The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) has released a statement marking World Health Day highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the struggle for proper healthcare for the youth and working people.
The YCL is Britain’s affiliate to WFDY, one of over 180 progressive and anti-imperialist youth organisations from more than 100 countries that are members. WFDY organises campaigns as well as solidarity brigades in support of peace, self-determination for all people and social and economic progress.
Today, on World Health Day, we reiterate, as we did last year, that this date is celebrated in the face of the evidence of the incompatibility of this system with the health of the people of the world.
On the 7th of April last year, we already denounced that we were facing a World Health Day overshadowed by the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-popular management of it by the ruling classes. Within weeks of the global spread of the pandemic, some dynamics such as the capitalists’ profits over the lives of the youth and the working class were already clear.
Today, a year later, we can say that we are witnessing the greatest expression of what health means in such an exploitative and oppressive system. At first, it was the collapse of public health, as a consequence of the weakening of the health system after years and years of cuts and privatisation. Then it was the war of predation between the ruling classes to get hold of the basic materials to deal with the pandemic, such as masks or respirators, instead of an equitable distribution based on need.
It did not take long for the veiled threats against our labour and political rights to arrive with the excuse of COVID-19, making it clear that the ruling classes are not going to pay for the economic and health crisis, but are going to make us pay for it. Currently, one of the most bleeding issues is the issue of vaccination. It is being distributed according to the logic of imperialist alliances. The countries with the best vaccination rates are generally those that occupy a better position in the imperialist pyramid. Many countries are being excluded from distribution and production, among other things for their international position and because of the private ownership of patents and, as a result, 35 countries have administered less than 1 dose per 100 inhabitants.
On the other hand, we would like to acknowledge the work of so many anti-imperialist countries that have shown that not only was another way of dealing with the pandemic possible but that it was more efficient. Solidarity, international medical brigades, the distribution of basic health materials, the development of alternative vaccines to those of the pharmaceutical monopolies. In the same way, we want to recognise all the expressions of the popular organisation that have emerged to confront the COVID-19 pandemic in so many places around the world, in study centres, workplaces, villages, cities and neighbourhoods, which have shown the potential we have when we organise and struggle.
On World Health Day we once again demand full health for the youth and people of the world. A demand that every day it becomes clearer that it is incompatible with this imperialist system that puts competition between the ruling classes before solidarity between people; geopolitical interests and the interests of the pharmaceutical monopolies before global vaccination; and, in short, the profits of a few before the lives of the people of the world.
Challenge News Desk
