Che the Revolutionary fantasist (from Xuitlacoche)

Che Guevara (Whose photo?)

To give you a little background TQM...

I saw a copy of Che's African diaries about three years ago and was asked to translate them, [In fact I still have them in the original Spanish and intend to read them in their unedited form] but that offer soon faded away. At the time I said I would be honoured to translate the diaries. I am not so sure now. Che's language was dense and circular and confusing in its references, alluding to conversations and events that he didn't specify or detail. If Che was writing for posterity, there was absolutely no sign of it in the Spanish he used. Pure stodge. And he did go through a period of being quite obese.

And then, a few days ago I was chatting to one of the former senior leaders of the African revolutionary and anti-colonial movements and he enlightened me somewhat. He said that he had respected Che's ideas to some extent, but didn't like Che as a person.

According to him, Che had been a latecomer to the Cuban revolution, and without much of a background in Cuban politics. He just got onto the boat with Fidel in order to help swell the numbers. From then on Che was under the impression that all you had to do to start a revolution anywhere in the world was to (figuratively) jump off a boat and start shooting guns into the air. Of course everyone would rally to your standard.

This was a simple minded political philosophy indeed and it was a philosophy that would lead to Che's death in Bolivia on October 9th, 1967, almost exactly 40 years ago.

When the Granma arrived on the coast of Cuba in July, Cubans rallied to the revolutionary cause and what Che did not understand is that this was the result of 30 years of political agitation and preparation by the trade unions and the opposition. Che was under the false impression that the people instantly supported Fidel because they had been swept away in a romance of bullets and uniforms and that, on seeing these brave gun-toting role models, their indignation at the injustices they faced would suddenly find its true revolutionary outlet. He was Argentinian, after all, so what did he understand about Cuban politics? He drew his erroneous conclusions.

The African leader in question told me that Che, and Che's group in Africa, were incredibly arrogant and dismissive about the tactics used by the African freedom fighters. Once, after the African revolutionaries announced that a Portugese plane had been shot down, the Cubans refused to believe it. They refused to believe the Africans were capable of such military feats: "Impossible" they said.

Che and his grouping ordered/asked African revolutionary leaders to go and lead revolutions and anti-colonial struggles in countries that were not their own. And they were politely refused.

So Che was a fantasist who appeals strongly other revolutionary fantasists, to people who like the "poetry" of violent revolution. Che was arrogant and mistaken in his outlook and I quite understand how the African leader in question might say:

- "Well, I respected his ideas to some extent, but didn't like him as a person."

On the other hand, perhaps the Cuban intervention in Angola was partly inspired by Che's romantic internationalism and so there was a silver lining to his weapons fetish and his dark romance of bullets turning into flowers. The Cubans played a crucial part in rolling the South Africans out of Angola and Namibia and, finally, in helping to tumble the regime out of power in South Africa.

Dom commented:

Domza

"When the Granma arrived on the coast of Cuba in July, Cubans rallied to the revolutionary cause".

Well there was actually a massacre, and only a handful made it to the mountains (Sierra Maestra). Years of difficulties followed.

Concerning the Cuban interventions in Africa, there is a new and wonderful film called "Cuba, an African Oddyssey" directed by Jihan el-Tahri made for the BBC.

Phil

But the people did rally to Fidel's cause.

Do you agree with Che's philosophy of exporting revolution?

I don't.

Domza

I think that a phrase like "Che's philosophy of exporting revolution" does not come anywhere close to describing the 26-plus-year history of Cuba's military interventions in Africa, or their consequences. I am not an expert but I had some lucky breaks and I was amazed by what I found out. Among other things, I was fortunate to meet Jorge Risquet and he sent me a his own book, signed for me by himself, called "El segundo frente del Che en el Congo. Historia del batallon Patricio Lumumba". I wish you could translate it for me!

I stashed a couple of things, for example this one here:

http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/Excerpts+in+memory+of+our+Cuban+comrades

There are a lot of things one could say. Che went to the Congo under orders and left under orders. The Cubans learnt very well from that and from the second column (Risquet's) and from Guinea-Bissau; and then they went all the way, as you say, to Namibia and to February, 1990. Jihan al Tahri's film is very subtle about the contrast between the Cubans and the Soviets, and very clear on the final confrontation between the Cubans and the Boers, in which Risquet was once again involved.

Somewhere in the story there is a US tribute to the Cubans along the lines that their African interventions were "one of the most astonishing feats of military projection in history" or words to that effect. I am sure that is correct.

Let me take the opportunity of offering you the thing I am working on at the moment, here: http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/Plug-in+City

Just one more small thing about Che Guevara. I don't think there is anything in the fact that he was Argentinian and not Cuban. There is a long history of Latin American internationalism, even including British internationalists, as mentioned in the interview James Tweedie did with Jeronimo Carrera, stashed here:

http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/Venezuelan+Communist+Jeronimo+Carrera+interviewed+in+Morning+Star

I think what is more to the point is that Che was a white settler child very much like a white South African or Kenyan white settler child. I find that this is a good way for me to understand and appreciate him and to sympathise with him.

Fidel's relationship with Che was very important to Fidel. Fidel's father was a landowner and farmer. Fidel grew up simply, and close to workers, but was not himself poor.

Enrique Orta of the Cuban Embassy here in South Africa gave me a postcard of Fidel as a young man, after the revolution, playing baseball, with a group including black players. Liber Puente Baro, also of the Embassy, later saw the picture on my office wall. Liber explained to me that before the revolution, baseball was an exclusively white sport in Cuba! I had no idea of something like that.

I have come to regard the struggles in Latin America and in Africa as more similar than different, and because of that, to see my own position as a white, or perhaps a creole, in a different way - i.e. as part of a much larger history and tradition.