Che inspires students 41 years after death

[John Lenin]

Che inspires students 41 years after death
By: Joel Childers
10/10/08



http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper997/stills/96bc976q.jpg
Ingrid Sam, an undeclared freshman, responds to the question 'What does it mean to be a revolutionary?' last night at Gallagher Theater before a showing of the film 'The Motorcycle Diaries,' a depiction of the early life of Che Guevera.

The words of visionaries, activists and revolutionaries decorated the walls of the Gallagher Theater Wednesday to celebrate the 41-year anniversary of the assassination of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, with a screening of the film, "The Motorcycle Diaries."

The film recounts the pre-revolutionary years of Guevara and was based from the memoirs of the same name as well as his motorcycle companion Alberto Granada.

"Che was killed on October 9, 1967. We are using this day to celebrate his life," said Jessica Risco, adviser at the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership and organizer of the film screening. "My hope is that it will inspire people to think about what it means to be a revolutionary and what sort of revolutions we need to see in our society today."

Before the film began, Risco posted questions and quotes on the walls of Gallagher. Students gathered to read the quotes, which included some by Martin Luther King Jr., Abbie Hoffman, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, John Lennon and, of course, Guevara. Next to the quotes and images were questions that probed the ideas and definitions of revolutionary.

"What does it mean to be a revolutionary?" Risco asked the group of students. "Who inspires you to be a revolutionary? How can you inspire others to create a revolution in their daily lives?"

One student wrote anonymously, "Don't be afraid to voice your opinions; to be a revolutionary you must stand up for the oppressed and stand up for what you believe in."

Nutritional sciences senior Alan Cordero agreed.

"To be a revolutionary doesn't mean you have to do something major . . . You have to cause change from the norm. It doesn't even have to be good or be positive, it just has to be a change."

The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, detailed the early life of Guevara and Granada while they both pursued medical degrees and traveled more than 7,000 miles across the South American continent. Although the film is about Guevara, it omits details about his revolutionary actions in Cuba or Bolivia. It does, however, touch upon his social interactions with poverty across South America that most likely led to his actions later in life.

"That movie was awesome," Cordero said. "It was inspirational and I felt a connection to it. I like their sense of adventure and their willingness to go out and do anything."

In addition to celebrating Guevara's death, the film was screened concurrently with Hispanic Heritage month, which lasts until Oct. 23. Though the film is not Hispanic in its origins, it is still a way to celebrate cultures outside of the U.S., said Risco.

"Aside of Che's death, the movie will be screened along with Hispanic Heritage month. This film can be important for issues of border and immigration and it's education to people," said Risco.


http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2008/10/10/News/Che-Inspires.Students.41.Years.After.Death-3481634.shtml

[John Lenin]

http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/10/09/z_p09-Che.jpg

41st death anniversary today:
Che: A lesson of love

Malani GOVINNAGE
Daily News

In the new Government formed in Cuba after the Revolution, Commander Ernesto Che Guevara was the Minister of Economic Affairs. Once he received a complimentary copy of a medical journal published by the Psychiatric hospital in Cuba.

It was 1964, the year named as the Year of Economy in the country. And, Minister of Economic Affairs was a qualified medical professional as well.
His letter to the Director of the hospital acknowledging the journal is interesting. He writes: "I acknowledge receipt of the journal. Although I am very short of time, the topics look interesting and I will try to read it.


I am curious about something else: How can 6,300 copies of a specialised journal be published when there are not even that many doctors in Cuba?
Something keeps gnawing away at my mind and it is driving me to the verge of a neuro-economic psychosis: Are the rats using the journal to deepen their understanding of psychiatry or to satisfy their stomachs? Or perhaps each patient has a copy of the publication at his bedside...

Seriously the journal is good; the size of the run is intolerable. Believe me, because madmen always tell the truth."

This is only one of thousands of examples one would come across when looking into Che's fine, refined ways of handling the matters of governance, whether it is health economy or any other subject of polity.
He was a man ahead of his time; a combination of love for the proletariat all over the world and a crusader of anti-imperialism.

Many factors which are contradictory to his ideology have thrived all over the world to reduce him to a mere trademark; images of his bearded beret capped, face is used to sell hundreds of artifacts mainly via internet. T-shirts, tank tops for women, jackets baseball caps, military wear, backpacks and courier bags, belt buckles, clocks, collector pins cups. flasks, glasses, key chains .wallets, postcards and posters are some of them.

The idea of revolution is big business. So are Che's image and his ideas. Books on him with flashy pictures on cover and song CDs have created a big market for those traders who capitalise on the warped misguided rebellious sentiments of the young.

