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Che T-shirts keep reality
under wraps
Myriam Márquez. Published
March 31, 2005 in the Orlando
Sentinel.
The first time I saw a Che thingamajiggy
-- a coffee mug with his mug on it -- I
was traveling through Spain 20 years ago.
I was surprised to find the image of the
Argentinean Marxist revolutionary who became
the most popular figure, after Fidel Castro,
in Cuba's revolution, on display. Silly
me.
Spain's law-and-order "Generalisimo"
Francisco Franco was dead, and the country
was finally getting a taste of true democracy,
with political parties of all stripes vying
for attention. Some Spaniards, after enduring
Franco's strongman rule for decades, were
sipping democracy from a mug with an avowed
Marxist on it who saw the possibility of
political change only through the butt of
a rifle.
Such are life's ironies.
The myth of Ernesto "Che" Guevara
goes beyond communist sympathizers. Often
apolitical people, and university students
in particular, are enamored by the story
of a young doctor who grew up in a well-to-do
home and left it all to pursue "justice"
for the world's impoverished masses, starting
in a Caribbean island dominated by centuries
of Spanish colonial rule and almost six
decades of U.S. government and corporate
meddling. That Che's form of "justice"
would include overseeing mock trials in
post-revolutionary Cuba that resulted in
firing squads that killed hundreds of people
for "crimes" against the revolution
-- televised on Cuban television, no less
-- seems lost in the translation.
Cuban-Americans have long reacted with
apoplectic ire over Che's popularity almost
40 years after his gruesome death by the
Bolivian military. Che had gone off to Bolivia
(after trying and failing in Africa and
a host of other places) to start another
Castro-inspired revolution. He's been a
pop-culture "hero" ever since.
So I wasn't surprised when e-mails started
pouring in, calling one of my favorite guitarists,
Carlos Santana, all sorts of names not worthy
of print in a family newspaper. He dared
sport a Che T-shirt under his blazer at
the Academy Awards. It's been a month, and
the e-mails keep coming. The last one took
offense that a public-television station
in the Washington area would showcase Eric
Burdon, formerly with The Animals, because
he was wearing a Che T-shirt. Like, nobody
cares.
The exile community has every right to
speak up when it's offended -- that's why
we live in the land of the free. But a little
measured selectivity would be wise, too.
Make that a lot.
Otherwise, exiles come off as reactionary
whiners who can't see the wisdom of free
speech on both sides of any issue. To equate
Che with Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler,
as some people are doing, simply turns off
genuinely interested people who might otherwise
have listened to an exile's point of view.
Of course, Santana, who's from Mexico,
had a reason for having Che's bereted face
on his chest. He was selected to strum to
the Oscar-nominated Spanish song, "Al
Otro Lado del Rio," which won for best
song featured in The Motorcycle Diaries.
It's a travelogue of sorts about Che and
a buddy touring South America on bike in
1951-52, back before Che was a radical anything.
There are enough affronts and hurts to
go around the globe a few thousand times
over about Che's legacy.
What's missing is a measure of historical
distance or recognition that there's often
a good, bad and ugly part to any legend.
I certainly can't put that distance on display.
I never saw Diaries precisely because the
part of Che's life that I know about is
the one that gave my parents and their generation
so much pain. (For the record, my family
early on supported the revolution, as most
exiles did, because Castro promised democratic
elections.)
Grammy-winning jazz great, Paquito D'Rivera,
a worldwide talent who fled Cuba in the
1980s, apparently weighed in this week with
an "open letter" to Santana. He
noted that wearing Che's face is "a
harsh blow" because Cuban youth in
the 1960s "had to go into hiding to
listen to your albums, which the Revolution
and the troglodyte Argentinean and his cohorts,
dubbed as 'imperialist music.' "
Put that on a T-shirt.
Myriam Marquez can be reached at mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com
or 407-420-5399.
Copyright
© 2005, Orlando Sentinel |
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