Speech of the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou at the 29th Pancyprian Festival of Youth and Students
8th July 2016, Famagusta Gate, Nicosia
Yet another EDON Festival, one more year when the grounds of Famagusta Gate will be filled with life, full of messages of resistance and struggle. Once again the lyrics and music of the Festival will enhance the struggle for a better future for Cyprus and the world.
However the Festival of EDON isn’t just music. It isn’t only about the great artists whom we thank from the bottom of our hearts for their presence here.
The Festival of EDON is about its every corner characterized by reflections, agitation and the movement of ideas; ideas concerning all the issues affecting school pupils, students, young workers, both on small and big issues. The Festival is the discussions, theatre, musical scenes, our folk tradition which is undergoing a revival, the performance of amateur and professional bands, the projection of documentaries and much more.
All the militants of EDON, each and every one, deserve our warm congratulations because each year they organize a better, richer in content and more mass Festival.
As the song says, “If you are rock, they should fear you” because you are and must be the generation that challenges and questions everything; the generation who wants it all.
You are and must be the generation that doesn’t yield and stands upright; the generation that gains a better future through its struggles; the generation that happened to be raised during the crisis, with limited rights and uncertainty, but you do not bow your head and give in!
You are fighting for the future, your future.
You are struggling by putting up resistance. You do not accept to consent to the government’s policies that have crushed your dreams and devastated your day to day life; policies that are little by little cutting back the years to come.
You are the ones who stand opposite and confront the monster of neo-fascism and won’t let it pass.
You are the ones who are opening up the road of unity and fraternity with our Turkish Cypriot compatriots and keep the hope for our peaceful and common future alive.
They should fear you because you are the force that can reverse, create and crush the old and the rotten.
You are the force that confirms that our future cannot be capitalism but the new world, socialism!
You are the best representation the People’s Movement of the Left has to project. You are the certainty that the future is here. You are the best honor for the 90 years of the Communist Party of Cyprus -AKEL that are being marked this year.
You are the pioneering, vanguard and popular force that shed its blood in sacrifices for the survival, dignity and democracy in this country; the force that built the hope on the ruins and destruction brought by the coup d’état and invasion; the force that revealed and opened up for the people of toil and labour, a whole new world, with the establishment of the Movement of Local Educational and Cultural Clubs in the urban neighborhoods and villages; the force that gave a platform and projected the people of culture, literature and arts and marched with them on the road of struggle; the force that has showed the way to women; the force that organized youth to assert their lives.
You are the continuation of that force, the living proof that dreams do not fade, as long as we mobilize to fulfill them in the streets, schools, universities, in life, asserting, fighting and moving forward!
We are therefore proud of this youth; proud of the youth of EDON!
As the song says, “And if you are rock, they should fear you, because you are and will every time represent the future!
Long live the 29th Festival of EDON!
Long live EDON!