Last year, a three-inch long lock of thick black hair snipped from the Guerilla was sold in an auction in the USA.The lock of hair was sold for$ 100,000. The bidder who won the offer was a book-store owner.

Inspiration

Che is very much alive and is a source of inspiration for many people around the world. His image is very much alive, is held sacred, a beacon of hope of a society where love and respect for each individual in society would prevail.

This hope of a small fraction of individuals in Latin America was symbolised in the form of a four metre high bronze statue, which was placed on the base of a monument at a large plaza in the city of Rosario, Argentina, Ernesto Che Guevara's native city, on June 14 this year in commemoration of his 80th birth anniversary.

The statue symbolises Che's profound ideas open to a free and just world; the statue was made from a collection of bronze keys from more than 14.000 people in Latin America and several other countries.
Che who was born in Argentina, taught himself the essentials of a just society, which he believed to be the hallmark of humanity by travelling throughout Latin America.

Then it was a continent stricken by poverty and oppression. Then he joined in the Cuban Revolution; and helped in building a new Cuba.
Not long after, renouncing his prestigious positions in the Cuban government he embarked on the mission of his dream; building a united Latin America which would be from the oppression of imperialism.
A dream so vast and much ahead of time and, he was somewhat alone amidst that vast dream.

Soon after the Cuban Revolution, Che saw the need of an independent news agency for Latin America and neighbouring Caribbean islands. In 1959, Havana based Prensa Latina News Agency was founded with the initiative of Ernesto Che Guevara.The Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez who was then a journalist, Rodolfo Walsh a writer who was hounded and killed on a street of Buenos Aires, and a couple of other Latin American writers were the founding members of the Agency.

Legacy of Che

Rodolfo Walsh writing on Che's death in 1967 states thus: "For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for us. It is impossible for me to think about Guevara, during this gloomy spring in Buenos Aires without thinking of Hemingway, Camillo, Masseti, Fabricio Ojeda, of all those marvellous people from Havana, or who passed through Havana in 59 and 60...The nostalgia is encoded in a rosary of the dead and it seems a bit shameful to be sitting here in front of the typewriter, even knowing that this is a kind of misfortune that serves a purpose".:

As Rodolfo predicted, the misfortune has served a purpose.It has helped remain the legacy of Che, inspiring generation after generation. Walsh ends this sad note on Che's death thus: "The CIA agent who according to Reuters, elbowed and ribbed a hundred journalists in Vallegrande (the Bolivian village where Che was killed) who were trying to see the body, said one sentence in English"All right. Get the hell out of here".

The phrase

This phrase with its cachet, its imprint, its criminal mark remains to be taken up by history. And its necessary rejoinder: sooner or later, someone will get the hell out of this continent. It won't be the memory of Che, which is now spilling across a hundred cities, making it felt by those who did not know him".

This lyric from a CD consisting creations of the rebel leader, which was launched by a cultural centre in Havana sums up a fraction of much needed political ideology and philosophy of life for the 21st century.


Said Guevara. the beautiful
Upon seeing Africa cry:
In the thieving empire
Never should we trust
And, Che the legend said,
As if planting a flower
The good revolutionary
Is only moved by love.
Said Guevara,
the human being,
No intellectual
Should be on the payroll
Of official thought.


It must make one sad
and cold
To be an artificial man,
Head without a freewill,
Conditioned heart.


Some people, especially the youth in several parts of the world misinterpreting and gauging incorrectly his revolutionary political ideology have made thwarted attempts to correct the Existing systems. It was an age the revolutionary fervour in youth could easily be ignited.

Nations in Latin America which were under the yoke of colonial regimes were enjoying their freshly won freedoms not without many imperialist interferences; some were still struggling for their independence. Vietnam made a big impact on them.

Even today, those who wish a change in their systems of governance have not understood Che's political ideology; or something which Che had in abundance is missing in their thinking; that is the element of love for the common man.


http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/10/09/fea02.asp

[ellipsis]

It's nice to see people learning the truth about Che, even if it is thanks to three hollywood movies.

[h9socialist]

Comandante Guevara inspires beyond the generations because justice and love transcend generations. Revolution is humanity's scream for having forgotten our most important value -- to be our brother's (and sister's) keeper. Che belongs to the whole world, not just South America, because if his vision of a just world can come true, then all the world must take part in it. It has never been an easy proposition, but if "real revolutionaries are moved by great feelings of love" then revolution belongs to all humanity, and emancipation is a common responsibility.