Venezuela, International World Anti-Fascist Youth Congress continues

teleSUR English

On the occasion of this congress, our correspondent Belen de los Santos interviews Sam McGill, member of the Revolutionary Communist Group, Great Britain. teleSUR

Transcript

00:00In Venezuela, the International World Antifascist Youth Congress kicked off with the participation

00:05of 500 international guests, who will discuss key issues such as gender-based violence,

00:10workers' rights, climate change and youth organization to fight fascism.

00:15And in the framework of this international event, we make a contact with our correspondent Belén

00:19de los Santos, who is at this hour joined by Sam McGill, member of the revolutionary

00:24communist group Great Britain. Hi Bel, what details can you both share with us at this

00:29first day of debates?

00:33Hello Ale, exactly as you were saying, we are in Caracas for the opening of the World

00:39Congress Youth Antifascism Congress. And this is happening, this opening today, and Venezuela

00:46has really become the epicenter of this struggle against fascism. And this is why over 500

00:53international guests have come here to the South American country to meet. The Congress

00:59is opening at this moment, and they are set to gather around at seven working tables to

01:06discuss main topics regarding the struggle against fascism, but really with one goal

01:12in mind, that is to conceive the struggle as an international struggle. So delegates,

01:19and particularly from the youth in this instance, are coming together to share their experiences,

01:26bring their struggles from their different territories, and find common grounds, find

01:32common struggles that they are joining in, and different alternatives also. And the great

01:39challenge here is that the youth are finding their own ways to carry out the struggle and

01:45face the challenges that the current world is posing before them. And to continue speaking

01:52on this, we are, as you mentioned just before, joined by Sam McGill. She is a member of the

01:58revolutionary communist group from Great Britain. So first of all, welcome Sam, thank you for

02:04joining us in Telling Sir English. And I would like to start by asking you, you've come a very

02:09long way, and so why is that? Why come to this South American country to participate in this

02:16Congress that seeks to foster an international alternative in the fight against fascism?

02:23Thank you for inviting us. First of all, I think it's important to understand that we're living

02:29through a crisis of imperialism, a crisis of war, a crisis that is forcing millions of people to

02:37migrate, and they're facing ever more racism wherever they go. This is capitalism at its

02:44highest stage, imperialism, and it means crisis, it means poverty, it means death and destruction

02:51for billions around the globe. So we have to take action. We can see, even in the so-called

03:00capitalist liberal democracies, where we may have democracy to vote for one party or another,

03:07there is very little alternative to the politics. And these same countries that have this liberal

03:12democracy, they are actively supporting and employing fascist techniques to attack the

03:19oppressed people around the world. I am from Great Britain, the oldest imperialist country

03:25on the planet, the same Great Britain that is supporting Zionism in Israel, that is supporting

03:32the genocide of Palestine, that actually played the key role in creating the Zionist occupier

03:39settler colonial state. Great Britain is sending weapons to Ukraine through NATO. Great Britain has

03:46stolen Venezuela's gold and keeps it in the Bank of England, and it is supporting the

03:52extraterritorial blockade of Cuba, and it's part of this economic warfare that we're seeing against

03:59any country around the world that is trying to chart its own path, to find its own sovereignty

04:05and take a stand against imperialism. So it's very important for me to be here as part of our

04:10delegation, to be part of this struggle. And why come to Venezuela? Venezuela for the last 25 years

04:18has been a beacon of resistance, a beacon of international solidarity. The Bolivarian

04:23Revolution is so crucial to the development of an internationalist world, an anti-fascist world,

04:30and it is so important that Venezuela has taken this step, from the opening conference in September

04:36to the youth conference that we are now opening today, to the close of the conference in a few

04:41days time, and the creation of this anti-fascist, anti-imperialist international. And we want to

04:49be part of this because for the last 25 years Venezuela has been fighting to create socialism,

04:56it's been fighting to make alliance with socialist Cuba, the revolutionary movements in Bolivia and

