Che Guevara ranks up there as one of the most one-dimensional figures in Latin American political history. Most recently Ileana Ros-Lehtinen breathed fire when UNESCO accepted a collection of Che documents from Cuba and Bolivia. The mere idea of studying him sets her off because he is a "bloodthirsty murderous sadist."
With that as a jumping off point, here are the three one dimensions, so to speak, all of them missing critical facts.
First, Che Guevara is the embodiment of evil.
This is widely held by the opposition to the Castro regime in the United States. He has no redeeming qualities because he hated people. He did not fight for beliefs but rather only for the sheer enjoyment of killing and oppressing people. He's like the creepy guy with the cattle gun in
No Country For Old Men.
Second, Che Guevara is the embodiment of revolutionary good.
Many in the Latin American left has long held this view. He is a light of inspiration for us all, a model for every child to follow.
Hugo Chávez talked about him until the very end. He helped the oppressed as much as possible, and even when resting--which was rare--he looked lovingly at pictures of the oppressed.
Third, Che Guevara is the embodiment of ersatz bourgeois rebellion.
The sight of teenagers buying Che Guevara t-shirts in malls never fails to amaze me. But his picture is cute, he looks so inspiring, and this makes me feel like I am giving a signal to my parents and my school that I am a rebel. There's no way he would've let his mom take away his Xbox for staying out too late!
3 comments:
It's almost impossible these days to study any portion of the Left and not be called a commie.
Che Guevara is a very fascinating figure because so many of the things he said contradicted the things he did and because there are so many conflicting accounts of his life that it's impossible to find who the real Che Guevara really was.
Calling Che Guevara a bloodthirsty killer is not just the viewpoint of all Cuban Americans, it's also because LBJ had the CIA send a Bay of Pigs veteran, Felix Rodriguez, to Bolivia to capture and kill Che. The Clinton and Obama people knew that Che was a polarizing figure. Just like the man whom he helped put in power, Che may be a folk hero to the extreme left, but his advocacy of violence and bloodshed to promote Fidel Castro's bankrupt vision for Latin America and Africa, as well as calling the US "a carnivorous animal feeding on the helpless," make clear that Che can in no way be seen as a peaceful man as far-left peace organizations claim.
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