Closing ceremony of the Patria Colloquium
By María Josefina Arce
The Patria International Colloquium closed its doors in Havana. Since its first edition in 2022, it has become a space for unity and articulation of actions from the communication field to make the voice of the people heard and to confront the hegemonic power of the big media.
As the speakers emphasized at the meeting, there is an urgent need to counteract the media manipulation and disinformation to which the world is exposed today.
A manipulation that today has its epicenter in social networks, from which, through false news, they try to create states of opinion, especially among young people.
Cuba is a clear example of this media war. From these digital spaces, reality is distorted to create alarm and discontent among the population, while spreading hate speeches.
Let's not forget the campaign with the SOSCuba label launched during the COVID 19 pandemic, promoted from the United States and intended to sell to the world an alleged collapse of the Cuban health system.
The media operation made intensive use of robots, algorithms and accounts recently created for the occasion, which, under the call to establish a humanitarian corridor, hid the pretensions of an intervention in the Caribbean nation.
In the debates of the Patria International Colloquium were those campaigns from social networks against progressive governments to lead to their overthrow, but also how much can be done from those same platforms to bring to the world an emancipatory vision.
The event has been gaining in foreign participation; proof of this is that this third edition was attended by nearly 200 guests from four continents.
But the Colloquium has also become a space for denouncing the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed more than six decades ago by the United States and the attacks and lies against Cuba.
It is undoubtedly also an event of solidarity with our country. Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel emphasized this when he thanked the participants for being in the Antillean nation in difficult times.