05:01Nicaragua, so that it's created an anti-imperialist pole of resistance and socialist solidarity in

05:10America Latina. And for us it is an honor to be here and to visit, you know, the country that is

05:16really charting this path forward. You know it's really a pleasure to have you here in the Global

05:21South and we have ties of solidarity with all the working class around the world, specifically to

05:27carry on the struggle that you were just mentioning. And you were talking about all the different

05:31challenges that the current world poses. We are definitely on a new stage in terms of imperialistic

05:38and fascist domination, and as you were saying this is one of the key mechanisms that different

05:47countries and Venezuela have taken it upon itself to find alternatives, to really find a common way

05:55to face that challenge, face that food, as many countries in the Global South have been doing in

06:01the last years. So this Congress in particular is summoning the youth, the youth from all over the

06:08world. What do you think is their role, their participation in this key struggle? We are looking

06:17at youth from everywhere around the world coming together, sharing experiences, a lot being related

06:23to the media, their relationship with social networks. What do you think they are going to do?

06:29Because it's their fight and it's their challenge. Yes, so the youth are on the streets. They have been

06:35on the streets for a year around the question of Palestine. You can look in any of the country,

06:40almost any country around the world, and you will see the youth on the streets with Palestine flags,

06:46with their keffiyehs, taking a stand against Zionism and the genocide that is happening. So we can see

06:51the power of the youth. Yesterday we were on the streets of Caracas, we were participating

06:56in the National Day of Youth and Students in Venezuela, and the streets were red. They were

07:02painted red with the t-shirts and the banners of the Venezuelan youth who are supporting the

07:08Bolivarian revolution, who are fighting for socialism, who are really involved in pushing

07:12this revolutionary process forward from the communes to the organizations of the students.

07:19And we can also see from the delegates that have come to this conference that there are youth,

07:25there are people from youth organizations all over the world that are taking a lead.

07:29I have been especially excited to be able to meet some of the youth from the alliance of the Sahel

07:35states in West Africa. We have to understand this as a new pole, an emerging pole of anti-imperialist

07:41struggle, that they are struggling against colonialism, that they are struggling against

07:46imperialism, and they have kicked out the French, they have kicked out the US. I hope they will

07:50continue to kick out Britain. And they are creating a new revolutionary pole. And I think

07:56what I have to do here is to try and learn from these struggles from people all over the world

08:02who are coming here and are sharing their struggles, sharing their experiences with us.

08:06And the second question that is so crucial and it's so important that so many people around here,

08:11they're constantly uploading social media, they're taking photos, they're taking videos,

08:16they are using social media. We have seen, especially since the coup in Bolivia in 2019,

08:22where Elon Musk, the head of Twitter, said, we will coup who we want.

08:29Twitter and the social media, they have really been used to push a political agenda. We saw it

08:35with the elections in Venezuela, where they were really pushing, you know, they were pushing

08:41Machado, they were pushing the election of Trump, they were pushing for Brexit. And we have to try

08:48and take back some of this space. And I really think that the youth have a role to play in this,

08:53and that they have the ability to, you know, really show the reality of their struggles and

08:58try and fight the media war, because the media war is attacking our consciousness,

09:04it's attacking political consciousness around the world.

09:07Excellent. So thank you, Sam, for participating. That was Sam Magill from Great Britain.

09:12And we know the clock is ticking. We will continue to bring you all the information from this World

09:17Youth Congress in the anti-fascist struggle that Venezuela is leading. And we will continue to

09:24be here to learn from that youth from all over the world that gets together and continue to

09:29take on the streets in their fight against fascism for their world in the future. Back to you, Ale.

09:35Thank you. Thank you, Bel, for all the information. And thank you, Sam. We will

09:38contact you in some other moment. We were listening to our correspondent in Caracas,

09:43Belen de los Santos, in the framework of the International World Anti-Fascist Youth Congress,

09:48which will take place in the Venezuelan capital until November 23rd.

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