The intersectional crusade against the Festival of Ideas in Spain

Barring any further unforeseen circumstances, the Festival of Ideas is going ahead. Scheduled to take place in Madrid from 17 to 20 September, the event is now in its third year and brings together around a hundred leading figures from Spanish and international cultural circles across various stages throughout the city. ‘Bodies’ is this year’s theme for ‘a space for reflection and civic debate’, write the organisers, ‘centred on a word as fundamental as it is inexhaustible’. The festival enjoys institutional support from state and regional bodies, as well as a substantial financial injection from the private sector. The most prominent sponsor was the insurance company Allianz, which lent its name to one of the festival’s main stages, where philosophers and artists were due to present their ideas. However, a boycott was immediately launched. 

Based on the report by the UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, ‘From an economy of occupation to an economy of genocide’, many intellectuals have discovered that ‘the German insurance giant is now the main purchaser of Israeli government bonds, and therefore the main financier of the ongoing genocide’. This is stated in a letter signed by around thirty of them, who have threatened to boycott the event.

The sponsor was the first to pull out; in a statement, it rejects the allegations, claims to follow “responsible business practices”, but says: “We do not want this debate to distract attention from the festival”. An elegant “farewell”, in short, but that’s just a figure of speech, because the boycotters emphasise that “neither in this nor in future editions” can funds from such a source be accepted. “We are taking this decision on the basis of a diversity of voices and perspectives, whilst remaining united in a common stance of solidarity with the Palestinian people.” ‘Unides’ is not a typo, but rather the ‘inclusive’ way of writing ‘united’ without the over-extended masculine form.

It is no coincidence that the alliance of intellectuals against Allianz appears to be an international selection of intersectional culture, which, in distant geographical areas where such a stance would not be tolerated, has chosen without hesitation which side to take. Among the leading signatories is the trans philosopher Paul B. Preciado, author of the Counter-Sexual Manifesto, who, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, aims to ‘deconstruct heteronormativity’. There is also the Argentine philosopher Carolina Meloni, who, in an interview with El País a couple of years ago, said: “Feminist theory is still too tied to a phallocentric way of thinking.” Also present is the trans writer Alana S. Portero, author of La cattiva abitudine (published in Italy by Mondadori), of which Pedro Almodóvar said: “I recommend reading it to get an idea of how much suffering, how much pain and how much risk is involved in being born in the wrong body.”

There is less interest in those born or passing through the ‘wrong’ street amongst those targeted by Hamas in 2023. And it is a shame that at a Festival of Ideas, no one is making an effort to come up with an original idea on how to reconcile, without preliminary boycotts, two peoples and two states, preferably both open to the ‘deconstruction of heteronormativity’. What remains is the financial shortfall left by Allianz, grudgingly admitted by the organisers. Pedro Sánchez knows a thing or two about this, having sought a law to ban trade in arms or dual-use goods with Israel. Passed in October 2025, the law was suspended at Christmas because Airbus warned that thousands of jobs were at risk.