[Ernesto “Che”] Guevara: It is a great pleasure [for us] to have this opportunity of greeting Chairman Mao [in person]. We have always venerated Chairman Mao in our struggle. We are an official delegation, representing Cuba, but members of our delegation were born in four nations.
Chairman: You are an Argentinean.
Guevara: Born in Argentina.
Chairman: Where else were people in the delegation born?
Guevara: [Ramiro Fernando] Maldonado [Secretary-General, Revolutionary Social Party of Ecuador] is an Ecuadorian, [economist Albán] Lataste a Chilean, I was born in Argentina, all the rest [were] born in Cuba. Although some of us were not born in Cuba, the Cuban people do not resent us by saying we were not born in Cuba. We actually defend the Cuban revolution. Fidel [Castro] represents the will of all Latin Americans.
It’s a funny joke because of Argentina’s reputation but it reads like, especially given language barrier issues, Mao was trying to participate conversationally by continuing Che’s thought with a partial elaboration on what he said that also demonstrates Mao having a little bit of familiarity with his background. It’s the kind of thing that people do a lot in my experience.
What did Mao mean by this?
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Memorandum_of_conversation_between_Mao_Zedong_and_Ernesto_Che_Guevara
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Ah, so it’s taken out of context to be funni
meow!
Oh, that makes more sense.
Guevara was born in Argentina, but was representing Cuba as part of this delegation. The chat bubble inconveniently covered that up
It’s a funny joke because of Argentina’s reputation but it reads like, especially given language barrier issues, Mao was trying to participate conversationally by continuing Che’s thought with a partial elaboration on what he said that also demonstrates Mao having a little bit of familiarity with his background. It’s the kind of thing that people do a lot in my experience.