The work of the highest leadership body of EDON, as it does at every Congress, will discuss numerous issues of concern to Cypriot youth.
In an interview with "Haravgi", the General Secretary of the Central Council of EDON, Seviros Koulas, reviews the past three years and states that the Organisation in general has shown good reflexes during these two years of the pandemic, although the situation as a whole has affected its contacts with young people. At the same time, he stresses that, despite the pressure felt by young people, they have in the main retained their radical characteristics and can be a force of social change.
QUESTION: How do you assess EDON’s activity over the past three years?
SK: The reality is that any analysis of the last three years is, and needs to be, very different from any other. This is simply because over the last two years the pandemic has forced us to make radical and sudden adjustments to our plan of action and way of reaching out to young people. It has forced us to change traditional ways of our work to a large extent, to postpone and/or adapt our customary activity.
Nevertheless, there is one main conclusion that can be drawn. The goal set at the 19th Congress (January 2019) for a complete organisational regrouping and to develop the mass growth of EDON remains our goal. At the same time, it is very positive that, despite all the difficulties and weaknesses noted in our organisational work, we have stopped the downward trend in absolute numbers of members that was recorded during previous years, since there has been a small but steady upward trend over the last three years.
We consider that the Organisation as a whole has shown good reflexes over these two years and has been able to continue to function all its sections and departments by developing alternative forms of activity and struggle, without letting the pandemic nullify our activity.
QUESTION: What are the main issues that will be discussed at the forthcoming EDON Congress?
SK: Despite the positives we have outlined previously, at the same time, with honesty and a self-critical manner, we consider that the whole situation with the pandemic has damaged our contacts with the people and youth. It has cost us in the accumulation of political experience and fermentation in our various sections such as the Student Section. Furthermore, it has also harmed the systematic activity of EDON’s Children's Section, and has put serious obstacles in the way of the smooth operation of the Student and Young Workers' Section.
At the same time, the increasingly rapid change in what we took for granted before the pandemic is forcing us to look to the day after. We believe that these will be the key issues we shall be discussing at the Congress.
In addition, our decision to hold thematic discussions under the title "EDON’s political and ideological intervention among youth and contemporary forms of struggle" is not accidental. In addition to what will be debated, we want to reflect collectively in this very direction, aiming to strengthen our intervention, specifying and adopting modern forms of struggle for modern youth problems.
QUESTION: For several years now, we have seen young people distance themselves from social and political affairs. What are you doing to re-engage young people and bring them back into the ranks of EDON?
SK: The young generation in Cyprus lives and develops its activity in a system which 'kills' social solidarity, glorifies money and seeks to turn it into a self-centred and marginalized youth, far from any collective participation and activity in social life and affairs. Despite the pressure young people are under in Cyprus, they in general retain the characteristics of questioning things, spontaneity and a tendency towards anything new and innovative. These characteristics are radical elements and if correctly orientated, can become progressive elements and, with a decisive leadership of youth, they can become carriers and forces of social change.
This is without question not an easy task. Nor can one expect that there are any simple and easy solutions. This is an uphill struggle. There is no room for any disappointment, no room for abandoning struggle.
The fact that EDON remains a leading and assertive force in the youth movement is the best proof that the vision of the Left represents the essential counterweight to depreciation and depoliticisation.
QUESTION: Have you found ways of offering young people alternative forms of recreation that meet their current needs?
SK: The development of broad cultural activity is an integral part of EDON’s political DNA. We believe that to a considerable extent we are responding to the need of a large section of youth.
EDON is without any doubt the only youth organisation which, through its diverse and continuous cultural activity, manages to embrace - without exaggeration - tens of thousands of young people and beyond. The highlight of this activity is unquestionably our Organization’s annual Pancyprian Festival of Youth and Students.
However, we are far from being complacent. We are well aware that the promotion of an alternative quality cultural proposal is not an easy task. In the face of an entertainment industry characterised by subcultural products and cultural imperialism, our effort is made even more difficult. At the same time, we ourselves want to raise the bar. EDON is constantly making efforts to improve the quality of its Festivals and all its other cultural activity, while providing young people with the space to create amateur artistic creation, to produce culture and express themselves.
We are opening up to new cultural forms and artists, while always maintaining our distinct cultural and political identity.
QUESTION: What have you done and what do you intend to do to improve the ideological education of EDON members and militants?
SK: Carrying out educational-ideological work and raising EDON members with the ideals of the left and socialism remains a key priority. The continuous strengthening of educational work enhances the effectiveness of our member’s political activity and intervention in society, whilst also strengthening their resistance to the influences of the system.
The efforts since the 19th Congress up to now have been first and foremost interwoven with the content of our actions, since our member’s agitation with the content of the Organization’s activity shapes their consciousness in a decisive way.
The annual Pancyprian Seminar of Militants, lectures and educational seminars are organised at a local and provincial level, while the Pancyprian Party School is held for the members of the Central Council of EDON. The Ideological/Educational Department of the C.C. regularly publishes manuals, distributes informative notes and educational material to members of bodies and has published the pamphlet “Truths and Lies about Modern Cypriot History”. More material of such content is being prepared. The EDON bookstore was present at every activity, with the aim of promoting the value of books and self-education. Literacy competitions were held at a provincial level and in 2022 we believe that we will be able to bring back the custom of the Pancyprian Self-Education Competition after many years.
QUESTION: What are the immediate political and organisational goals that EDON’s Congress will set?
SK: The Organization’s political objectives will be largely determined by the Political Decision and Resolutions that will be adopted at the 20th Congress.
These goals/objectives, inter alia, include the following: strengthening our struggle against anti-communism and reviving the bicommunal movement for peace through a class approach to the policy of rapprochement, developing our struggles in the student and pupil’s movement, the more substantive presence of our Young Workers' Section together with the strengthening of work of the class-based trade union federation of PEO and the linking EDON’s struggles with it. Another objective is the systematic effort needed to develop our Children's Section on a mass basis again. We shall also seek to continue EDON’s very substantive international work with fraternal organisations around the world, our militant anti-war and anti-imperialist activity in Cyprus and abroad.
At the same time we have elaborated specific positions to be promoted on the issues of meritocracy, the right to housing, on culture, sports, the issue of addictions, the environment, racism and discrimination, young women and the struggle for equality.
The organisational goals concern each part of our work separately, as well as each specific Section of EDON. With sincerity and self-criticism, the goals for fully regrouping and reconstructing of EDON will be set. The weaknesses in the correct and systematic functioning of our Local Organizations will be analyzed, the role of the leadership bodies will again be stressed and the difficulties in our daily work and action will all be discussed.