“a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy..”

So Mary Lou McDonald, MEP, is launching a week of events organised by Sinn Féin to commemorate the death of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. And the Northern Ireland Executive junior minister, and former bomber, Gerry Kelly, MLA, is to attend the last event – the Deputy First minister is obviously unavailable. But why exactly?

We know that Gerry Adams is a fan of the middle-class would-be permanent revolutionary. But is it still chic to worship Che in Sinn Féin in this new ‘indigenous’ deal? [Ógra Shinn Fein I could understand – Ed] Or just a ‘loved the movie’ moment? Or just another example of a party with a Cuba fixation? Or perhaps it’s a nod to Guevara’s call to arms in his last published article in 1967

“Our mission, in the first hour, shall be to survive; later, we shall follow the perennial example of the guerrilla, carrying out armed propaganda (in the Vietnamese sense, that is, the bullets of propaganda, of the battles won or lost — but fought — against the enemy). The great lesson of the invincibility of the guerrillas taking root in the dispossessed masses. The galvanizing of the national spirit, the preparation for harder tasks, for resisting even more violent repressions. Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy. “

Adds Frank at the Cedar Lounge wonders whether “it’s time Gerry Adams donned a beret and fatigues again”Adds again I’ll just add these lines from Guevara’s last published article, which follow on from the quoted paragraph above.

“We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it: to his home, to his centers of entertainment; a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be; make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline. He will even become more beastly, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to appear.”

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