By Brandon Lee

League of Filipino Students – San Francisco State University

Youth and students from 8 countries (Turkey, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Greece, United States, Philippines,  and Indonesia) came together during the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) Third International Assembly (TIA). 

During the Youth workshop study group, there were presentations of the current conditions of youth and students of each respective country.  After the presentations, youth and students came up with resolutions for the upcoming years leading up to the ILPS Forth International Assembly.

The youth summed up the basic root problem of daily life as “the life-depriving character of imperialism, which the world’s people are plunged into, continuously worsens as the capitalism crisis of overproduction deepens. Exploitation of labor, imperialist plunder and maximization of profit continues wantonly at the expense of the working and oppressed peoples of the world.”

Furthermore, “it is the youth, especially from the peasant and working families, who intensely suffer from imperialist attacks and exploitation. The diminishing state subsidy to schools and privatization of education, on top of the intensifying commercialization of tertiary education worsens the youths’ lot.  In Indonesia, for example, the concept of ‘campus autonomy’ has forced students to finance their own education instead of having education subsidized.  Commercialization has led to rising tuition, cutbacks on classes as well as resources for students while the capitalists continue to profit from the pockets of students. “

According to the youth commission report, “for many youth migrants, they leave their homeland driven to look for menial, contractual jobs abroad in order for their families to survive. Governments, both sending and receiving, are ensuring the smooth flow of cheap labor through agreements and policies imposed by imperialist institutions like the WTO.”

We must remember to strengthen our core by gathering more youth and student organizations into the ILPS.  In addition, we must continue to arouse, organize and mobilize a world youth movement against imperialism.  Only with a deeper understanding of how Imperialism affects our society can we identify the symptoms and illness it causes to youth and students.  And only with the member organizations can we have the people power it takes to isolate Imperialism.

As the conditions of youth and students worsens around the world, we can only rely upon ourselves to be aware of the issues, defend our rights to education, and organize ourselves to prevent the disease of imperialism to spread to our future children. Together with other sectors of society, we can quarantine the disease of imperialism.