We have gathered here again! At the 29th Pancyprian Festival of Youth and Students of EDON. This year marks 65 years since 1951 when the 1st festival of the Progressive Youth Organization (AON – EDON) took place. We are continuing a tradition that has raised many generations of young Cypriots. A Festival that only EDON knows and is able to organize. A Festival that is a feast of culture and art. A Festival characterised by political fermentation and an exchange of views. A Festival of qualitative culture and recreation. A Festival for the militant uplifting of our country’s young generation, but also a real service to our people as a whole.
We welcome our comrades from our 13 fraternal Youth Organizations from all over the world and the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
In particular, we would like to welcome our fellow compatriots Turkish Cypriots, who are participating once again in another Festival with us and who share our common concern for the liberation and reunification of our common homeland.
We thank the dozens of artists, musicians, actors, dancers, cultural artists in the Popular Tradition Corner and all those involved in our 29th Festival. We thank in particular the excellent singer Natasha Bofiliou who will take us on a modern musical journey soon, subsequently followed by Babis Stokas with the group Prospectus that will be performing later on here on the central stage as well. We thank the group “Lopodites” and Thanos Mikroutsikos with Miltos Pashalides for tomorrow’s concert, as well as Panos Mouzourakis and Vasilis Papakonstantinou who will performing on Friday at the Festival’s closing. Our thanks also go to Gerasimos Andreatos for tonight’s performance, the “Laiki Tetrakis” group for tomorrow, and Vangelis Korakakis the day after tomorrow for their popular and “rembetika” songs at the popular song stage.
The Festival, is taking place at a time where our region, the eastern Mediterranean, smells of gunpowder. The intensity of the imperialist competition for the control of the region’s natural resources, together with the rise of the neo-fascist and fundamentalist organizations, has created an explosive situation. The cost is being paid by the peoples again, with the price of their blood, turned into refuges and uprooted from their countries.
In two days, on the 8th and 9th of July, NATO and imperialists from all over the world are convening at a Summit Meeting in Warsaw to “divide the borders again.” Wars and bloodshed are forcing millions of people to migrate as refugees. The ongoing imperialist wars are resulting the loss of thousands of lives in the sea cemetery called the Mediterranean. The new enemy that NATO created, that is to say terrorism, is spreading death and at the same time is the pretext for the promotion of capital’s interests in a number of Middle Eastern countries. We, the youth of Cyprus, are struggling for a life without wars and exploitation.
Exploitation is at its peak as a result of the capitalist crisis. Employers is using the crisis as a pretext and the anti-social policy of the DISY government to destroy everything. Unemployment continues to soar, especially among young people. Underemployment, meagre wages, undeclared work, work on Sundays and personal contracts have been converted into the rule crushing the dreams of the young generation.
A typical example is the company that hires people – recipients of the so-called Minimum Guarantee Income, for the hotel industry, offering a gross wage of 1.95 Euros for the cleaning of each room, and with the worker himself forced to pay his social insurance. Otherwise, the Minister of Labour and the Government are boasting that they are trying to convince us that they will not accept salaries of 500 and 600 euros per month and that the provisions of collective agreements will be respected. This is the same government that is still mocking the people that the growth has arrived and that we have overcome the crisis. It is the same government that is supporting the plutocrats to maximize and increase their profits and let all of us to count our money to see if we can make ends meet for the month. It is the very same government that has led the health sector to a dead-end with dire consequences for all of us; that is experimenting unscientifically in education, turning schools into examination centres, distorting and falsifying historical truth and equating fascism with communism in examination essays. It is the same government that just recently through the imposition of its criminal austerity policies, with the underfunding of the Forest Department, without a plan and coordination, has led us to 15 square kilometres of burnt forest in the region of Solia area and to the loss of lives.
Despite all this, as young people we do not succumb. We will continue to struggle until the day when the workers will break their chains; until the day we get rid of the exploitation. We live, act and struggle for a society of equality, solidarity and social justice, of socialism.
Christos Christofias General Secretary EDON
