[NYTr] Celebrating the Life of Che Guevara: Opening Remarks Oct 6, 2007 NYC Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:28:18 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Opening remarks by Ike Nahem at October 6 "Celebrating the Life of Che Guevara" October 6, 2007 - New York City Opening remarks by Ike Nahem Sisters and Brothers, My name is Ike Nahem. On behalf of the July 26 Coalition I would like to welcome everyone to this very special event. The July 26 Coalition brings together more than 50 solidarity, progressive, labor, civil liberties, anti-war, anti-imperialist, Black, Latino, religious, and socialist organizations as well as prominent individuals in the New York-New Jersey- groups that otherwise might have differences and even historic animosities - in a spirit of profound unity around the overriding issue of our solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, our uncompromising determination to end Washington's economic and political war against Cuba, and our fight to Free the Cuban Five, which we will see to the end! We have [achieved] a degree of unity in New York and New Jersey which we are building upon and which is being manifest across the United States. We understand that revolutionary Cuba is at the center of the deep, radical transformations that are shaking the western Hemisphere, "Our America" as Jose Marti said. We understand that the deepening popular resistance and struggle in Latin America and the Caribbean is also, and this is bound to deepen, having a mounting impact on US politics and progressive struggles. Tonight we are honoring the memory and celebrating the life of our dearest, most beloved and cherished revolutionary hero, Ernesto Che Guevara. The capitalist marketplace, where every human emotion and need is turned into a commodity for vulgar commercial exchange, alongside bourgeois and opportunist politicians and middle-class "commentators" and writers, some still clinging to the vestiges of their radical youth, they all have manufactured many Ches. They all aim, consciously or not, to obliterate Che's contemporary political relevance and to obliterate his actual ideas and leave an icon, a symbol, a fashion statement. We and, most of all, the workers, peasants, youth, the exploited and oppressed of the Americas will not let them! Che was above all a revolutionary and rock-solid adherent of the scientific socialism of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and V.I. Lenin. Che, of course, was a brilliant military thinker and practitioner; his military leadership in the Cuban revolution was legendary and even decisive. There was a time, and may still be, when Che's book "Guerrilla Warfare" was a required text in the Pentagon's top military schools. It is a brilliant exposition on military strategy and tactics. But I would say that Che's military writings and theories are the least important of his revolutionary contributions and ideas, even though many commentators both friendly and hostile practically reduce Che to the military aspect. To Che military tactics and technique, while definitely an art, are wholly subordinate to and serve political ideas and ends. Che, like Fidel, promoted armed struggle, only when peaceful, legal forms of political struggle have been exhausted. Contrary to the expectations of the imperialist "civilized" gangsters and their Latin American lackeys and oligarchs who murdered him or applauded his death, the memory, the revolutionary legacy, and the political influence of Our Che, the Che of the oppressed and exploited majority, the Che of the youth all over the world that are fighting for the better world that they know is not only possible but which is coming, is greater than ever. Why is this? It is because as the people's struggles advance in response to capitalist and imperialist-imposed economic and social devastation, as social and political radicalization and mass action deepen, the oppressed and exploited, the youth seek out [the] best, the most noble, the clearest thinking and truth-telling, the most honest and selfless representatives of their interests and their visions of justice and liberation. And there they have found and will continue to find Che. Che was a product of, and became a central protagonist of the Cuban Revolution. Che was greatly shaped by that experience as a collaborator and comrade of his Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. In honoring Che we honor the revolutionary continuity of the Cuban Revolution. This event tonight is not nostalgia; it is not a veneration of the past. To celebrate the life of Che Guevara is to join in the struggles of oppressed and exploited humanity today! It is to defend Bolivarian Venezuela and the new Bolivia and Ecuador that [are] being forged in struggle. It is to demand freedom for the Jena 6 and justice for Sean Bell! It is to demand an end to all federal raids and all attacks on immigrant workers in this country! It is the fight to immediately get all US troops out of Iraq! It is to fight against any military attacks against Iran! Above all, for us, it is to fight to free our five brothers, Rene, Tony, Ramon, Fernando, and Gerardo from the Yankee prisons! These brothers represent to the highest degree the spirit, the ideals, the example of Che and of the new socialist human being, like the tens of thousands of internationalist Cuban doctors serving in Venezuela, Bolivia, Haiti, many African countries, and all over the world. We are entering a deeply anesthetizing period in US politics: the election of President of the United States, or, more accurately, the front man -- or maybe this year, woman --for US imperialism. As far as Cuba is concerned, none of the major big-business candidates are recognizing Cuban sovereignty. All assume the right of Washington to force the changes they want to occur in Cuba. As Fidel said in a recent Reflection, "No one should entertain the slightest illusion that the empire, which carries the genes of its own destruction, will negotiate with Cuba." And he doesn't mean just Bush. Hillary Clinton's stated positions on Cuba have not even the slightest rhetorical difference with Bush. Barack Obama has said he would restore the ability of Cuban-Americans to visit their homeland once a year like before Bush changed it to once every three years. But no travel rights for anyone else. And he absurdly argues that this will help bring down what he calls the Castro tyranny. Since both Houses of the US Congress came under Democratic Party majority control, votes against Cuba that have occurred have been with even greater margins that when the Republicans were in a majority. The US ruling class remains totally united in their desire and right to destroy the Cuban Revolution and retain and strengthen US economic, financial, and political domination of the Americas. They differ, sometimes sharply, on the tactics of how to achieve this, especially in the current framework where Washington's policy of overt economic and political war is isolated in world politics, as will be overwhelmingly reaffirmed in three weeks when the United nations General Assembly has its annual vote on US economic sanctions against Cuba. We encourage everyone here tonight to take advantage of the books and literature at the tables set up by many of the groups that make up the July 26 Coalition, especially the speeches and writings of Che. Treat yourself again, or for the first time, to the beautiful, profound, and clear writing and thinking of the actual Ernesto Che Guevara, before someone else's "analysis" or "interpretation" of Che. The truth is this is the only way to truly embrace and understand Che. Viva Che! Hasta la Victoria Siempre! * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr =================================================================