Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

Cuban students prepare for battle

9/17/2015

0 Comments

 
      We have seen that elected delegates to the National Congress of the Cuban Union of Communist Youth (UJC for its initials in Spanish) have discerned an approaching battle, a “War of Thought” and a “Battle of Ideas,” between two fundamentally different kinds of societies.  It is a conflict between a society that manipulates people to buy, thus converting citizens into consumers; and an alternative kind of society that calls people to a way of being, characterized by social service, commitment to universal human values, and solidarity with the peoples of the earth in their quest for social justice (see “Cooperatives and social change in Cuba” 8/7/2015).  The battle will be unleashed by the increasing presence of the United States in Cuba as a consequence of the end of the US blockade.  It will be aggressively pursued by the United States, which will seek to take advantage of the historic commercial and cultural ties between the two nations as it pursues its new imperialist strategy of ideological and cultural penetration and support for opposition political actors.  

     September 4, 2015 marked the seventieth anniversary of the entrance of Fidel into the University of Havana.  The occasion was commemorated in Cuba by a series of events, newspaper columns, and television commentaries.  The commemorations repeated the celebrated comment made by Fidel twenty years ago at the University of Havana, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his entrance into the university, when he said, “Here I became revolutionary” (see “Fidel becomes revolutionary at the university” 9/11/2014).  These commemorative activities have called upon the students to be, like Fidel, revolutionary, and to be committed to the revolution that Fidel directed and to ethical and professional service of the revolution.

      One newspaper commentary recalled an historic speech given by Fidel at the University of Havana in 2005, on November 17, The International Day of the Student.  On that occasion, Fidel asserted that “imperialism cannot destroy us, but we can destroy ourselves, if we do not eradicate certain vices.”  The revolution is not irreversible, he concluded.

      Elier Ramírez Cañedo, historian of the University of Havana, was President of the University Student Federation of the University of Havana central campus at the time of Fidel’s historic address in 2005.  He observes that Fidel was explaining to the students that imperialism understands that it cannot destroy the Cuban Revolution from outside; it can only destroy the revolution from within, by pretending to help.  He interprets the 2005 speech by Fidel as initiating a new stage in the Cuban Revolution, in which “looking inward” becomes the principal task.  He notes that the 2005 speech has particular relevance at the present time, when a new form of relation with the United States is unfolding, thus establishing the most difficult test for Cuban revolutionaries of the last fifty years.

     On September 4, 2015, the leadership of the University Student Federation sent a message to Fidel, pledging that they will fulfill their duty and respond to the challenge that Fidel has given them.  They wrote:
Responding to your constant alerts, we will not defraud the trust deposited in us, above all before the new ideological scenarios in which we Cuban youth will live.  We university students will carry, like you, the doctrines of José Martí, along with the conviction to defend socialism, promote humanism, ethics, and anti-imperialism, to save the great family that constitutes the human species and to bring to an end the still vacillating and dubious equilibrium of the world.
     The University Student Federation (FEU for its initials in Spanish) was founded by Julio Antonio Mella in 1922 (see “Julio A. Mella and the student movement” 7/8/2014; “Mella fuses Martí and Marxism-Leninism” 7/9/2014”).  Its membership today consists of all university students in Cuba.  The leadership of FEU is elected by the students, organized by areas of concentration and fields of study.  FEU leaders are not selected by those in power, as we often imagine occurs in totalitarian societies.  Nor are they self-selected believers in a cause, as often occurs with respect to activists in the nations of the North.  FEU leaders are the elected delegates of Cuban students, who are charged with the duty to speak and act in the name of the mass of Cuban students.

      Like the youth of Cuba who were prepared to defend their socialist revolution before the US-backed military invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Cuban students and youth today are ready and prepared to defend their socialist revolution against the upcoming ideological and cultural invasion.  And they understand that what is at stake is not only the future of the Cuban Revolution, but the future of humanity.

Sources

Castro, Fidel.  1998.  “Días de Universidad,” en Fidel en la memoria del joven que es, Pp. 51-75.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.  Speech at the University of Havana on September 4, 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of Fidel’s entry into the university.

Gomes Bugallo, Susana.  2015.  “Fidel en tres tiempos,” Juventud Rebelde, September 4, P. 5.

FEU.  2015.  “Mensaje de la Federación Estudiantil Universitaria al Comandante en Jefe de la Revolución Cubana Fidel Castro Ruz,” Juventud Rebelde, September 4, P. 1.   


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation