Thursday, February 19, 2009

Che was a Marxist-Leninist

I sometimes defend AlJazeera but sometimes I criticize AlJazeera. Today, I was quite upset with the lousy documentary that AlJazeera aired on Che. First, it was shallow. Secondly, they gloss over the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the man: just as his popularization in Lebanon has rendered him into an unpolitical figure to the point that a right-wing (sectarian and racist) politicain, Jubran Tuwayni, used to display his portrait in his office. Thirdly, I was really pissed that they aired a clip from the most reactionary and propaganda film on Che starring none other than Omar Sharif. Casting Charif as Che is akin to casting Sylvester Stallone as Hegel. The film is a piece of propaganda trash and there are rumors that it may have received covert propaganda funding at the time. Fourthly, in talking about revolutionaism the director insterted Bin Laden. Bin Laden (as a fanatical terrorist) does not belong in the same league with Che and Nasser in the movie, and there is nothing revolutionary about Bin Laden. Bin Laden is reactionary and he wants to take us back to 610AD: that is not revolutionary. That was quite odd. The movie should have focused on real inheritors of Che in the Arab world: like Gueverra Gaza: who was mentioned in passing in the film.