The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization, Roberto Morales Ojeda, attended the youth forum “I Believe in You,” within the framework of the 1st International Colloquium Fidel: Legacy and Future.
The forum convened by the Union of Young Communists of Cuba provided a space for dialogue and reflection where young Cubans and members of communist and progressive parties from around the world reaffirmed their commitment to leading the way in addressing current challenges.
During the meeting, Meyvis Estévez Echeverría, general secretary of the National Committee of the Young Communists League(UJC), denounced the impact of the genocidal US blockade, intensified to unprecedented levels, which directly affects Cuban families.
As an example of this reality, she pointed out that 12,000 children are awaiting surgical procedures due to a shortage of supplies, 67,000 infants have not been able to access the updated immunization system, and 34,000 pregnant women lack sufficient prenatal ultrasounds.
The youth, embracing the audacity of the Commander-in-Chief as an inherent quality of the revolutionary, respond firmly "to the fascist government of the United States and we tell them loud and clear that there is absolutely no possibility that we will surrender the homeland that Fidel bequeathed to us," he said.
He also expressed his gratitude for the displays of international solidarity, especially from youth organizations that have delivered medicine and provided support to the Island.
He emphasized that the efforts of the youth are focused on working tirelessly, producing wealth with justice, and preserving the achievements of socialism.
YOUTH IN DEBATE
Speaking at the Forum, the president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), Gonzalo López, said that imperialism and its allies in the European Union and NATO "resort to blockades, sanctions, militarism, and war to impose their dominance and crush the struggle of the people for freedom, sovereignty, rights, peace, cooperation, and social progress." In his statement, he emphasized that these practices have concrete consequences, visible in the impoverishment of broad segments of the population, especially young people, who face difficulties accessing drinking water, sanitation, food, electricity, education, health, housing, culture, and sports. "To crush the struggle of the people, imperialism resorts to everything, including its most aggressive expression: fascism," he stated.
The youth leader cited examples of this reality in various regions of the world. In the Middle East, he denounced the occupation, colonization, and genocide suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel—the United States' main ally. "We cannot accept the images of children dying of hunger, nor of young people and women being killed in lines to get bread," he stated.
Likewise, the president of the WFDY denounced the more than one hundred sanctions imposed on Venezuela, the interference and military aggressions of the United States, including the "brutal kidnapping of its President."
He also rejected the criminal blockade suffered by Cuba and the outrage of including the island on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, when in reality it "sponsors health, education, and solidarity with so many peoples."
"This heroic people, this heroic youth of Cuba, can always count on the solidarity of the peoples of the world in their struggle to defend their sovereignty and on the path to building a new society," he affirmed.
“Cuba can always count on the solidarity and active work of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to ensure the continued sustainability of the Cuban Revolution.”
He recalled the World Festivals of Youth and Students held in Havana in 1978 and 1997, always with the impetus of the Commander-in-Chief. He emphasized that, for Fidel, “believing in youth was more than a conviction, it was an attitude, a way of thinking.”
For his part, José Alejandro Alonso Cáceres, representative of the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization of Students (OCLAE, in Spanish), recalled that the Commander-in-Chief was the first recipient of the Order of Solidarity from that organization, for his tireless struggle against imperialism and in favor of peace, sovereignty, and self-determination. “Fidel is an example of dignity and resistance; he bequeathed to us an unwavering faith in victory,” he affirmed.
In that regard, she reaffirmed the student movement's commitment to "the rebel Island and to Fidel" to uphold the banners of solidarity, internationalism, and socialism. "Because if the present is one of struggle, the future is ours," she concluded.
CHILEAN YOUTH RAISES ITS VOICE
On the occasion of the centenary of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, Ivania Garrido, president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile, representing the communist youth of the South American country, denounced the prevailing ideology that seeks to individualize precarity.
The student leader warned about the difficult moment Chile is experiencing: "Since March, Chile has had a far-right government that cuts the education budget and threatens the authority that we fought so hard to achieve. A government that wants to impose a logic of security and control within schools."
The response, he said, has already begun: "In recent months, students have returned to the streets with a slogan that says it all: public education must be defended."
That is why, according to Ivania Garrido, Fidel speaks to them again: “He taught us that a student movement closed in on itself has a low ceiling, and that its true strength emerges when it stops speaking only on behalf of students and joins forces with workers and the people.”
She emphasized that the task of her generation “is not only to defend what we have gained, but to ask again about the root causes, about that market model that turned a right into a business. The student who isolates himself becomes exhausted; the one who builds the people, transforms.”
The President of the Federation warned about the greatest current risk: “the loss of historical sense. We are being pushed toward a present without memory and without a future.” And she returned to Fidel’s definition: “revolution is a sense of historical moment.” In that sense, she called for recovering that horizon in times that seek to leave us without a past and without a goal.
“Fidel believed in us, the youth of this America. We respond that we also believe. We believe in his project and we know that believing is not about savoring, but about continuing.” Let this centennial not be a farewell, but a rebellion.
Addressing young Cubans and delegates from progressive parties around the world, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, stated that the enduring legacy of the Commander-in-Chief is only possible if it is embraced by those who will build tomorrow.
Young people must defend Fidel's humanist and revolutionary legacy, because they are the ones called to build the future, to create a better world, Díaz-Canel declared.
The President dedicated the first part of his speech to praising the maturity achieved by young people worldwide, whom he described as a sector that has matured enormously by confronting capitalist societies.
He cited Cuban men and women as an example, who, he asserted, live with the demands brought about by the intensification of the blockade and the economic genocide imposed by the enemies of the nation.
He also recalled the year 1953, when, on the centennial of José Martí's birth, Cuba was suffering under a brutal tyranny beholden to U.S. monopolies.
He remembered that Fidel, a scholar and distinguished follower of Martí, denounced this reality to the world. At that point, the President quoted verbatim a statistic from Fidel's speech at the United Nations—which he described as "the most significant and longest" ever delivered at that organization—in which the figures of the oppression were presented.
It was then that the generation of the Martí Centennial, embracing the socialist ideal and with immense commitment, launched themselves into armed struggle, Díaz-Canel explained.
He recounted the key events of that foundational year: the torchlight march on January 27—a tradition that Cuban youth maintain to this day—the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks on July 26, his imprisonment, his exile in Mexico, the Granma yacht landing, the epic struggle in the Sierra Maestra, and finally, the triumph of 1959.
With this historical narrative, the Head of State declared that today's youth are the present, "the generation of the centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel."
On the other hand, Díaz-Canel argued the scenario that this generation faces: "We are facing an imperialist offensive against the global South that is manifested above all by a period of cadence of capitalism that makes it express itself with the most ultra-conservative ideas."
He warned that this explains "the growth of fascism and fascist tendencies in the world."
In that sense, he explained that we face an ideological war because "they are trying to impose capitalist logic, imperialist logic." A cultural war because, to impose these ideas, "they have to break our minds, they have to break our historical memory. Therefore, they are trying to colonize us culturally and break with history. And the media war due to "the enormous campaigns of misinformation, of media intoxication so aggressive that they go against the values of humanity."
He denounced the "reputation assassination" campaigns and the perverse mechanism of "invisibilizing the perpetrator" to construct pretexts that justify war.
The President concluded his speech with a clear mandate for the youth, structured in three fundamental premises derived from Fidel's thought:
· Put humanism before the logic of the algorithm.
· Put cultural identity first against cultural colonization.
· Put first, as Fidel asked, solidarity against selfishness.
«And thus we will have a better world. “We believe in you to build that better world,” he stated.
