Parental meets political again...
Don't know what to title this... It forced me to have a title & I'm not feeling very witty this morning.
So, about a month ago, I put up a piece on the front page with regards to Che Guerava. I only got one response to it (out of over 600 times it was read) & without going into details (they were after all in a private message), I think it would be fair to say that someone was really shocked by the piece.
I didn't think the piece was all that shocking -- if you've read any of his writings, skimmed his bio, you know the guy was a hard-core marxist, advocated & participated in the violent overthrow of governments across South America, Latin America, and a couple in Africa. Not saying they didn't need to be overthrown, just noting actions taken. Also not saying the guy didn't have extraordinarily high ideals, but methodology, means, & ideology to get to his ideals did involve a fair amount of bloodshed. Views on him are very polarized. He advocated for some seriously disadvantaged people at a time when they needed advocacy by putting himself & his guerrillas out there with guns to make a point &, well, actually use violent revolution to take power (does it really need to be said that some people might not like him especially if it's their family/friend/s who died at his hands/orders or because of his ideology?).
My editorial opinion is that the article is a good counter-piece to folks who buy Che-the-brand. He's become an icon in this country and too few of the people I've encountered who think he's really great (or for that matter, really awful) have ever read & actually comprehended his writings & ideology. One of the things that was demanded of me in this message was proof/documentation. I don't believe in demanding documentation of personal experience or opinion, but thought I'd post a few resources to excerpts of his autobio & writings. You're all grown ups & you can have a civil discourse on the matter if you feel so inspired. I believe he deserves his place in history, but I also believe history must not be iconized & whitewashed, but critically analyzed & everyone put in rightful perspective based on their actions & the effect their actions had, good and bad.
In light of that, some interesting resources:
Obwikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara
Objections to wikipedia are that anyone can edit -- currently this article has been put on hold for questions about neutrality, you can read the current discussion between editors at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Che_Guevara. One of the things I love about wikipedia is that even though they are not "authoritative", they are democratic & the editorial discourse & process is available for viewing to the public, unlike other resources. All it all, it seems to be a fairly reasonable overview of both the man & the controversy around him (for the controversy part, particularly on the editor discussion page).
http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1967/che-reader/index.htm
Most of what appears on this page is courtesy of the Che Guevara Studies Center and Ocean Press. The Center is located in the house where Che lived with his family from 1962 until his final departure from Cuba. The director of the Che Guevara Studies Center is Aleida March (Che's wife) and is operated by her son Camilo Guevara.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/works.htm
Some of what's on this page is from the Che Guevara Studies Center & some of it is from other sources.
Minor update: I meant to mention one other thing. Among the various things the message writer wrote were an accusation that HipMama has a "party line" & an "agenda." Oh hey! We actually do have an agenda, used to have it up on the site, I should republish it! It's awesome -- Yo Mama’s Maternal Feminist Agenda... Oops. Sorry about the minor tangent. Aside from Yo Mama's Maternal Feminist Agenda, we don't have one. And we don't have a party line either, though we really hope that we're helping you all make connections & communities & have some good parties. But that's it. Just to put that out in the open, so if you're here for an official party line to subscribe to, you're kinda SOL. If you need an agenda, you're welcome to adopt the Yo Mama agenda, if you like it. If not, hey -- critically thinking something through & deciding it's not your trip is about the hippest thing I can think of, good on ya.
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
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thank you
I am glad that you posted that. I honestly did not know the real history behind him - all I know is that he was a revolutionist and something about a book involving a motorcycle that I should have read.... and never did.
Your experience was well written and informative for me. I have a friend with a child named Che and questioned my BIL (who is actively involved in politics and very knowledgeable) about whether that was an appropriate name to choose and he replied saying it was a very controversial name to choose.
Before I read that post, I was kinda getting into that idealized Che-the-brand icon phenomena (anything can be a moneymaker these days.) I hadn't bought anything, but that was because I felt like I couldn't afford it and didn't need it, not that I didn't want it. And I hadn't seen the movie, and I hadn't done any research, I just got this impression that he was a rebel and a revolutionary and a too-cool-for-school type. All around cool guy. Didn't really realize that he was directly involved with a lot of violence and death.
25/MN and WA. Queer, veg, single, AP mama to DD2.5.
