Last week, the local authorities of County Clare, Ireland removed a mural of Che Guevara after a couple right-wing blokes from the US griped about it. We know those kind of local authorities well in the US; they run (into the ground) many of our cities. We know those kind of blokes even better & are inured to their complaints. The mural was to commemorate Guevara during the upcoming Latin American cultural festival called the Che Do Bheatha festival held in Kilkee on the west coast of Ireland.
Well in the spirit of Che Guevara’s call for the oppressed to “Create two, three, many Vietnams,” residents of Kilkee have replaced the destroyed mural with two more & the head of the local Chamber of Commerce anticipates at least four more will be painted on private property where the authorities can’t remove it.
This is defiance & guerrilla mural art of which Che would be so proud. He would eschew any cult of personality because social transformation is much more epic than a single heroic figure; & we might eschew guerrilla warfare as a strategy because it gets too many people killed without defeating power. But only small-minded bureaucrats & right-wing blokes could imagine that removing a single mural would undo the honor working people around the world give to a champion of the oppressed.
(Photo of new mural in Kilkee by Eamon Ward)
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