Dialogues for Peace: Youth at the Barcelona Forum

By Avishay Artsy, WireTap. Posted August 16, 2004.

The city of Barcelona witnessed a vivid illustration of cultural diversity last week, as it hosted the third gathering of the World Youth Festival. Over 8,000 young people from over 50 countries gathered to share their ideas on how to promote youth policies and increase their political voice. Many were sponsored by their home countries or by international youth organizations to attend the non-stop week of dialogue and networking. To assist youth from poorer countries, the registration fee ranged according to the delegates’ country of origin and it´s place on the United Nations 2003 Human Development Index.

At the festival campground, where most of the participants slept, the summer heat of the Spanish coast roused the youth from their tents. By ten every morning they were gathered in conference rooms, engaged in debates about everything from gender equality and nationalist movements to sustainable development and peace building.

The week came to a head on August 12th, which was declared International Youth Day by the U.N. General Assembly in 1998. This year’s theme was “Youth in an Intergenerational Society,” and the conference was focused on interdependence and solidarity between generations. Today's society is the youngest ever – nearly fifty percent of the world's population is under the age of 25. At the same time, the U.N. estimates that by 2050 the number of people older than 65 will have almost quadrupled. Therefore, the need for the old and the young to create networks of support and goodwill is bigger than ever.

Cooperation And Solidarity

Garbiñe Sáez Molinuevo, 24, is cheerful and well-tanned, and carries the flag of the Spanish Basque region in the ceremonial march to celebrate International Youth Day. She says her membership in the youth wing of a Basque nationalist party has provoked curious questions from others. “People from València and Galicia are always coming to us to ask what to do,” she said, referring to other Spanish separatist movements on the rise. Gabiñe says she has been quick to distance her party’s work from that of the violent ETA, but says that the majority of the Basque, especially young people, are calling for a referendum on whether they should be granted autonomy. “We have an identity,” she says, ”but [the Spanish government] won’t let us have it,” she says.

Meanwhile youth groups are creating international partnerships as well. The women from a Western Saharan delegation sit under a haima, a nomad tent, wearing traditional robes and scarves and serving small cups of hot tea to festival participants. Ahmed Sid Ali, a member of the delegation, said the message they bring to the festival is one of self-determination for the Sahrawi people. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 and Ali said the Sahrawi independence movement has benefited from international support, including that of Spanish and Catalan youth groups.

“We are here to participate with the various youth delegations in order to promote the dialogue between the cultures and peoples,” Ali says. “I think it’s very important to widen solidarity and cooperation between the youth organizations, especially to sensitize the Catalan society about the Western Saharan issue.”

Indigenous People In The Spotlight

To emphasize the importance of respecting different cultures, an indigenous youth forum met during the festival to create a list of “millennium goals” for the rights of indigenous people, to be submitted to the United Nations. Over 40 representatives from indigenous groups explained the struggles their communities face on a daily basis, ranging from basic survival to drug and alcohol abuse, the lack of health and education resources, and the efforts to keep their languages alive.

Illiteracy is an often-overlooked problem in a world where ten percent of young people don’t know how to read or write. According to Estebancio Castro, a representative of the Kuna People of Panama, lack of education is the main problem facing young indigenous people.

“We in Panama, we still have to learn that Christopher Columbus discovered America, when we were already there for centuries,” said Castro. “It’s like the states still try to teach to the youth that we are inferior to the other societies, telling us that we have been discovered.”

Maya Cousineau-Mollen, an active member of the Innu Montagnese community in Quebec, Ca. agreed. “In my country, First Nation history was ignored for a long time,” she said. “We were lucky if we got two or three lines in the introduction to the history book.”

Avishay Artsy is a writer based in Paris and Washington, D.C.

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