A look at the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization of Students (OCLAE) on the 58th anniversary of its founding.
By Katherin Hormigó Rubio, Communist Party of Cuba (translated from the Spanish)
The Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization of Students (OCLAE) is a regional, independent, non-governmental, representative and non-profit student organization, whose fundamental basis is the representation of Latin American and Caribbean students in defense of public, free, quality and accessible education for all; a truly emancipatory education with the principles of anti-imperialism and the solidarity of our peoples.
Today, 58 years after its foundation, this organization has managed to remain a force and voice for students in Latin America and the Caribbean, adjusting to the geopolitical contexts, the structural dynamics of the region, the economic and social context, and has been able to shift their tactics and strategies so as not to let the aspirations of the student movement fade at any time.
Miguel Ángel Machado Rojas, a medical student in our country and President of OCLAE, has managed to keep the organization faithful to its founding principles. He has managed to keep it united and focused around student welfare, as well as the integration and unity of Latin America and the Caribbean in defense of just causes, sovereignty and the great homeland.
"The organization has gone through several important moments; it arose in the fourth Latin American Congress of Students that took place in Havana, in a context where the foundations were already being forged for the formation of a truly revolutionary consciousness in Latin American and Caribbean students," said Machado Rojas.
From this moment on, the organization became a truly revolutionary space that allowed the student organizations to have a legitimate representation that did not serve the principles of imperialist hegemony in the region. "Emerging a few years after the revolutionary triumph of 1959, without a doubt being in Havana it was the right time to generate revolutionary and anti-imperialist consciousness," said the President of OCLAE while noting that this organization has had to adapt to various changes in Latin American and Caribbean society.
"In the beginning we were a structure with a certain number of federations that, without a doubt, over time has been enriched; unfortunately, other federations have disappeared due to the structural dynamics of the student movement in Latin America and the conditions in each of the countries. Social conditions, economic conditions and even political conditions have been very decisive in this sense," said Machado Rojas.
OCLAE's representation, over the years, has been gaining, managing to gain a greater reach through other organizations that, over time, have been emerging from student integration, from regional integration spaces, at both the government level and at the movement level, and from spaces that have emerged as academic platforms or platforms for the promotion of higher education in Latin America, he commented.
"We have been adapting to this context and, based on these dynamics, OCLAE is now part of a group of regional political mechanisms such as MERCOSUR and CELAC, in the social movements within the ALBA-TCP and ALBA Movement. All this has allowed us, in the first place, to comply with the founding essence of OCLAE, which will always be the defense of education as a principle, and this is the banner of struggle that we will take to each of these spaces for discussion and mobilization in Latin America and the Caribbean."
Education, the main banner of OCLAE
The challenges for education in Latin America remain enormous despite evolution and development; this is well known to the president of OCLAE and all of the members of this organization.
"It can be recognized that we have made progress in terms of sovereignty, also in terms of educational potential and access to guarantees, but despite this, we must say that we are not satisfied because today Latin America and the Caribbean are the most unequal regions on the planet, characterized as such by international organizations. In addition, there is still a large gap between those who have more opportunities to access education and those who do not manage to get an education, not even general education."
"In higher education, there are still great limitations in access; another very important element is the privatization of education, a phenomenon that is not isolated in the region, making access to education even more difficult," Machado Rojas continued.
There are clear examples in countries such as the Dominican Republic and Brazil, where private education has a greater presence over public education, and it is important to point this out "because it determines the development of society, together with the political conditions that we are experiencing in Latin America and with the different models that are imposed in the countries of the region, which continues to be, without a doubt, an important dynamic and for years has been a focus of the struggle of the student movement."
"For us, as an organization, it is very important that our members understand the situation in which education in Latin America finds itself today, which continues to be worrying and alarming for the OCLAE in a context where we see the advance of new information technologies, artificial intelligence and virtual education. This, in a region like Latin America, where we do not have technological sovereignty, where we do not have the guarantee of Internet services in all countries equally, and where can Internet services cannot be guaranteed to all, I believe could create a greater gap than the one that already exists in access to higher education. limiting it to those who can really afford or maintain the services of virtual teaching," Machado Rojas said.
The organization does not deny the positive experiences seen during the pandemic, which contributed to the development of higher education in Latin America, nor does it deny the advances in artificial intelligence, but, nevertheless, they view these advances with concern. "We make it clear that it will be a line, a focus of struggle for us to defend face-to-face education, which is also what allows comprehensive training and social interaction. We will be defending it against the push to creating completely virtual universities; the creation of these spaces would not only affect the student, but would also affect the employment of another very important sector, which are our teachers and workers in the education sector, whom we also stand with in their struggles for dignity in their work," said the president of OCLAE.
