For those who believe that in writing I mean to do harm, release repressed hatred, or seek the sympathy of those who argue with dangerous vehemence to defend extreme positions, I hope that with this article they will reflect and understand that I do not belong to the left or to the right. And for me, the anarchists venerate too many rules.
There are more than a few people who compared to Ernesto Che Guevara with Jack the Ripper. I agree with many of them, for example, both studied medicine. Today I do not intend to talk about such a controversial parent, but about a criticized son, little known, and with strong values, from my point of view.
Ernesto Guevara March, the youngest son of Aleida and Che, is accused of being egotistical. And he is, he is also kind, charming, and extremely sensitive. It’s not easy to be yourself in a society that professes equality. The media accentuates certain things, but I will try to put almost everything in context.
Ernesto never knew his father, he was born in 1965, and although there were victims of the revolution that deserve our respect and consideration, we can not forget that it was a time of euphoria in which the winds of passion raged, and the “bearded ones” were as idolized as democracy is today. These men, turned into dictators, represented for many the image of the spotless hero, the unblemished sun.
Ernesto, similar and different from his three older siblings (Aleida, Camilo and Celia), grew up in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood in Havana, studied in “Fighters of Bolivia” primary school, attended junior high school at “La Lenin”, and then went to Vedado high school. He became a lawyer, and I can assure you unequivocally that, with that name, and the semantic weight that it carries, had been for him as influential as the flattering environment and persistent ghost of an absent father who, like it or not, is known around the world.
Let’s do an experiment. Let’s take a greased baking sheet and on it put an idealized portion of economic deterioration, season it with internal chaos, knead the mixture until it has the texture of enthusiastic support and popular worship; put the product in the oven, and after a dusting of the night of long knives, it is ready; the dish is called dictatorship. It is not difficult to make a list with the names of those who actually did and do the damage; but we can not include children for being children.
Equipped with a roguish charm, Ernesto is a good man, sometimes stubborn and at times temperamental, with a strong sense of friendship. He is an extrovert and not prone to confessions, he shelters in his own inner volcano. He willingly acknowledges his mistakes, likes to hold onto his childhood, though it is in the past, and has been saddled with an unfair guilt foisted upon him. I understand that it is harder to recognize than to attack; but to ask, seek, find information is very easy with a country teeming with informants eager to be bribed. Pull the trigger only against those who deserve it.
December 10 2012
