Glen David Short reviews The Myths of Argentine History

Argentina is perhaps the most European of all the
Latin American republics. Centuries of immigration
built a burgeoning southern hemisphere nation, which,
around a century ago, was one of the richest countries
in the world. But Argentina's march towards prosperity
has detoured and stumbled several times. Pigna's book,
sub-titled 'The Construction of a Past as a
Justification of the Present' challenges conventional,
hagiographic biographies of some of Argentina's most
revered historical figures, and their forgotten
influences in shaping the nation.

The re-evaluation begins with Christopher Columbus.
Pigna highlights Columbus' first voyage which,
although given royal approval by Isabella and
Ferdinand, was not actually financed by them. Rather,
an outstanding fine for smuggling owed by the Port of
Palos was nullified in return for the Palos'
provisioning of Columbus' three ships. Pigna notes
Columbus' crews were composed mainly of pardoned
criminals, and how the Admiral renigged on a reward
promised to the first sailor to sight land; Pigna
suggests Columbus Day is celebrated on the wrong date,
as Rodrigo de Triana was the first crewmember to sight
America, on the 13th October. Before leaving the
island of Hispaniola, Columbus had all his men swear
before a notary that they had not encountered an
island, but the coast of a continent, thus ensuring a
more favourable reception when he returned. Later,
enslaving the natives to work looking for gold, Pigna
quotes a Harvard historian's assertion that Columbus
severed the hand of any native that did not produce a
nugget. Towards the end of his sailing days, Columbus'
contemporaries questioned his sanity - he declared the
world was going to end in 1657.

Sebastian Cabot is the next to receive a revision.
Sent to conquer the Moluccas, he puts in at the Canary
Islands and takes prostitutes aboard. When he hears of
a 'White King' and incredible treasures from a
castaway on the coast of Brazil, he abandons his
Moluccas orders in a search across hostile lands for
the treasure that cost most of his men's lives.

Pages 54-55 give an interesting dialogue between a
chief of the Colombian Zenu nation and the Spaniards
that indicates the Indians saw through the Europeans'
imperial Requeriemento. Accusing the Spanish
king of wanting 'to stir up trouble' by arriving
unannounced and demanding immediate submission, the
chief replies the Spanish king 'must be a pauper' to
want lands that are not his. Another chief, being
readied to be burnt at the stake, refused conversion
to Christianity, as he had heard that Spaniards too
went to Heaven, therefore he himself would rather die
and go to Hell.

The horrendous mines of Potosi and Argentina's
clandestine role in smuggling African slaves to work
them is exposed, along the corrupt machinations of
certain Buenos Aires officials and traders who fought
to continue the lucrative trafficking no matter what
the cost. But Pigna does not limit his critique to the
Spaniards. On page 145 Pigna quotes a newspaper
article describing the indigenous rebel leader Tupac
Amaru's excessive use of pompous trappings including
wearing blue velvet trimmed in gold braid, riding a
white horse with an embroidered harness, escorted by
'two blond men of good appearance.' The English
looting of Buenos Aires in 1806 also cops some flack.
Pigna describes the arrival in England of more than 1
million pounds of looted silver pesos:

'' Once in London, the bounty was paraded on eight
coaches pulled by six horses aorned with blue lace,
while a band performed 'God save the Queen' and 'Rule
Britannia.' The procession stopped off in front of the
Admiralty, went through Pall Mall and St. James Square
and finally reached the building of the Bank of
England, where the Buenos Aires bounty was deposited.
This goes to show that sometimes the English lose
their usual composure and restraint and indulge in the
same kind of carnival they often criticize South
America for'' (pages 176-7)

Two men who survive Pigna's critical eye are Mariano
Moreno and Manuel Belgrano. Moreno's altruistic
political aims are cut short by his death at sea,
which Pigna blames on Moreno's political enemies
abetting the ship's captain to poison him; shortly
after Moreno embarked but well before he died, his
wife Guadelupe Cuenca received a package containing a
morning veil and black gloves along with a note saying
the anonymous author knew she was 'soon to be a
widow'.

Independence hero Manuel Belgrano championed equality
among the Spanish and the Indians, sought the death
penalty for landowners who cruelly whipped their
vassals, and fought for the free disbursement of seeds
and farming equipment, paid for by fines levied
against convicted cattle-rustlers. Belgrano died of
syphilis in 1820 and only one Buenos Aires newspaper
carried any mention of his passing, though his name is
far from forgotten today. One of his more radical
ideas was crowning an Inca as King of Argentina after
independence was won, but his proposal was ridiculed
and never enacted. Belgrano was also ahead of his time
in promoting free and compulsory education; after he
was awarded 40,000 pesos in gold for his leading role
in patriotic battles in the north of Argentina, he
donated the money in 1813 to establish free elementary
schools. Pigna investigates what happened to the
donation, tracing a convoluted money trail through
the hands of corrupt civil and banking officials right
up to the present; with interest calculated at 5%, the
amount would be worth over 133 billion pesos today.

