Quotes about CHE Guevara ...

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/Tredcrow/BatCountry/1a.jpg
Quotes about Che Guevara :che:





"He was demanding of everyone and practiced being a personal example. Once, Guevara and other ministry officials were served steaks during a severe food shortage. Steaks are a treasured meal for Argentines, but Guevara became incensed and ordered it all removed. "What is this?" Saenz quoted Guevara as saying in his biography. "No one is touching this meat. Take it away."

~ Tirso Saenz





"On his trips, he would receive gifts from his hosts, some of them very expensive. He would get presents for me as well, and he would give them away if he considered them too ostentatious. I was given a color TV only to see Che pass it on to a factory worker. And back then, it was sort of an unimaginable item. Once, after a trip to Algeria, he received a barrel of an excellent wine. When he arrived home, he told me to give it to the army barracks near our home. I would not always unconditionally obey his mandates. Knowing that wine was one of the few treats he allowed himself, I kept five liters."

~ Aleida March, Che's Wife





“He taught me to think - he taught me the most beautiful thing which is to be human"

~ Urbano - Former Cuban rebel fighter





"Che was the most complete human being of our age."

~ Jean Paul Sartre





"It was like a Christ taken down from the Cross."

~ Peter Weiss

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j318/Tredcrow/BatCountry/CheChrist2.png

“He was just like a Christ, with his strong eyes, his beard, his long hair. He is very miraculous.”

~ “Susana Osinaga, the nurse who cleaned Guevara's corpse





"I make a halt in day-to-day combat to bow my head, with respect and gratitude, before the exceptional fighter who fell 40 years ago."

~ Fidel Castro





“Che sowed the seeds of social conscience in Latin America and the world, he was a flower prematurely cut from its stem.”

~ Fidel Castro





"Che was loved, in spite of being stern and demanding. We would give our life for him."

~ Tomas Alba, fought under Che





"Even his ideological foes admire him because he represents the great virtues it takes to be a revolutionary. Bravery, fearlessness, honesty, austerity and absolute conviction. Those are the prerequisites to carry others into what is actually quite a miserable existence."

~ Jon Lee Anderson





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“Guevara remains a national hero in Cuba where he is remembered for promoting unpaid voluntary work by working shirtless on building sites or hauling sacks of sugar. To this day, he appears on a Cuban banknote cutting sugar cane with a machete in the fields.”

~ Reuters, Oct 8 2007





“We pray to him, we are so proud he had died here, in La Higuera, fighting for us. We feel him so close”

~ Melanio Moscoso - resident of La Higuera, Bolivia





“In Bolivia, images of Che hang next to images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, & Pope John Paul II.”

~ The Observer, September 23, 2007





“In Bolivia, Che is compared to a medieval painting of John the Baptist, who then became the iconic figure in death for millions who had paid little or no attention to him while he was alive.”

~ Christopher Roper





“For my mother who is sick, I pray to the Lord and hesitantly to Saint Ernesto, to the soul of Che Guevara.”

~ Father Agustin - Polish priest in Vallegrande, Bolivia (reading a written prayer by a parishioner)





“Why do we say Che is alive? Because of his grandeur, his transcendence. For us, Che is here, very much alive, in everything we say.”

~ Osvaldo 'Chato' Peredo, president of the Che Guevara foundation





“It was difficult to recall that this man had once been one of the great figures of Latin America. It was not just that he was a great guerrilla leader; he had been a friend of Presidents as well as revolutionaries. His voice had been heard and appreciated in inter-American councils as well as in the jungle. He was a doctor, an amateur economist, once Minister of Industries in revolutionary Cuba, and Castro's right-hand man. He may well go down in history as the greatest continental figure since Bolivar. Legends will be created around his name.”

~ Richard Gott - Guardian journalist, 1967 dispatch on the day of Guevara's death





“Today the laundry where Guevara's corpse was laid is a place of pilgrimage. On the wall above, an engraving reads: ‘None dies as long as he is remembered’.”

~ The Observer, September 23, 2007





*** Feel free to add your own about the heroic Guerrilla as well ***

[Sanjee]

'Che Guevara is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom.'

-Nelson Mandela-

[Guerrilla Manila]

Great quote by Mandela. Thanks

[Sanjee]

I also liked this one:

"I could write a thousand years and a million pages about Che Guevara."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez -

[Guerrilla Manila]

"I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed an innocent."

~ Jon Lee Anderson

(* author of the 814 page – Che: A Revolutionary Life)

[Guerrilla Manila]

“He always did what he said he was going to do, that's why he is still timely.”

