A Cuban woman used the pages of the Che's Diary in Bolivia to ignite her charcoal stove. The video has gone viral on Facebook and brutally encapsulates the energy crisis the island is experiencing.
In the recording, the woman tears pages from the book and places them among the charcoal as she vents her anger against the revolutionary narrative that has accompanied her throughout her life.
"This is a book that deceived me for so many years, telling me that Che was good and that my children had to be like Che. Look at what the diary of Che served me."
The gesture encapsulates two simultaneous realities. On one hand, the desperation of millions of Cubans searching for any combustible material to cook. On the other hand, the explicit rejection of decades of indoctrination represented by a figure that the regime turned into a mandatory symbol in its schools and political events.
The Diaries of Che in Bolivia were published in 1968 by Fidel Castro's government and compile the personal notes of Ernesto Guevara during the failed guerrilla campaign, which ended with his capture and execution in October 1967.
For decades, the book was massively distributed in Cuba as part of school indoctrination, and the slogan “We will be like Che” shaped the ideological formation of entire generations.
The continuous blackouts are pushing Cubans to improvise ways to cook with charcoal while the regime fails to provide real solutions to the crisis.
The book that the Cuban educational system presented for decades as a moral guide for the "new man" ended up being for this woman the only thing she had on hand to heat the pot.
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