Just to clarify, while I did the cut/paste to post the story, it was written by someone else (Krista Bremer) -- so not my experience in the story, just one I thought worth sharing.
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
I was one of the 600 who read it. It prompted me to read the exact links at wiki that you posted. I knew almost nothing about him until that article was published and I'm grateful that it was up there. My only problem with the article was that Albert Einstein was actually a pretty cool guy and loved kids a great deal and I was saddened that the author didn't research him as well. I can't say what he did in his personal life, no one really can obviously, but from what he's written and what has been published about him (including a great little book of letters children wrote him and responses he sent called "dear Mr. Einstein") he was a far more exemplary individual than Che. But I digress. *grin*
I feel a little saddened that the person that pm'd you didn't have the wherewithal to go "prove it" to herself. I mean, how hard is it to go to wikipedia? Or do a google search? Why is it YOUR job to prove anything? But that's another topic for discussion I suppose. Thanks for posting this, and for the article as well!
Einstein was an interesting guy. If I recall correctly, there's been some new stuff come to light about his personal life that shows a new aspect to him that isn't as flattering... but you know -- people are complex & often contradictory beings. Great people often have less flattering sides & perspectives. That's the human nature. All that happens when we take away these complexities is that we create shallow caricatures that people can consume without using critical thinking.
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
No one whould wear someone's image without knowing what they stand/stood for. Good or bad. Period. Much, much worse than Che, in my opinion, is the trendy use of Mao's image.
The South American & Chinese Marxist movements are very interesting to study in parallel. They came to a lot of similar conclusions & developed similar methods without actually being aware of each other.
I think the appropriation of an image without knowing the background is reflective of general thoughtlessness. That's why propaganda images work so well -- people see beautiful, aesthetically stunning design & think, "that's cool" & then don't apply critical thinking to the ideology that lies behind it but accepts the message as part & parcel.
I mean, I love love love Rosie the Riveter, here's a picture of this clearly *strong* woman rocking the "we can do it" attitude going off to work, ... ok, to help build planes that are going to bomb the heck out of some other countries. Putting aside, again, the potential necessity of the action taken, the image is meant to sway emotions a particular way. It takes critical thinking to dissect an image -- just like we teach our kids how to interpret media advertising, we need to teach them to interpret all images (and all information) so they can discern propaganda from non-propaganda & be savvy media & information consumers.
They picked a good picture of him to promote -- it's hawt. The way his hair curls out from under his revolutionary beret, I want to run my fingers through it... His serious look... Very romantic. It's easy to get sucked into that.
I have an admission to make. I like to take classic propaganda & make images for the people's republic of ice cream socialist party... It's satirism (which I believe is actually very important) & I substitute key symbols with ice cream cones. We sometimes have 'bring home made ice cream!' parties, the first of which was based on this theme... I don't mean to make light of some serious shit that has gone down/is going down, but sometimes things annoy me and I need to laugh &... well... I was annoyed & made a Che-cream cone. The Che-cream cone joins my Chinese guy that was holding the little red book but is now holding a chocolate chip mint ice cream cone, & a statue of Lenin that has dropped his ice cream cone. That said, my images don't get wide play & the people I know are largely history, poli-sci, foodies & librarian folks who are pretty dang ridiculously info literate...
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
I think the ice cream socialist party stuff sounds kind of fab! very subversive, of what where once subversive movements...
and yeah, right with you there on the propaganda/use of images/critical thinking stuff, only I'm way not as eloquent!
i think che is someone everyone should learn about, whether pro or con, we should learn about him. i'll be coming back to the marxist.org site when i have more time.
"All persons, whether living or dead, are entirely coincidental." Kurt Vonnegut
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I haven't seen any of the movies about him. I have read a lot of socialist, etc, literature & know enough about history to know that revolution, for all the glory, has a lot of blood & guts involved too. I went through a phase where anarchist, socialist&marxist, & communist philosophies were really fascinating to me & in doing so touched on many major movement figures including Che. I'm pretty sure that 40 or so years after George Washington's death there were probably still some loyalists right pissed at him too.
I'm not even arguing that violent revolution wasn't called for... but his ideology lead him to do some stuff folks didn't & don't agree with. I don't believe we need to uphold a hagiography of iconism.
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library