CHE - The Face of Rebellion EVERYWHERE

[rebelAfrika]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarti...2&ItemID=13990

The Face of Rebellion Everywhere
by Mahir Ali; October 09, 2007

IN a small Bolivian town called Vallegrande, somewhat to the
discomfiture of the resident priest, local Catholics commonly offer prayers not
only to the Lord but also to a certain Saint Ernesto. The reference is
not to some revered religious figure from the distant past but to a
devout atheist who blazed a revolutionary trail in the latter half of the
20th century.



It is hard to say whether Che Guevara would have been amused or
repulsed by the Vallegrande variety of veneration. “When I go to bed and
when I wake up,� says a 27-year-old local, “I first pray to God and
then I pray to Che - and then everything is all right. Che’s presence
here is a positive force.� In many houses, representations of Guevara
are displayed next to those of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary; others
feature altars built in his memory, and there is no dearth of stories
about miracles that Che is believed to have facilitated.



The laundry room of a Vallegrande hospital has been turned into a
shrine. This is where Guevara’s mortal remains were displayed 40 years ago
on Tuesday, after his summary execution by US-trained Bolivian troops
in nearby La Higuera. There is also a massive irony in the fact that he
is thus honoured in a region where his attempt to foment revolt
floundered chiefly on account of the absence of local support.



The final chapter in Guevara’s brief life - he was not yet 40 when he
breathed his last - was monumentally tragic. There was a variety of
reasons why the lessons imbibed during the successful guerrilla war to
overthrow the Batista dictatorship in Cuba could not be replicated in
Bolivia. Among other factors, the Cuban campaign was waged under the
leadership of Fidel Castro, who was a well-known figure in his homeland,
and his force, with one notable exception, consisted entirely of Cubans.
An Argentinian doctor leading a troop of mainly Cuban fighters was
unlikely to produce a comparable impact in Bolivia.



Che himself was an exemplary internationalist to whom boundaries and
flags were of little significance. The first mission he undertook after
deciding to leave Cuba was in the Congo, where he hoped to assist the
forces purportedly intent on re-establishing the legacy of Patrice
Lumumba. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser had warned Che against the risk of
being perceived as a Tarzan figure, but that turned out to be the least of
his problems: it was his disenchantment with the local leadership,
particularly Laurent Kabila, that drove him out of Africa.



By then it was too late, in Guevara’s view, for him to return to a
useful role in Cuba. He did go back, but only in secret, with the aim of
preparing his next mission. Che hoped eventually to devote his energies
to establishing socialism in Argentina. He accepted Bolivia as an
interim task, little knowing that his expedition to that country would be
betrayed by the local communist party, which went back on a promise to
provide assistance, possibly at Moscow’s direction.



Orthodox communists in Latin America and elsewhere viewed Guevara as a
reckless adventurer and spared little sympathy for his view that
instead of waiting for the appropriate circumstances to arise, Marxists were
duty-bound to contribute towards creating revolutionary conditions. A
trenchant critique of Soviet trade policy at a 1965 conference in
Algiers had done little to endear him to the party faithful. Quite a few of
them viewed his death in Bolivia as a convenient conclusion to a
turbulent career.



However, by then it was too late for anyone to prevent Guevara from
being transformed into an iconic harbinger of radical change. The image
that immeasurably aided this process was snapped by Castro’s official
photographer, Alberto Korda, on March 5, 1960, during a funeral for 80
Cuban victims of an explosion aboard a French cargo ship loaded with
ammunition. Korda noticed the head of Cuba’s national bank gazing into
the distance, his handsome features reflecting wrath, sorrow and
righteous indignation coupled with steely determination.



The photograph remained unpublished for many years. By 1967, however,
it had made its way to Europe. One of the people reputedly responsible
for its dissemination was the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who
had described Guevara as “the most complete man of his age�. It was
a young Irish graphic artist called Jim Fitzpatrick who transformed it
into the familiar two-tone image that became ubiquitous after Che’s
martyrdom.



During the rebellion among western youth in 1968, this representation
of the heroic guerrilla was borne aloft at almost every demonstration.
Before long it was transformed into a universal symbol of resistance,
visible from Palestine to Peru. Even so, few could have imagined at the
time that its appeal would prove so enduring.



In some ways, the face of Che Guevara became a fashion statement,
coopted by the very forces of capitalist commerce that the revolutionary
leader sought to destroy. Yet the image has always - even when reworked
by Andy Warhol and borrowed by vodka or underwear manufacturers -
subliminally reflected an undercurrent of rebellion, a refusal to accept the
status quo.



In recent years it has been suggested that in order to reaffirm his
stature as a relentless warrior against the multifarious wrongs inflicted
on society, Che ought to be rescued from the T-shirt in which he has
been trapped. It may well be the case that a sizeable proportion of those
who slip into Guevara-adorned T-shirts or star-encrusted berets are
only vaguely aware of what he stood for. On the other hand, let’s not
forget that this method of pledging allegiance to Che’s vision is
favoured even by the likes of Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, the elected
presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia.



Yes, that’s right: Bolivia, the land where Guevara offered the
ultimate sacrifice, now boasts a presidential palace decorated with a
coca-leaf version of Korda’s iconic snapshot. Bolivia and the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela are both in some ways a crucial part of Che’s
legacy, even though Chavez and Morales acquired powers through democratic
means. This is how, in the 21st century, the spirit of Che is being kept
alive.



Ideological foes are keen to equate Guevara with Osama bin Laden or
with suicide bombers inspired by Islamist zeal, but such comparisons are
odious not only because Che was fundamentally averse to the idea of
taking innocent lives, but also because his idealistic vision of a
hard-working, non-exploitative society bears no resemblance to the deleterious
goal of a shariah-governed caliphate.



Three decades or so ago, I was impressed by biographer Andrew
Sinclair’s description of Che as someone who dedicated his “life and death
to the poorest of men without help from God�. More recently I
encountered Guevara’s response, in 1964, to a letter he received from Maria
Rosario Guevara, a Spanish woman who wondered whether they might be
cousins. “I don’t think you and I are very closely related,� he
replied, “but if you are capable of trembling with indignation each time
an injustice is committed in the world, we are comrades, and that is
more important.�



Now there’s an emotion that deserves a resounding Amen from believers
and non-believers alike.





Email: mahir.worldview@gmail.com






Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org

[Jahness]

Greetings rebelAfrika!

Medase for providing this very informative article.

Peace!