Manolo de los Santos: "Young People are Present in the Struggle Process "

"There are many young people in other parts of the world embracing Marxism, embracing socialism, embracing the causes of the working class." This is how Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel characterized a committed and revolutionary youth, fully wrapped up in the fight for humanity and a better future.

With one of those young people, Manolo de los Santos, co-executive director of The People's Forum and researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we spoke during one of the intermissions of the sessions of the First International Meeting of Theoretical Publications of Leftist Parties and Movements that has taken place until this Saturday at Casa de las Américas.

Just today, Manolo was a member of the Socialism and Youth panel, which led to rich debates on the need to increasingly attract and seduce a youth that is often disconnected from the processes of social transformation.

The People's Forum, the organization he co-directs, has taken its work in the streets and on the networks, in the harshest context: within U.S. imperialism. "We are an accessible educational and cultural space that nurtures the next generation of visionaries and organizers who believe that through collective action a new world is possible."

"For us as young people who consider ourselves to be on the left and socialists within the United States, it’s important to reach a space like this, because our struggle and debate are not simply to transform reality, but we also have to understand it and that point is only reached through debate with colleagues from all over the world", he said.

In this regard, Manolo de los Santos highlighted Cuba's ability and call to generate spaces for exchange and collective enrichment for revolutionary theory and practice.

The young fighter added that "we don’t live in an isolated reality but rather connected to the struggles of all the peoples of the world. And reaching this meeting is a starting point to rethink the issues of imperialism, global capitalism, and how we understand each other in that process".

In addition, he called the youth to think not as an actor of change for the future, but rather for feeling it as the present of left-wing movements and parties, and to defend and mobilize our truths more forcefully from the networks and from any virtual or real platform.

Precisely because of the work experience in several social platforms that The People's Forum has developed, we asked him about the proposals that his group brings to the Havana Book Fair 2023.

"We are presenting some of the political training materials that we are carrying out in the United States, as well as other texts on Fidel and Chávez, but more than anything we came with the proposal to learn from what they are doing in other countries and here in Cuba too".

And how is Cuba defended from within the United States?

"The fight against the blockade from the United States is an essential task for us, because it gives us the chance to learn to fight within the North American empire; if we don't learn to fight against the blockade, how are we going to fight for ourselves, for our own causes?

In this challenge, Manolo de los Santos and The People's Forum are also inspired and strengthened by the new processes in Latin America and the Caribbean: "what happens in Colombia, in Brazil, even and despite the challenges unfolding in Peru are signs that our towns are organizing themselves and that young people are partaking in the process of fighting, not idle or waiting for directions".

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff