By Kayahan Çetin – Chairman of the Youth Union of Türkiye (TGB)
May 19th, 1919 is the date Mustafa Kemal Atatürk arrived in the northern Turkish city of Samsun to start the armed struggle against the imperialist occupation of Türkiye and its collaborators. The date is considered as the beginning of the war of liberation. It is today celebrated as an official holiday as the “Day of Commemorating Atatürk, the youth and sports”.
The Youth Union of Türkiye (TGB) and the World Anti-imperialist Youth Union (WAYU) have organized on May 19, 2026, an international event with participation from dozens of countries of anti-imperialist struggle. During the convention, several speeches were held.
One of the speeches was from Kayahan Çetin, Chairman of the Youth Union of Türkiye (TGB). Below, we present the speech to our readers.
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Dear General Chairman, Dear Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Ankara, Dear Mayor, Dear distinguished guests who have come to our beautiful Istanbul from 25 countries, Dear attendees,
Welcome once again to the International Youth Festival of historic significance, held at the dawn of a new world!
First and foremost, we extend our gratitude and respect to Mr. Ömer Rasim Şişman, Acting Mayor of Beşiktaş, for his support in organizing this festival.
As our poet Enver Gökçe wrote in his verses: “Rejoice, rejoice! A new world is being born! Far from the clanking of chains and the bacilli of tuberculosis!”
We are living in days when we are breaking the chains of this hegemonic order — the one in which generations have been forced to live since the end of the Second World War.
These chains do not break on their own. Today, a new world is being forged through the struggle of frontline nations against imperialist-Zionist aggression.
The resistance of Iran — which, with the resilience of its state and the determination of its millions filling the squares, cries out “Heyhat Minen Zille / Humiliation is far from us”.
Palestine, which has not bowed before one of the heaviest aggressions history has ever seen, which has not been destroyed or subdued — is writing the prologue of the new world.
Our country, Türkiye, has fought for 40 years against terrorism unleashed upon it to fragment and divide its lands, and today faces armed imperialist alliances formed against it, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean.
The representatives of all nations present in this hall come from the trenches of struggle against the oppression and domination of this unipolar imperialist hegemonic order.
The resistance front of West Asia, standing on the frontlines against US and Israeli aggression, is in this hall. Those who carry the legacy of Africa’s struggle against colonialism and Apartheid are in this hall. The leaders of the people’s movement rising against unbounded aggression in Europe are in this hall. Those advancing toward a collectivist civilization in Asia — the new world’s hub of production and humanity’s front — are in this hall. Those from the American continent who defy the United States right at its doorstep are in this hall.
We have gathered as people who want a more equal, more just, more sharing world — far from tuberculosis, malnutrition, misery, hunger, oppression, and occupation. We have come together with our brothers and sisters forged in the fire of the struggle for state independence, national liberation, and people’s revolution.
We are those who see not only the end of this hegemonic order, but also the society and world of the future. Because we are the future leaders. The leaders of the decades ahead of the world. We are not only the future of our states and nations, but also the stakeholders of humanity’s shared community of destiny.
As the leader of the Chinese Revolution, Mao Zedong, said: While we carry our country in our hearts, the world is on our horizon.
We want peace, production, and equitable distribution. But we know that the way to win peace is to stop the aggressor. We know that peace cannot be won through someone’s charity without struggling for our collective security. We remember that all honorable peace have been won through revolutions.
Here are the faces watching us: from Robespierre to Garibaldi, from Bolívar to Lumumba, from Tito to Mao, from Khamenei to Arafat, from Lenin to Atatürk — the leaders of wars of national liberation and national revolutions.
Just like the days we are now living through, the Turkish, Russian, Iranian and Chinese Revolutions that opened the gates of a new era. Independence struggles across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The resistance rising against hegemonism in Europe. With this legacy at our backs, we stand with confidence.
Our world will no longer carry on its shoulders this decaying and collapsing order — one that can offer humanity nothing but destruction, alienation, war, and drugs. We are stepping into yet another Age of Revolutions. Ahead of us are revolutions, ahead of us is the independence and freedom we will win, ahead of us is the great age of cooperation to be built by free nations and free peoples.
Our Great Revolutionary Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk said: “Colonialism and imperialism will disappear from the face of the earth, and in their place will come a new age of harmony and cooperation among nations, with no distinction of color, religion, or race.”
We have come together at this historic festival as comrades who know the path toward that age of harmony and cooperation. And once again, with the words of our founding leader, we pledge to the leaders and the revolutionary heritage of humanity’s collective legacy watching over us: “All oppressed nations will one day vanquish and destroy their oppressors.”
The future is ours. The future belongs to our shared struggle. Imperialists are paper tigers. Time and again it has been proven that they are paper tigers.
I would like to close my remarks by saluting you with a poem by the great poet of the Turkish nation, Nâzım Hikmet — “Independence.” In this poem, Nâzım Hikmet addresses his Egyptian brothers, but you may understand it as addressed to Iranians, Palestinians, Chinese, Russians, or any nation.
My Egyptian brother, your blood has mingled with the waters of the canal. A person’s homeland becomes all the more their own as their blood flows into its soil, its waters. A nation that does not know how to die for its homeland has not truly lived…
Nations that have leaders who sacrifice their lives for their homeland and national honor never lose any war. Greetings to Martyr Hassan Nasrallah, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Sayyid Ali Khamenei!
As representatives of Türkiye’s youth movement — a movement with a great history stretching from those who drove the US 6th Fleet into the sea in 1968 to those who have put a sack over the heads of American soldiers seven times today — we are proud to host this international festival.
To all of you: our love, our respect, our greetings. Welcome!