reflections on che guevara on sustainability

I just finished a short biography of Che Guevara (Che Guevara: A Life by Nick Caistor). There is much I could say about him as a man, his ideology, and of course his military actions, though I will limit myself to some of his thoughts while working in Cuba post revolution.

Guevara had a rather keen eye to the political-economic realities which the Latin American world faced. He seemed to realize the difficulties lying around one’s economic/political ties to the U.S. For instance, pre-revolution Cuba’s economy was predominately agrarian, with sugar being bought by in large by the U.S. at a inflated rate.

Guevara saw how this adversely affected the Cubans, one, it basically puts them in the pocket of Washington without much autonomy. Two it limits their economic abilities. They focus their energies producing crops, rather than creating a balanced self-sustaining economy which doesn’t need to rely on foreign imports or exports.

During his time of political office in Cuba he spoke openly and often about how to create a strong Cuba. He spoke about the need for industry, for Cuba to be self-sustaining instead of agrarian and servile to another nation.

He also spoke of the place of the individual within this system. He realized that for socialism to work it wasn’t simply about nationalizing land or industry but furthermore about transforming the way of the people. He desired to work towards a nation where monetary gain wasn’t seen as the central virtue but rather moral character. He was probably too foolhardy to realize how difficult {if not impossible} it is to transform the lives of men is, in any true & lasting way.

While I will simply say I don’t think violence is the answer, I have to respect his clear vision of the political landscape. Though I think his failure is a result of a certain misconception towards the conditions of change.

I would say one of the most important things which allowed the revolution of Cuba to succeed where he failed in Bolivia or Congo is he didn’t realize the embeddedness of the Cuba revolutionary leader Castro. Castro was Cuban, he was of the people for the people. What Che was able to follow along was work which had taken much time to create.

Whereas with his later revolutionary enterprises he failed because among other reasons he was a foreigner. You can’t expect to get the trust and allegiance of a people without being of the people. (As an aside, many leaders haven’t been, but they faked it/covered up their nationality enough to be considered one of the people—I can think of Hitler & Napoleon as two such examples.)

But it isn’t just about what your birth certificate says; rather it is about living with people, embedding one’s life with another that is important. The authority of critique comes from a certain respect which grows out of lived experience. I can only truly speak for a people when I have been a part of them & they a part of me.

Lastly I think Che has become so iconic in part because he plays the John Wayne character set so well—Lone Ranger, trying to take over the imperialistic world through his own will. If we desire to bring about the change which we love so well in the idealist-revolutionary Che Guevara then we need to be the ‘new man’ which he spoke and wrote of, living the life for the other.

But now I am talking about much more than Che Guevara or the Cuban revolution.