PRETORIA, South Africa .- The city woke up very early and very quiet. The silence that was felt on the streets not realized urban emporium for days receives a large number of world's youth to celebrate their World Festival. While returning from the International Organizing Committee headquarters at the Burgers Park Hotel, where colleagues we had spent all night trying to send information to Havana, just spotted some people walking under the shade of the jacaranda. Pretoria
But he soon broke his lethargy, and Festival airs were stirring slowly the arteries of the city. The Tshwane Events Centre, where there are political debates of the event, each day becomes a rainbow of nationalities and cultures. Youth in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, USA, go to the site for friendship, peace, solidarity and common struggle against imperialism.
on the main streets of the city are the banners allegorical Festival to XVII. Too many cars driven on the main streets promoting the event. Entry average
morning everything was pure organizational routine, until a small group of young South Africans sitting in front of the premises of the Tshwane International Convention Center began to chant "strange" letters in Zulu, the most widely spoken language here, Although English is the official language.
did not have to spend one minute for those four voices multiply and the place became the a great concert platform popular.
Those lyrics were incomprehensible to most foreigners merodeábamos by the Centre, but we all knew immediately what it was, and we join the song. Cuban Americans, many young Saharawi and other parts of Africa endorsed the songs before 1994 were songs of struggle and resistance against the then racist regime. We all understood the feeling of pride, dignity and human liberation that came out of those hearts, who knows how many of them with vivid memories of racial discrimination.
While I enjoyed the spectacle which spread to many, my mind pudo dejar de pensar en uno de los crímenes más horrendos del apartheid contra la juventud sudafricana: el asesinato del adolescente Hector Pierterson, de solo 13 años, y el de otros cientos de retoños que participaron en la lucha contra las políticas segregacionistas. Muchos de los que hoy estaban bailando en el Centro de Eventos de Tshwane eran tan jóvenes como aquellos que años atrás perdieron su vida o fueron apaleados por tan solo cantar letras como estas o bailar con los acordes de su música.
Los delegados cubanos fueron de los primeros en contagiarse con el ritmo pegajoso y pronto en medio de las letras en zulú comenzaron a saltar palabras de enorme significado para quienes con el baile y el canto estaban apostando not to forget the nation's history and construction of the new South Africa.
Fidel, Cuba and Mandela are magic words here, where, as in Soweto-center of the struggle and resistance against apartheid, "the love of Staff of the West Indies and the leader of our revolution is spontaneous and sincere. And it is unimaginable the amount of hearts that open up for you automatically, without reservation, when you say you come from that little island in the Caribbean.
Also, very far from Havana, across the Atlantic, South Africa and delegates from other nations on this continent or elsewhere sang along with the Cubans in Guantanamo, while shouting slogans as Viva Cuba Socialista.
Fidel and Mandela in South Africa are today, and for many of the world's youth meeting in Pretoria, two icons of the struggle for full liberation of human beings. They are the soul and guide who, faced with a selfish world proposed by a few, have come here to bet on the friendship, peace and solidarity.
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