RESISTANCE!
The inspiring truth about Che Guevara
Jesse Holly
20 July 2007
As the world’s most recognisable symbol of struggle and liberation, Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s image seems to become more popular every year. Even the Weekend Australian, a mouthpiece of Australia’s ruling class, put Che on its front page on July 14 to grab potential buyers’ attention.
But Che is much more than a T-shirt icon, which is why the Weekend Australian felt the need to publish an article by Cassandra Wilkinson attacking this leader of the Cuban Revolution titled “The bitter truth about Che Guevara”.
Wilkinson’s article was largely based around Humberto Fontova’s recent book Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolise Him. The book misrepresents Che as a murderous, tyrannical leader of a revolution that not only attacked workers’ rights, but also created a “refugee crisis that continues to this day”.
This latest anti-Che hysteria is primarily a reaction to Michael Moore’s popular new film Sicko, in which Moore takes a group of US citizens to socialist Cuba to receive the quality health care they cannot afford in their own country. It is a film that embarrasses the capitalist rulers.
Argentinean-born Che had trained to be a doctor. He decided, however, “For one to be a revolutionary doctor or to be a revolutionary at all, there must first be a revolution” and dedicated himself to revolution in the Americas. He became, along with Fidel Castro, one of the most respected leaders of the Cuban Revolution.
In 1959, the people of Cuba overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The new government, headed by Castro, halved rent, gradually introduced free and massively expanded health care and education, and nationalised most of the country’s industry, allowing the economy to be planned according to the needs of the people.
The Cuban Revolution was a huge victory against imperialism and since the revolution Cuba has had to survive an economic blockade and constant attempts by the US to put a pro-imperialist regime back in power.
Wilkinson writes, “Sicko argues that Cuba serves as a rebuke to the failed individualism of the US”. Yes, the film shows that US capitalism fails to give poorer individuals the medical treatment they need, while Cuba has free health care. Cuba’s “repressive” system is based on servicing the needs of the majority, not increasing the profits of a minority.
Wilkinson claims that librarians are persecuted in Cuba and teaching people to read has been declared counter-revolutionary. The truth is that revolutionary Cuba has a literacy rate of 97% and free education. Wilkinson also claims that Cuba’s infant mortality rate has risen since the revolution. In fact it has dropped, from 60 deaths per 1000 live births in 1959 to 5 per 1000 live births. This is the best infant mortality rate in Latin America.
Unaware readers of Wilkinson’s article would assume that Che spent his last days living the luxurious life of a tyrant in Cuba. The article doesn’t even mention that Che was murdered by agents of the US while unarmed in the jungles of Bolivia, where he was fighting for the liberation of Latin America’s peoples.
Wilkinson suggests that Che’s sole motivation was hatred. Unsurprisingly, she fails to note Che’s famous comment: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
Had Che been alive today to see the social change sweeping through Latin America, especially in Venezuela, with the people defying US and transnational corporations on a scale not seen since the Cuban Revolution, he might have updated his call, “Create two, three, many Vietnams” to “Create two, three, many Venezuelas”.
Che was one of the great leaders of the 20th Century. That is why, 40 years after his death, Resistance continues to use his image, as a symbol of struggle and victory against injustice.
