Que viva la revolución? Really?
Those of you who know me, know how I feel about this. As the son of Cuban immigrants, this
phrase is almost as offensive as Che himself. The phrase is supposed to be a rallying cry for those who
“fight the man”, or “go against the grain” and other pop-culture sayings,
referencing the Cuban revolution as an example of how Che and his ilk overthrew
a corrupt government and finally brought justice to the small island
country. And what I find particularly galling is that I actually see
a few Hispanics wearing this shirt.
The (almost) laughable part about this, is that most people
who wear Che shirts probably have absolutely no idea who this man really
was. He’s portrayed as a hero, the
underdog who came out on top. Even
celebrities here in the U.S. talk about him as if he were some sort of role
model. The musician Carlos Santana
is quoted as saying, "Che may be dead for you, but he lives in our hearts
... Che is all about love and compassion."
That’s not even remotely true.
So who was he? “The Motorcycle Diaries” notwithstanding, he
was an anti-democratic demagogue at best - and a murderous thug at worst. After he and Fidel Castro overthrew
Fulgencio Batista's government in 1959, they set themselves up as the country's
new (permanent) administration. As a result, Cuba continues to be the prison
that it is today. It was Guevara, in fact, who devised the idea for the forced
labor camps that people like my father were sentenced to for being
"enemies of the state."
What crime labeled them “enemies of the state”? They wanted to leave the country. That’s it, plain and simple. They weren’t planning a
counter-revolution or plotting some terrorist act. They disagreed with the way Fidel and Che were running the
country and recognized that their children’s future would be bleak at best if
they stayed, so they wanted to leave.
No small task back then. In
those days, if you wanted to leave Cuba, you were sent to these forced labor
camps for an indeterminate amount of time. You worked from dawn till dusk in
the sugarcane fields. My father did that for two years. Breakfast was a some
watered down shit-tasting coffee and lunch and dinner was a serving of cornmeal
and soggy rice. That’s who
Che was.
That wasn’t enough, for “el Che”. He also who created the "ration system" of food
distribution that's still in place today. Basically, a household is allotted a
small, set amount of rice (or cooking oil, or sugar) per person for the month.
Mind you, there's no guarantee that any of those items will be available, but
they can hope. As a result, people take great risks in getting arrested for
buying food on the black market because, obviously, the ration isn't
enough.
Let me re-write that, they can get arrested for buying
food. That’s the impact Che
had.
And what about the people Guevara had executed when he was
commander of La Cabaña prison? Now not everyone there was a saint, but I’m not
talking about those guys. I'm
talking about the average working man. The ones who were thrown in there, tortured and executed without ever getting a trial because they disagreed with the government he helped establish. These were the same people he claimed he
was fighting for when he and Castro initiated the revolution. Suddenly they
were being told how they should think and live and work, and being punished for
not complying. That’s Che’s legacy.
But the shirt’s popularity is undeniable. The people who
wear them, I think, fall into one of two categories: A) Those who don’t know
who Che was and don’t know what he did, or B) Those who do know, but choose to
wear it anyway. People in the
former category should take better care in deciding what message they want to
convey by choosing this particular “brand” of clothing. Those in the latter should be ashamed
of themselves.
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