When first published in Spanish, The Myths of
Argentine History shot to the top of the Argentine
non-fiction best-seller list, and Pigna penned a
second edition. While the book's target readership is
mainly Argentine, it would also interest any reader
with a moderate interest in Latin American history.
Pigna puts forward alternative interpretations,
augmented by explanatory footnotes and a useful
12-page bibliography. History revolves around
interpretations, and Pigna's interpretations, although
sometimes acerbic, provide food for thought.

The Myths of Argentine History, Felipe Pigna,
softcover, 413 pages, published by Grupo Editorial
Norma, Buenos Aires, 2005, ISBN 987-545-228-9.

- Glen David Short is the author of An Odd Odyssey.

SALLES', GUEVARA'S AND GRANADO'S MOTORCYCLE DIARIES: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW

I first heard of Che Guevara as a 1980s teenager, from a friend who had been an exchange student in Mexico. Too young to understand Latin American politics, or for that matter any kind of politics, I didn't attach much significance to the Che story. But I was able to pronounce Che's name and connect his beret image with a short biography. My knowledge expanded after I lived in Colombia, and read Che's Motorcycle Diaries. I liked the book, but wasn't overwhelmed by it. Intrigued by the adventurous introduction of Che, however, I was interested enough to read more. Little by little, I absorbed the enigmatic Argentine, reading several biographies and three of his books. The recent Sydney premier of Walter Salle's cinematic adaptation of Che and Alberto's diaries gave an opportunity to see a purely Latin American interpretation.

Hero to some, villain to others, Che is a man
who becomes more multifaceted the deeper you delve.
Jean-Paul Sartre called him 'the most complete man of
our age'. In the 1960s, he had a CIA bounty on his
head, and he was blamed for inciting armed revolutions
throughout Latin America that cost thousands of
innocent lives. His motorcycle odyssey has not only
spawned the movie and numerous biographical works, but
two American authors, Patrick Symmes and Barbara
Brodman, retraced his steps and wrote their own
two-wheeler chronicles long before this film was
conceived. Very much a man who lived by his own rules,
Che was a seemingly valiant hombre who declared
he was not afraid to die while still a student. A
pin-up boy in nearly every university campus, I think
Che's enduring popularity is enhanced by the fact he
died young, a hero to losing side of the Cold War. Che
should be studied, if only to understand his
motivations, though many have gone much further,
elevating Che to an almost divine status. This is no
doubt a result of his legacy of eloquent essays and
speeches, and the Cuban Government's posthumous
efforts to deify him. Partly, too, a result due to
the appeal of Che's unconventional life story. Che was
tutored at home by his mother until age nine. He was a
chronic asthmatic who smoked Havana cigars. A man who
wore army boots and fatigues to UN forums. A hawk
during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he spent his Sundays
volunteering his labour, and loved poetry. Communist
and chess player, rugby player and magazine editor.
Inventor and patent holder of a roach insecticide. A
mountain climber and economist. A man who wielded the
surgeon's scalpel one day and a machinegun the next. A
man whose final words, facing the firing squad, were
'Shoot, coward!'

But of these faces of Che you see little in the film, because it is restricted to a particular seven month period of his life. Based on Che and Alberto Granado's books, any discussion of the film's merit should begin by comparing it to the written record, bearing in mind the diaries themselves are not candid snapshots. The journey began in December 1951; Alberto's diary appeared in 1978, 27 years after the trip, and 11 years after Che was killed. Alberto's is a conventional journal, with daily entries. Che's 'diary', however, is really a memoir, with a few dates sparsely scattered throughout. Che's notes were written firstly on the road, then rewritten again by Che more than a year after he returned. The handwritten journal was later transcribed and edited by Che's second wife Aleida March de la Torre, published as Notas de Viaje well after Che's death. Che's biographer Jorge Casta'eda identified at least one discrepancy between Aleida's account and passages published by Che's father which drew upon the same original notebooks. An expanded, newer translation has recently been published by Ocean Books; Che's daughter has stated the family 'edits without changing what he meant'.

The final page of Che's memoir contains a
passage entitled An Afterthought, (titled 'A
Note in the Margin' in the Ocean Books edition) with
the footnote that it was written after Che got home,
and it is not clear in which country it took place. In
it Che describes a mysterious night meeting with a
stranger and in no uncertain tone describes his
metamorphosis into a man 'ready to combat'. It is
perhaps the most polemic and apocryphal part of the
book; there is no corroborating passage in Alberto's
diary. My own opinion is that the Afterthought
is an allegory for the 'new Che' and may never have
happened. Critics would say the discrepancies and
delays in editing and publication detracts from their
frankness and accuracy; Che's later Bolivian Diary
was the subject of much intrigue over whether it
was a doctored instrument of propaganda.

