Back and Next - Back and NextMINI READ: Che remembered: 80th birthday on June 14
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Che Guevara would have turned 80 on June 14. His political activism among us ended when he was 39 (Fanon died aged 36).
But they were unable to kill him. Today he is more alive than during the four decades of his life. Few revolutionaries like Mao and Fidel himself live to grow old. Many shed their blood at an early age to contribute to the project of a world of freedom, justice and peace: Jesus, at 33; Marti, 42; Sandino, 38; Zapata, 39; Farabundo Marti; 38, just to name a few examples.
The enemy must be tearing their hair out because today Che is more present than during the period in which they thought they could murder his ideas. They tried to condemn him to obscurity; they severed his body and hid his parts in different places; they made up all sorts of lies about him; they prohibited the circulation of his writings in many countries.
Like an obstinate phoenix, Che lives on in photos, music, theater pieces, movies, poems, novels sculptures and scholarly texts. Even a beer was given his name, the Unique Garden, and his image from the famous photo by Korda hangs in many living rooms.
When they saw that chains don’t imprison symbols, nor bullets kill examples, they wrote up false biographies to try and slander him. But it was in vane. Even at soccer matches the fans hold up signs with his face. Not a cent is spent in the propagation of his image, whose only importance is to reflect the ideas that made him a revolutionary. None of that is thanks to marketing. They are spontaneous gestures of those that want to emphasize that the ideal of utopia remains alive.
Today, summarizing the legacy of Che and celebrating his 80th demands of us to maintain our hearts and eyes focused on the worrisome state of our planet, where hegemony and neoliberalism prevail. Multitudes, especially young people, are drawn by individualism and not community spirit; by competitiveness instead of solidarity; by excessive ambition and not the fight to eradicate misery.
So much is said about the failure of socialism in Eastern Europe and almost nothing about the inevitable failure of capitalism for two thirds of humanity, the four billion people that live below the poverty line.
Environmental degradation also troubles us. If the world’s leaders had listened to the alert from Fidel at the 1992 Rio Summit perhaps the devastation wouldn’t have reached the extreme of provoking recurring tsunamis, tornados, typhoons and hurricanes as never before, not to mention the global warming and the melting of the poles and the desertification of the forests. The devastation in the Amazon is alarming.
A barrel of oil costs US $10 at the well and more than $120 on the market. It’s sad to see the large areas of farmland reserved for ethanol production to feed 800 million vehicles that circulate in the world and not the 824 million hungry mouths threatened with an early death. Faced with this world in which financial speculation takes precedence over the production of goods and services, in which the stock market serves as a thermometer of people’s supposed happiness, what do we do?
Bolivar must be happy with the democracy blossoming in South America. After the cycles of military dictatorships and neoliberal governments, now the peoples elect governments that are rejecting the Free Trade Area of the Americas, approving the ALBA and strengthening the South Common Market (Mercosur), while condemning the US invasion of Iraq and its blockade against Cuba.
What’s the best way to commemorate 80 years of Che? I think the best present would be to see the new generations believing and struggling for a better world, where solidarity is a habit not a virtue; where the practice of justice is an ethical demand, and socialism the political name for love.
Building a world without environmental degradation, hunger and social inequality!
With the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution we should increasingly carry it as a project of the future, not a thing of the past.
Frei Betto is a Brazillian Catholic priest, who has become a leading personality of the movement Liberation Theology made up by Christian clergymen actively engaged in the struggle against poverty, injustices, inequalities and all forms of discrimination in Latin America and the Carribbean. Frei Betto is well known also as an author of essays and books on the struggle of the peoples of that region. One of his most read book is Fidel and Religion, a very interesting and lengthy conversation with Fidel Castro about the Cuban leader’s views on such matters.
But they were unable to kill him. Today he is more alive than during the four decades of his life. Few revolutionaries like Mao and Fidel himself live to grow old. Many shed their blood at an early age to contribute to the project of a world of freedom, justice and peace: Jesus, at 33; Marti, 42; Sandino, 38; Zapata, 39; Farabundo Marti; 38, just to name a few examples.
The enemy must be tearing their hair out because today Che is more present than during the period in which they thought they could murder his ideas. They tried to condemn him to obscurity; they severed his body and hid his parts in different places; they made up all sorts of lies about him; they prohibited the circulation of his writings in many countries.
Like an obstinate phoenix, Che lives on in photos, music, theater pieces, movies, poems, novels sculptures and scholarly texts. Even a beer was given his name, the Unique Garden, and his image from the famous photo by Korda hangs in many living rooms.
When they saw that chains don’t imprison symbols, nor bullets kill examples, they wrote up false biographies to try and slander him. But it was in vane. Even at soccer matches the fans hold up signs with his face. Not a cent is spent in the propagation of his image, whose only importance is to reflect the ideas that made him a revolutionary. None of that is thanks to marketing. They are spontaneous gestures of those that want to emphasize that the ideal of utopia remains alive.
Today, summarizing the legacy of Che and celebrating his 80th demands of us to maintain our hearts and eyes focused on the worrisome state of our planet, where hegemony and neoliberalism prevail. Multitudes, especially young people, are drawn by individualism and not community spirit; by competitiveness instead of solidarity; by excessive ambition and not the fight to eradicate misery.
So much is said about the failure of socialism in Eastern Europe and almost nothing about the inevitable failure of capitalism for two thirds of humanity, the four billion people that live below the poverty line.
Environmental degradation also troubles us. If the world’s leaders had listened to the alert from Fidel at the 1992 Rio Summit perhaps the devastation wouldn’t have reached the extreme of provoking recurring tsunamis, tornados, typhoons and hurricanes as never before, not to mention the global warming and the melting of the poles and the desertification of the forests. The devastation in the Amazon is alarming.
A barrel of oil costs US $10 at the well and more than $120 on the market. It’s sad to see the large areas of farmland reserved for ethanol production to feed 800 million vehicles that circulate in the world and not the 824 million hungry mouths threatened with an early death. Faced with this world in which financial speculation takes precedence over the production of goods and services, in which the stock market serves as a thermometer of people’s supposed happiness, what do we do?
Bolivar must be happy with the democracy blossoming in South America. After the cycles of military dictatorships and neoliberal governments, now the peoples elect governments that are rejecting the Free Trade Area of the Americas, approving the ALBA and strengthening the South Common Market (Mercosur), while condemning the US invasion of Iraq and its blockade against Cuba.
What’s the best way to commemorate 80 years of Che? I think the best present would be to see the new generations believing and struggling for a better world, where solidarity is a habit not a virtue; where the practice of justice is an ethical demand, and socialism the political name for love.
Building a world without environmental degradation, hunger and social inequality!
With the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution we should increasingly carry it as a project of the future, not a thing of the past.
Frei Betto is a Brazillian Catholic priest, who has become a leading personality of the movement Liberation Theology made up by Christian clergymen actively engaged in the struggle against poverty, injustices, inequalities and all forms of discrimination in Latin America and the Carribbean. Frei Betto is well known also as an author of essays and books on the struggle of the peoples of that region. One of his most read book is Fidel and Religion, a very interesting and lengthy conversation with Fidel Castro about the Cuban leader’s views on such matters.
Author: DO
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