Automatically translated from Basque, translation may contain errors. More information here. Elhuyarren itzultzaile automatikoaren logoa

“Oppression outside collectives also reproduces in agents”

  • Anti-specialist activist Kimmy Obongonyinge criticizes white veganism (Croydon, London, 1995) and states that militancy should be approached from an intersectional perspective. The BAB spoke at the Bilbao Vegan Fair about the limitations of racist people to fight for the release of animals, about the oppressive attitudes of entrepreneurs and other things.
Argazkia: Pello Maudo Herrero.
Argazkia: Pello Maudo Herrero.

At the beginning of his BAB intervention he asked people to have an open mind. Have you found great resistance in anti-specionist spaces? In
all the spaces that I've participated in, whether they're feminists or anti-speciists, I've found the resistance of people. For example, when I talk about human rights and social justice in the animal liberation movement, people quickly express resistance. It's often normal and natural to express resistance, so I think it's important to take a quiet time, process and reflect, and if you feel uncomfortable, before doing or saying something, I recommend thinking well.

Does this stop some militant spaces from being safe spaces?
I think it's not just because of race, but also because of many other things: sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, etc. Oppression outside the collectives also reproduces in agents such as homophobia, transphobia, thichobia and many others. But people don't see them. In the end, the privileged can reproduce all these violence. I know people who have suffered physical violence in spaces that should be safe and not fair. We should all be able to fight for liberation.

“Sometimes we forget that deciding what we eat is a privilege”


He denounces that, despite being a movement composed primarily of dissident women and genders, men are the protagonists. What's behind it?
It is not only a movement driven by women from the shadow, but is often a struggle driven by racialized women. It is directly related to patriarchy because white men are always those who receive recognition. We have reproduced it for many years in our imagination. This does not mean that the men fighting do it wrong, but we cannot forget the work and recognition of all the women in the shadow.

Critique white veganism, how would white veganism describe it?White
veganism is the movement that takes place from the eurocentric view, which does not prioritize people who suffer other oppression. Just look at him. Those who militate in these kinds of movements are, in general, white, middle-class people, who know something about the working class, but don't go beyond that. In these spaces, when we talk about accessibility, they don't listen to us and make us invisible. This does not benefit anybody, those of us who are on the move, or the release of animals.

Photo: Pello Maudo Herrero / ARGIA CC BY-SA


What limitations or obstacles exist to approach the anti-specist movement?
I think there are two kinds of restrictions on vegan activism, on the one hand, and on the other, difficulties in discarding products of animal origin. As for the first, all the oppressions that occur within the movement are great obstacles such as thichobia and misogyny. In addition, survival for a person in an irregular situation makes the priority difficult for other struggles.

And as far as products are concerned?In general,
it is very difficult for racist people to buy products because we need those who are in short supply. For example, because to wash our hair we need a shampoo that is not in the usual shops, I have to make an hour and a half trip to buy it. Besides being little, they are very expensive. It seems insignificant, but if people had to go around so many times to find the things they need in everyday life, they would understand the frustration. Another limitation is food injustice; sometimes we forget that it is a privilege to decide what we eat. Some say that eating chickpeas is very cheap, but preparing pulses takes time and the racist people on the farm have no time at all. That's why many eat fast food.

They say that language can also be a limit, do you think it can be a limit for militancy?As a consequence of capitalism and neoliberalism, we have a very individualistic vision, we forget that to change things
we have to fight in the collective. For this, it is very important to promote relations through multilingual spaces such as Euskera and Castilian. My Spanish is not good, but if someone else adapts a little to English it can be easier. However, we cannot forget that the greatest limitation is not language, but that people are not oppressive fios. That's why the important thing is to work trust and foster relationships between communities. Doing activism from care is stronger than words.


Newest
Worker killed by truck on AP-15 highway in Navarre
The accident took place at noon, at kilometer 25, in the vicinity of the town of Martzilla in Navarra. He is the seventh lager to die in 2025.

