The Cult of Che Knowing what we know, why do we still celebrate
him? In 1821 Napoleon was murdered--he was poisoned--while in
the hands of his enemies, far away from home, just as Che was
murdered in 1967. It took 19 years to bring Napoleon's remains
back to France, compared to 30 years for Che. Napoleon's
reburial took place on Dec. 15, 1840. People who should have
known better found the ceremony moving. Victor Hugo, who stood
among the crowd, dutifully recorded, in a poem on the occasion,
that Napoleon had been wrong--that Napoleon had tried to conquer
with the sword instead of with the mind. Yet a few lines later,
Hugo wrote, his Bonapartist blood pounding: May the people
forever keep you in their memory, Day as beautiful as glory,
Cold as the tomb! So in the Cuban tropics, too, there has just
now been a day as beautiful as glory, cold as the tomb. And
because the cult of glory feeds on defeat and not on victory, we
can be sure that, like the passion for Napoleon in the last
century, the passion for Che wi