LET'S REMEMBER DIEGO MARADONA'S SUPPORT FOR LATIN AMERICAN SOCIALISM

While the corporate media are remembering Diego Maradona's footballing brilliance, not a lot is being said about his socialist politics.

AS I WRITE THIS, the corporate media are busy sanitising the life and legacy of Diego Maradona, rendering it 'safe' for public consumption. The prevailing theme played out by the likes of the BBC, CNN, Fox News and our own TVNZ and RNZ is that Maradona might of been brilliant on the football field  but he was  an erratic and 'controversial' figure off it. His struggles with alcohol and drugs are being well documented. They may of contributed to his fatal heart attack but he is still well on his way to being safely pigeonholed as a 'troubled sporting genius' who can be slotted alongside other similar figures like  footballer George Best  or boxer Mike Tyson.

At first glance, and  unfortunately most people won't go beyond the headlines,  this sounds like a reasonable and balanced assessment of Maradona. And it will only be entrenched as the media endlessly screens the 1986 World Cup goal he scored against England and which has often been described as 'the goal of the century' - which is media hyperbole but it makes for good clickbait.

Even though Maradona had a tattoo of Che Guevara on one his arms and the face of Fidel Castro tattooed on one of his legs, the corporate media have still managed  to downplay his avowedly left wing politics or simply ignored his political views altogether. So we are left with the irony of a television network like CNN, which has actively supporting US-backed attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan government, now lauding the life of someone who vehemently opposed imperialism.

Maradona was a supporter of Latin American socialism and he visited both Cuba and Venezuela several times during his life. He viewed Castro as a father figure and described him in such terms. He was impressed and inspired by the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and supported both Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro.  

He also supported struggles outside of Latin America - he was, for example an outspoken  opponent of the Israeli regime and a supporter of the Palestinian struggle.

After the death of Hugo Chavez, Maradona commented:

'What Hugo left was a great friendship, an incredible political wisdom. Hugo Chavez changed the way Latin America thinks about itself. We were bowed to the United States  and he showed that we can walk by ourselves.'

While Maradona's politics might make conservatives and liberals alike uneasy, it is impossible to understand his life without addressing his politics. Born into poverty and the slums of Buenos Aires, Diego Maradona forged his working class origins with a determined socialist politics. That should be remembered as much as his undoubted football skills.