The delegation from Las Tunas to the 10th Congress of the FEU (before leaving), which concluded today in Havana. |
As it celebrates its centenary, the Federation of University Students (FEU) throbs to the rhythm of its current time of life. Full and vigorous, the organization today is made up of young people who have in themselves the sign of their time and the seal of inheritance of the best traditions of the struggle of these people. Much has changed the circumstances since, in the distant December of 1922, the attractive personality of Julio Antonio Mella burst, forever, in the history of La Colina and the nation, leaving a luminous furrow after each work undertaken.
Quickly and with few words, we can summarize this century of a fruitful life in which not only the blood of its leader and founder paved the way, but also others, such as José Antonio and Trejo, fell in the search for a common ideal; however, a calm analysis requires more than few words to summarize the evolution of this century, prodigal in struggles, demands, setbacks, and victories. In the underground and in the Sierra, as well as inside the teaching cloisters, the FEU was part of the national life, and as such, it has been, in unstoppable doing, until today, when the X Congress mobilizes intelligence and prepares hands to what is huge, necessary and useful.
In this context, the young university students have reaffirmed that the oldest mass entity of the country can and must be closer to the social transformations in the communities, more committed to social justice, with greater spaces of participation and decision, and in permanent renewal in the effort to honor its history. The recent development of the Student Bastion, the organization of scientific conferences, the University Book and Reading Festival, and the Amateur Artists Festival, among other activities, are recent chapters of the current work. Likewise, the essences of the Tenth Congress have impelled its membership to deepen in the problems and solutions, to think about the desired and essential organization in the current national scenario, with the precision that it is necessary to resize student participation, to make edifying criticism a tool for growth and to revitalize the power that emanates from the brigade.
An essential premise of the new anniversary has been the cultivation of the historical memory and the homage to those who have marked a guideline throughout the evolution of the FEU. How much history has been written and how much glory has been lived from primitive times to the present!
Why continue building and perfecting the University Student Federation 100 years later? What kind of young people does the organization have to form in a country like ours? What is the FEU useful for today in Cuba? As the current president, Karla Santana, said, this structure "has to continue articulating the university force to conquer horizons in a reality like ours, which is not like any other" and in which the sense of patriotism, empathy, justice, solidarity, resistance and the durability of the humanist and moral message of the Cuban revolutionary project that is nurtured and endures in each generation is essential.
Continuing Mella's legacy is a challenge, not individual, but collective and adjusted to the dimension of each constituent piece, from the brigade to the macro space of the existing universities on the island. May the FEU always be dynamic, proactive, joyful, deep, and young! May it be full of impetus, ideas, and motives to continue revolutionizing its environment! May each member feel the joy and pride of being a Cuban university student and feel part of it, with the immanent vocation to learn, to serve and to give to others, to contribute, to create, and to know how to be useful!