Dearest friends in Red Ant,

Greetings of solidarity and greetings of struggle to all!

Your gathering and conference are evidence that there are still people struggling for progressive change!

Therefore, with a happy heart and enthusiastic spirit, allow me, on behalf of all PST members in Timor-Leste, to convey to friends going to the Peace and Liberation – a Socialist Education Conference our fullest solidarity.

For PST, socialist education, in this era of so much change is one of the most important tools for the liberation of the oppressed! Only people who are aware, have knowledge, will be able to make a difference and be able to make decisions to fight for a society where there will be no more exploitation! And this type of society is a socialist society!

Socialist education, if carried out continuously, when directionally based on the theories of Marx and Lenin, when applied using dialectical and historical materialism, can awaken the latent energies to resist all forms of oppression against the urban and rural poor. Education based on the values of socialism will make everyone who struggles more and more aware and confident in their direction and life choices.

In short, socialist education will provide for everyone who struggles for knowledge to adopt ways or avenues that correspond to his reality to participate in realising socialism!
We wish you full success for your conference!

Comrades, capitalism is becoming more and more sophisticated, using every means it can find, to maintain its hegemony and values. It seeks to sustain a system that oppresses, sometimes subtly, millions of poor people throughout the world. It strives to increase its strength while conning the mass of the people to believe that it is the best system.

The oppression and the systematic deepening of ignorance among the people results in the oppressed themselves perceiving current capitalist strategies of development as pro-humanity. New systems of ‘education’, using all the most up-to-date available technologies are succeeding in fooling millions of people who drown in dreams and their impotence in resisting the oppressor.

Use of new technologies by capitalists disguises the exploitation being carried out. Technology is also used to chase profits, exploiting and marginalising workers. Machines increasingly replace people in the production process, removing the human aspect of production. The chasing of profits removes humans from the whole process. Humanity is alienated in the capitalist production process.

The people – workers and peasant farmers – are increasingly indoctrinated to see capitalism as the only system that liberates them. Almost all of the oppressed have been convinced that it is the capitalist model of development that will bring them progress and will mean they can access abundance, wealth and money.

Yet what it is that trickles down to the people pales in insignificance to what the capitalists themselves accumulate. Yet, still now, so many people do not see this rotten side of capitalism.
It is understanding this context which motivates the PST’s high regard for Red Ant’s endeavours in holding this Socialist Education Conference. This is part of the struggle to hold up high the banner of socialist values.

We wish you all the best with your conference and hope that it will be another contribution to the development of the socialist movement wherever there are urban poor, the workers and the peasant farmers.

The PST also hopes that your meeting will also identify new models of possible cooperation amongst us all.

Avelino Maria Coelho da Silva/ Shalar Kosi FF
Party Chairperson