‘José Martí and today’s challenges’ was the main theme of a forum online hosted by the official webpage of the Hermanos Saíz Association, as part of activities on the 125th anniversary of the fall in combat of Cuban National Hero José Martí.

Panelists at the forum included historian Eduardo Torres Cuevas, director of the José Martí National Office and President of the José Martí Culture Society, Marlene Vázquez Pérez, director of the José Martí Studies Center and Yosuam Palacios, President of the José Martí Youth Movement. They answered questions raised by internet users on the life and work of the Cuban patriot, and specially the validity of his ideas and actions in today’s world.

Torres Cuevas urged Cubans, especially the young generations, to study Martí’s writings, where they can well find solutions to many of today’s national and international challenges. In Martí’s writings, he said, readers will find an inexhaustible source of love to Cuba, Our Americas, and all of humanity.

Yosuam Palacios, President of the José Martí Youth Movement, insisted that Martí, his ideas and actions provide all the necessary ethical and humanistic values to confront and overcome hatred and selfishness. He noted that Martí promoted unity among Cubans and regional peoples, based on our shared history and our common aspirations of building independent, sovereign societies away from imperialist tutelage and hegemony.

Marlene Vázquez, director of the José Martí Studies Center pointed to the full validity of Martí’s ideas. She noted that most issues, which Martí denounced, spoke and wrote about back in the 19th Century are still unresolved today, over a hundred years later.

On occasion of the 125th anniversary of José Martí’s death this May 19, the digital platforms of the Hermanos Saíz Association are sharing videos, images, poems, quotes and other content related to the writer, politician, thinker, journalist, philosopher, poet and revolutionary, whose international stature made him the greatest Hispanic-American political thinker of the 19th century.