Solidarity, a principle within OCLAE
The principle of solidarity within OCLAE is permanent; This, according to its highest representative, means embracing and echoing the struggles of each of the countries that make up the region, and it is a principle that the organization has historically defended for 58 years. "We are sure that it will be what will allow us to continue being the future of struggle in Latin America and the Caribbean; that a struggle in one country, no matter how small it may seem, is also reflected in the student movement of another sister country or from the regional or continental point of view, because this undoubtedly reinforces the value and mobilizing capacity that the organization has today."
"Throughout these 58 years, I believe that we have demonstrated this each time our organizations requested the solidarity of their colleagues. Each of the federations, exercising that effective and active solidarity that characterizes us, supports all of the causes that have been developing in the continent," said Machado Rojas.
This organization has spaces of solidarity, such as the Latin American Congresses or the meetings of the general secretariat; organic spaces where there are always important discussions on the subject of the exercise of active and effective solidarity. The strengthening of regional focus is another of the important issues where they have been working over the last period and, looking ahead to the year 2025, will continue as an organization to strengthen the regional commitment of OCLAE, with the activation of regional co-ordinations that allow for development of interactive solidarity spaces, both face-to-face and virtual.
The struggle of the OCLAE is the struggle of all Latin American students
The anti-imperialist and solidarity struggle of our peoples has also been part of the organization since its foundation.
OCLAE embraces various important and just causes of the student movement, such as the struggle for the defense of the regional identity of the original cultures of our America with the representation of indigenous peoples. "Today, we have an movement in Panama that is forming and it is an organization of the indigenous student movement that allows young people and students to feel they are a part of our organization."
"We fight for gender equality, a very important issue to discuss among our organizations, the representation of women, feminism, but also other gender struggles of the LGBTIQ+ community. We have managed to tie all these transformations to the historical struggle of the movement, which has been evolving; today it is no longer a problem in many of our countries, but it undoubtedly also continues to be a starting point to bring more strength to the student organization," concluded the president of OCLAE.
The organization also is involved in the environmental struggle, the struggle for the care and protection of the environment, the struggle and defense of sovereignty and regional integrity, the struggle for peace. All these aspects mean there mechanisms for Latin American and Caribbean youth to feel represented within the work of an organization that brings together an important grouping of youth organizations -- mainly of high school and university students -- from a large part of the region.
A message after 58 years of struggle
At the end of this interview, Miguel Ángel Machado Rojas, President of OCLAE and member of the Secretariat of the University Student Federation of Cuba, wanted to send a message to all Latin American and Caribbean students on this 58th anniversary of OCLAE.
To the Latin American and Caribbean students on this 58th anniversary of OCLAE we convey this message:
First of all, congratulations to all those who today have a broad sense of belonging to this organization, and what it means to be part of it showing responsibility and commitment, values that we assume by being part of an organization that represents the students of Latin America and the Caribbean, the truly revolutionary students, the anti-imperialist students, the students who do not remain silent in the face of the genocide that is being committed against the people of Palestine; the students who also raised our voices in solidarity with our comrades in the Haitian student movement, for the students who stood with the marches and mobilizations in defense of public universities in Argentina, for the students who have also been involved in the social movements and fight for democracy in our Latin America and the Caribbean, against the attempted coup d'état against President Lula, and defending the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the students who firmly defend the Latin American region as a zone of peace where we do not want interference from any state, from any foreign power, where we will not permit the interference of US imperialism.
This anniversary is also a date to renew commitments to OCLAE; we are committed to understanding the historical legacy that the organization has and the responsibility we have with the future, as well as the responsibility we have in representing students in Latin America and the Caribbean.
On this 58th anniversary of the organization, our fraternal embrace to all the organizations that are part of OCLAE, to all the generations that, in these 58 years, have been in charge of the responsibility of directing and keeping OCLAE alive. Be assured that we will keep it alive. We also send a big embrace to all those generations that have maintained our organization.
Know that OCLAE will continue to be an anti-imperialist bulwark, a fountain of ideas; it will continue to display the resistance and unity of the popular movement in defense of a united Latin America and the Caribbean, integrated in defense of the self-determination of our peoples. We will continue to stand with the peasants, we will continue to stand with women, we will continue to stand with the indigenous peoples, we will continue to stand with the struggles of the workers, of our teachers, of our educational workers. We will continue to stand with each of the unions, the leftist movements of Latin America and the Caribbean, for the true integration of our peoples and our states.
OCLAE will be there, accompanying each of these emancipatory struggles in Latin America. With each of those social movements that, together with OCLAE, also believe a different future for Latin America and the Caribbean is possible; it is possible to think of it as the great homeland that Bolívar dreamed of, as great Latin American leaders have continued to fight for, the ideal also of our main inspiration Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, to whom this fifty-eighth anniversary is undoubtedly also dedicated as we march towards the sixtieth anniversary of OCLAE and the anniversary of his birth.
This article was translated and shared via a License CC-BY-NC
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