2023-11-09 22:58:26
From the moment I was informed that I would be invited to the UPEC Congress I felt happy, honored and grateful.
Due to the difficult conditions that the country is experiencing, it had to be developed in a day and a half, where not a second was wasted and time seemed to fly.
The first day was for me like a reunion party with journalists that I admire, have known for almost three decades and have great affection for.
Debate in the afternoon of the first day of the 11th UPEC Congress. Photo: Roberto Garaicoa
And the first thing in Congress was to hold a minute of silence for the colleagues murdered by Israeli Zionism in Palestine, which sadly numbered 46 that morning.
The Draft Statutes and the Code of Ethics were approved, what was done in the central report for 2018-2023 was reviewed, a book that honors the memory of Cuban journalism was presented, a compilation of Flor de Paz and work began on commission in other rooms.
The 275 attending delegates could speak by simply requesting it. Many did so.
An excellent presentation was presented by two great journalists: Rosa Miriam Elizalde and Randy Alonso on the necessary transformations in the Cuban press.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel was present throughout the second day. Always attentive, taking notes, until he also took the floor that his colleagues from the press had been waiting for so much.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel was present throughout the second day. Photo: Roberto Garaicoa.
With the honesty, lucidity and firmness that characterize him, he remembered Fidel as the great communicator that he was, multiplied among the Cuban people, always essential, a source of inspiration to continue fighting and facing so many challenges. Diaz-Canel encouraged us to go deeper, investigate, and apply knowledge of culture and science to also educate through revolutionary journalism. The room erupted in applause several times during his speech, in which he stated: “All the important battles have been won with you at the forefront.”
Several times during the two days I refrained from asking to speak, I didn’t do it, every minute was so valuable for everything that the colleagues of the Cuban press had to express in this Congress.
I use this space to send my greetings to all Cuban journalists to Congress and tell them the importance of your work for those of us who, like me, are part of the international counterhegemonic press.
We have had to live through a very complex stage of the world, the region and this island that we love so much.
You constitute our unavoidable ethical and political reference. Cortázar told us that communication and words constitute the highest link of the human species, which differentiates us from animals and plants.
When everything seems dark and gloomy, when we face great political and social problems in our countries, it is you, the Cuban press, that gives us the light and strength from the daily example of your resistance, to rise up and continue the fight.
The pulse of what the people of whom they are children feel, the passion of Martí’s truth and the enormous responsibility of expressing it through the Cuban press.
I have seen them in these difficult years suffer alongside the people in the midst of the devastation of tornadoes and great storms; seeking medicine for sick colleagues, or firing them without being able to honor them as they deserved in the midst of the pandemic. Live and reflect on tragedies such as the Saratoga and the fire at the Super Tanker Base in Matanzas; defend in the streets and from the pages, radio and television spaces of their media the perverse and opportunistic attack of the counterrevolution, when the country was suffering from the highest peak of Covid and the perversity of the United States blockade denied them everything from an aspirin to the lung respirators. And grow proud celebrating being part of the only country on earth that despite being poor, blocked and besieged by the most abominable power in history, made not one but five of its own vaccines with which it saved the lives of its people and helped save so many lives in the world.
We were on the first day of the Congress when at the end of the morning we jumped for joy at 187 against two. The two usual serial killers, the United States and its partner Israel, knocked out by this people, by its revolutionary government, by the world and by the work of permanent denunciation of the Cuban press against the genocidal blockade.
I share with you the concerns that you are going through personally and from the newsrooms of your media, the salary and fuel that is not enough, the urgent need to look for alternatives that help self-financing and growth, that manage to overcome the shortcomings that you face for the journalistic development.
The pain caused by the departure of their children in search of better economic horizons and the migration of professionals to higher-income sectors.
But I want to tell you that all this will be overcome, this stage is already being overcome, because every day that we are standing, working, reporting, writing, is a day of victory against the not-so-silent war that is waged against them. They have a Homeland, they have a revolutionary government that does not bow down in the face of the worst adversity, they have human capital with high cultural and political training.
The example of heroic Palestine challenges us to revalue even the glass of water that we drink with total normality and is denied to two and a half million Palestinians, 60 percent of whom are children.
I was standing in line for the delicious coffee we shared those two days, while the news of another bombed hospital in Gaza arrived by cell phone.
I want to give you a hug and greeting to the Congress of Ghassan Ben Jeddou and Wafica Mehdi from Lebanon, our sister, director of Al Mayadeen from the heroic resistance of Lebanon and Palestine, that of Carlos Aznárez director of Summary Latin American in Argentina, that of Bill Hackwell editor of Summary in the United States, that of Patricia Villegas president of TeleSur, that of José Manzaneda of Cubaininformation, that of colleagues of Sanaa from Syria, and that of all of us who believe in the ethics of truth and socialism.
They will always count on us, on our media and our voices that they will never be able to silence with blockades or bombs.
To the colleagues of the UPEC presidency who will occupy other important tasks within journalism and communication, our hug and recognition.
From left to right: Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, Graciela Ramírez and Jorge Legañoa.
To those who join the challenge of renewing Cuban revolutionary journalism and directing the highest organization that represents them, all the success in the task they undertake. Count on our voices, our pages, our love and commitment always.
Cover photo: Roberto Garaicoa
Taken from Cuba in Summary
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