~ Alberto Granados, lifelong friend





“Why did they think that by killing him, he would cease to exist as a fighter? ... Today he is in every place, wherever there is a just cause to defend.”

~ Fidel Castro

[Guerrilla Manila]

“It's like he is alive and with us, like a friend. He is kind of like a Virgin (Mary) for us. We say, `Che, help us with our work or with this planting,' and it always goes well.”

~ Manuel Cortez,
a farmer who lives next door to the schoolhouse where Che was executed


Article (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0817-07.htm)

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://bassamar.jeeran.com/Che_Guevara_in_Congo.jpg

MORE QUOTES ON THE GUERRILLA HERO ....




“Che is politics answer to James Dean, a rebel with very specific cause.”

~ David Segal, Washington Post






“Long live our cry of freedom. Long Live Che !”

~ Jesse Jackson, 1984 at the University of Havana






“One thousand killed in 5 days of fierce fighting in Santa Clara, Commander Che Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3,000 men.”

~ New York Times Headline, Jan 4, 1959





“Che’s military leadership was permeated by an indomitable will that permitted extraordinary feats.”

~ Jorge Castaneda, Che Biographer





“Che waged a guerrilla campaign where he displayed outrageous bravery and skill. He is a hero and icon of the century.”

~ Ariel Dorfman, Head of the dept of Latin American Studies at Duke University






“There is no figure in the 20th century that has produced such a body of fascinating, varied, and compelling imagery as Che Guevara.”

~ David Kunzle, UCLA Professor






“Che Guevara has given rise to a cult of almost religious hero worship among radical intellectuals and students across much of the Western World. With his hippie hair and wispy revolutionary beard, Che is the perfect postmodern conduit to the nonconformist, seditious 60’s.”

~ Time Magazine, 1968





“1968 actually began in 1967 with the murder of Che. His death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time. He was a role model.”

~ Christopher Hitchens





“Che exemplifies the integrity and revolutionary ideals to which we aspire. He was an amazing example, a guy with humanitarian ideals and the will to act on them. Everywhere there was an injustice, Che showed up. That’s a pretty good resume.”

~ Tom Morello, Guitar World Interview





“A legend. A hero to radical youth to this day. All over Cuba pictures of Che remind the Cuban people of their debt to this extraordinary man.”

~ David Sandison, publicist for Rolling Stone





"I could write a thousands years and a million pages about Ernesto Che Guevara."

~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, (Nobel Prize Winner)






“Nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che’s disdain for material comfort and everyday desires.”

~ Ariel Dorfman, Time Magazine






“The emblematic impact of Ernesto Guevara is inconceivable without its dimension of sacrifice. Che renounces comfort for an idea.”

~ Jorge Castaneda, Biographer





“Che was aided by a complete freedom from convention or material aspirations.”

~ Phillip Bennett, Boston Globe






“This secular saint was ready to die because he could not tolerate a world where the poor of the earth, the displaced and dislocated of history, would be relegated to its vast margins.”

~ Ariel Dorfman, Time Magazine





“The George Washington of Cuba.”

~ Ed Sullivan






“Che has a good sense of humor. His conversation was free of propaganda and bombast. He spoke calmly, in a straight forward manner and with the appearance of detachment and objectivity.”

~ Richard Goodwin, special counsel to President John F. Kennedy

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://www.aguaron.net/CHE/bolivia1.jpg

EVEN MORE QUOTES ON THE GREAT CHE GUEVARA ! ....





“Che presented a Christ-like image … with his mortuary gaze it is as if Guevara looks upon his killers and forgives them.”

~ Jorge Castaneda, Newsweek writer






“Che’s image derives from a visual language … it also references a classical Christ-like demeanor.”

~ Trisha Ziff, Guggenheim Museum creator





“It was out of love, like a perfect night, that Che had set out. In a sense he was like an early saint.”

~ I.F. Stone, Nation columnist, after meeting Guevara





“Wearing a smile of melancholy sweetness that many women find devastating; Che Guevara guides Cuba with icy calculation, vast competence, high intelligence, and a perceptive sense of humor.”

~ Time Magazine - August 8, 1960






“We gave each case due and fair consideration and we didn’t come to our decisions lightly. Che always had a clear idea about the need to exact justice on those found to be war criminals. Our paramount concerns were that no injustice was committed. In that Che was very careful.”

~ Duque de Estrada





“Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time – our era’s most perfect man.”

