'The Wars You Lost While You Were Sleeping': A war chronicle and battle cry against the woke agenda

Mariani wages an all-out war. From the very title of her first book, she opens fire on her enemy, letting even those who don't get past the cover appreciate the first bang: "The Wars You Lost While You Were Sleeping: How the Woke Ideology Invaded Your World Without Firing a Shot" (original title in Spanish: "Las Guerras que Perdiste Mientras Dormías, Cómo la Ideología Woke Invadió Tu Mundo Win Disparar un Solo Tiro").

With those words, Karina Mariani disputes the metaphor the strategists of the opposing side chose to plant their flag: "woke" comes from "awake" in English, a word selected to designate a compendium of leftist ideas because it implies that they open their eyes to the (supposed) injustices of the world and their (supposed) reparative prescriptions.

But who was watching, says Mariani, was them. While awake, they,  she says, advanced in their overnight assault. While, we, she says, were sleeping. Did we sleep?

The book, available on Amazon, is just the latest ammunition in the arsenal of this journalist and writer, who writes and speaks extensively on culture, society and politics for media outlets such as La Prensa, La Gaceta and VOZ.

Firm of word, firm of ideas, Mariani comes to the rescue of the great discoveries of the West: the individual, freedom, equality before the law, the sacredness of childhood, the family ("the basic nucleus of our civilization") and more.

Although it never ceases to be a battle cry, at times it is more like a war chronicle. The author compiles surprising, strident cases of the advance of this ideology: a university, "one of the most important medical centers on the planet," which defines lesbian as "a person who is not a man attracted to people who are not men." Erased was the woman.

Or the story of Jewel Shuping, "a girl who since childhood identified as blind" and who, to achieve this, "burned her eyes out." Or those of "detransitioners," adults who regret their transition surgeries as children.

In headlines, reels, podcasts and videos, these incidents burst into our daily lives (to continue, perhaps excessively, with the metaphor of sleep: noises, rumors, shrieks that make us toss and turn in bed). The author seeks to explain the background ideological underpinning. But not only this.

She also points out where and why the woke postulates diverge from the foundations of the civilization she loves ("magnificent civilization," she writes, "miracle" and "paradox"). Sometimes pulling data, sometimes irony, sometimes logical argumentation, the author documents and argues for the West, "a culture," she writes, "that turned out to be the most equable, tolerant, thriving, rich, supportive and free culture on the globe."

Why 'woke,' why now?

Wasn't the election a funeral for wokeness? Didn't Trump profess his eulogy? Can't we read "go broke or go woke" in the obituary? Aren't the calls for moderation by Democrats the first sign of the oblivion of the living?

To answer "yes" is to anticipate. Instances of its survival abound on this very website.

Moreover, it is a term 1,000 times defined and 1,001 times elusive. Each definition sheds a little light. But the phenomenon, being so broad, being a criticism of the whole system, internal and external reproach, is unfathomable. As Mariani writes: "This woke ideology is today so overwhelming that it is not necessary to be a scholar of social phenomena to understand its impact on everyday life."

What is interesting, very interesting, about the "The Wars You Lost" is its attempt to dig into the very depths, overcoming superficial cases--the adult who identifies himself as a child, the school that refuses to show parents the sexual content it teaches their children--until it reaches ideology, until it can explain paradoxes, interests and possible futures.

And, digging, digging, a metallic noise is heard: "There is no external threat to the West that does not have its nourishment in what is rotting inside." Mariani finds an internal enemy in everyone. Those wars we lost while we were sleeping. We lost them partly because we were asleep, partly because we were cowards, but also due to complacency.

Although she also points the finger multilateral organizations, NGOs and governments, in the end, Mariani points out of the pages. She is targeting her reader. She is pointing at you, reader. And she calls you to battle: "There is no more logical cause or vital project outside of this, our civilization."