Defining the "Rebel Army's" political slant in almost the terms of an FDR liberal, Matthews wrote: "It is a revolutionary movement that calls itself socialistic. It is also nationalistic, which generally in Latin America means anti-Yankee. The program is vague and couched in generalities, but it amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic and therefore anti-communist. The real core of its strength is that it is fighting against the military dictatorship of President Batista...[Castro] has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections." (emphasis added)
Quoted in the Che biography I'm reading, the above paragraph was written by Herbert Matthews, a NYT reporter who managed the first interview with Fidel. One of the things I find so fascinating about Che (and this holds true for most human beings) is the incredible self-contradictions found in their words and deeds, typically caused by a rigid adherence to an ideology, whether religious or political.
As an aside, it brings to mind a comment from an acting teacher I once had. The teacher had given a note, to which the student on stage replied - and I paraphrase - "But wouldn't that make my character a hypocrite?" Said the teacher: "Of course it is - to be human is to be hypocritical."
Returning to Che, Fidel and the above quote. Isn't it fascinating that Castro overthrew a military dictatorship with the stated aims of restoring a democracy? Was that his true goal, or did he always have a different outcome in mind? Castro has been portrayed in the Che biography as a passionate man with a streak of political opportunism; Che the most strenuous (uncompromising?) Marxist at the time of the Revolution. So maybe Castro really did believe in democratic nationalism - but if so, when did it change, and why? That's a question that will likely never be answered, especially considering the fact that the official (governmental) accounts of the Cuban Revolution are all carefully edited, much like those of any revolutions - and yes, that includes the American one. The winners, after all, write history; he who controls the past controls the future.
Along those lines, what's up with Communist revolutions being successful based on the support of the people, and then their subsequent destruction of the very people on whose backs the revolution was successful? How can it be that individuals who pledge their minds to an ideology espousing fraternity and the common bonds between the oppressed classes can then allow and even encourage or perpetrate continued oppression? Are they so blinded by their ideology that they are unable to see the simple replacing of one set of elites with another?
Sometimes it seems like there's no way people will ever just live happily; that society, by its very nature, pushes people down, squeezes every last drop out of them until there's nothing left but to die. Countries have tried, with varying degrees of success, to escape from the umbrella of overt foreign domination and colonialism, emerging into - what? A world of subtle corporate domination, of international realpolitik and American hegemony. Look at Hugo Chavez - on the surface he seems like a complete nutjob, some whacko dude who has some new claim about US conspiracies every week. And yet, reading things such as this Che biography (in which the question of US support/funding of the Cuban Revolution is raised - not the first nor the last time the US would have funded an individual who would later turn on them), Confessions of an Economic Hitman and numerous other books, you learn that the US has acted along such lines in the past, funding some extremely questionable activities all over in pursuit of its own hegemonic goals. So maybe there is some substance to some of Chavez's claims. Who knows?
I do know that all the Che reading is making me very political these days; I'm thinking I'm going to try to track down some of the writings of Mao, Nehru and Gandhi, more on the Cuban Revolution, and possibly anything I can find on Taiwan, which is probably (from my extremely superficial knowledge of it) one of the best examples out there of a well-engineered societal transition from dictatorship to democracy. Sadly enough, I'm sure if I can find any good books on the topic it will be revealed to be anything but a good example, but such is the nature of things.
No comments:
Post a Comment