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Che Guevara: The Man Behind The T-Shirt

Neon Black | 10.10.2007 22:04 | History | Liverpool

About twenty people gathered in Next To Nowhere on the 40th anniversary of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's murder/execution, to try and discover 'the man behind the t-shirt'.



The evening commenced with a showing of 2004's The Motorcycle Diaries, a film which follows the very young Ernesto on a journey through South America in the 1950s. It shows him as a doctor rather than a revolutionary, but illustrates the dawning of his consciousness that South American people were being oppressed by imperialist powers.

Then we saw an hour-long documentary about Guevara, which took in his whole life, from his birth into a relatively wealthy family to his death at the hands of the CIA-backed Bolivian army. Though the feature was far too short to go into much depth, and contained such bland pronouncements as 'Che was a mystic. Che was a visionary', it was good to see the man actually moving and talking for once, as opposed to the 2D icon that everybody knows.

After that, we finished off with some drinks, whilst informally discussing the impact that Guevara made on the world (and vice versa). Debate centred on the appropriateness of violence as a revolutionary strategy (until I had to leave and catch my train!), and though nothing was resolved, everyone went home having had their preconceptions and ideas challenged.

Neon Black
- Homepage: http://dreaming-neon-black.blogspot.com

Comments

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Man, myth or legend

11.10.2007 15:11

Well Che was undoubtedly a man, and there are many myths about him, and if you are stupid enough to believe them I suppose you could regard him as legendary. Thankfully for most of us who escaped the evils of communism he's just a man with a murderous reputation. He lived by the gun, and it was beneficial to the world when he died by it at quite a young age.

simon


An emeny of the Cuban Anarchist movement!

11.10.2007 17:45

He also sought to repress and destroy the anarchist movement within cuba seeing anarchism as a threat to his philosophy!

@narchist


Is it that 'Simple Simon' ?

14.10.2007 16:02

What are the evils of communism?
"Murderous reputation"?
"Beneficial to the world"?

daggle