~ Jean Paul Sarte





“Che was interested in everything from sociology to philosophy to mathematics and engineering. There were 3,000 books in the Guevara home.”

~ John Gerassi, Newsweek editor





“The asthmatic boy spent long hours developing an intense love of books and literature. He devoured the children’s classics of the time, but also Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Jules Verne. He also explored Cervantes, Anatole France, Pablo Neruda. He bought and read the books of all the noble prize winners in literature and held intensive discussions with his history and literature professors.”

~ Jorge Castaneda





“Che’s life demonstrates conclusively that he was not a hypocrite.”

~ Christopher Hitchens, New York Review of Books





“Ernesto Che Guevara is one of the most appealing figures of our century.”

~ David Krunzle, UCLA Professor





“Che’s luminous gaze of a prophet has become a symbol for all the poor in the world.”

~ Fidel Castro






“Che Guevara was a pop icon of mythic proportions.”

~ PBS forum, ‘the Legacy of Che’





“He was the first man I ever met who I thought not just handsome but beautiful. With his curly reddish beard, he looked like a cross between a faun and a Sunday-school print of Jesus.”

~ Christopher Hitchens





“Che taught us all that freedom, democracy, and socialism are inseparable.”

~ Maurice Zeitlin, UCLA Professor






“As utopian as Che’s dreams may have been, as utopian as a world of peace and plenty for all may seem, no social justice is possible without a vision like Che’s.”

~ Fabian Wigmister, Professor





“Few doubt Che’s sincerity.”

~ David Segal, Washington Post





“Che’s decency and nobility always led him to apologize.”

~ Jorge Castaneda





“Bravery, fearlessness, honesty, austerity, and absolute conviction … he lived it … Che really lived it.”

~ John Lee Anderson





“Che Guevara’s Socialism and Man in Cuba is one of the great documents in the history of socialism.”

~ John Gerassi, Time editor






“Che died a martyr’s death in 1967.”

~ David Segal, Washington Post






“Che Guevara was young and charismatic and brutally murdered with the support of the CIA.”

~ Trisha Ziff, Guggenheim Museum Creator






“For some reason when I was finally face to face with one of my bitterest enemies, yet I felt no hate for Che Guevara at that moment. It’s hard to explain. I walked outside the little school house and heard the shots. I looked at my watch and it was 1:10 pm on October 9th, 1967.”

~ Felix Rodriguez, CIA agent

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://www.netssa.com/image/chemonument.jpg




"They who sing victory over his death are mistaken. They are mistaken who believe that his death is the defeat of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, the defeat of his guerrilla concepts ... If we want to know how we want our children to be we should say, with all our revolutionary mind and heart: We want them to be like Che."

~ Fidel Castro, Oct 18, 1967





“We predict that Guevara will be eulogized as the model revolutionary who met a heroic death."

~ October 1967, Bureau of Intelligence and Research report - for US Secretary of State Dean Rusk





"Though communism may have lost its fire, Che remains the potent symbol of rebellion and the alluring zeal of revolution."

~ Time Magazine, while naming him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th Century






“The powerful of the earth should take heed: deep inside that T shirt where we have tried to trap him, the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience.”

~ Ariel Dorfman

[Marsella]

What do you hope to achieve by posting these quotes?

Apart from idol-worshipping an individual?

I mean, most of these are laughable:


“Why do we say Che is alive? Because of his grandeur, his transcendence. For us, Che is here, very much alive, in everything we say.”

~ Osvaldo 'Chato' Peredo, president of the Che Guevara foundation



“For my mother who is sick, I pray to the Lord and hesitantly to Saint Ernesto, to the soul of Che Guevara.”

~ Father Agustin - Polish priest in Vallegrande, Bolivia (reading a written prayer by a parishioner)


"It was like a Christ taken down from the Cross."

~ Peter Weiss

Do you really think that if Che was alive he would tolerate such nonsense?

It might help you to know, that although many find Che as a person agreeable, his politics is questionable. If you want to post things about Che as a person, post quotes of his family members.

But at the end of the day it serves nothing by posting such individualist blithering.

[Guerrilla Manila]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 04:12 pm
What do you hope to achieve by posting these quotes?

most of these are laughable:
Who said I had an objective ?

I simply post quotes about Che as I come across them. I am simply the messenger. How someone interprets them, or translates their significance is not up to me.

It is clear you don't like some of these quotes or the process of listing them itself ... great then don't read them.