A meeting will be held in front of the EITB headquarters in Bilbao to demand the relocation of management positions
"The Basque EITB, starting with the direction!" Under the slogan, the meeting will take place on Tuesday 25 February, convened by the unions ELA, LAB and ESK of the EITB, as well as the initiative Modify the Script.

The UPN of Estella interrupts the program of bertsolarismo of the schools
The complaint has been made by the association Gara, which works to promote the Basque language in Estella: "The capacity for creation is enhanced and critical thinking is cultivated, all from a playful perspective, based on enjoyment."

88% of young people in the UAE believe that mental health treatments should be in charge of Osakidetza
The Future Game project has carried out research on the mental health of young people in the Basque Country. 87.7% of 18-35 year-olds think that mental health treatment should be undertaken by public health; 64.5% think that their opinion is not taken into account when talking... [+]

US and Russia meet today in Saudi Arabia as Europe watches sideways
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the two powers have not sat back at the same table. They will negotiate how to end the war. However, the President of Ukraine has said that he will not accept anything that is agreed at this table, since he has not been invited.

Guggenheim Urdaibai: who listens to whom and for what?

In 2021 we began to hear the first echoes of the Guggenheim Urdaibai project. The then General Manager Unai Rementeria told us that it would be done yes or yes. To reinforce his claims, he left 40 million euros “shielded” by the time the museums were built. There it is!... [+]


Teacher sentenced to four years in prison for sexual abuse of student at Txingudi Ikastola
He has been sentenced to four years in prison, disqualified for seven years and ordered to be removed from the victim for three years. The aggressor will have to pay the girl up to 6,000 euros in compensation.

A cryptocurrency scam plunges Milei into a crisis
The president of Argentina called on social networks to invest in a cryptocurrency called $LIBRA. Although at one point it reached a value of 4.5 billion euros, after a few hours the cryptocurrency hit the bottom and caused many losses in customers.

2025-02-18 | Mikel Aramendi
THE ANALYSIS
When Economic Fluctuations Come to the Banquet: The Rice Crisis
If U.S. tariffs weren’t heady enough, a rather naive piece of news from last week has sent waves of tremors to the food tables of a large part of the world: The Japanese government has ordered the marketing of 210 thousand tons of strategic rice stocks to counter the... [+]

March 3rd is celebrated "freely"
The unions ELA, LAB, ESK and STEILAS and M3 have called for a “popular and socially plural” memory day to be held “without repression.” It is a request addressed to the Basque Government, "unlike last year", which has been asked to guarantee the right to demonstrate this... [+]

2025-02-18 | Mara Altuna Díaz
Scott Zúñiga, American Tiktoker:
“My superpower to learn Basque is to speak it constantly, without shame”
He is 44 years old, his mother is Mexican, and his father is Scottish. Born in New Mexico, raised in Utah, he learned about Basque twenty years ago when, while studying Film Industry in Cadiz, someone told him that he had a Basque surname. He has been living in San Sebastián... [+]

The Art of Education group presents the manifesto: "They have implemented pedagogical fashions one after the other"
The recent creation of the Educational Art Teachers’ Confluence has required teachers to take into account the knowledge accumulated over years, guarantee autonomy in decision-making by the clausters, stop the plans that promote the “use of ICTs at all times”, and... [+]

The mandatory environmental document for traffic from the North has been postponed to 1 June
The rule was to be introduced in April but they have decided to postpone it. It will be mandatory to carry the document in vehicles, not only to be able to enter the main cities and towns, but also to be able to move on the roads of the entire coast.

For algorithmic sabotage

“I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it[...]”
Ezekiel 21:27 – King James Version

“Above all algorithms, below all algorithms”
Xabier Landabidea

I’m uncomfortable, uncomfortable with the almost religious attitude our society has taken towards technology, and... [+]


Eguneraketa berriak daude