Paper short abstract:

The purpose of this proposal is to analyze the ethnographical material of Ernesto Guevara's diary in Congo focussing on the cultural problems he faced at the moment of understanding the native conceptions of revolution and emancipation.

Paper long abstract:

This proposal is intended to analyze the ethnographical richness of Ernesto Guevara's diary which was written during the months he spent supporting Kabila's maquis in Eastern Congo. Guevara tried to export the Cuban revolutionary model to this region of Africa. In his own words: they "aimed to bring about the Cubanization of the Congolese." Even when the attempt can be considered as a failure in many aspects, the diary as source can be read as an ethnographical description of a clash between two very different conceptions of revolution and emancipation.

According to one of the traditional interpretation of Guevara's mission in Congo, this action can be considered as part of the unrealistic aspirations which ended up in a great political and military failure. A failure that anticipated the destiny of Guevara a couple of years later in Bolivia. From another point of view, the Cuban intervention in Congo may be considered as one of the first chapters of an African odyssey which would successfully lead to the visit of Nelson Mandela in Cuba in the 1990s.

None of these interpretations are adopted in this proposal, which considers the presence of Cubans in Congo as part of what we call today a global phenomenon and in the 1960s was conceptualized as an anti-imperialist struggle. It is in this "global" context that Guevara wrote this ethnographical description which provides an insight on the interaction between a "global south" and a native revolutionary and emancipatory logic.