVID-19, some concrete problems remain there.”

In addition, in the last two years many new militants have joined the EHN*G network, to which the organization has called to go to Usurbil as a meeting point of their voices and views.