As for their worth that is up to the individual who reads them. Maybe someone will be interested in knowing how different writers, historians, activists, and philosophers (etc) think of Che throughout the world. Some of these quotes are by people who had first hand contact with Che and thus it is a first hand observation.

As to your pretentious charge of ridiculousness in the sense that peasants suffering endemic poverty in Bolivia look to Che as a saintly figure … I would argue that better they pray to Che (an actual person who fought on the very ground they walk) than some religious figure from a 2,000 year old story.

[Marsella]

Who said I had an objective ?

I simply post quotes about Che as I come across them. I am simply the messenger. How someone interprets them, or translates their significance is not up to me.

It is clear you don't like some of these quotes or the process of listing them itself ... great then don't read them.


As for their worth that is up to the individual who reads them. Maybe someone will be interested in knowing how different writers, historians, activists, and philosophers (etc) think of Che throughout the world. Some of these quotes are by people who had first hand contact with Che and thus it is a first hand observation.

Fair enough then. :)


As to your pretentious charge of ridiculousness in the sense that peasants suffering endemic poverty in Bolivia look to Che as a saintly figure … I would argue that better they pray to Che (an actual person who fought on the very ground they walk) than some religious figure from a 2,000 year old story.

Then you have fallen for opportunism.

I would argue that it is better to not pray at all.

[Guerrilla Manila]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 05:58 pm
[QUOTE]
Then you have fallen for opportunism.

I would argue that it is better to not pray at all.
I haven't fallen for anything. I don't pray at all. But I can understand why someone in the position of a Bolivian peasant may do so. especially to Che Guevara whom they feel close to.

Don't confuse understanding for support.

[PigmerikanMao]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 05:58 pm
Then you have fallen for opportunism.

I would argue that it is better to not pray at all.
Well then don't pray- but don't criticize Bolivian peasants for praying when their lives are as difficult as they are- I don't think you're in the position to know that suffering.

[Guerrilla Manila]

MORE QUOTES ABOUT CHE



"The CIA opened a file on Che in 1953 in Guatemala, months before the downfall of Jacob Arbenz, where the young doctor arrived looking for work. There he joined the local popular militias which were asking to be armed to repel the North American intervention. When he later went to Mexico and joined up with Fidel and Raul Castro the CIA' preoccupation multiplied."

~ Philip Agee, CIA Agent





“Che never wavered from his firm revolutionary stand, even as other Cuban leaders began to devote most of their attention to the internal problems of the revolution."

~ Brian Latell, CIA analyst in an October 18, 1965 intelligence memorandum





“But what actually was he? A mythic doctor who traveled the length of Latin America? A guerrilla fighter? Comrade-in-arms of Fidel Castro? A revolutionary who tried to liberate the world from the shackles of imperialism? Ernesto Che Guevara was all that and much more.”

~ Op Rana, senior editor for the China Daily





“From March to August of 1967, Che Guevara and his guerrilla band strike pretty much at will against the Bolivian Armed Forces, which totals about twenty thousand men. The guerrillas lose only one man compared to 30 of the Bolivians during these six months.”

~ New York Times, 9/16/67

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9512/che_excavation/che.jpg


“1:30 p.m.: Che’s final battle commences in Quebrada del Yuro. Simon Cuba (Willy) Sarabia, a Bolivian miner, leads the rebel group. Che is behind him and is shot in the leg several times. Sarabia picks up Che and tries to carry him away from the line of fire. The firing starts again and Che’s beret is knocked off. Sarabia sits Che on the ground so he can return the fire. Encircled at less than ten yards distance, the Rangers concentrate their fire on him, riddling him with bullets. Che attempts to keep firing, but cannot keep his gun up with only one arm. He is hit again on his right leg, his gun is knocked out of his hand and his right forearm is pierced.”

~ Daniel James, Che Biographer

[Guerrilla Manila]

“Che is a figure who can constantly be examined and re-examined. To the younger, post-cold-war generation of Latin Americans, Che stands up as the perennial Icarus, a self-immolating figure who represents the romantic tragedy of youth. Their Che is not just a potent figure of protest, but the idealistic, questioning kid who exists in every society and every time.''

~ John Lee Anderson, Biographer






"The ideals and actions of Commander Ernesto Guevara are examples for those who defend equality and justice. We are humanists and followers of the example of Guevara."

~ Bolivian President Evo Morales, Oct 9 2007





“With the news of Che’s death, rallies were held from Mexico to Santiago, Algiers to Angola, and Cairo to Calcutta. The population of Budapest and Prague lit candles; the picture of a smiling Che appeared in London and Paris…when a few months later, riots broker out in Berlin, Paris, and Chicago, and from there the unrest spread to the American campuses, young men and women wore Che Guevara T-shirts and carried his pictures during their protest marches.”

