Life after death

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Life after death

(Friday 10 October 2008)

JOHN WIGHT




CHE Guevara was executed in Bolivia 41 years ago this week. JOHN WIGHT explains why he lives on.



On October 9 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara's attempt to help foment revolution across Latin America was halted in its tracks by a Bolivian army bullet.


The CIA orchestrated Che's execution. It hoped that his killing would deal a major blow to the influence of the Cuban revolution in Washington's traditional backyard, which provided the cheap labour, raw materials and markets required to maintain the huge profits of US corporations.


But the CIA was wrong - just as successive US administrations have been wrong - to think that the ideas for which Che fought and died could be killed with a bullet.


The Cuban revolution remains a beacon of hope and inspiration for the poor of the undeveloped world.


Achievements in the realms of health care, education and science continue to astound a world in which the dominant ideology, free-market capitalism, has waged an unremitting campaign to demonise socialism and socialist ideas.


Cuba not only asserts its right to political and economic independence, understanding that you cannot have one without the other, but also rejects the cultural and ideological hegemony of the United States.


It is nothing short of heroic that a nation of 12 million people located only 90 miles off the coast of Florida has maintained its independence and survived for so long.


Che continues to exemplify the heroism of the Cuban people and his life and ideas have never been more potent or relevant.


The legend of Che has not only continued unabated since his death, it has grown in parallel with the rise of imperialism in our time and its countless victims.


In every town and every city, from Los Angeles to London, Beirut to Bethlehem, from Nairobi to New Delhi, the iconic image of Che captured by Alberto Korda is as ubiquitous as it is powerful, carried on T-shirts, posters, caps, coffee mugs and a myriad other items. Not all those who carry the image on their clothing do so for political reasons. In fact, most undoubtedly do not.


Nevertheless, the image of Che stands for something unmistakable in the human experience, an antidote to the daily barrage of deadening neoliberal and free-market ideology delivered courtesy of advertisers and cultural commentators.


Self-sacrifice, the primacy of will, an unshakable belief in the ability of men and women to change the course of history - this is the legacy of a man whose life was defined by a pitiless struggle against inhumanity.


The fierce determination of a man burning with anger at the injustice, oppression and exploitation suffered by the world's poor suffused Che's writing and speeches with a clarity that continues to resonate.


Addressing the United Nations general assembly in 1964 he said: "In this assembly ... those peoples whose skins are darkened by a different sun, coloured by different pigments, constitute the majority. And they fully and clearly understand that the difference between men does not lie in the colour of their skin but in the forms of ownership of the means of production, in the relations of production."


But Che went far beyond delivering this powerful verbal testament in solidarity with the poor and oppressed of another land. He was someone who lived the principles of internationalism that he eloquently espoused.


A year later, Che turned words into action. He left for Congo, abandoning the relative comfort and status that the successful Cuban revolution had given him to risk his life, gun in hand.


"There are no borders in this struggle to the death," he declared in a 1965 speech to the Afro-Asian conference.


"We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, because a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us."


But perhaps Che's most enduring pronouncement came in his message to the Tricontinental in 1967. Under the title Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams, he gave his analysis of the world situation in relation to the struggle against imperialism.


"In focusing on the destruction of imperialism, it is necessary to identify its head, which is none other than the United States of America.


"Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, if another hand reaches out to take up our arms and other men come forward to join in our funeral dirge with the rattling of machine guns and with new cries of battle and victory."


For Che, the struggle against imperialism could only be won by using the same force and violence used by the oppressor. Not for him non-violence and peaceful protest.





'The image of Che stands for something unmistakable in the human experience, an antidote to the daily barrage of deadening ideology.'







His experience, his observation of the poverty and truncated lives suffered by millions throughout Latin America, Africa and the developing world, instilled in him a rage and a desire to visit retribution on those responsible.


Yet this rage, this unbending determination to destroy his enemies, was born of a deep and great love for humanity.


This love for humanity, for the poor and the oppressed, continues to lend power not only to the Cuban revolution but to the Bolivarian revolutionary process taking place in Venezuela.


Che's life and work have inspired Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who, in turn, has inspired a long-awaited and desperately needed shift to the left throughout Latin America.


In Bolivia, where Che met his end, Evo Morales has been elected as a champion of the poor and the much-maligned indigenous peoples of his tortured land.


In Chile and in Ecuador, left-leaning governments have also emerged, evidence that Che's example and devotion to the cause of social and economic justice remains ever present, acting as a guide and a bulwark against that human wrecking machine that is neoliberalism.


Despite all the inspiration and heroism of Che's life, one incident sums up more than any speech or heroic act ever could what his sacrifice and the enduring force of the Cuban revolution means.


In 2006, Mario Teran, an old man living in Bolivia, was treated by Cuban doctors volunteering their services free of charge to Bolivia's poor, just as they do throughout the developing world.


They performed an operation to remove cataracts from Teran's eyes. It was an operation which succeeded in restoring his sight.


But Teran was not just any old man. He was the Bolivian army officer who executed Ernesto Che Guevara.

[Thinking Man's Idiot]

Added

George Galloway - Banned Anti-War Demo in London

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