We get letters
This morning I received the email below in response to my web site, TrenBlindado.com, which is dedicated to exposing the truth about Ché Guevara. My response is below the message.
I have been a Che fan for many years, before the huge shirt phenomenon. My mom and her family moved here from Cuba in the 60’s. I think what you have to say is interesting and it definitely raises a point….but consider this
No one is perfect...there are no true heroes...to idolize someone is to idolize the image they portrayed for themselves. Once you have a cult following whether or not the image is true is no longer important. Not to say that is the way things should be, but it is the case. I mean, no matter who it is you admire there will be a flaw, whether they're a communist murderer, an abusive husband, a depressed bed-wetter, a fetish freak...you get the point (everyone has skeletons in their closet).
But as more and more people support the idea of che (the revolutionary spirit, a country run by and for the people, and ultimately anti-castro) good things can come about. The immortalized che is a revolutionary symbol of hope. It's comparable to the dove meaning peace; for god's sake doves eat their mom's throw up and sleep in their poop, does that mean we can not wish to embody that symbol?
I don’t want to seem like another Che fan who blindly idolizes the man and threatens your life for your views. I have considered your points and I still feel Che is something to be honored (notice I sat something as in the idea not someone as in the human). I think the real issue is you gave people walking around wearing the shirt preaching revolution when they are completely ignorant of Che, the revolution, and Cuba in general.
--------------------o--------------------
Thank you for writing. You are part of a rare but very real breed of people (mostly Cuban) that think that the problems in Cuba have more to do with Fidel than with the ideology that he and Ché Guevara espoused. In other words Fidel wasn't the man that Ché was. If he was, everything in Cuba would be great.
I understand that you may feel differently than I do since you were probably educated under the communist system in Cuba. You want to believe what they taught you was true but that it's only Fidel's interpretation that is wrong. I can only say that from everything I've read about Ché and Fidel I believe that if it were Ché in charge today, things would be much worse. That of the two, Fidel is probably the softer. Because Fidel is very pragmatic as opposed to the dogmatic Ché.
I have to disagree with your point of view about Ché and what he stood for. Ché believed in a Stalinistic form of government. And he knew what that meant. In fact he became disenchanted with the Soviets because his feelings were that they had become "TOO SOFT". Thus he began to align himself with Maoist communism. I think it's plain for most to see, when they look at it rationally, that the biggest atrocities committed in the last century were done so by leftist regimes in the name of "social justice". The scores of millions killed by communist regimes (the kind that Ché admired) far outnumber the dead of Nazi Germany. Stalin alone is estimated to have killed 20 million in his purges, making Hitler look like an amateur.
Of course Ché never killed millions only hundreds (maybe thousands). But he killed. He oversaw farcical trials where the there was no due process and the sentences of death were carried out immediately. He, several times, even delivered the coup d'grace. Do you know what that is? That's when the executioner goes up to the dying man who's been shot by a firing squad and shoots him in the head at point blank range to finish the job. Guevara was a killer.
I thought the Cuban revolution was supposed to end the tortures and the arbitrary imprisonments and executions, no? But here is this "hero" presiding over the very same things and to a degree never seen before in Cuba.
Certainly we are all human, we all have our flaws. But a guy that gets his kicks by putting on ladies underwear is not the same as a guy that gets his jollies by eliminating his political enemies, or jailing you for wearing long hair or being homosexual, etc.
Using your paradigm of the disembodied symbol, meaning that the person's real life actions are not important only what they symbolize is, you could justify the veneration of some of the world's worst characters. Like the aforementioned Hitler. Hitler was a vegetarian, he loved dogs, he was a sensitive guy that loved to paint, and he was a proud nationalist for his adopted country of Germany... Never mind that he killed 6 million jews.
No, I have to reject your model. For me a person's actions are what determine whether or not they are truly symbols to be revered. That's what gives them power as true symbols and not FALSE symbols like Ché. I'm talking about people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mother Theresa. These were people that paid more than lip service to social justice and equality. They walked the walk to borrow a cliche. I think to be a true symbol for something great you need more than a pretty face and a talented photographer.
Nobody that advocates a system in which the state is supreme should be venerated in my judgement. Why? Because the state (or rather those that run the state) are only interested in accumulating power. These types of states that justify anything in the name of "social justice" are the ones that commit the greatest offenses against the individual. The true opiet of the people is not religion as Marx said, it's these communist and populist ideologies that promise the moon and the stars and deliver NOTHING but misery.
Most Sincerely,
Henry L. Gomez
I understand that you may feel differently than I do since you were probably educated under the communist system in Cuba. You want to believe what they taught you was true but that it's only Fidel's interpretation that is wrong. I can only say that from everything I've read about Ché and Fidel I believe that if it were Ché in charge today, things would be much worse. That of the two, Fidel is probably the softer. Because Fidel is very pragmatic as opposed to the dogmatic Ché.
I have to disagree with your point of view about Ché and what he stood for. Ché believed in a Stalinistic form of government. And he knew what that meant. In fact he became disenchanted with the Soviets because his feelings were that they had become "TOO SOFT". Thus he began to align himself with Maoist communism. I think it's plain for most to see, when they look at it rationally, that the biggest atrocities committed in the last century were done so by leftist regimes in the name of "social justice". The scores of millions killed by communist regimes (the kind that Ché admired) far outnumber the dead of Nazi Germany. Stalin alone is estimated to have killed 20 million in his purges, making Hitler look like an amateur.
Of course Ché never killed millions only hundreds (maybe thousands). But he killed. He oversaw farcical trials where the there was no due process and the sentences of death were carried out immediately. He, several times, even delivered the coup d'grace. Do you know what that is? That's when the executioner goes up to the dying man who's been shot by a firing squad and shoots him in the head at point blank range to finish the job. Guevara was a killer.
I thought the Cuban revolution was supposed to end the tortures and the arbitrary imprisonments and executions, no? But here is this "hero" presiding over the very same things and to a degree never seen before in Cuba.
Certainly we are all human, we all have our flaws. But a guy that gets his kicks by putting on ladies underwear is not the same as a guy that gets his jollies by eliminating his political enemies, or jailing you for wearing long hair or being homosexual, etc.
Using your paradigm of the disembodied symbol, meaning that the person's real life actions are not important only what they symbolize is, you could justify the veneration of some of the world's worst characters. Like the aforementioned Hitler. Hitler was a vegetarian, he loved dogs, he was a sensitive guy that loved to paint, and he was a proud nationalist for his adopted country of Germany... Never mind that he killed 6 million jews.
No, I have to reject your model. For me a person's actions are what determine whether or not they are truly symbols to be revered. That's what gives them power as true symbols and not FALSE symbols like Ché. I'm talking about people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Mother Theresa. These were people that paid more than lip service to social justice and equality. They walked the walk to borrow a cliche. I think to be a true symbol for something great you need more than a pretty face and a talented photographer.
Nobody that advocates a system in which the state is supreme should be venerated in my judgement. Why? Because the state (or rather those that run the state) are only interested in accumulating power. These types of states that justify anything in the name of "social justice" are the ones that commit the greatest offenses against the individual. The true opiet of the people is not religion as Marx said, it's these communist and populist ideologies that promise the moon and the stars and deliver NOTHING but misery.
Most Sincerely,
Henry L. Gomez
1 comment:
Che was such a homicidal maniac that even Fidel got nervous about him. If I recall, Fidel sent him to Bolivia and sold him out to the Bolivian government, which prompty hunted him down like a rabid dog (which he was!) and shot him dead.
Thus the 'idea' of Che earned its just reward!
Learn Christanity if you want something to emulate and espouse. Che ain't worth the time!
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