On the World Anti-İmperialist Youth Union’s congress in Istanbul, Türkiye
On the World Anti-İmperialist Youth Union’s congress in Istanbul, Türkiye
By Davide Rossi
From 19 to 21 May 2026, the world assembly of the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union, abbreviated WAYU, took place on the Bosphorus banks of Istanbul. This is the youth international promoted over a decade ago by the Youth Union of Türkiye, Türkiye Gençlik Birliği – TGB, a youth organization of the Vatan Party, founded and led by the Marxist Doğu Perinçek, one of the most extraordinary revolutionary figures of that nation, capable of embracing the 20th and 21st centuries with his political action, a personal friend of Mao Ze Dong, Deng Xiao Ping, Kim Il Sung, still today among the most listened to and far-sighted voices of the Turkish political panorama, a long-time theorist of Sino-Russian led multipolarism, of the fundamental role of Eurasia in the global context and of the necessary exit from NATO of Türkiye, called to emancipate itself from a nefarious subservience towards the interests of the Russian Federation. hegemonic of the Collective West.
The World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union, capable of bringing together youth movements from all political parties, youth sections of trade unions, and student and workers’ associations, is particularly rooted in the Middle East and the Islamic world of Asia and Africa, demonstrating great vitality and combativeness on issues of defense of and solidarity with Palestine and revolutionary Shiite Iran. Its Secretary General is Taha Küçükuygun, formerly of the Youth Union of Türkiye.
The organization combines global campaigns conducted jointly by member groups in each individual nation, including through shared posters and documents bearing the logo of the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union, with the remarkable ability to interconnect the local struggles of different organizations in a communication and information network that not only expresses knowledge of otherwise distant experiences, but also and above all offers the opportunity to show mutual solidarity and build a deep-rooted international network of cooperation.
The meeting took place in the challenging climate of a time when imperialist aggression on every continent, criminal Zionist expansionism, and neo-colonial and free-market economic coercion continue to threaten the sovereignty of nations across the planet, necessitating the need for international youth solidarity, which is essential for charting a collective path toward a multipolar world order founded on the principles of national independence, social justice, and mutual respect among peoples and nations.
Caterina Colombo, national student coordinator of SISA, the Independent School and Environment Union, the only Italian organization affiliated with the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union, emphasizes not only the importance of a structure that connects experiences and struggles from all over the world, but also, and above all, how, thanks to the remarkable work of Turkish youth, it is possible to constructively establish important relationships with youth groups in the Global South, true protagonists in the construction of a new multipolar world order based on mutual cooperation and the end of neo-colonialism, a fundamental contribution to building the future.
The world assembly, with participants from over twenty-five nations, took place in the days of the beginning of the Turkish national liberation struggle led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against imperialist occupation, which began with his arrival in Samsun on May 19, 1919. The speakers presented a broad overview of global youth struggles, highlighting how the oppressions affecting the world’s peoples—from the genocide in Gaza to spiraling debt in Pakistan, from the siege of Cuba and Venezuela to the attacks on Lebanon and Iran—are the fruit of US imperialism and its arrogant and violent ally, Israeli Zionism.
The participants recognized the decline of the unipolar order and the emergence of a new multipolar world order based on Eurasia as a historic transformation underway. They also emphasized that Iran’s resistance represents a turning point capable of demonstrating how defeating the United States is possible, and highlighted the need for organized, coordinated, and concrete solidarity.
The World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union feels fully involved in the construction of this emerging new world order.
Several contributors have argued that the unipolar Atlantic order built under the globalization paradigm has entered an irreversible crisis. In its place, a new international system centered on China, Russia, Iran, and Türkiye, founded on national sovereignty, labor, solidarity, and cooperation between peoples, is emerging.
All speakers described Iran’s recent resistance to Israeli-US aggression as a decisive historical moment, an authentic continuation of the anti-imperialist revolution begun by the Iranian people in 1979 in the wake of the rediscovery of the spiritual dimension of political struggle.
The inalienable right of the Palestinian people to a land, a nation, and a future has emerged as a common moral and political reference.
