Putting Che in "Context"
I know this is a few weeks old, but over at the Irish Independent, Darragh McManus has a column--"He's the face that launched a thousand T-shirts, but was Che a villain or a hero?"--that provides exactly the kind of nuanced perspective that's sorely lacking in our contemporary understanding of the rebellious icon. It seems that the Galway City Council is considering building a statue in Che's honor, as it turns out that Che's great-grandfather was named Lynch and hails from the area. Some people in the area object to their government lionizing a mass murderer, but helpfully McManus provides some context:
He disagreed with most of the tenets of democracy: properly free elections, due process, private property ownership. He was damned for ordering the execution of hundreds of Batista supporters, although many, it was alleged, were guilty of war crimes.
Che declared, chillingly: "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail... A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."
However -- and it's a big however -- we must assess these actions in context. It's easy to retrospectively damn terrorist violence, unfortunately though, people rarely cede power voluntarily or solely on account of political agitation.
Certainly not a vicious dictator like Batista, and the CIA spooks and corporate interests supporting him. But it's amazing how quickly people will listen when you carry a big stick into negotiations. Violence, sadly, is often a necessary precursor to liberation.Yes, Che was ruthless and fanatical and sometimes murderous. But was he a murderer? No, not in the sense of a serial killer or gangland assassin. He was one of those rare people who are prepared to push past ethical constraints, even their own conscience, and bring about a greater good by doing terrible things.
Whether morally justifiable or not, there is something admirable in that -- pure principle in a world of shabby compromise. Maybe this is why Che remains such an icon, both in image and idea.
It's true that "violence, sadly, is often a necessary precursor to liberation," regardless of what values that violence is in the service of. That's why Cuba remains a shining beacon of freedom to this day. Were it not for Che's liberating violence, it would be just another Carribbean country with bourgeois conventions such as "private property" and "freedom of speech." But I'm in total agreement that Che's uncompromising willingness to push past ethical constraints that makes him such compelling figure. On that score, allow me to share my favorite Che Guevarra anecdote that I think really cements precisely what's so admirable about the man, the myth, the legend:
The apex of absurdity came [in 2005] when Carlos Santana performed the theme from the other recent Che flick, "The Motorcyle Diaries," at the Academy Awards. He performed the song wearing a crucifix over one of the ubiquitous Che T-shirts, an act that prompted Cuban jazz great Paquito D'Rivera to write a letter to El Nuevo Herald castigating Mr. Santana, translated in a New Republic article last year: "One of those Cubans [at La Cabana, a prison in Cuba run by Guevara] was my cousin Bebo, who was imprisoned there precisely for being a Christian. He recounts to me with infinite bitterness how he could hear from his cell in the early hours of dawn the executions, without trial or process of law, of the many who died shouting, 'Long live Christ the King!'"
In the end, I can think of nothing more appropriate than an Irish government entity memorializing a mass perpetrator of religious violence.
(Link via twitter feed of Michael C. Moynihan, who you really should be following.)
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Comments:
Jul '11
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Why not Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Mao as well. I could contextualize all of those goodfellas and say hey, baby, you weren't there and mass executions are nothing compared to the broader social justice they preached. I think Che loving loonies do us a favor. You see the shirt and it declares there is nothing redeeming about the person and avoidance or ridicule are in order.
Oct '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Mark, April 1 was YESTERDAY.
Jun '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
They can put the Che Guevara statue next to the Charles Trevelyan statue.
Oct '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Now a Sir Charles Trevelyan T-Shirt I might wear...
[edited to remove irrelevant reference]
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 6:23pmMay '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
The world is beyond parody. At least hippie jokes are still fun.
Sep '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Mark Hemingway:
....
In the end, I can think of nothing more appropriate than an Irish government entity memorializing a mass perpetrator of religious violence.
· 47 minutes ago
There's a deep, sad, truth to that. How little things have changed in Eire.
Jul '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
The politically correct embrace of tolerance above all other values leads to this sort of idiocy.
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 6:36pmJun '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Let's see, Hitler was just trying to bless Poland and Ukraine with the benefits of Germanic culture; sure, there was some population control "activities," but eugenics and living space for the greatness of Aryan culture were higher causes. Just a vigorous social reformer, lover of dogs, vegetarian, and a man who never pulled the trigger.
To get an omelette, you must break some eggs.
The problem with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or Guevara were the millions of broken eggs, but no omelette in sight.
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 6:56pmMay '11
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
It is not just t-shirts.
Jun '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
"[P]ure principle in a world of shabby compromise."
Ah, how the left loves its clinical abstractions.
Jun '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
No omelette? ICBMs surely qualify.
One thing that really bothers me is the way we dressed up the Sputnik/ICBM scare (terror would be a better word) with a civilian "race to space" and the man on the moon effort as if these were the real reasons for the space effort.
The only thing about this particular omelette is that it was designed to break eggs in even a bigger way.
There are reasons for the
- red in the Soviet flag: depicts the blood in the streets.
- hammer in the Soviet flag: beating people down.
- sickle in the Soviet flag: the grim reaper.
Edited on April 2, 2012 at 7:12pmRe: Putting Che in "Context"
The author of that tripe has a novel coming out. A crime novel about vigilantes. From his own site:
"The 3W Gang believe that society needs balance – ‘enforced karma’ – through selective, brutal punishment of misogynists and homophobes. Wilde, Waters, and Whitman are inspired by revolutionaries and feminists, art and irony.
"They’re the grunge vibe made flesh and made angry: cool, witty, sexy…and dangerous. Hunting them is a gay detective, determined to see justice done but getting more morally ambivalent as he’s drawn into their world."
And here I was just about to pitch my own novel about vigilantes inspired by irony. Damn.
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Yale Professor Carlos Eire wrote this moving letter protesting the erection of a Che monument. And in closing, he suggested that if Galway authorities could not be dissuaded from their plans, they should erect a statue of Oliver Cromwell to stand beside the statue of Che.
Jul '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Or, as his site puts it, "It’s Germaine Greer crossed with Kurt Cobain crossed with Dirty Harry."
Thank you, no.
Jul '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Mark Hemingway:
Why do I have the funny feeling that Mr. McManus doesn't extend this same generosity of hindsight to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Apr '11
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Just to be certain we're giving credit where the credit's due, this is me quoting Wylee Coyote quoting Mark Hemingway quoting Darragh McManus' column in the Irish Independent.
Wylee Coyote
Mark Hemingway:
Why do I have the funny feeling that Mr. McManus doesn't extend this same generosity of hindsight to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? · 2 hours ago
Aug '10
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
I strive to stand with Jay Nordlinger on this issue. Not only has he instructed me for years on Cuba but appears to care more than most , know more than most, and unfailingly reminds us of the butcherous perversion known as " el t-shirt " aka: dorm room poster.
Good to see him and the other one end up in the same place .
Edited on April 3, 2012 at 2:38amHi Huey !
Apr '11
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Lefty romanticized icons--Guy Fawkes, Che Guevara, who's next Timothy McVeigh?
Mar '11
Re: Putting Che in "Context"
Galway is basically the Ann Arbor of Ireland, so...not all that surprising.
That, on the other hand, strikes me as a surprising and disappointing conclusion. I know that's not really what Mr. Hemingway thinks of Ireland...is it?