Cuban President Calls for Media Resistance in Defense of Truth

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, today called for keeping the battle to make the reality of peoples visible alive, amidst an increasingly hegemonic and unequal information war.

Addressing the 220 delegates participating in the III International Encounter of Theoretical Publications of Left-Wing Parties and Movements—102 of them foreign, representing 38 countries and 29 political organizations worldwide—the Cuban leader defined this as a necessary and timely space. He reaffirmed Cuba's commitment to hosting it annually.

Díaz-Canel highlighted the relevance of the event as a meeting to build consensus, making possible a political and ethical project committed to socialist construction and the transformation of the existing world order. To this end, he stressed the need to create networks for systematic debate from shared platforms and objectives to move from ideas to action.

"The idea today becomes a trench, the word a tool, and publication an act of militancy; publishing from the perspective of progressive left-wing movements, in this brutal world, is an act of resistance," he asserted.

In line with these concepts, the head of state proposed the creation of an international network of critical and counter-hegemonic publications, not only as an editorial project but as a political tool.

In this manner, he considered, it also contributes to preserving the legacy of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, to whose centennial the encounter is dedicated. "It is not only about the defense of his work and thought; it is decided in the way we are capable of bringing Fidel to the present time and seeking in that dialogue with him answers to the problems of the present."

Along these lines, he condemned elements of media manipulation campaigns applied by U.S. imperialism against sovereign peoples who refuse to submit to its plans for global domination, citing the examples of Cuba, Venezuela, and Palestine. In these cases, he argued, lies attempt to legitimize threats of aggression or the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the State of Israel with Washington's complicity.

"Cuba does not accept interference and will not bow to anyone, and that will not change even if the blockade continues to tighten. When we all unite to use the enemy's weapons and platforms to defend the truth, we are defending everyone," he added.

The First Secretary attended the keynote conference this Wednesday titled "Information and Media Manipulation: The Left Facing the Challenges of Quantum Superintelligence," delivered by the renowned Franco-Spanish journalist and academic Ignacio Ramonet.

Ramonet outlined key aspects of the current moment, characterized by rapid advances in information and communication technologies that are generating global uncertainties about humanity's destiny. He suggested that the classic conceptual tools of Marxist theory have become obsolete or largely outdated in facing this new reality.

The author of "One Hundred Hours with Fidel" warned that any rupture in communication can lead to consequent ruptures in societies, which in turn jeopardize the freedoms of citizens against the voracity of capital focused on the Fourth Industrial Revolution: that of informatization.

However, he pointed out that these perspectives bring new opportunities depending on how they are used and appropriated for the development of progressive ideas. He cited the pioneering example of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution and the importance he always placed on the emergence of new technologies.

He assessed that these possibilities arise to the extent that alternative discourses can position themselves and exploit gaps in the prevailing logic. "And this, precisely, can only be achieved by appropriating those enemy weapons, such as artificial intelligence and accelerated data processing, to bring people the voices of the peoples who are constructing their own narratives from projects of emancipation and cultural decolonization."