today marks 40 years after Che's death...
he is celebrated as the face of revolution...
his face is on a million T-shirts, his poster adorns thousands of
student dorms.. the cult of his personality is bigger than he
is...
however, what has he done?
was was he? what made him the infamous icon?
perhaps because he died young, a handsome rugged face, trying to
stick one to The Man, that he is revered today?
he was in many ways, a criminal.. like many "democratic socialist"
regimes, Fidel Castro, after seizing power, started to round up and
murder his enemies... Che was put in charge of the trials and
executions of these enemies..
he was also instrumental in bringing in the Soviet nukes which
precipitated in the Bay of Pigs invasion and bringing mankind
within a blink of nuclear war..
not content with the communist revolutions in his own area, he
tried to bring revolution to other parts of the world like the
Congo and Bolivia, both violent, and both spectacular failures
because the people just did not believe or support him...
yet, after his death, he's seen as the icon and revered.. look at
the number of commemorations being held today all over the
world..
some say he was brave... but push comes to shove, he was just a
wannabe tinpot dictator with delusions of grandeur... and when he
was captured, to allay his own demise, he shouted at the troops
coming to get him:
Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara
and worth more to you alive than dead.
after he sacrificed so many of his comrades in his desperate
stillborn revolution...
we must never forget the facts...
just like we must never forget the facts of the people here at
home... their reputations are sometimes just hot air...
