Bart De Wever, the leader of right-wing Flemish nationalist party N-VA, has issued a scathing condemnation of so-called "woke" ideology, Le Soir reports.
In a recently published pamphlet entitled "On Woke", the 52-year-old argues that "wokeism" — which Collins English Dictionary defines as an "often derogatory" way of referring to "the behaviour and attitudes of people who are sensitive to social and political injustice" — in fact "criminalises Western society and glorifies everything that can harm it".
"Not a day goes by without the quality press holding up to us the mirror of our own ugliness," De Wever writes, adding: "Wokeism creates a fake identity that would serve as a cover to exclude others. It depicts a past filled with dark pages, gender inequality, a denial of sexual identity as a personal choice, and a capitalist economy that destroys the climate and exploits the third world."
De Wever further noted that the only cure to the "Balkanized society" that woke evangelists hope for is a return to traditional, Flemish cultural values. "The Flemish identity is the only vehicle that can carry the relaunch towards a real res publica."
Partial concessions?
Intriguingly, throughout the pamphlet De Wever is careful to acknowledge — or, at the very least, pay lip service to — the (partial) legitimacy of various woke causes. In particular, he affirmed that "the speech of minority groups is often perfectly legitimate", but disputed that the underprivileged "must get more chances to access equal opportunities".
Similarly, he praised the #MeToo movement as a "welcome phenomenon", but suggested that "the logic of revenge of the woke movement adds to this movement... a plea against masculinity itself".
Moreover, he admitted that global warming is indeed a "very real" issue, but mocked the way in which "the Western press and the political world obediently defer to a young girl [Greta Thunberg]... no matter how unrealistic and counterproductive the anti-capitalist pleas of the groups that support her are."
Related News
- Schaerbeek's #MeToo: Arrested councillor banned from town hall meetings
- COP27: 'We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing' says UN leader
On the issue of gender, however, De Wever didn't hold back: "There is no doubt that women and men are biologically programmed not to have the same ambitions and that they also differ on how to pursue these ambitions." He also suggested that for the woke movement, "the whole concept of biological identity must be banned, the ideal being a choice of à la carte genders where masculinity and femininity meet at the extremes of a Gaussian curve."
Although strident, De Wever's condemnation of woke ideology is relatively similar to other critics on both the far-right and the far-left. De Wever's words pale in comparison to arguably the most infamous critic of "wokeism" – Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a speech last September, Putin described woke idelogy as "outright Satanism", which is committed to "the complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom".
