Martín Guevara, nephew of Che Guevara: "Fidel Castro had the tastes of a monarch"

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• MARTA CORBAL

Updated Friday,26May2023-21:24

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As a child, Martín Guevara (Argentina, 1963) felt the hypocrisy of communism in his own flesh. As a good nephew of Che Guevara, he resided with his family in the Habana Libre hotel and his wishes were orders for the staff of the most luxurious tourist complex in Fidel Castro's Cuba. Thus, every morning he asked for lunch some fried eggs that were always brought to him with a toasted ham that he never ate. Until one day he decided to use it to prepare snacks for his fellow students.

Olegius.

"When I saw that the

I began to give it to the kids, but there was such a stir that they communicated it to the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples. They told me, 'Look, Martin, we're in a society where we want

and we're still on our way.' They explained to me that the boys had never tasted the ham and if I gave it to them they could get used to it. Because

they were aspirations that only the elite could access," Martín Guevara, a writer and nephew of the legendary Argentine guerrilla, tells LOC.

Author of books such as

(2014) or

(2021), in June will publish

(Europa Ediciones, 2023). In this last novel,

, makes a cultural and social journey through countries such as Italy, Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, Spain, the United States, France or England. It's your

after years cultivating an extensive autobiography based on his experiences in the Cuba of

Fidel Castro

. Regime in which he lived for more than a decade.

The writer Martín Guevara Duarte, author of 'La paz de los gorriones' and 'A la sombra de un mito'

Transferred

"When I was 10 years old, I went with my parents to

. They had not been able to tell me that I had an uncle who had died for wanting to establish communism because in my country short periods of democracies alternated with military dictatorships and it was not recommended, "he explains. "When I arrived in Cuba I found out that I have an uncle who was like

. That he had fought for us all to live the same and that because we were from his family we were going to be in Havana.

, different from that of Cubans. As a child that already sounded jarring and false to me, but I felt very proud."

Her blood relationship with Ernesto Guevara is injected through the paternal line. His father,

He was one of the four brothers of the revolutionary shot in Bolivia in 1967. The communist relay was left in the hands of the family. "My father was a member of one of the

that existed in the 70s in Argentina,

They wanted me to come back.

Peron

and they took us to Cuba in case the right won and the situation went wrong."

That's how it was. In 1976 the military dictatorship of

Jorge Rafael Videla

He won the

. His father, who was returning to Buenos Aires, was taken prisoner for eight and a half years. "He was in danger of death every day, his fellow prisoners always remember his solidarity.

. While a totalitarianism kept his father in chain, another of opposite sign and identical capacity to annul the individual, had his mother, his brothers and

. He tried to be happy until the blindfold fell off.

Martín Guevara as a child with Fidel Castro in a factory

Transferred

"That was a

for people, but we lived in a hotel that

We had absolutely everything," he says. "We were in the building that

Conrad Hilton

had opened in the

at 58. At 6 months

And he went to live there with all the leadership for months. Che was only there a month, then

to live with his family as a Cuban. That differentiated him from Fidel, who had and lived with the tastes of a monarch. It was a contradiction."

During his childhood and adolescence,

influential people on the left worldwide. They were all staying in the same hotel where he played with his friends, cousins and brothers.

piscina y camareros que ofrecían bandejas de frutas y zumos tropicales. "Era un lugar muy divertido. Estuve con

el fundador de los

. Conocí a

, que es otro icono afroamericano".

Pero entre todos estas celebridades hubo una que hizo especial mella en él, por su autenticidad y carisma:

Joan Manuel Serrat

. "Era un

y muy valiente. Se había manifestado en contra del último fusilamiento del franquismo y tuvo que

. Iba y venía a La Habana y cuando viajaba a Argentina llevaba

a mi padre, que seguía preso", cuenta. "Íbamos a su habitación a que nos firmara discos y era siempre muy amable".

"

. Pero siempre como familia cuando íbamos a un evento", resalta al ser preguntado por la estrella de la gorra y el chándal. Para un preadolescente en pleno desarrollo, la figura de

resultaba abrumadora. "

una retórica, una forma de manejar los tempos que era alucinante. Te podía convencer

Primero te seducía porque era utópico y luego

con lo que promulgaba".

Una oda al individuo

Cuando Martín Guevara se marchó de Cuba para recorrer Europa y Latinoamérica era un joven rebelde amante del

. "Era música que

y marcó a una generación: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Los Rolling Stones...", enumera. En un país comunista donde el obrero solo tenía un par de

The arrival of new styles and ways of thinking was seen as a deadly weapon for a dictatorship based on collective conformism.

"If you want

don't go to Eastern Europe or talk to a Cuban who lives abroad. You're going to find them in London, in Paris.

" he says. " The Soviet Union did not fall because of the U.S. 32nd Division. Russia was attacked

. The USSR fell by

and Levis jeans," he says.

"I am a social democrat

and would have been a dissident of

of any political sign," he clarifies. "Cuba had

, like education, but to have them they asked you for obedience. When it is said that

, is an indictment from the parameters of capitalism. Within socialism it makes no sense, because the erotica of

than money.

of every Cuban, about property, about the island."

Che Guevara with Fidel Castro

File

For years, Martín Guevara has lived in Spain, where he married and had two children. After a period working in Madrid, he moved to León. City you love for your

and their way of life. A great admirer of American and European classics and literature, he formed an opinion about the wider world through

Trying to respond to his texts to

.. of exiles from Cuba.

How can a dictatorship maintain itself?

and even be venerated by

Despite the lack of freedom of speech, imprisonments or historical oppression of homosexuals? "Because the revolution hijacked the

solidarity, exploitation, surplus value... If you are against them, then you are a satrap and you are in

that the poor may eat... And it's not like that," he replies.

"In Germany they jumped the wall to

. In Cuba they jump into the water to reach the United States even at the risk of being eaten by a shark. People are not able to join and in those countries

Because in every block you can find a spy. Your neighbor spies on you."

To this day, and despite their differences, Martín admires Che Guevara who

. Whenever he can, he continues to study that symbol of communism and consumerism that died.

. Whose shirt is sold next to the

Bob Marley

or Rosie the Riveter in the store across from the Burger King.