Having read both Alberto's and Che's published diaries (in English), I think this is a valid but minor point. The diaries cannot mask their youthful enthusiasm, and contain plenty of improper behaviour. We can only guess at the full story, perhaps containing slurs and bawdy anecdotes, and hope that one day they become available. After all, the unedited diary of Anne Frank wasn't available for many years for similar reasons of prudishness. But really, would a few scandalous revelations obscure the overall trans-continental adventure? I doubt it. Whatever abridgement went on doesn't mean the diaries are not, viewed as a whole, credible chronicles. The two diaries were synthesised into a screenplay by Jos' Rivera and Walter Salles, who hired Alberto, now over 80 years old, as a consultant to ensure accuracy. The actors are said to have read the unedited diaries.

By stroke of pure co-incidence I was in Iquitos during filming. I was disappointed to be informed that the film set was closed to the public. However, I did meet Dr Granado and his family one day at Iquitos' Quistococha Zoo. He was a jovial old fellow, though obviously a bit less energetic these days than he was in '52. Returning to Sydney I had to wait for the Australian release which came months later than the Northern Hemisphere, reading divided reviews on the internet, teased by frustratingly slow MPEG downloads from the official website. Then last week I saw Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton talking about it on ABC's At The Movies programme; the Australian release was imminent. Margaret awarded 4 stars out of 5, David gave 4'. I jumped on the internet and procured tickets to an advance screening at Leichhardt's Palace Cinema on the 8th of December.

Arriving at the Palace, I have never seen so many Che T-shirts in all my life; there was a door prize for the best Che costume. Middle-aged people were well represented in the audience - in fact I would say in the majority; foreign accents filled the air. Picking up our free Che poster and an envelope of political pamphlets, my brother and I entered the theatre. Inside the cinema a spokesman delivered a speech that was laudatory of Che, critical of Bush, Packer and Murdoch, and inviting everyone to Green Left Weekly's upcoming 'Revoluci'n Harbour Cruise'. Or, you might be interested in becoming a brigadista in the 'First solidarity brigade from Australia' planned for Venezuela. At a cost of around $4000 (mainly for the airfare) only die-hard socialistas need apply.

The spokesman didn't mention how much the political winds have changed in the 52 years since Che and Alberto made their journey. Thousands died in civil wars that were partly inspired by Che, who wrote guerrilla textbooks. Argentina lost a war with Britain, and more recently, a financial crisis that saw its peso-dollar parity evaporate overnight. The Chuquicamata copper mine depicted in the film isn't owned by foreign interests anymore, but CODELCO, a nationalised Peruvian company. Yet the indigenous people of South America still struggle on under much the same miserable conditions as they always have.

Finally the lights dimmed and the film was underway. The opening scenes show Che and Alberto packing their bags, planning over a map of South America, Che declaring 'I want to get laid in every country'. It soon became apparent that the full vocabulary of Spanish swear-words were to be employed, invariably translated into English as the F word. The viewer soon becomes desensitised, even enamoured by the vulgarities, as more often than not they are used without malice.

I won't spoil the show by telling what happens next. But I will note that the film contains plenty of omissions. Firstly, where is the episode where Che, caught in the middle of the night with a bad case of diarrhoea, defecates out the window sill onto their host's tin of sun-drying peaches, thence beating a hasty retreat? Or the scene where Che shoots dead his host's pet dog one night, imagining it was a puma? Also missing from the cinematic version is the passage in Alberto's diary where Alberto ignores a peasant woman's silence to fill his basket with cassava, paying her half the market price. The pair's run-in with the police in Colombia doesn't rate a mention. There are many other omissions. Even the map used in the promotional poster is misleading - it doesn't show that part of their journey was as stowaways on vessel off the coast of Chile. I guess Salles couldn't include everything in his film, cuts had to be made, and there are plenty of other un-altruistic acts portrayed by both protagonists, enough to blunt any alleged bias: Che emerges less than flatteringly from the Chilean dance hall scene. Tellingly, Che's Afterthought, viewed by some as the memoir's most dramatic passage, is absent from the film, perhaps because it is not corroborated by Alberto, and, as published, is not assigned to any particular location. Its omission removes the strongest revolutionary words in either book: '' I feel my nostrils dilate, savouring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, of the enemy's death; I brace my body, ready for combat''

There is one major departure from the diaries: the scene where Che leaves a party to swim across the Amazon - a feat he achieved in daylight on a different day, not the night of the party. So, all-inclusive documentary it ain't. But The Motorcycle Diaries admirably attempts to distil a true story (unlike so many Hollywood films these days.) For me, The Motorcycle Diaries is two things. Firstly it is highly visual film, an outdoor adventure tale shot in vivid South American countryside. The scenery is simply breathtaking. Full marks to Salles for shooting outdoors and on location, using local actors speaking lingua franca, the same way he did so successfully in Central Station Brazil. This film breathes life. The music soundtrack delivers as well as Salles' casting: an auditory odyssey that drifts through several republics, sampling a little of each.

