A couple of years ago I was scrutineering at a poll in a federal election for a candidate I supported.
Scrutineering involves keeping an eye on the way that voters are handled by the Elections Canada officials. In Cuba, the CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution) performs a similar role, but they scrutinize Cuban citizens in every neighourhood, 24 hours a day every day.
Scutineering is a partisan position - you want anyone who is likely to vote for your candidate to be qualified and anyone likely to vote for the opponent to be disqualified (without breaking the Elections Act, of course.) But at least we Canadian scrutineers don't throw people in jail for how they might think.
But I digress, my counterpart on that E-day for a party that is on one side of the spectrum (I'm dead centre) was a young guy, maybe a Freshman, wearing a Che TShirt. Being who I am, an energetic irritant to those whom adopt positions that I find disagreeable, of course, I spoke up. "What do you know about Ernesto Guevara," I asked.
The response was about what I expected. "He was a leader of the Cuban Revolution."
I nodded. "You should research him before you celebrate him. He murdered thousands of innocent people." And walked away.
It was Che who started Cuba's CDR when Interior Minister as well as its paramilitary police - he didn't believe that people could be trusted to be revolutionary enough.
His movie should be out any day now. Looks like an Oliver Stone fantasy from the trailer.