~ Erik Durschmied, historian and journalist

[Guerrilla Manila]

"There was no person more feared by the company than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America."

~ Philip Agee, CIA Agent





“The CIA agents and then-Bolivian president Rene Barrientos' soldiers may have killed him in cold blood in La Higuera's mud-floored school 40 years ago, but they couldn't kill his spirit. He has lived on - in the dreams of visionaries, in the fight of the oppressed, in the hearts of the revolutionaries, in the struggles of man.”

~ Op Rana, senior editor for the China Daily





“Che dressed in disguise to visit his own children before a secret trip to Bolivia to foment revolution there. When the kids arrived, I introduced them to a Uruguayan old man, 'Ramon' [Che], a 'friend' of dad's. They never imagined this 60-year-old man could be their daddy. For both Che and me, it was an extremely painful moment. The kids played with 'Ramón' all day. Then, Aleidita [then 7] hit her head after running wild, and Che [a physician] took care of her. Soon afterwards, she came to me to tell me a secret he could overhear: 'Mommy, this man is in love with me!'”

~ Aleida March, Che’s wife

[Guerrilla Manila]

"Guevara’s death carries significant implications: It marks the passing of another of the aggressive, romantic revolutionaries ... in the Latin American context, it will have a strong impact in discouraging would be guerrillas.”

~ Memorandum to President Johnson by Walter Rostow

[Guerrilla Manila]

More Quotes:



"And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara."

~ Phil Ochs




“A man of profound ideals, a man in whose mind stirred the dream of struggle.

~ Fidel Castro




“Apostle of the Immaculate Revolution.”

~ Richard Bourne




“He was the world symbol of the possibilities of one man.”

~ Frantz Fanon




“December.
Late birds shake their wings
On the snowy windscreen of a car,
I write
CHE LIVES !”

~ Christopher Logue





“His Life is a shining example for youth whose struggles are moved by the desire to build a new world.”

~ Graham Greene





“He had eyes that went of forever.
Truly windows to the soul.”

~ Marilyn Zeitlin




"You may cut the flowers, but it will not stop the spring

"Podran cortar las flores, pero no detendran la primavera."

~ (A saying about El Che's legacy written on many walls throughout Latin America)





“Che Guevara, at the prime of his live and the height of his fame, went to flight in the Congo. In that fleeting, anonymous passage through Africa, Che Guevara was to so sow a seed that no one will destroy.”

~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez





“The Struggle of Guevara against the US was the struggle of the Spirit against Matter.”

~ Ernesto Sábato





“I tell you, his thoughts was in space before the Russians, before the Americans walked on the Moon.”

~ Benigno




“Che was the most complete human being of his age' He lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel.”

~ Jean Paul Sartre




“When men are able to influence so many others through their life and their example, they do not die.”

~ Aleida Guevara March

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://www.northlandposter.com/img/p558.jpg



"His dedication to his revolutionary beliefs was deeply religious. Che had a missionary's faith in the innate goodness of man, in the ability of workers to dedicate themselves to ideals and to overcome selfishness and prejudices. It was the other side of the coin of his passionate indignation against injustice and exploitation of the humble. He saw the solution in an exalted form of Marxism that would bring freedom and brotherhood. Such men are born to be martyrs."

~ Herbert L. Matthews, NY Times Journalist





“’Revolutionaries are not normal people’: an understatement in relation to Ernesto Che Guevara. Physician, brilliant intellect, competent soldier, charismatic leader, developed—and eventually creative--Marxist economist, always a man able to capture the spirit of an experience in his own being, Che remains one of the four or five greatest revolutionaries in modern history…”

~ Alfredo López




"Since his death, Che has become a sort of martyr, a universal icon and a symbol of revolution. He represents mythological values."

~ Jon Lee Anderson




"Here was a guy who gave up everything for a cause, and so he's earned respect both from his philosophical disciples and his ideological enemies. I was in Italy recently, and even the right-wing fascist youth there have now adopted him as a hero, for the same reasons as the left. He's seen as the consummately brave, honest and dedicated man. And he died young, so he represents the idealism of youth."

