We are all necessary

November 26 2014 (16:03 WET)

Last Saturday, a group of colleagues from Juventudes Socialistas de Lanzarote approached the port of Los Mármoles. We did it to visit the Artic Sunrise and, most importantly, to directly thank the people of Greenpeace for their involvement in the political and citizen campaign against Repsol's explorations in the waters of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.

It was exciting. Being among them, and breathing the climate of commitment and courage that surrounds them, makes it easy to understand why many young people choose to serve in this type of organization instead of in political parties.

The great cause of environmental protection and the conservation of natural resources leaves no one indifferent. Or almost no one, given the position maintained to the letter by the Popular Party regarding the extraction of oil in a paradise for biodiversity such as the Canary Islands.

Seeing crew members my age working on the deck of the ship, ready to head to Valencia to defend a group of colleagues being prosecuted for peacefully protesting against the nuclear danger at the Cofrentes power plant in Valencia, awakened in me the desire to leave everything to follow them in their crusade of the future.

But then I thought that everyone is needed. The activists of non-governmental organizations, aboard their zodiacs and behind their banners, demanding the attention of the media and making available to the common objective their essential speaker and their message of alert.

And we, who aspire to occupy positions of public responsibility in the future, with the commitment to transfer to the political agenda and to the list of priorities the defense of the environment, the protection of women victims of gender violence or the support of people who are socially or economically disadvantaged.

Thanks again to those wonderful people. Their commitment is an extraordinary incentive for those of us who, from the ground and in the place that corresponds to us, defend those values that unite us.

 

*Jimena Álvarez, general secretary of Juventudes Socialistas de Lanzarote

Most read