"It is not enough to wish good luck to the victims of aggresion.  One must follow them either to victory or to death." -Che Guevara

   
As a young boy of Chinese descent growing up in Costa Rica, I learned about Lei Feng from the magazines that my parents used to receive from our Motherland.  One was titled "CHINA RECONSTRUCTS' and the other one was "CHINA TODAY."  The first time I learned about Comrade Lei Feng, I was impressed and moved by his selfless spirit, his love for the people, and his dedication to help others and the Motherland at the expense of his own life.  Personally, Lei Feng came to symbolize everything that was pure, heroic, and altruistic about this great ideal which is communism; it made me feel fortunate and euphoric about these glorious and extraordinary times we were living in: the brilliant and glorious Era of Mao-Zedong. 
 
On December 3, 2005, I arrived in Beijing to visit the land of my ancestors for the first time; ironically, it was a different China from the one that was engraved in my mind and which I had read and dreamt about so many times as a young man.  As I traveled through many of the provinces and cities in China, there were several times when I had to remind myself that I was in my Motherland, and not walking in some boulevard in one of those Western countries where consumerism, prostitution, materialism, homelessness, and rampant crime are some of the myriad social diseases affecting the social order.  In Shanghai and Guangzhou, I saw people who eagerly embraced anything that was Western, who seemed to suffer from a national identity problem in ways unimaginable; in Nanjing, as we crossed the Yangzi River Bridge (Nánjing Cháng Jiang Daqiáo), I noticed the numerous “massage parlors” catering for the western tourist by Chinese women, and located on both sides of the street.  That night, as I was leaving my room in the Nanjing Hilton for a night walk, I noticed two young local ladies, scantily dressed, knocking on the door of a foreign visitor and being welcomed by him.  Sadly, this was not happening just in a typical city of China; Nanjing was the site of the worst war atrocity committed by the Japanese imperialists, an atrocity that is well-documented and known to the world as the “Rape of Nanjing.” Therefore, of all the places in China, it is inexcusable and inconceivable that the local and Central government should allow such shameful behaviour where this ignominious atrocity took place. 
 
Sometimes I wonder if Lu-Xun’s prophetic work, “Diary of a Madman,” whose title he deliberately borrowed from Nikolai Gogol’s novel about an office worker who comes to believe that he is the King of Spain, has become a reality under the reforms implemented by Deng-Xiaoping and his followers.  In this particular story, the protagonist tells us through his diary about his growing obsession with the anthropophagous inclination of those around him, a practice, that he suspects, will ultimately end up with others, including his family, devouring him.  In the end, he despairs and loses all hope of survival, hoping only that the children, the future generations, will be saved.  Tragically, there is a plethora of cannibals in our Motherland, nowadays; it is our duty, our undeniable duty, to get rid of them.
 
During my six days in Guangzhou, I took the opportunity to roam around the city, walk along its dark alleys and desolate bridges, and witness the poverty, misery and silent despair that lies beyond the elegant facades of its impeccable and modern buildings.  As I witnessed the squalid conditions where people live (China's homeless live on the bridges, while the homeless in the USA live underneath them), I have become convinced that capitalism is, indeed, an illusion, a fairy-tale that is sold to the masses; it offers a thousand mirages to hide its ugly reality.  In order to survive, capitalism needs to ally itself with entertainment and religion to stop people from thinking and finding a way out of their miserable lives.  In ancient Rome, what we know today as the "Roman Circus" was as ubiquitous as today's Cable TV.  Soap operas, game shows, Karaoke, keeping people informed about the private lives of movie stars, are necessary tools to keep people entertained so that they won't be aware that they have been deceived, not once nor twice, but a plethora of times.
 
As I already pointed out, religion and its Siamese twin sister, faith, also play an important role in capitalism: only the faithful can be constantly deceived by promises of an unseen paradise, which to begin with, is based solely on myths and superstitions.  According to most religions, suffering is God's will; therefore, we all must accept it.  Revolting against it is a sin.  He who rebels and revolts against the existing social order, against his own condition as slave, is a sinner.  No wonder Marx called religion "the opium of the masses."
 
Capitalism is an oppressive and bankrupt system.  It is fraud committed against the majority by the few.  Based on Forbe's list of the top 300 richest people in the world, the top 300 billionaires own and have access to 60% of the world's natural resources, and according to this report, the fortune of the top 10 billionaires equals the national debt of the 50 poorest countries.  These inequalities are intrinsic of this oppressive system.   Marx already pointed out one of the basic fallacies and contradictions of capitalism when he implicitly illustrated to us that if it were true that money is what motivates people to work, why do those who do not have anything work 16 hours a day under terrible conditions, and those who are wealthy do not work?  Once an individual can unmask its true nature, its deceptive nature, capitalism is nothing but a heartless beast that tramples upon the innocent nature and dignity of the working class.  Morally, it is totally devoid of any sense of humanity and compassion; capitalism is a chronic disease, an epidemic disease affecting mankind. 
 
Since the first day that I read the first pages of the Communist Manifesto, I have never looked back nor have I had second thoughts about the righteousness and universal truth inherently found in this compassionate ideology.  Years later, when I read an essay written by Albert Einstein titled "Why Socialism?" which was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949), I realized that the only way man can find meaning in life is by devoting his life to society, and that capitalism is the root of all evil affecting mankind.  Another book, "Sobre Las Contradicciones" ("On Contradictions" ) by Mao-Zedong, took me 44 years to fully understand, and now that I do, it has helped me to understand China's present situation and its past.  As I wrote in my letter to comrade Li-Weimin, I kept repeating Comrade Lei Feng's famous words that "only fools can save China" after I left Nanjiecun.  As I saw the homeless sleeping on the bridges of Guangzhou, I decided right there to become one of those fools…

LONG LIVE MARXISM, LENINISM, MAO-ZEDONG THOUGHT!
 
Ernesto Con