Today's guest blogger is Ivan Garcia, a freelance journalist since 1995; Ivan's blog, Desde La Habana: Ivan's File Cabinet, has recently been translated into English.
The Joke of the "New Man"
By Ivan Garcia
Translated by Regina Anavy
The formation of the New Man has always been a fruitless task. Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara, its precursor, with his straw full of mate (a kind of tea that Argentinians drink from a bulb-shaped container, through a straw), was delirious in his moments of rest in the guerrilla war, on the road to Santa Clara in the last days of 1958. At that point in the war against the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the Argentinian Guevara was convinced that in the future society that would be built in Cuba, they would have to start by designing a "laboratory" man.
Che, a Maoist and radical communist, was dreaming, and he believed it would be possible, but the fun-loving Cuban people-with a tendency to idleness and informality-would need a firm hand to discipline them. According to Guevara, these Creoles, given to unending parties and festivals, playing around and disrespectful with their neighbors' women, needed a revolution, with a dose of repression and terror that would permit the construction of a Communist society.
The Argentine tried it. In the short time he was Minister and an important man in Cuban politics, besides festively pulling the trigger in the large, damp patios that served as firing fields in the San Carlos de La Cabana Fortress, he imposed "voluntary" work, moral stimulation and other formulas that the doctor from Rosario (i.e. Che) had read about in his Marxist studies.
Until he realized that fabricating men in an assembly line from a test tube who were monogamous and would not move their hips to the rhythm of drums was an impossible mission on an island of sun, drink and craziness. Che was a convinced fanatic, argumentative and with faith in proof by bullets. But his friend Fidel Castro was another specimen.
The lawyer from Biran (Fidel), in the best of cases, was a pragmatic opportunist, with an inflated ego, a narcissist who saw in guys like Che and Communist ideology the best way to draw up a plan for permanent and effective power. Guevara then marched to his own drummer, creating centers of guerrilla warfare and the formation of killing machines that would annihilate the gringos without mercy, anywhere in the world.
He died convinced, risking his hide to try to demonstrate his truths. This was around 42 years ago in Quebrada del Yuro, Bolivia. After his fall, he was converted into one of the largest marketing operations in history.
Castro, Cuban after all, knew that to modify the souls of his countrymen, who were given to Santeria and not taking things seriously, illusion was necessary. In order to dominate for 50 years, he has used, at his discretion, fear, prisons, and a pinch of cheap idealism. And above all, a false morality, excitedly imparted to him by Ernesto Guevara in the days they were in a jail cell in Mexico City, in between chess games and theoretical discussions of what the future would be for Cuba and Latin America.
Not an atom remains of the New Man that Che Guevara dreamed of. Almost all Cubans steal whatever they can at work, from a straw to a piece of paper. When someone begins a new job, he is not interested in how much his salary will be, only in how much he can steal.
A few followers remain. At appropriate moments - historic dates and anniversaries of his death - they put on their masks and at the daily work meetings or publicly, they raise their voices, put themselves on automatic pilot and even act emotional talking about Che. Excellent actors, unseen and missed by Hollywood.
And the Revolution sails on. Now, functionaries and rules try to gain time and search for hard currency. No one remembers the New Man, nor the stupidities advocated by social engineers like Che Guevara. The supposed New Men are in the lines outside the Spanish Consulate or the U.S. Special Interests Section, crazy about leaving.
They have forgotten about the world crisis. Since they were born, they have lived in a crisis and in ghost-wars against the Yankees. Many of these "new men" go out at night as transvestites, to engage in sex and drugs until dawn, and with luck, to hook up with a foreigner. Or they are dissidents, independent journalists or bloggers.
For the tired and unbelieving Cubans, the true New Men are guys like Kendry Morales or Isaac Delgado, who seized their chances, who are free to name their own price and who make a lot of money, whether it's by making home runs or dancing in public with their contagious music. To talk about the New Man is today a joke in very bad taste in Cuba.
Ivan's blog, Desde La Habana: Ivan's File Cabinet can be read here in English.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez
Che Guevara was a doctor who saw what was happening to Latin America in the hands of corporations and foreign exploiters and he wanted to create a better life for the people there. You can believe the propaganda or you can find out the facts. He was not a peace activist but he was very far from a monster as people in Latin America will verify.
For an interesting perspective on Che Guevara I encourage you to read http://lifeasahuman.com/2010/spirituality-and-religion/che-guevara-buddhism-and-jumping-to-conclusions/ which attempts to find some balance.
"Che was a Marxist soldier who aided the Cuban revolution," says Darrow. "He advocated the philosophy of communism, which is responsible for over 100 million murders, and he personally supervised the executions of scores of people himself."
All prisoners were furiously yelling: “You assassin, you coward, you miserable and many other offenses I can repeat here. Guevara turned on the windows where we were and discharged the whole magazine of his pistol on us. I don’t know how many people he killed or hurt this day but I met several of us in the Hospital Calixto Garcia where we were sent after the barbaric deed.
How was it possible to take the life of a child in such way? Were we wrong maybe and they would put us free?
We climbed up to the window to see if they took the prisoners to the execution squad or not. Near the fire squad walking slowly with the hands on his heaps was the abominable Che Guevara. He gave the order to bring the boy to him. It seemed he found no one with the guts to kill the child and the horrible task would be done by him self. Guevara commanded the child to get on his knees while we and other prisoners in other cells yelled on him not to commit such a crime. Much of the prisoners offered Guevara to take them to the fire squad instead of the boy.
Suddenly the cell door was open and another person was pushed violently in the cell. Our new cellmate was a child, 12 or 14 years old, no more. After the initial surprise all the men in the cell surrounded the kid and asked him almost in a choir “Why are you here?”…… “What have you done?”
Bleeding profusely out the mouth and head and with black rings around his eyes and ears the boy told us: “I tried to protect my father, I tried to avoid them to kill him but I couldn’t – say the boy while crying – those son-of-a-bitches murdered him.”
We remained in silence looking at each other trying to find words to console the boy but some kind of words doesn’t exist. Our own problems were too hard. Three days has passed without summary executions, with each passed day enhances the hope of this entire nightmare comes to an end. Executions are terrible, it take your life when more you need it for you self and your family; it not takes in account your protests and desires to live.
"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time, our eras most perfect man." --- Jean Paul Sartre
... I'll take them over a disgruntled blogger.
Mandela did not know, at the time he made such statement, the kind of super racist Che was. The noble Mandela did not know the kind of assassin Che was. Mandela did not know that Che killed children. Mandela did not know even that the military cuban adventure in Africa became a disaster just because the racism of Che that could never cooperate adequately with his african partners.
Jean Paul Sartre was one of the same kind of Che that fell in love with the assassin at first sight.
This blogger seems disgruntled only for the blind.
A great article, very concise and at the same time comprehensive. A lot has been written about Che, but I hadn’t see a compilation such complete and effective like this article.
Link: http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y09/enero09/23_O_3.html
Quotation: "Cuban schoolchildren begin their classes each day with the following slogan of indoctrination: “Pioneers for Communism, we will be like Che.” They will be then the new men; fanatics, liars, assassins and failed men, reaching the total realization of being like Che. Hatred to the enemies of the revolution is inculcated to the children in scholastic age. This quote of José Martí condemns hatred: “The haters should be declared traitors to the Republic. Hatred does not construct”