The imperative of closing ranks against the advance of fascism was a claim ratified by the Network of Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, with exponents such as Brazilians Frei Betto and Beto Almeida, meeting in Cuba.

The 32nd Havana International Book Fair, at the Nicolás Guillén Hall in La Cabaña, provided the occasion on Thursday to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the Network in today’s world, in a panel that also included the participation of relevant Cuban thinkers Abel Prieto and Fernando Rojas.

Why is fascism advancing nowadays, what steps does it follow, how to link a strategy from the left and the good people to counteract it, were questions with numerous answers during the conversation.

Beto Almeida recalled that the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro years ago warned about the return of fascism (in a different guise) in supposed defense of democracy.

In this regard, the Brazilian intellectual added that this so-called capitalist democracy has a high anti-cultural and anti-social degree that does nothing to benefit the people. In fact, he cited as an example the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and the support work carried out at that stage by the mainstream media.

He said that in the face of this neo-fascist advance, the arsenal of ideas that Humanity already has to defeat this type of tendencies that only harm the great majorities must be taken up again.

In Almeida’s reasoning is the teaching that the messages slipped into the strategies of neo-fascists sow the idea that solidarity should be discarded, so that only individualism and lack of civilization prevail.

He stressed that those who want a better world must unite more and professionalize citizens who carry messages of civilization, culture, values and sovereignty for the peoples.

As a pending challenge faced by the Network of Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, the Brazilian thinker mentioned that there is still a lack of discussion of these issues, and through this gap advance those who wield the opposite ideas and neo-fascist character.

Along these lines, Frei Betto’s proposals were discussed, and he advocated for a better organization of the network throughout the world and to make it easier for any organization that defends a more just humanity to join it.

The fundamental idea put forward by Frei Betto is that in each country a digital team should be created, especially composed of young people because of their facility with this field, to create a kind of news factory.

It would be a team articulated among all the members of the Network that daily systematizes the information, in all possible formats, so that the messages of defending humanity reach each and every person, especially if we take into account that the imperialist and neo-fascist enemy is powerful and creative to sow the matrices that interest them.

As an example, he cited famous American cartoons that, barely without people realizing it, make children grow up believing that class differences are normal.

He called from the left to produce not only for reason, but also to promote correct learning, feeling and emotions.

These approaches also weighed in the intervention of Abel Prieto, who also denounced the alarming impunity with which imperialism acts today, especially in a clear case such as the genocide suffered by Palestine.

He also said that it is worrying to see young people in the world making their debut in politics with neo-fascist ideas and incitement to violence. In this sense, he warned about the dangers present on the Internet and social networks right now, in environments where slander is favored from anonymity and from the extreme right is exercised the lynching of any idea that defends human dignity.

The prominent Latin American thinkers called for closing ranks to change a world in which the cultural, intellectual and ethical backwardness has been triggered.