Splintered Sunrise

There’s something I always find a little frustrating about Eamonn McCann. Articulate as he may be, he does have a tendency to play up to his audience. I’ve always suspected on that basis that he had a strong streak of the ham actor in him. If you see him at a meeting sponsored by the SWP, or on a strike platform, he’s always dead militant, often entering what Jeff Dudgeon calls his “I have a scream” mode. But when he’s on the likes of BBCNI’s Let’s Talk, he gets terribly wishy-washy, goes into “on the one hand, on the other hand” quite a lot… this is why everybody think Eamonn is their friend. You saw this at water charges meetings, where Bob McCartney would loudly proclaim his agreement with Eamo.

It was therefore nice to see Eamo showing a bit of spark on last night’s Hearts and Minds. The discussion was on the legacy of Che Guevara, which is the sort of nostalgia trip Eamo loves, and his antagonist, mirabile dictu, was Oliver Kampf. Kamm, of course, was billed as an author (of a book nobody’s read) and Times columnist (he’s actually a blogger who, due to some unaccountable weakness on Danny Finkelstein’s part, gets the occasional op-ed piece in the Thunderer) and, although Kamm knows less about the Cuban Revolution than I know about the mating habits of the millipede, dancing on Che’s grave was right up his street. If he could do it to poor old Monty Johnstone on his blog, how could he resist doing it to the iconic Che on telly?

On watching this, I am reminded of why Kamm doesn’t get more TV work. There is that curious diction, modelled I assume on his uncle the Man in the White Suit, but while Martin is fairly fluent, and actually writes quite well, Kamm gives the impression that English isn’t his first language. This impression is reinforced by his written English, which is more stilted even than my Gaelic. (Probably less so, since my Gaelic leans towards the “drink, feck, arse” end of the spectrum.) In any case, he didn’t say anything interesting. What you got was “Che was a Stalinist thug”, and with inordinate prolixity. Plus, Kampf seemed to feel that Che’s role in the summary execution of prisoners pretty much damned the entire Cuban Revolution.

Eamonn was rather good on that, pointing out that Umkhonto weSizwe had also been involved in some rather dodgy things but that didn’t invalidate the struggle against apartheid. Nice point, given that Kamm’s baffling insistence that he, a Tory-voting hedge fund manager, is a “man of the left” depends on him paying obeisance to certain metrosexual shibboleths, of which the South African struggle, now safely in the past, is one. But I was again frustrated at Eamonn’s politeness. He really should have gone to town on the smug little fuckwit. Kamm is in no position to moralise about the treatment of prisoners at the Bay of Pigs when you consider his fulsome support for whatever the Yanks are doing in Iraq. In general, and Eamo should have made this point, Kamm’s real problem with Che is that he didn’t kill nearly enough people. Or, to put it another way, that he was against the Empire rather than for it.

So Eamonn acquitted himself pretty well and put up a reasonable defence of Che. But he was far too nicey-nicey about it, and I dread to think what kind of performance he would have put up had he been up against someone more substantial than the ludicrous Kamm. Eamonn is an affable bloke, but there are times when you can safely dispense with the affability and call a mendacious warmongering prick by his right name.

I had honestly forgotten all about it being the fortieth anniversary of the death of famed cigar smoker, golfer and occasional revolutionary politician Che Guevara. It probably says something that I would remember the anniversaries of Sabhat, Ó hAnluain and the Edentubber Martyrs but not Che. And, what with the Cuban Revolution having been slightly more successful than Operation Harvest, it probably doesn’t say anything good.

I notice, by the way, that the least Guevarist organisation on the Irish left, the Socialist Party, is holding a meeting tonight in celebration of Che, with CWI bigwig Tony Saunois as the guest speaker. I suspect Tony will hail Che as an inspirational figure, while skipping over the question of armed struggle and the CWI’s characterisation of Cuba as a Stalinist dictatorship. And, although he probably won’t say this, a mischievous sectarian part of me hopes that Tony calls for a socialist federation of Cuba and Florida. If you’re curious, toddle along to the SP office on Lombard Street for a fun-packed evening.

I also notice Johann blotting his copybook with this extraordinary rant at Che. The adjectives are so ludicrously overtorqued that I can’t help suspecting that Johann was one over the eight when writing this. He also hasn’t rid himself of that giveaway tic of referring to people who disagree with him on foreign policy as “depraved”. By the way, is there any chance of the Independent supplying Johann with a fact-checker? And what’s with this dancing on the grave of a dead communist anyway? That is a Kammism if ever there was one – is Johann trying to rebuild his bridges with the Decents?

For some sensible reading, and if you can track it down, I thoroughly recommend Joe Hansen’s piece on the errors of Che Guevara, which you can find in the Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution collection. It’s as good a short treatment as I’ve seen from the far left.

While walking along Botanic Avenue this afternoon, I noticed something quite odd. There were a succession of big posters of Che Guevara adorning the lampposts. “The revolutionary ideas of Che Guevara”, they proclaimed. On reflection, this wasn’t necessarily odd. The students are back at Queens and the left will be trying to run meetings that might entice a few punters in.

But who was puffing Che? I know the IRSP claim an affinity with old Ernesto, but they haven’t done any student work in living memory, if indeed they ever did. The Shinners perhaps? Maybe in Dublin, but the Tyrone farmboys at Queens don’t go in for that sort of thing – a night of rebel music with a Wolfe Tones tribute band would be more their scene.

For a minute or two I thought it might be Militant. Socialist Youth occasionally use Che’s image in recruitment drives, which is a bit bemusing as I can’t readily think of an organisation less like Che Guevara than Militant. The kids tend to figure this out, if not immediately then when an adult SP member tells them Cuba is a Stalinist dictatorship and the CWI wants to overthrow the regime.

On close examination, I discovered at the bottom of the posters, in extremely small type, the legend “Socialist Worker Student Society”. Now this really had me scratching my head. As Mike Gonzalez will happily tell you, or at least did the last time I saw him, Che went from guerrillaism to, during his time in government, being far more Stalinist than the pragmatic Fidel, then reverting to guerrillaism during his Congo and Bolivia adventures. Neither brand of politics is something that the SWP has historically been keen on, and, much as they might recognise Che as an inspiring figure, they never much rated his revolutionary ideas.

It’s a puzzler all right. Maybe, what with the insurrection in Iraq, the comrades have revised their opinion and come out in favour of armed struggle, except in Ireland where it’s illegal. Or perhaps, with a commercial nous more Ben Dover than Swiss Toni, it’s just a matter of finding a sexy image that will pull in the punters. It’s unfortunate that I have to work tomorrow, or I might have toddled along to hear the new line. But if you’re a Queens student reading this, don’t let an old cynic put you off. Go along by all means, and enjoy yourself. Just remember to ask questions.

And no, the posters didn’t feature Che playing golf. It might have been more fun if they did.