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