Bitter Truths

 

Below is a letter I sent to the Australian in response to an article that criticised leftists for their mythologising of Che Guevara. It was unpublished but I’m posting it here because I think it explicates the sometimes blatant hypocrisy of The Australian’s ideological slant, an area of concern that has raised more than a few eyebrows with their ‘Liberal’ interpretation of recent political poll numbers.

To Cassandra Wilkinson
RE: ‘The Unpalatable Truth About Che Guevara’ July 14-15.

You are right. Up to a point.

Leftists are clearly wrong to hagiography Che Guevara, as with any figurehead. As a leftist myself, I find such messianic worship embarrassing and even infantile. And the points you make about his human rights violations and the post-revolutionary conditions are obviously valid, as much as they acknowledge the failure of Cuba’s revolutionary state.

However, it is important here to fully confront what it is about Guevara that inspires people. Otherwise your article misses the point and degenerates into the boring back and forth of ideological politics. What you fail to do is identify the utopian spark in Guevara that is worth saving - his opening up of another path to restore social justice and forge a better alternative to Western capitalism. So, yes, you are right - we should accept the fact that Guevara failed in his revolutionary mission, even failed horrifically, but we must also distinguish between what Guevara effectively did and the field of possibilities that he opened up. To paraphrase philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the challenge for leftists is to repeat not what Guevara did, but what he failed to do, his missed opportunities. It is the ideological fudging of history that says one necessarily leads on from the other (eg. revolution and tyranny, discipline and fascism).

This is why MCA’s recent use of the Guevara icon is still justified. The image has become autonomous from the man. It is a symbol that invokes the possibilities he opened up, the hope that history would eventually be on the side of those struggling for social justice.

Perhaps I can also suggest that your points would have more credence if your paper actually applied the same criteria to its fellows on the right. I refer in particular to Henry Kissinger, who was published only a few days before you in a piece (ironically) on what to do about the quagmire in Iraq (‘Put Iraq Peace Onus On The World’, July 10). I say ironically since this is a man who  played a key and deliberate role in sabotaging the 1968 Paris Peace negotiations on Vietnam merely so that Richard Nixon could beat the Democrats in the US elections. Kissinger then proceeded to extend and escalate the war for another four years with the illegal and indiscriminate bombings of neutral Cambodia and Laos, causing the deaths of over a million civilians and the evacuation of millions more refugees. And then only to accept the same peace conditions as proposed in ‘68 in 1973. Now he’s offering advise on Iraq? Excuse me for being skeptical.

Indeed, Kissinger is arguably the figure par excellence who should be tried as a war criminal. His personal planning in the kidnap and murder of General Schneider in Chile, his collusion with Pinochet’s political repression, the illegal bombings of Laos and Cambodia – these are just a few of the war crimes he has committed. That your paper would allow space for such a man severely compromises its integrity, especially when it sees fit to chastise leftists for ignoring human rights violations of its figureheads that very same week.

I should also point out that the above allegations are not wild conspiracy theories or leftist hysteria but historical facts, carefully and rigorously documented in Christopher Hitchens’ book ‘The Trial of Henry Kissinger’. I assume that The Australian respects Hitchens’ political expertise since he features in the very same weekend edition as yourself (‘Mad Medicos Opt For A Sinister Cure’, July 14-15).

Perhaps you should also try and put Henry Kissinger’s face on a poster ad. See if it works. And if not, ask, what am I missing?
 
David Marin-Guzman

Consumer Politics

Kevin Rudd has dipped into the shopping trolley and promised to keep a check on the rising prices of bread, eggs, petrol and housing. As Dennis Shanahan writes:

The latest idea may be populist but it’s also popular, Rudd is shifting the argument from the abstract of the economy and economic management – the Government’s undoubted strength – to the details of everyday life. And, he’s putting a proposition everyone is going to agree with. Who doesn’t say their old school isn’t as good as it once was, who doesn’t say crime is getting worse and who doesn’t think food prices are rising?

The policy has received encouraging responses from the media and voters but it strikes me as worryingly similar to the kind of consumer politics first introduced by Bill Clinton. Back in 1996, on the advise of campaign strategist Dick Morris, Clinton shifted his re-election campaign away from the big issues – tax and health and welfare – to concentrate on the comparatively tiny concerns of key marginal focus groups. Clinton then shaped his whole campaign around bite-sized pieces of legislation, most famously a digital device that would screen out pornography on the TV, appealing to the public’s individual desires and feelings and, as a consequence, winning an election he was set to lose.

This kind of consumer politics always seems less about liberating people or encouraging their participation than about developing new ways of satiating and controlling them. Political leaders end up as little more than economic managers, utilising focus group techniques that were previously the sole interest of business. (See more in Adam Curtis’ brilliant documentary The Century of Self).

Since the rise of the New Left in Britain and the US, Australian Labor has yet to have its moment in power, so it’s still unclear what side of the fence it sits. I doubt Rudd will descend to the cloying depths of Clinton and Blair but his latest proposal could be a telling sign as to how Labor thinks it should address economic issues: bite-sized, personal politics that show Kevin Cares but in the end change little.