Che and gays.

[Winter]

I read somewhere that Che killed gay people for being gay. Is this true? Thanks.

[RadioRaheem84]

I dont know about killed but marxist regimes of that era were not tolerant in the liberal sense. most of the tolerant artributes that encompass marxism today came about with the writings of Herbert Marcuse, a professor from western germany. Old commies were pretty traditional (except for the time they tried to abolish marriage).

[Pawn Power]

previous thread on the topic

http://www.revleft.com/vb/che-39-s-t24341/index.html (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../che-39-s-t24341/index.html)

[Nusocialist]

I dont know about killed but marxist regimes of that era were not tolerant in the liberal sense. most of the tolerant artributes that encompass marxism today came about with the writings of Herbert Marcuse, a professor from western germany. Old commies were pretty traditional (except for the time they tried to abolish marriage).

Anarchists and libertarian socialists were always tolerant.

[RedAnarchist]

Che was probably homophobic, as this was the norm when he was alive. If he was around today, chances are that he would be anything but homophobic.

[Colonello Buendia]

I also Heard Castro had internment camps for gay people and dissidents, though this may just be a rumour, anyway Che was probably a bit homophobic due to his life in a catholic country

[quevivafidel]

I'm pretty sure I heard that the internment camps were rumors...Fidel has admitted that there was some subtle homophobia in the beginning, but that they got past that.

What you have to remember is that it was a different time. I don't think you would, honestly, find many people fifty years ago or so, except for very tolerant and/or people who knew gay people personally, who weren't at least somewhat homophobic. I don't believe Che held any hatred to anybody; he just probably had the idea that men had to be "real men" and whatnot. Anyway, in Mi Primer Gran Viaje, aka The Motorcycle Diaries, Che did have an entry that there was an effeminate, strange guy (so probably meaning, gay) whom they met and who he felt sorry for because some other guys were giving him a rough time. Che said that the man treated him & his friend very well, didn't mess with them, AND gave them money, so they were fine with him! He wrote something like, "Even if he was a sick and twisted guy, it didn't give the others a right to hurt him." (Not exactly rainbow pride, but better than what he could have said.)

However, my father always says in his Che course when he shows pictures of activists using Che's picture that he thinks Che would approve of all of them, except perhaps the one that said, "Che Gay" for a gay rights group. Haha.

Also, some people say that Che was racist and whatever, which is definitely not true. I think when he was a young guy he was somewhat ignorant, if that's the word, at least politically...He's from Argentina, too. (Where I'm originally from and a lot of people say things without meaning hatred.) In the same book he actually says various things like the campesinos he met didn't bathe and smelled badly and that he thought that blacks were by nature, a little on the lazy side. Bear in mind, he was a very young man when he wrote this (23) and he later married a Peruvian woman [who wasn't white] and many of his friends in Cuba were black.

[RNK]

and that he thought that blacks were by nature, a little on the lazy side.

I've never heard of this statement before. The closest that comes close is from Che's Diary of an African Revolution, where Che professed his belief that Congolese were naturally lazy, which was generally out of frustration from his encounters with them while he was in the Congo (along with several hundred black Cubans which he had nothing but absolute respect for, except for a few exceptions).

[Herman]

Many prominent socialists in the past were homophobes. It was the norm back then, and homosexuality was seen as a moral degradation caused by capitalism.

Needless to say, most socialists have corrected this line.

[quevivafidel]

I've never heard of this statement before. The closest that comes close is from Che's Diary of an African Revolution, where Che professed his belief that Congolese were naturally lazy, which was generally out of frustration from his encounters with them while he was in the Congo (along with several hundred black Cubans which he had nothing but absolute respect for, except for a few exceptions).

I read that in the original Spanish version of The Motorcycle Diaries. (Much before Congo.) I think it was a couple of paragraphs long which basically went something like, "Those of African descent are a little lazy, compared to Europeans." I remember while reading it, I was thinking, "Che, man, this isn't good!" Then again, there are a lot of things in that diary that most fans of the revolutionary Che wouldn't like. But he changed; that's the important thing. I'll have to find the exact passage in the book and translate it, but I don't want people here to think that he continued thinking this way. Like I said, he didn't KNOW any black people when he wrote that; he was young and ill-informed and self-absorbed. He didn't care about poverty and class issues until after his traveling; even on that first trip, he hadn't really changed, yet. I used that as an example of why someone might say that Che was a racist, but I think it is important to realize that he was only human and became more open-minded once he became more political and once he actually met black people, once he actually saw that their struggles were not due to "laziness," once he became companeros with them. He admired many African revolutionaries, i.e. Lumumba, as well.

I really hope nobody here stops liking and admiring Che because of how he was when he was a young man...even then, when he was young, he wasn't a "racist"; just ignorant and misinformed about certain things and had certain stereotypes about people. I'm sure he hadn't seen any black people and few Indian people before he started that first trip. He seemed to just write certain things in that diary that weren't malicious in nature; he wrote in a way a couple of times like he didn't know what he was talking about. (Did that sentence make any sense?) I saw a documentary once that had some people saying that Che was a racist because he used the word "negrito"; in Argentina, it's a term of endearment or just how somebody describes somebody with darker skin, without meaning any harm. They're not very PC there. So, in summary: Che at 23=bourgeois, uninformed white male. Not racist or violent homophobic. Just that. Che stopped pretty much any racism he had once he became political and I'm not certain about the homophobia, but like I said, it was a different time and I don't think he would have harmed anybody for being gay. He probably would have said at the end of his life what he said in the diary, "He's sick and twisted, but doesn't deserve to be hurt." If he were still alive, I think he would have changed yet again on the gay issue.