El Che, Maradona & Christina

The 60's in North America and in Europe were, to some extent, filled with social change with rock and roll, the civil rights movement, flower power, women's liberation, etc. Maybe you can fill the blanks better because this was completely outside of my periphery. During that time, Latin America was also experiencing great changes, but very different...

For the first time in history, there was a sprouting middle class, something that had never existed before in the region. The 60's were also the years of the ideal of a revolution vested in the figure of the Che Guevara. Yeah, Obama sounds like a Messiah these days, but I doubt he can compare to the ideals el Che embodied for all Latin Americans.

After the Cuban revolution, Argentine revolutionaries were trying very hard to lead their country into the revolutionary path. Only problem was that there were not very many recruits. So, they decided to focus on getting the money to fund their revolution first. They staged a series of spectacular kidnappings in different parts of South America, and ended up collecting millions of dollars. All this has become public by the way, and I can provide sources if you're interested. But still there were no many recruits in Argentina to conduct the final offensive against the military regime they had at the time. Havana suggested that the best would be to invest the money until the right time came. With some Jewish connections between Buenos Aires and New York, the Argentines invested the money in no other place than the New York Stock Exchange. Now, how's that for an irony...

The 80's came and there were still no signs of a sizeable revolutionary army in Argentina. In the mean time, civil wars were being waged in Central America... you might remember the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the guerrilla in El Salvador during the Reagan administration . So, Havana called the Argentines, and the Central Americans to a round table. At the end, what they wanted to do is to give the Argentine money to the Central Americans, and they did. This is how an army of 5000 guerrillas managed to wage war to an army of 100,000 backed by the US gov't in El Salvador; and how the Sandinistas managed to repel the Contra offensive organized by the US.

Argentines are an interesting bunch. Their country is the motherland of el Che and Maradona. Whenever the Argentinean soccer team plays, its fans will bring a humongous banner depicting those bigger-than-life figures. But really, with all the hoopla of the US election, almost two years, a lot of people didn't notice that a woman had been elected president in Argentina, her name is Christina Fernandez. Not long ago, she spent a few days in Havana to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Fidel's health is very frail these days, but he managed to have this picture taken with Christina.

Cubans are somewhat excited with the election of Obama... I doubt Fidel will be a lot longer with us, and to me it means that the two conditions necessary to lift the US embargo are finally in place. A Democrat in office and Fidel pretty much out of the picture. Add the cathalyst of Christina in the equation, and you may see where this is going. This after 50 years... that has been a long wait.

So, I don't know... maybe things look awfully grim in some parts of the world these days, but I can see some signs of improvement in other regions.