Secondly it is the portrayal of the youthful adventures of one of South America's more intriguing personas. It is not essential nor even advantageous for the viewer to know of Che's later, more infamous deeds. Neither is this one of those films where you could say 'read the book first'. In fact the opposite could be advised. That Che was an enemy of capitalism is not covered in the film; Che is aged only 24. Those who choose to shout it down as sugar-coated hagiography forget that personalities like Guevera were ordinary people, with the same spectrum of human emotions as you and I. Friendship, anger, love, a sense of justice, and a hearty dose of humour. It is the portrayal of these emotions, especially during the pair's stay at the leprosarium, that is the film's strength.

As a film that entertains and informs, I give the Motorcycle Diaries the thumbs up. I found the 'Coca-leaf Communion' scene a little too drawn out, but the scene where he gives the destitute miner's wife his coat was very moving. It is not a History Channel vignette of Che, nor was it intended to be. 'Before he changed the world, the world changed him' says the promo. It gives some clues to the shaping of the man, by the Latin Americans themselves, but not the entire picture. For that you should read Casta'ega's or Anderson's excellent Guevara biographies (or, for Hollywood's take on Che, see the 1969 Omar Sharif flick Che!) Che's guerrilla activities are mentioned at the end when a brief summary flashes up on the screen. I could not help but note that the audience was deathly silent during these few seconds, in contrast to the roars of laughter during most of the film.

Although Salles' theme is that the journey was formative to Guevara's political beliefs, just how much of an influnce is a moot point. Che was also greatly influenced by his mother Celia, the rise of the Per'ns (he once wrote to Eva Per'n, cheekily asking her for a jeep), and various other journeys he made through South and Central America. It is often overlooked that Che undertook a solo expedition in Argentina's northwest in 1949, aged 21, covering some 2500 miles on a bicycle with a bolt-on Cucciolo motor. He also kept a diary of this journey, incorporporated by his father into his biography Mi Hijo El Che. To my knowledge there is no English edition, and with the current popularity of Salles' film, even the Spanish edition is scarce. Che also sailed on voyages to Brazil and Trinidad in the merchant marine in 1950. So it could be argued Che was an experienced traveller prior to his journey with Alberto. Later Che travelled Latin America a second time, revisiting Cusco, climbing Mexico's Mt Popocatepetl, exploring Maya ruins and witnessing Guatemala's civil war. No diary exists of that period, just a collection of letters and essays published in English as Back On The Road: A Journey to Central America. I am sure an entertaining sequel could be made about these additional adventures, along with his exploits as a guerrilla in the Congo and Cuba.

Watching the film, I was left with the feeling Alberto was the extrovert, Che the cautious one, not quite the same impression I had from reading the diaries. Salles' film concludes with a silent cameo of the real Alberto, now in his 80s, watching an old Venezuelan cargo plane bundle Che off down the runway. It is a fitting, realistic finale. But that is not the only connection with the real Che. Alberto's part was played by Rodrigo de la Serna, a relative of Che, whose full name was Che Guevara de la Serna.

Shuffling our way out of the cinema complex, we passed tables set up by Resistance and Green Left Weekly. Che T-shirts, badges, fridge magnets, and a selection of revolutionary literature by Che, Castro and others were for sale. Propaganda and paraphernalia: it was the leftie's field day. It made me recall a memorable passage in Symmes' book Chasing Che, where Che's ex-girfriend Maria del Carmen 'Chichina' Ferreyra, says of students looking at a Che poster: 'They don't even know who he was'. Maybe, but after seeing the film we all know a little more about Che's early life - and Chichina's - than any poster can tell us. That the Green Lefties managed to screen a copy of the film ahead of the major cinema chains represents something of a coup. I am sure Che would be proud.

And I am also sure Che, riding his Norton 500 in that great open road in the sky, would be pleased to know his film premiered in Norton Street, Leichhardt, before a full house, long after he died.

Glen David Short is the author of An Odd Odyssey.

His reviews of Granado's, Guevara's, Symmes' and many other Latin American travelogues can be read by clicking here.