Entry tags:

anti-flag, byron, che guevara, iraq, libertarianz, moral relativity, university

Stupid Fuck
Had clubs day at university today, I of course helped out on the Workers Party on Campus table. That morning the first T-shirt I grabbed off my drying rack was my MetalSoc (heavy metal society) one, I decided against it least people get the tables mixed up. The next one I picked up was my "Mummy, what were the arts?" t-shirt, that was part of a students association campaign against the university's cuts to the College of Arts. Again, this could be confusing, so I grabbed a third T-shirt, it happened to be one baring the image of Che Guevara. I grinned at the student-radical cliche it would be, but thought what the hell, and wore that one. Which is where my story begins...



While having a wander around the other clubs, I was chatting to some friends at the UniQ (queer society) table, and someone (who I later discovered was a member of the ultra-right Libertarianz party) approached me and pointing at my Workers Party badge screamed "who's this stupid fuck!" followed by "and you've got a murderer on your shirt! he killed more people in his first six years in office than Hitler did!!!" I told him (admittedly in equally colourful language) that I wasn't interested in having this debate with him, as I didn't expect to be able to change his views, and frankly, I'm sick of arguing with far right partisans (the Internet is crawling wih them). He wouldn't leave me alone, so I walked away.

If he'd been more polite maybe there could have been some debate. During the rebellion in Cuba against Batista's dictatorship, the general command of the rebel army, led by Fidel "introduced into the liberated territories the 19th-century penal law commonly known as the Ley de la Sierra".[source] "This law included the death penalty for extremely serious crimes, whether perpetrated by the dictatorship or by supporters of the revolution. In 1959, the revolutionary government extended its application to the whole of the republic and to war criminals captured and tried after the revolution. This latter extension, supported by the majority of the population, followed the same procedure as that seen in" the Nuremberg Trials held by the Allies after World War II. Che was charged with purging the Batista army and consolidating victory by exacting "revolutionary justice" against traitors and Batista's war criminals.[source] Serving in the post as "supreme prosecutor" Of course, many executions took place.

Do I think this was the right course of action? well, I think its not my business to tell other countries how they should have conducted their revolutions. I am however against capital punishment, as was Karl Marx, who stated that "it would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible to establish any principle upon which the justice or expediency of capital punishment could be founded in a society glorifying in its civilization" Is it fair though to call Che a murderer? well, the issue needs to be looked at relativistically, a substantial proportion of New Zealand society supports capital punishment, and George W Bush was infamous for executions as governor of Texas, and then there are the 1.2 million people who have died as a result of the Iraq war. Sure, you could cop out and adopt a simple "a pox on both your houses" view, but look it from this angle; those deaths overseen by Che were done with the goal of bringing about a better society, by expunging the dregs of the old oppressive dictatorship. The deaths in Iraq have been for oil profits...

Thats just the beginning of a potentially long and thought provoking debate, but the way to start that debate is not by calling someone a "stupid fuck."

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Being called a stupid fuck would make anyone angry, doubly so when its done as an insult to deeply held principles and beliefs, but thankfully there is an outlet for anger which also reinforces progressive politics... PUNK ROCK!
Heres Anti-Flag with "One People, One Struggle":