Yes he was a bit. Back then LGBT rights would have seemed ultra-leftist. Now we know better.
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Sadly, no one is perfect. Thus one can admire a person's positives whilst acknowledging their negatives. Although Che may have been a homophobe, or even for argument's sake a murderer, he also overthrew the Batista regime. Love the sinner, hate the sin. It's important to remember to remember good people can do bad things, and the reverse. No vilification is legitimate; to err is human, after all; we focus on the good achieved.
Was Che a saint? no, but who are to demand sainthood from our idols? Admittedly, I have never shot a black, but nor have I took on the western hegemony and freed an entire nation. So for that, I hail him, regardless of what else he did.
As far as I know, he could have beat his wife, but he's not a role model for me, he's an important historical figure.
Che might have had his flaws, but he also had his positives. Understandably, people are angry at the possibility of bigotry on his part, but that doesn't mean you can't take inspiration from his actions in Cuba and elsewhere. Not to mention that fact it might not be true. That's another thing to remember: innocent until proven guilty.
~HanoiJane
Yes he was a bit. Back then LGBT rights would have seemed ultra-leftist. Now we know better.
While you're right that it's more important to confront actions now than actions of people who've been dead for decades, part of the reason those ideas persisit is people now look at 'heroes' of the past and think that because Che and Fidel (for example) were homophobic maybe it isn't so bad now. And that is best fought by showing that Che and Fidel were wrong, isn't it?
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
There was a French radical (whose name I sadly can't bring to mind at the moment) in the early 1800s whose views on sexuality would still be radical today, but that didn't stop Marx and Engels from holding backward views decades later.
The gay liberation movement didn't truly hit the map until after Stonewall, two years after Che's death. No one is giving Guevara a free pass. Denying he was homophobic would be that. I'm pointing out that there was a social context to his prejudice. He was born in the 1920s and raised in a culture steeped in machismo. He wasn't backwards in a sea of tolerance, he was a single drop of water in a sea of intolerance.
The question "was Che homophobic?" puts the problem on him as an individual rather than on the broader social and political milieus he existed within. Even more so since he's not alive to be challenged and self-criticize.
If Che was alive today and somehow found time to post on RevLeft, you can bet I would challenge his homophobia on the basis that a revolutionary's duty is to see through the prejudices of their culture.
He was an interesting historical figure, my disagreement with his politics aside.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
See my response to Durruti's friend.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
Danielle, what people are pointing out is that Che's homophobia was remarkable for the time. Remarkable when comparing his politics with a middle-class married couple in Levittown or any of a large number of Stalinists in power throughout the world (or their political bedfollows in various 'Marxist' parties)? Probably not.
Remarkable in terms of what a proper socialist could have been expected to support in view of already established precedents-Bebel, the Bolsheviks, and others-then yeah, your context argument sort of falls apart. And it does look like a backhanded way of apologizing for his backward prejudices.
I refuse to apologize for anyone's backward prejudices. It's why I left the last organization I belonged to.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
Then stop doing it here.