One of the most recurring themes was the need to transform indignation and emotion on every continent into an organized force capable of countering the crimes of imperialism and Zionism, promoting concrete, coordinated, and ongoing initiatives.
Kayahan Çetin, president of the Youth Union of Türkiye (TGB), said that the masses of the Global South, and especially the youth among them, “are breaking the chains of the post-World War II hegemonic order”, recalling Türkiye’s struggle for over forty years against terrorism and ethnic separatism and today against imperialist military alliances in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Can Aybars Bilgicier of the Vatan Party underlined how “ a new world is rising from Eurasia ” and how the young people of the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union represent a generation called to build a new world, whose precursors emerge from the Iranian victories at the Strait of Hormuz, the Russian ones in the Black Sea against NATO’s imperialist aggression, the Chinese ones on the Taiwan question, reiterating the choice of a human model based on solidarity, public ownership of common goods, social justice and the social rights connected to it, from housing, to work, from health to education, it is a new vision of the world that will archive the individualism sadly imposed together with liberalism in the time of imperialist hegemony.
Ghazi Abdulal, Secretary General of the Palestinian Youth Organization, affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, argued that the actions against Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran demonstrate the nature of contemporary imperialism. He called the Palestinian resistance one of the clearest symbols of a people’s determination in the face of occupation and colonial violence. He is convinced that the voices of young Palestinians in universities and squares around the world are helping to build a global consciousness based on freedom and the self-determination of peoples.
Aliakbar Taheri of the Coalition for the Resistance of Iran recalled how imperialism today no longer hides behind the language of democracy and benevolence, but openly displays its criminal and violent face. Indeed, imperialism’s hostility is not simply directed against certain political systems, but against the very principle of national independence. He recalled that Iran is fighting to defend Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause, to oppose the normalization and acceptance of Israel, to defend the children and the entire population of Lebanon, to defend the legitimate government of Yemen, which has been under attack for years, to defend the national dignity of Venezuela, to oppose the blockade against Cuba, and to prevent new occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as collaborating to stop the war in Sudan.
Syeda Ayesha Gardezi, communications director of the Pakistan Peasants and Workers’ Party – Mazdoor Kisan Party, emphasized that the anti-imperialist front must organize itself. She recalled that two-thirds of the Pakistani population is under thirty, often afflicted by unemployment, inflation, and privatization. She concluded that ” the same hand that strangles Pakistani youth finances the genocide in Gaza and imposes sanctions on Cuba and aggression on Iran. ” Therefore, if ” imperialism is organized, financial capital is organized, NATO is organized, the Zionist colonial project is organized, to defeat them, we too must organize ourselves as global youth united by the common desire for a more just and supportive world.“
Zied Achek of the National Executive Committee of the UGET, the General Union of Tunisian Students, recalled that throughout the 20th century, Tunisia experienced colonialism, dictatorship, and the economic policies imposed by international financial institutions and their structural adjustment programs, i.e., the destruction of the welfare state. The time has come to build a new Tunisia, and a new world based on solidarity.
Shakeel Bhaktawer of the South African Communist Party recalled the central role of youth in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and how young South Africans today are fighting for Palestine and against NATO’s actions in all international arenas.
Miruna Pandele, vice president of the Socialist Party of Romania, recalled how ” socialism has never been defeated ” and how China demonstrates this every day. He recalled how after 1989, Romania was governed by elites in favor of free-market policies and US influence, aimed at destroying the social fabric, as well as the achievements achieved during the socialist period in terms of industrialization, literacy, healthcare and the right to housing.
Taha Küçükuygun, Secretary General of the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union, emphasized how the problems faced by different nations have common causes, adding that the world assembly demonstrated how, in the common struggle against imperialism, many organizations from different continents share not only a set of political analyses, but also a common vision of the future.
The young people who gathered in Istanbul have established an international calendar of mobilizations, are organizing a series of global solidarity campaigns, have decided to establish an international political training school, as well as to take constant action on the global media and cultural front, as well as continuing with regular meetings and a general commitment to expanding the participating organizations.
Thus, the World Anti-Imperialist Youth Union is also effectively on the path to building a new world of solidarity and multipolarity.