Mixing memories with desire

Looking back into history for a glimmer of hope in a visionary or substantial social reform

ILLUSTRATION : SREEJITH R KUMAR

I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and now.

— Bertrand Russell

At an early age, I began to devour my father’s library which included Lorca, Brecht, Orwell, Nietzsche, Rosa Luxemburg and Chomsky. History, poetry and politics became pursuits of singular interest, necessary for imbibing an unconditional ideology of liberty and justice. Speaking out on racist and fascist tendencies afflicting the world became the normal impulsive act. We read Sartre, discussed existential drama and the tragedy of choices. Coffee houses became the site for engagement in the polemics of critical thought that underpinned transformative politics emerging from New York to New Delhi, from Berkeley to Bombay.

In the past few days, faced by the raging nightmare of the pandemic when each of us waits for the ominous last knock on the door, time and again, I have been looking back at those years with nostalgia for the powerful oppositional culture pitted against war and authority. I particularly remember the non-conformist enthusiasm in using the medium of music as an expression of resistance, especially in the music of Bob Dylan, Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristoffer, Richi Havens, and Arlo Guthri. Their exhilarating songs and poetry indeed had the reverberation of creative confidence of the 1960s, of freedom and love, an escape from unabated aggression around the world into a disposition of peace and coexistence. With all those memories rushing in, I begin to desire a future when we collectively take charge of helping each other in times of distress or need, and like Diderot’s hero in his satire,

Rameau’s Nephew (1761), stand up decisively against small-minded customary forms of authority and its palpable callousness we experience more so today. The state has indeed failed unashamedly and let its people down.

Those were the days when we were intensely aware of being at the right place at the right time, a time of innate commitment to democracy and a world embodying the ideals of liberty, egalitarianism and impartiality, always in opposition to censorship and the dissembling of facts, above all, in our post-truth world.

‘Perfect man’

It is at such times that I remember Ernesto Che Guevara, the champion of liberty, so unreservedly fighting in Argentina and Peru for the underprivileged, a commendable example for resistance movements, particularly in navigating political philosophy towards fundamental human concerns of equity and self-determination. I remember how I too like Sartre and de Beauvoir desired deeply to travel to Cuba to meet “the perfect man of his times”.

He comes to mind even more when I become a witness to the end of the Castro epoch 60 years after Che and the Castros, together with the peasants of Cuba, joined in the war of liberation that brought victory in 1959. Their defiant proclamation of “the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution” made the country a dynamic player in the Cold War when the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion was scuttled and Soviet Union became Cuba’s ally.

Che would be turning in his grave to see the dismal condition of the world as it is today. The San Isidro Movement in Cuba that has recently brought together dissident rappers, artists, journalists, and academics might bring some succour to his soul, especially owing to its peaceful opposition against the dictatorial state and its legal persecution of activists demanding a free, socialist and democratic Cuba.

Sadly now, in the post-Cold War period, the impact of Left politics stands watered down with the triumph of Western capitalism. But Che remains an iconic figure that looms large as a counter-blast to the right-wing dominance sweeping many democracies. His resistance against opponents of socialism is symbolic of revolutionary fervour against the ruthless working of rapacious capitalism and its ongoing conflict with land reforms and human rights, a political force evident in the anti-American wave that swept through Latin America a few years ago and still remains an undercurrent of progressive politics.

The dream that we shared with Che might still come true in the final victory of democracy after we emerge from the ashes of the firestorm of racist violence, unbridled market forces and misery that humanity finds itself in, particularly the underprivileged of the world. It is at such existential moments that some of us look back into history for a glimmer of hope in a visionary or some substantial social reform enthralling with passion for change.

shelleywalia@gmail.com