By Yaimi Ravelo on January 25, 2023 in Havana
photos: Yaimi Ravelo
In the framework of the V International Conference for the Balance of the World, the Youth Forum “With all and for the good of all” was held on January 25 and 27 at the Convention Palace in Havana.
More than 200 young people from different latitudes gathered to debate and build actions that will enable new generations to face the multidimensional crisis the planet is going through.
The first meeting of this forum was marked by the need of young people to be heard by governmental institutions in their regions in order to eradicate the problems antagonistic to the balance that humanity needs to live in a world free of injustice.
“Solidarity cannot be symbolic, as in the case of the instruments that come from imperialist countries,” said the young Spaniard Aritz Rodriguez, president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY).
Aritz argued that it does not help to eradicate injustices to assume solidarity from a condescending position and lament the suffering of the oppressed without adopting an active militancy against it.
“The blockade suffered by the Cubans, the pain of the Saharawi people because of the Moroccan occupation, the Zionist aggression towards the Palestinians. If we only lament their suffering we would be adopting a very comfortable condescending position, a symbolic solidarity.
To take charge in our own countries is the qualitative leap we must make, to transcend from symbolic solidarity to militant solidarity. Fighting in our own countries against those who are responsible for imperialist barbarism”, considered the young European.
“If Western Saharaui today is occupied, if the blockade against Cuba is perpetuated, if the occupation of Palestine continues, if the sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continue, it is not only because there is an evil entity – morally speaking – but because there are business niches that benefit from imperialist barbarism.
Therefore, taking on that role from our own countries, fighting in our own countries against imperialist barbarism we are also contributing to the anti-imperialist struggle.”
According to the president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, a key element to the anti-imperialist struggle is “one of the oldest and most forgotten, winning victories. Winning victories in our own countries is possibly one of the greatest contributions we young people could make in the international struggle.
When we see Cuba going forward despite everything, it is a victory for the youth and the peoples of the world as a whole. Because they are showing us that despite everything, it is possible to resist and move forward,” he said.
“Youth have a key role, we are not only the future, we are also the present. In the face of such an adverse scenario we must charge ourselves with hope to continue fighting,” concluded Aritz.
Yusuam Palacios, national president of the Movimiento Juvenil Martiano and moderator of the inaugural panel of the Forum expressed that there is a consensus among progressive youth who advocate and fight for a better world.
“A better and possible world is very necessary, we live in the midst of a very complex international situation. A multidimensional crisis because of all that it encompasses, because of the diverse dimensions it has and the youth receive these influences.
For Yusuam the youth has a challenge, “the generational duty to make this international militancy, solidarity and militant struggle for the cause of our peoples”.
For equality, for equity, for a different order in the world; more democratic and fairer. That is what the main leaders of the revolutionary struggles have called us to”.
They have called us to create, precisely to aspire and achieve that longed-for balance that continues to be hesitant and doubtful. Balance for which Martí fought and for which the youth of today are also fighting”.
Miguel Angel Machado Rojas, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization of Students from Cuba; Vicenzo Colaprice, member of the Young Communists of Italy and coordinator of the Youth Network of the European Left Party (PIE) also participated in this panel.
The debate among the participants of the Youth Forum “With all and for the good of all” was centered on the denunciation of the neoliberal model of imperialism and all that it has provoked up to the present time.
The young people considered that to the extent that they find victories in the face of barbarism through revolutionary militancy, they will be contributing to the better world for which humanity dreams.
The second panel of this Youth Forum under the title “Ethics and social justice as drivers of youth action and leadership”, showed the actions of young Cubans facing the challenges of living and fighting in a country that in recent years has stoically faced the cruelest aggression of the imperialist model.
Randy Perdomo
The young people of the island presented their personal experiences on how they acted from their schools, institutions and communities in the face of the need to fight the pandemic, and the responsibilities they assume today to help the country’s policies reach the most vulnerable families in the face of the difficulties that Cuban society is currently going through.
“I have the great satisfaction of having graduated from the University of Havana and then giving myself back to the neighborhood where I was born,” said young Cuban Randy Perdomo, a district delegate from a Matanzas neighborhood.
He considered the neighborhoods as “one of the most concrete spaces that Cuba has today to make justice and ethics from the popular power of the bases, who mobilize the great revolutions and the great processes”.
His initiatives as a young delegate were effective thanks to the diagnosis of the main problems faced by his neighborhood and the communication ethics with the citizens, as a result he achieved the support of the neighbors to transform the problems into challenges that became a collective triumph.
The Youth Forum “With all and for the good of all” will meet again on Friday, at this session the participants will hear, “Why study Martí” by Dr. Ibrahim Hidalgo Paz, senior researcher of the Center for Martí Studies and National Award of Social Sciences of Cuba.
Lil María Pichs Hernández, member of the national leadership of the Movimiento Juvenil Martiano (MJM); specialist in the Office of the Martiano Program will moderate the debate among young people on the generational theme: “A reflection on the importance of the presence of José Martí in digital social networks”.
To remember the work of the creator of the Center for Martí Studies, the lecture “Armando Hart Dávalos: The culture of politics and politics in culture” will be given by Dr. Eloísa María Carreras Varona, researcher at the José Martí National Library of Cuba and director of the Chronicles Project: Archive of Dr. Armando Hart Dávalos.
Source: Cuba en Resumen