Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mack4289]

The criticism of George Bush has been covered in this forum and everywhere else (and deservedly so). But I've never understood why Che Guevara has been such a hero to so many young people. What's even more incomprehensible is why he's become so synonomous with rebellion and freedom (he presided over show trials to justify the execution of people for their religious or political beliefs). As much of a disaster as Dubya's been, he's a beacon of liberalism and tolerance compared to Guevara.

http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/

"He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system�the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become �"� and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy�a tragedy on the hugest scale.

...... Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a free-thinker and a rebel."

[Fresh Prince]

[mack4289]

What things? I'm not clear on what you mean.

[Big_Bird]

[mack4289]

[swetepete]

IMO: In the late 60s and early 70s, when there was a radical, violent left-wing in the West, Guevara was an icon to people who advocated violence as a means of social change. Those people are basically done now, but the image for a long time retained its cachet as 'hardcore' even as the popularity of aggro-Marxism faded.
Then, in the early 90s, the Rage Against the Machine album with Che on it sold a few million copies, and a lot of people were like 'wow, the lead singer of this band is really cute' and started putting the Che's face all over the place.
Then 'the motorcycle diaries.' Again with the uncompromising idealistic cute rebel stuff, minus the yucky bits.
Now his image is not really representative of what he actually believed politically, and has instead become an image representing the 'uncompromising, fearless, cute rebel.' His actual beliefs aren't really relevant.
Kinda like the James Dean posters hung in so many millions of suburban teenage bedrooms in the 1980's. Nobody cares if he was a s&m freak nicknamed 'the Human Ashtray'* who only made four movies. He's an icon of 'misunderstood angry cute youth.' His opinions are even less relevant than Che's...for all we know, he was a John Bircher.

*this may actually be true.

[twg]

Why Che?

He died and it left him open for great marketing without the messy human to ruin it.

[dutchy pink]

very good analysis Swetpete.

I hate Che,

The only thing i'll say is
Reinaldo Arenas

read any of his books,
you'll hate Che too

Actually,
Bush, Che and Fifo have quite a lot in common

[safeblad]

[safeblad]

I saw a great t-shirt in Berlin with a picture of che and a banner saying. 'Communism responsible for the deaths of 80 million people'

.. i think it was 80 million anyway cant remember the exact number

[ddeubel]

Che's Maoism should be starkly called what it is --- My way or the highway. He advocated a totalitarian, brainwashing solution for masses of people. He should have a big X across his face.

I always was so pissed at all my champagne socialist friends who wore his image like a badge of honour - paying 1000 francs for a shirt with his image and "personalized". Then they'd cry out against an injustice in the world, using Che as an example. Mindboggling for me!

I do agree we need role models of those who would cry out for the poor, the meek, the god forsaken. But let's use MLK Jr. or Swietzer, not this guy......

DD

[postfundie]

[YoshaMazov]

I think the reason most people sport Che shirts is to freak out the uptight squares. It's simply a way to flip the bird to mainstream American society. And while Che certainly performed several acts of dubious morality, it's important to remember his revolution was against a tyrannical dictator. Batista treated his countrymen and women terribly, but he wasn't a communist, so hence he was our friend. After Castro & co took Havana in 59 Castro went to America looking for some sort of cordial relationship but was rebuked by then-Vice President Nixon.

[mack4289]

Yeah but Che shirts have gotten so popular now that who's freaked out anymore? I saw some great grafitti one time that had Che with Mickey Mouse ears on and it said "Neither a Revolutionary or a Hero". I do agree that Batista was someone worth fighting against but you don't see anyone wearing Batista t-shirts. Cuba really does represent the failures of short-sighted American foreign policy better than anywhere else, while at the same time representing the intellectual incoherence of shallow liberalism just as well.

You know what freaked me out? When I was studying in South Africa and I saw someone with an Osama Bin Laden backpack (this was after 9/11). That's the next step for people who think Che's been too watered down.

An interesting dispute about Che happened when Carlos Santana wore a Che shirt to the Grammies. It provoked this response from one blogger:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/fontova/fontova44.html

"Yes, Mr Santana, here you were grinning widely � and OH-SO-hiply! � while proudly displaying the symbol of a regime that: MADE IT A CRIMINAL OFFENSE TO LISTEN TO CARLOS SANTANA MUSIC! � You IMBECILE!!

True, you didn't hit it big till Woodstock in 1969, at a time when Che had already received a heavy dose of the very medicine he gallantly dished out to hundreds of bound and gagged men and boys, some as young as fourteen. This means the first inmates of his concentration camps were probably guilty of the heinous crime of listening mainly to the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, etc. But the regime Che helped set up kept up the practice of jailing "roqueros" well past the time when you were hot on the rock charts, Carlos."

[YoshaMazov]

I generally agree with what you just said, mack. The fact that large corporations are raking in the cash selling Che memorabilia is full of delicious irony. And of course his image loses a certain mystique when a 14-year-old has his poster up on their wall, or when vendors sell Che socks in Hongdae (quite literally).
Today I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a Che t-shirt in the north side of Chicago, simply because you see twelve every block when you walk down the street. Nobody's going to be freaked out. I'd be much more willing to throw on a Che shirt and make my way through a rural farm town somewhere in the midwest or south.
And I was born in a small Wisconsin town and have lived in Chicago, so I'm not hating on either one.