The Brand That Sprang From a Frozen Revolutionary Moment
Michael Casey |
THE AUSTRALIAN
January 01, 2009
AN island of 10 million people with a sugar-based economy hobbled by a US trade embargo, Fidel Castro’s Cuba was never going to be a geopolitical powerhouse. Yet by stirring the imagination of millions, the Cuban revolution has left a lasting, outsized imprint on the world. Initially this was fuelled by the improbable victory that Castro’s rag-tag army cemented on New Year’s Day 50 years ago. It also owes much to a single split second that occurred 14 months later at a public rally in Havana.
That frozen moment, captured by photographer Alberto Korda, was a striking portrait of the guerilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
It would become the most widely reproduced photographic image in history. Korda’s image of Che staring at the horizon is everywhere. It has appeared on Hezbollah posters, Brazilian bikinis, campus T-shirts and everything in between; critics on the Left and Right complain that merchants as well as activists have dislodged Che’s image from the real Ernesto Guevara, a Marxist who espoused extreme self-sacrifice and armed revolution.
MORE: The Australian, Jan 1-09
Argentina’s Lesson On How Not To Beat The Crisis
By MICHAEL CASEY
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN
October 23, 2008
BUENOS AIRES (Dow Jones)–Argentines, who are visited by financial meltdown more or less every 10 years, have been joking lately about a new business opportunity: crisis survival classes for Americans. But Argentina’s spiral into yet another homegrown crisis this week reminds us that the most important lesson for confronting the bigger one in the rest of the world lies in how not to commit its errors. The prospects for a sustained recovery will be undermined if the sociopolitical malaise at the heart of this country’s repeated failures is allowed to take root.
Resource-blessed Argentina cannot blame misfortune for its slide from having ranked as the seventh-richest nation at the outset of the last century to 70th at the start of this one. Nor can it fault a particular policy bias - neither leftist nor conservative regimes have a monopoly on crises. Rather, Argentina’s curse stems from the lack of a basic covenant between its people and their government.
In Argentina, Che Guevara Finally Gets More Than a Lousy T-Shirt
Rebel’s Birthplace Unveils a Statue of Him As It Reconsiders His Complex Legacy
By MICHAEL CASEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 14, 2008
ROSARIO, Argentina — No Argentine has left a bigger mark on the world than legendary revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, yet there is no major monument in his homeland to the face that launched a million T-shirts.
That changes Saturday with the unveiling of a 12-foot bronze statue in this town where he was born 80 years ago.
Since he was killed trying to foment revolution in Bolivia in 1967, the Marxist guerrilla has been a source of inspiration for revolutionary movements from Northern Ireland to East Timor, a symbol of rebellion for three generations of Western youth, and a marketing phenomenon selling everything from snow boards to air freshener.
Brand Cuba
By MICHAEL CASEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 11, 2008
As Fidel Castro brings his reign in Cuba to a long overdue end, we are left to ponder how a leader with such a dismal economic record could retain power for a half-century.
There is merit to many of the standard explanations for Castro’s longevity — both those of his critics, who cite political repression, and those of his fans, who believe the Cuban majority was won over by advances in health and literacy. There is also some merit in the arguments blaming Washington, either for its self-defeating trade embargo or for not being tough enough.
But these only tell part of the story. Instead, if we view Castro’s political machine through the apolitical prism of the market, we can attribute its durability to a concept that’s alien to his socialist rhetoric, and deeply rooted in the American capitalist system he claims to despise: branding. Castro’s political “success” is a case study in managing the global information economy.
Has Latin America Lost Its Free-Market Shine?
Leftist Shift Raises Alarms, But Mexico, Brazil Remain Draws
By MICHAEL CASEY in Buenos Aires and SANTIAGO PEREZ in Madrid
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
January 30, 2006
By Nov. 30 this year, Latin America will have held 11 critical presidential elections in 12 months. With left-leaning candidates leading most polls, some free-market advocates in the U.S. are already asking, “Who lost Latin America?”
Worries that the region is losing its luster as an emerging open-market economy also were evident at the just-ended World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where China and India took center stage. “There’s a feeling of depression, as if Latin America was being left out of the show,” said former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, a Davos participant who now heads the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization at the U.S. university.
But Mr. Zedillo and some political analysts and economists say such concerns are overblown. While certain foreign investors might have their interests at risk in some places, they doubt the region’s leftward shift will turn most of the largest countries into hostile destinations for investment. Despite the income inequality that remains Latin America’s most intractable social problem — fueling voter disaffection with unfettered capitalism — most countries still retain largely market economies because their leaders and voters see no better answers, these observers say.
Kirchner’s Next Challenge
Ire at Argentine Activists Highlights Need for Sustained Job Creation
By MICHAEL CASEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 31, 2004
Buenos Aires — MARGARITA SANCHEZ clutches a two-foot stick and glares at annoyed motorists who have encountered her roadblock. She and hundreds of other piquetero activists are protesting, as they often do, outside the Labor Ministry here, seeking, she says, “a decent job.”
To Gonzalo Ramirez Vilches, whose restaurant is across the street from the chanting protesters, police barricades and gridlocked traffic, the piqueteros are about job losses, not job creation. After two years of seeing customers driven away by the frequent protests at the ministry, Mr. Ramirez Vilches is thinking of shuttering the restaurant he has owned for 15 years. Since early 2003, even as the economy has recovered, he has laid off eight of his original 20 workers.
For many middle-class Argentines who once empathized with the piquetero movement — dozens of unemployed activist organizations with a ubiquitous presence on Buenos Aires streets — the protesters are increasingly a problem. The deepening fissure across Argentine society over the piquetero movement is posing a threat to President Nestor Kirchner, who once embraced some of the more moderate groups. It is one of several challenges looming for the Argentine leader after a first presidential year of strong growth and political victories. Tackling the piquetero movement, as with other challenges, means facing up to some deep-rooted problems in this crisis-scarred country.
Indebted Argentines Get Comic Relief
By MICHAEL CASEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 24, 2004
BUENOS AIRES — Readers of Clarin, Argentina’s widest-circulating daily newspaper, have a choice when it comes to updates on the country’s $100 billion debt restructuring.
They can start with the front page, where the bitter, 21/2-year-old struggle between foreign bondholders and the Argentine government is frequently headline news. Or they can go straight to the back page, where the saga is played out in all its absurdity through the daily adventures of Nelly, a comic-strip character caught in a love-hate relationship with Klaus, an Austrian bondholder.
Those who want to cut to the chase take the latter option. For all the wacky twists of its storyline, the strip shows the debt restructuring for what it truly is: a battle between real people, pitting hundreds of thousands of European small investors against 37 million Argentines.