We are going to put all our efforts into it from Cuba." This was the resounding determination shared on Thursday afternoon by Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, with a group of intellectuals, friends, and like-minded brothers who have converged on the island at a time when the world is going through its most difficult moment, and it is our duty to put our intelligence and hearts into stopping the barbarism.
The exchange between left-wing thinkers lasted almost four hours. In the Che Guevara Room of the Casa de las Américas, the dignitary alluded to the current complexity and the need to guide the conscience and subjectivity of the peoples, always focused on the defense of humanist ideas and on the love of which the Heroic Guerrilla spoke.
The meeting of intellectuals responds to the new stage that is beginning in the Network of Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, a tool for struggle created in 2003 by Commanders Fidel Castro Ruz and Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, and which will be headed by Miguel Pérez Pirela, recently elected as its general coordinator.
Díaz-Canel spoke of recognizing the complexity of the moment, but also of the possibility of articulating and uniting from the left. The Head of State denounced that, globally, there is an expression of a hegemonic policy that stands out for its contempt for the peoples.
Faced with the military threat in the region of Our America, the President referred to the responsibility of left-wing parties, revolutionaries, and humanists in terms of "the role we have to play" and what "we must be willing to give to prevent imperialist aims" from materializing.
It was inevitable that the president would recall the legacy of Fidel, that "robust intellectual," that scholar of history, science, society, and politics, who tried, he said, to make the movement of intellectuals and artists understand what their functions were and how culture could be used to build bridges to defend the best causes.
The present, Díaz-Canel reflected, "gives us an urgent task": that of "defending humanity from the neo-fascist barbarism that is resurging." The dignitary denounced that there are many lies to dismantle, and that a spirit of solidarity and integration is needed, one that "honors Martí's maxim that the homeland is humanity."
On Gaza, "the televised genocide, a genocide that hurts," he reflected that it leaves many questions unanswered, such as those alluding to the fate and guarantees of the Palestinian people.
The president also spoke about the aggression suffered by Venezuela, the imperial threat in the Caribbean region, and the media attacks against President Nicolás Maduro. Among other ideas, he stressed that "in the face of these things, we cannot remain impassive, because we would be opening the doors to the impunity of an emboldened neo-fascism."
Unity and action, he emphasized, can confront this threat. And he did not overlook the need to defend critical thinking, to guarantee digital literacy, and "to translate all of this into political action."
The president affirmed that the truth lies with the interests and aspirations of the people, and asked how to assert that truth in such a complex and endangered world.
Defense, he stressed, comes through the power of the content of that truth, but also through revolutionary ethics and beauty—beauty that moves feelings, motivates, and strikes a chord of emotion and commitment.
What we are proposing, said the Head of State, "is a revitalization of the Network's communications, an offensive on the level of ideas" and, above all, he added, in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution, of Venezuela, to prevent the United States from extending its military power and ideological fallacy over the lands of Latin America and the Caribbean.
It is, he stressed, a network of communication networks that is critical and sovereign. On the land of Bolívar, President Díaz-Canel affirmed that Cuba will always stand with the Bolivarian Revolution, always embracing that sister nation in defense of a common cause.
IDEAS AND EMOTIONS IN THE CHE GUEVARA ROOM
The president of Casa de las Américas, Abel Prieto Jiménez, noted that this Thursday there were founders of that emancipatory tool.
Abel reasoned that today's world is as dangerous as the one in which the Network was born. Then, he said, the invasion of Iraq was announced, and in that tool of nodes for humanity was the best of anti-hegemonic thinking.
The critical thinking initiative, he recalled, was born with two purposes: to mobilize international public opinion and to generate perspectives that would dismantle enemy campaigns.
He also reflected on how to create authentic, organic messages; on how imperial leaders violate all international laws; and on the new fascism.
He urged people not to remain in the field of artistic culture, but to seek support from highly prestigious professionals, so that everyone can help in the current emergency facing Venezuela and the world. The prestigious intellectual reasoned on these ideas, and his words gave way to those of other thinkers.
Venezuelan writer and communicator Miguel Pérez Pirela asserted that "we are living in very delicate times." He denounced that an excessive military threat looms over the Caribbean, with 1,200 missiles and other sinister forces that have turned the area into a war zone.
He commented on how genocide is broadcast live today: What Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, he said, Trump is now doing in the Caribbean, as if it were a video game.
"The attack is a direct attack on humanity," said the communicator. That is why, he stressed, in the face of barbarism, we must respond with ideas, beauty, and solidarity.
Through Pirela, President Nicolás Maduro sent a message to his brother Díaz-Canel and to all the protagonists of these days of the Network. The dignitary conveyed his conviction that, with the people of Bolívar, they will never succeed. Cuba and Venezuela, added Pérez Pirela, have a common destiny: to win.
In the memory of Randy Alonso Falcón, Cuban journalist and general director of Ideas Multimedios, moments from the birth of the Network burn brightly. That is why he spoke about the hours when the ALCA died, about that victory of the peoples and dignified leaders of Latin America. He did not overlook the value of unity, nor the need for the Network to belong not to elites but to journalists, the media, and all capable and committed professionals.
Various voices referred to technological resistance; to the battle for truth; to revolutionary epic, aesthetics, and ethics as urgent weapons.
Cuban historian Elier Ramírez Cañedo stressed that "in the end, we all know that the game is defined in revolutionary praxis." That is why he called for history to be seen not "as an amulet of the past," but as a weapon to move the present.
"What is to be done?" he asked. He proposed the idea of a kind of "archive of the crimes of imperialism and fascism throughout human history." This archive of decolonization would be, he emphasized, a move to the offensive.
ANOTHER UNIVERSITY
"This is a time of regression in the civilizing process," warned Mexican philosopher and writer Fernando Buen Abad. In his view, the empire's war did not begin now, but is a long-standing conflict that requires self-criticism regarding the spaces won or lost by the left.
"We urgently need a university in defense of humanity," he said, speaking of the need to rearm our thinking and our vocabulary. He referred to laboratories of semiotics, of combat; to the urgency of "getting to the heart of the battle, which is the dispute over meaning."
That university, he argued, has to do with "re-educating ourselves for this battle of communication." He said that it should not resemble what they—the imperialists—want it to resemble: he spoke of "another university."
Cuban thinker Omar González emphasized the value of expanding the network and commented on "how important it would be to incorporate the men and women of science in our country," as well as athletes.
The great battle can and must be fought from within culture, working with subjectivities, said Cuban thinker and social activist Mariela Castro Espín: "Cultural processes achieve powerful transformations," adding that we must place a strong emphasis on spirituality.
For this struggle, as Cuban journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde put it, "it is very difficult to intervene without the use of science and ethics." We must start, she stressed, with the study of networks, in order to "achieve a visible, powerful, shared, real network."
We must feel the battle in our souls, said Argentine journalist Graciela Ramírez, who lives in Cuba: "The network is the most genuine expression, the greatest asset we can count on from the left," she said.
Graciela shared her optimism: we can count, she said firmly, on our peoples, our leaders, and books. The path of culture, which liberates and gives meaning to life, emerged as the only possible course.