~ Jon Lee Anderson

[Guerrilla Manila]

http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncommon_sense/images/2007/10/27/hectorp.jpg



"Che ate babies, he stole my mansion which had 45 bedrooms in it, life was heaven in Cuba before Che, when United Fruit and the Mafia ran the place ... he personally shot 3,500,000,000 people and then drank their blood one by one. My Grandmas sisters aunts brothers neighbor who was blind, one time saw Che bite the head off of a young kitten."


~ Many stupid bitter exile right-wing 'GUSANO's, I meet in Miami

[LiberaCHE]

“There's something about that man in the photo, the Cuban revolutionary with the serious eyes, scruffy beard and dark beret. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is adored. He is loathed. Dead for nearly 40 years, he is everywhere - as much a cultural icon as James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, perhaps even more so among a new generation of admirers who've helped turn a devout Marxist into a capitalist commodity.”


~ Martha Irvine, The Washington Post






“Che’s image may be cast aside, bought and sold and deified, but it will form a part of the universal system of the revolutionary struggle, and can recover its original meaning at any moment.”


~ Edmundo Desnoes, Cuban historian






“Possibly more than the Mona Lisa, more than images of Christ, more than comparable icons such as the Beatles or Monroe, Che's image has continued to hold the imagination of generation after generation.”


~ Hannah Charlton, The Sunday Times






"Che was not only a heroic fighter, but a revolutionary thinker, with a political and moral project and a system of ideas and values for which he fought and gave his life. The philosophy which gave his political and ideological choices their coherence, colour, and taste was a deep revolutionary humanism. For Che, the true Communist, the true revolutionary was one who felt that the great problems of all humanity were his or her personal problems, one who was capable of "feeling anguish whenever someone was assassinated, no matter where it was in the world, and of feeling exultation whenever a new banner of liberty was raised somewhere else."


~ Michael Löwy






“Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino.”


— Declassified CIA Document

[LiberaCHE]

http://groups.google.com/group/religion-politica/web/che_fidel_mikoyan.jpg




“For me it has always been hard to accept the idea that Che is dead.
I dream of him often, that I have spoken to him, that he is alive."


~ Fidel Castro
back cover of “Che: A Memoir by Fidel Castro”




http://w1.1387.telia.com/~u155900388/images/Fidel_che_sejr.jpg

[CHE with an AK]

"Does Che survive only as a t-shirt icon? The big media and many Che biographers have stressed the kitchification of Che, the former with glee, the latter with regret. Has the once fearsome revolutionary been reduced to a harmless icon? The corporate world adept at co-optation would have us think so. Rather, I would say that the ‘real’ Che has not died, but undergone a tactical shift." --- David Kunzle


"Who could ever consider themselves to be Che's successor? Nobody could do that. One could consider themselves the successor of Che only if they give their life for humanity." --- Evo Morales


"Che’s legacy, as even the briefest summary of his life brings out, is the legacy of internationalism. Quite independent from other successes he achieved in a short and intense life of barely 39 years, Che embodied the spirit of internationalism as it existed in his own age. Which means, as I was at pains to explain to my students from Amsterdam, that, more than anybody else of his epoch, Che Guevara embodied the ideal of solidarity with oppressed people struggling to achieve their own emancipation worldwide. And he embodied this ideal not just via actions of political support staged from a distance but instead by personally participating in (what he saw as) the highest form of struggle the oppressed can wage, i.e. guerrilla resistance against the army of a colonial or neo-colonial state. It is for this overwhelming reason that Che continues to be cherished by today’s activists." --- Dr Peter Custers

[CHE with an AK]

"Some argue that history has transformed Che's revolutionary image into just another fashion accessory. It is tempting for those of us on the left to feel uncomfortable with his popular appeal; rather like music fans who, when their favorite underground band hits the big time, moan that they've 'gone commercial' ... I don't see it that way. If only 10 percent of the people who wear the image know what he stood for, that is still many millions. Overwhelmingly, they are also young people, with their hearts set on making the world a better place. Indeed, in my experience, many more than 10 percent have a very good idea of what he stood for ... If Che's image seems to be everywhere, that is because what he fought and died for is more fashionable than ever."

— George Galloway

[CHE with an AK]

This thread should be pinned at the top of the forum.

[CHE with an AK]

"Because Che was a man who fought and died for what he thought was fair, so for young people, he is a man who needs to be followed. And as time goes by and countries are governed by increasingly corrupt people ... Che's persona gets bigger and greater, and he becomes a man to imitate. He is not a God who needs to be praised or anything like that, just a man whose example we can follow, in always giving our best in everything we do."

--- Alberto Granado, Che's lifelong friend