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HEROIC FIGHTER’S 85th BIRTHDAY
Che: Present now and forever
“The past tense can never be used when talking about
Ernesto Guevara.” -Fidel Castro
Amelia Duarte de la
Rosa & Michel Hernández Sánchez
THAT asthmatic and underdeveloped boy, as on one
occasion his father Don Ernesto Guevara Lynch
described him, who seemed an unlikely candidate to
become a revolutionary icon of Latin American and
world thought, Ernesto Che Guevara, would have
celebrated his 85th birthday June 14. The man who
lives in the minds of so many is in no way gone and
forgotten; his legendary figure and example have
grown around the world, wherever people struggle for
freedom.
His life reverberates with more strength every year.
His image and symbolism support the determination
and consciousness of those who remain faithful to
his ideals. Guerrilla fighter, father, friend, poet,
economist, photographer, chess enthusiast,
Comandante Guevara was a man born ahead of his
times - as Fidel described him, “A unique case of a
rare man who was capable of uniting in his
personality not only the characteristics of a man of
action, but those of a man of ideas as well.”
It was in the year 1928, in Rosario, Argentina,
where Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born. His
father was a civil construction engineer and his
mother, Doña Celia de la Serna, a woman with an
energetic and firm character. Don Ernesto recounts
in Mi hijo el Che, that from a very early
age, his son would not tolerate the imposition of
anything he considered unjust or any unreasonable
restriction.
The asthma he suffered was distressing for the
family, but his father commented, “It is possible
that the illness itself hardened him, in the sense
of learning to discipline himself, not allowing an
attack, or the suggestion of one, to overwhelm him.”
Later on, studying at the Buenos Aires School of
Medicine, Ernesto was always cheerful and joking,
“When starting a conversation, he had a way of
talking a bit slowly, picking up speed as the
dialogue heated up. His eyes were dark; his look
deep and inquiring. When he looked at someone, he
was studying the soul of his conversational
partner.”
Thus Dr. Guevara’s personality was born and, after
coming into close contact with the poverty, hunger,
injustice and dictatorships to which Latin America
was subjected, he became an expeditionary on the
yacht Granma, a rebel fighter in the Sierra
Maestra, a Comandante during the early days
of the Cuban Revolution and a guerrillero of
the world.
When he was interviewed by the magazine Alma
Máter in 1959, he was asked why, as an
Argentine, he had participated in such a decisive
way in the Cuban Revolution. He answered, “From my
personal point of view, I reject any explanation
that purports to demonstrate somehow that a
foreigner can come to struggle in another land. For
those of us who live south of the Río Bravo, all
[Latin] American countries are our own and, in any
one of these, we can shed our blood, confident that
we are fighting for our homeland.”
“At 14 I bought that backpack with the photo of Che
and have been learning that freedom is something yet
to be created…”
Jorge Drexler (Uruguayan songwriter)
A universal symbol of resistance, Ernesto Che
Guevara is no doubt a powerful force which continues
to grow within struggles against injustice and the
abuses of neoliberal societies. During the 1960’s,
Che as an icon of rebellion, became known throughout
the world. He marched with students during the May
68 events in France, and in protests against the war
in Vietnam, frequented ghettos in the U.S. during
the days of Black Power and the Black Panthers. His
philosophy of life at the service of social
transformation, his humanism and defiant image are
characteristics which have crossed borders,
disseminating his life story and example. This has
been the case despite continual efforts by the
capitalist culture industry to commercialize his
image, attempting to gut it of its significance,
representing a flesh and blood man, of uncommon
honesty, who stayed true to his beliefs, facing the
ultimate consequences.
It is unquestionable that his legacy has influenced
important efforts not only in political action, but
in a variety of artistic expressions, serving as a
source of inspiration for many creative individuals
– a fact which is not often mentioned when
discussing Che. Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio
Rodríguez said during one of his visits to
Argentina, “His search for full human dignity
continues to have contemporary impact, because
Ernesto Guevara did not have petty interests. He was
an uncompromising radical, an iconoclast who put his
neck out to give greater meaning not to his own
life, but to that of all others. That is why he has
been a great inspiration for theater, poems and
songs, in many times and places.”
His voice can be heard in songs such as “Hacen mil
hombres” by Venezuelan Alí Primera; “Hasta Siempre
comandante” by Cuba’s Carlos Puebla; “Zamba al Che”
from Víctor Jara; “Tuve un amigo querido” and “Nada
más” by Atahualpa Yupanqui, and “América te hablo de
Ernesto” by Silvio, as well as within the
discography of bands such as Todos tus muertos in
Argentina and Rage Against The Machine, whose
performances always feature images of Che.
In Cuba, Che has been evoked on numerous occasions
by others such as Sara González, Gerardo Alfonso,
Ireno García, Noel Nicola, Frank Delgado, Santiago
and Vicente Feliú. His life was an essential
component in the foundation of the Nueva Canción
movement and is of great importance to many current
exponents of hip hop and the latest trova,
young artists who see in the principled nature of
his work a path that reject opportunism, double
standards and attitudes which demobilize the people.
Ernesto Guevara’s revolutionary work is recalled
with admiration as an incomplete struggle for
liberation and a task to be reassumed in new,
changing historical circumstances, as in ”Papá
cuéntame otra vez” by Spanish songwriter Ismael
Serrano, which recalls the life of a man “who they
killed in Bolivia and, since that day, everything
appears uglier.”
He is likewise a figure among rock musicians who
consider him an ethical and aesthetic guide. One
example of the continual presence of his mark is the
song ”San Ernesto,” by La Mancha de Rolando, about
the guerrillero’s life. Charly García’s “Rap
del exilio” includes references to Che, “When I was
three, I had a book and a photo of Che, now I’m a
thousand years old and have very little to do,” he
writes confirming his early adherence to Che’s
ideas.
The Argentine musician, composer and producer Andrés
Calamaro is one of those who advocate rising above
the superficial cult to promote the authentic
dissemination of Che’s legacy and assume it as a
philosophy of life, saying, “I don’t know if it’s
fashionable or not, if rock adopted him as an icon,
but this man deserves to be in heaven, if there is
such a place worthy of the name. Guevara represents
for Latinos what Malcolm X does for Blacks in the
United States. But let’s not be frivolous, when we
are in a store buying a T-shirt with a fistful of
dollars, it could be time to put our feet on the
ground and rethink everything again.”
There is a phrase of Che’s which has been taken up
by the new social movements composed in large part
of young people with the courage to go out into the
streets to make their demands, with a conviction
unseen since the 1960’s – demands for a just and
humane society which reflect Che’s revolutionary
ideas. To confirm this observation, one only needs
to scan the many images of mass mobilizations in
which his unmistakable image can be seen accompanied
by calls for a better world. It is seen on the
T-shirts of many young people who know that in many
regions of the planet, “Freedom is something yet to
be created…”
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