Today, November 17, is once again celebrated the International Students’ Day.

This day, whose origin is deeply connected with the brave struggle of the Czech students’ movement against the nazi-fascist oppression and occupation over the country, is more than ever up to date.

The world we live in, dominated by the imperialist forces, excludes millions of young people from access to any form of education, whilst spends huge amount of resources to continue the imperialist wars, occupations and destruction.

Furthermore, for those can have access to some sort of education, the contents and the possibilities of accessing wide and deep knowledge is daily more and more narrowed by elitization policies followed by the imperialist allied Governments, privatizing and/or increasing the costs of access to education - particularly in the highest levels, but not only - implementing the guidelines of the market for education, as proposed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, structures that represent the interest of the big economic groups.

The access to education, in a free, quality and universal way, is a priority for our world and for mankind, as this is the only way to ensure free and democratic development, breaking the chains that imperialism wants to impose to the youth and peoples of the world, producing generations of people unaware of their history and rights, unwilling and incapable to struggle for the overthrown of the same system that oppresses and exploits them.

On this day, for its historical meaning and for its outstanding relevance in the current world, WFDY reaffirms its solidarity and full support to the students’ movement. The historical bounds between WFDY and the international students’ movement and all the struggles that throughout the world are developed by students have from WFDY the maximum attention and support.

WFDY calls upon its member and friendly organizations to continue their struggle for public, free and quality education for all as part of the wider struggle against imperialism.

Last Sunday, November 15, WFDY organized an international seminar in Paris, France, under the slogan: “The crisis of capitalism and the attacks to the rights of youth will be defeated by the anti-imperialist struggle!”

Below you can read the final declaration of this event:

Final declaration

The 37 national and international organizations that took part in WFDY seminar “The crisis of capitalism and the attacks to the rights of the youth will be defeated by the anti-imperialist struggle!”, in the Headquarters of the French Communist Party, on November 15, 2009, deeply analyzed the current situation of the youth of the world.

The diverse and rich contributions of the participants lead to the common conclusion that, despite local and regional differences, the threats of imperialism are, today, more than ever, alive and having its impact on the everyday life of the young people.

Particularly under the umbrella of the international capitalist crisis, the imperialist blackmail upon the youth and workers has deeply increased, which has deepened the already exisiting social phenomena as: narrowing of the access to education (due to its parcial or full privatization), precariousness, unemployment, poverty, misery (both hidden and explicit) and starvation. The plans elaborated by imperialists and the forces of capital within the international organizations (IMF, EU, OECD, etc.) aims to protect their profits by loading the crisis and its consequences on the peoples. We reject the ideas of the “humanization”, “better administration” of imperialism, since these ideas have only one target: to mislead the peoples frustration and struggle from the need to imperialism to be overthrown.

Furthermore, the imperialist order, lead by USA, European Union and Japan, has continued its manouvers of militarization and threat, creating the political and military field for new military operations. The increasing number of soldiers and extension of NATO mission in Afghanistan (country where other forces before promoted by imperialism are contributing to the current situation lived by the people), the constant blackmailing operations against Iran and DPRK, the expansion of NATO and the new military concept of the EU present in the recently revived Reform Treaty, the new seven military bases to be implemented in Colombia together with the reactivation of the USA 4th Fleet and deploy of more soldiers in the French Guyana, the reinforcement of the USA military bases in Botswana and the steps to implement the AFRICOM project by USA are just some few evidences of many possible that leave not doubt about the present moment and militaristic strategy of USA, which is continuing by the new Obama administration and whatever cosmetic manoeuvres the imperialist media and other tools may attempt to create confusion among the peoples of the world.

The imperialist agenda extends to the eastern shores of Africa in the Indian Ocean where several countries deployed their troops to protect the commercial ships from the alleged attacks of the pirates coming from Somalia. US, France, Britain and others have deployed their fleet their in addition to surveillance planes and troops. Also in the Mediterranean Israel continues its piracy over civil and commercial ships under the pretext of fighting smuggling of arms to neighbouring countries and organizations. Its navy is spreading throughout the eastern Mediterranean and also reaches the Red Sea on several occasions.

At the same time the intra-imperialist rivalries for the control of markets, natural resources and their routes, are evolving. Huge areas all over the world such as Eastern Europe, Balkans, Middle East, Africa and Latin America have become the field of such rivalries between the ruler imperialist forces USA and EU and new rising powers such as Russia. It is a proof that the so called “multi polar” world is a world of sharpened intra-imperialist contradictions far from peoples’ needs.

As part of our common analysis, the participants of this seminar observe the increasing of restrictions to democratic rights, particularly by anti-communist action and propaganda. The myths created by imperialism that aim to make the young generations to believe that the communist ideology is the same as the racist, anti-democratic and militaristic ideology of fascism (which is, in fact, supported by imperialism), are a sign that what imperialism fears the most is the capability of people to think for themselves and to create the conditions for organizing the struggle for their liberation. An example of this is the continuous shameful campaign of distortion of the History and the role of the communist and progressive forces conquering youth rights, namely by the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall of Berlin.

This international seminar has also focused on several concrete cases of important struggles developped by the young people of those countries, as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Colombia, Honduras, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, DPRK and Cyrpus, which demand the full solidarity of all the anti-imperialist young people of the world.

The capitalist crisis is a proof of the system’s weakness. Young people should take advantage and courage at this weakness by strengthening their anti-imperialist struggle.

Finally, the participants in this seminar of WFDY agreed that, despite the adverse context, there are also signs of hope, and the reinforcement of the anti-imperialist forces, disregard whether they are ruling forces in their countries or not, are a demonstration that it is worth to keep struggling. In this frame, the implementation of WFDY campaing “Against military bases and occupation armies, the struggle is the way for victory!” is valuable tool that should be used in favor of the reinforcement of the struggle of each organization, both at national and international level.