CUBA: The World Must Change, the Question is How?

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Aug 6 1997 (IPS) - Socialism might not be the way, but neither, apparently, is neoliberalism, concluded the meeting of 12,000 young people in Cuba for an international meeting this week.

But while they know what they do and do not want, they don’t know how to reach their objectives.

“We all recognise things have to change, the problem is how to achieve this,” said one of the 849 US youngsters who travelled to Havana to attend the Fourteenth World Festival of Youth and Students, which ended Tuesday.

After eight days of debate, informal meetings and parties, this appears to be the crux of the matter for the majority of the representatives of 132 countries who participated in the festival which opened on July 28.

The meeting ended with a declaration against the extension of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and against economic blocs, military occupations, State terrorism, the monopolisation of information, the imposition of cultural models and any kind of discrimination.

“We support the women’s battle for equal rights in all spheres. We demand the right for young people to have access to a better level of healthcare, truly free education and employment,” said one of the documents compiled, read out by a young woman from Sahara.

Some 35,000 people, meeting in Havana’s Panamerican stadium, supported the declaration, which demanded the cancellation of foreign debt in the developing world, the democratisation of the United Nations and a development policy which preserves the environment.

The young people committed themselves to making sure the world festivals continue to occur, proposed the creation of an international cultural exchange network and launched a call for the crisis in the International Student Union (ISU) to be overcome.

“The International Student Union building is like a ghost town, as it is bankrupt,” said the Cuban Young Communist’s daily Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth).

The International Student Union was based in Prague and was maintained with the support of the former socialist countries of Europe. Now, a group of Canadian students has proposed the city of Montreal become home to a congress which will attempt to relaunch the student organisation.

“This festival has been held in very different conditions to those which occurred in previous years,” said the final declaration.

Since the last occasion in Pyongyang, in 1989, the Soviet Union disappeared, the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War came to an end, and unipolarity was imposed while neoliberal policies grew stronger on the defeat of real socialism.

But while this attempt to recover a movement which emerged at the end of the Second World War in an attempt to fight “for antiimperialist solidarity, peace and friendship,” could appear “outdated,” attendance at the Havana meeting exceeded all expectations.

Even the organisers themselves had only predicted the presence of 5,000 foreign delegates and 1,000 Cubans. All the 12,000 who in fact turned up, were found lodging in family homes in the city.

“What they most want is to take a book or poster of Che back with them,” said Yunislady Perez, a 21 year-old Cuban student who made friends with a group of Uruguayans taking part in the festival.

The use of the image of Ernesto “Che” Guevara as the kingpin of the festival was an attractive extra, as his remains were returned to the island less that a month ago, 30 years after his death in Bolivia.

Magazines, books, posters, stamps, tee-shirts and cassettes carrying the image of Che, or dedicated to him, were sought out by the crowd in Havana, most of whom find the figure of the guerrilla fits in well with the objectives they seek.

“If the canonisation process was like in early Christian times, but the aclamation of the Church, Che would now appear on the religious altars,” said Brazilian theologist Brother Betto.

For Cuba’s government, the festival was a demonstration of the island’s right to opt for the socialist system and a total rejection of the economic blockade imposed by the United States since 1962.

Indeed, an immense ring of concrete, covered by a Cuban flag and build to withstand wind and weather, began to be built in the Cuban capital on the last day of the world festival, after the 100,000 dollars needed to do this were collected in Brazil.

The idea – conceived and planned by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer – is a sculptural attempt to express the weakness of the US blockade on the island, and it will be erected opposite the US Interests Section in Havana.

In the end, the overwhelming message of the meeting was the respect for diversity.

Chilean visitors spoke of the socialist president Salvador Allende, killed in the 1973 military coup, and Libyans came wearing tee-shirts showing their leader Muammar Ghadafi.

Meanwhile, Troskyists from various countries sold their publications and a group of US homosexuals called for an end to homophobia in Cuba.