The newly formed Dissident Project seeks to connect those who have fled socialism with America’s young people in order to learn about the “evils of socialism.”
“Americans are taught about many evil ideologies throughout their schooling today such as fascism, Nazism, and slavery and other oppressive regimes. But little do they know about socialism,” Dissident Project director Daniel DiMartino told Breitbart News. “This ideology has killed over 100 million people, more than any other in history. And it is the major oppressive ideology that still controls many nations today.”
To fulfill the goal of educating young Americans, the project seeks to “connect those with firsthand insight into authoritarian socialism with student audiences,” according to their website.
DiMartino, whose native country is Nicolas Maduro’s socialist Venezuela, explained his project was inspired by a Florida bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that requires high school students to learn about the dark histories of both socialism and communism.
That bill also requires students to “hear first-hand testimony from immigrants like us … who have suffered under socialist regimes abroad,” DiMartino said in a press release.
“I found out last year about, H.B. 2, a bill passed in Florida which required high schools to include lessons about socialism in the curriculum. More recently, they also required including first hand testimony from survivors of socialism,” he told Breitbart News. “I was already traveling to events and colleges to speak about how socialism destroyed my native country of Venezuela and how it changed my life.”
DiMartino explained that at one of his presentations to a Massachusetts public high school, he was convinced that there existed a “moral need to teach young Americans about the evils of socialism and we had to make it free for schools so they or the speakers didn’t have to burden the cost of traveling.”
He partnered with Young Voices, a media nonprofit for millennial and Gen-Z professionals, and launched the Dissident Project in order to “send young survivors from socialist countries to high schools around America at no cost at all.”
DiMartino’s project begs the question of how a market exists in the United States for what his group is offering and what forces it is fighting against.
When asked what the biggest culprits for pro-socialist messaging in America are, DiMartino simply said, “our own educational institutions, unfortunately.”
“I saw it first hand when I was in college in Indiana,” he told Breitbart News. “People come out of high school with no knowledge of what socialism did to Eastern Europe or China, or still does to Cuba and Venezuela. And when they get to college, some professors get in their head that socialism is a good thing and the solution to all these problems that America has.”
“They also make sure to lie to Americans about this country being evil and unfair,” he continued. “When the reality is that compared to the rest of the world, America is one of the most if not the most tolerant, prosperous, and meritocratic countries,”
“The main problem is that most public high schools simply don’t teach about socialism,” he added. “So teenagers are left vulnerable once they go to college or hear a politician to believe their lies. They don’t know what Holodomor is, or the things socialist regimes promised and the rhetoric they used. So they fall for the same lies.”
Moving forward, DiMartino plans to expand his project across the country.
“We are starting with eight speakers from four countries, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Hong Kong,” he explained. “We will be traveling to perhaps a couple dozen schools this academic year depending on demand. And in this year we will also be recruiting more dissidents from other countries not yet represented.”
“Our goal is to be able to provide high schools with the most comprehensive set of first hand experiences with socialism that was ever made,” he continued. “What’s special about the Dissident Project is that our speakers are young immigrants from socialist countries with unique experiences.”
“Our youth allows us to connect with student audiences even better than any other speaker could because our message to the students is that they could be in our shoes when they grow up just a few years more,” he added. “We’re nonpartisan and just want to make Americans feel grateful for their freedom and wary of the ideology that destroyed our native countries.”
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.
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