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Che Guevera a Homophobe?
Online I see a lot if people bashing Ché saying he was a racist and a homophobe. Is this true? Ché was such a big inspiration but now I'm hearing he killed blacks and inprisoned gays.
You know, I am no scholar on Che, but I don't know that he did either of those things. I don't think he killed blacks, and if he did it would have been during his time in Africa where he was trying to kickstart a revolution so if he did it was probably for something like that.
"I'm not interested in indulging whims from members of your faction."
Seeing as this is seen as acceptable by an admin, from here on out when I have a disagreement with someone I will be asking them to reference this. If you want an explanation of my views, too bad.
I believe Che did express some racism as a very young man, but clearly he outgrew it. He was willing to put his own life on the line to fight alongside Black revolutionaries in Africa.
Homophobia was the default position just about everywhere back then, so Che hardly stands out. I imagine that had he lived longer, he might have come to repudiate homophobia just like his comrade Fidel Castro did.
"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
Just to add to the above posts, Che not only fought alongside black revolutionaries in Africa but notably on Cuba as well, where the revolution removed much of the racist legacy of the colonialist era. It was then primarily black veterans from the revolution that followed him to take part in the conflict in Congo.
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No lover of Che here but I've never seen any evidence that he was racist.
Yes he was a massive homophobe
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."
I think that in the 1960s, the "everyone else was a homophobe too" defense can no longer apply. LGBT liberation movements were quite relevant by that point, not to mention that Lenin and a whole bunch of communists had already embraced LGBT struggles by then. If Che was a homophobe, he deserves full condemnation for that (although I cannot actually answer the question with great certainty).
Like, change his and his state's position as if decades long repressions of LGBTs didn't happen with a petty "Sorry, we were wrong" only when the tide changed internationally and changing the position suited his interests, without even offering any repercussions for the victims? Yeah, it's possible he would have done that but no more.
Last edited by Leo; 14th June 2015 at 14:25.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
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Fidel Castro?
I thought Fidel Castro il legalized homosexuality in Cuba and Mariela Castro is fighting to get rid of that law?
Don't know who Mariela Castro is.
Fidel may have legalised homosexuality - after 20 years of sending LGBT people to re-education camps. Does that mean those 20 years didn't happen?
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."
Fidel's niece. She's the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, and an activist for LGBT issues.
Of course not, but would you prefer that Cuba had continued sending LGBT people to re-education camps?
"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
Same-sex sexual relations were decriminalized in 1979. That status remains unchanged. Cuba also forbids employment discrimination against LGB people. Since 2008, Cuba has also provided free sex reassignment surgery for transgender people.
"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
I think Fidel was sincere when he said Cuba's policies were wrong. His view in the 1960s that homosexuality was "bourgeois decadence" certainly was a common one on the Left, even in the US and Europe.
"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
Even in the 1960s, homophobia was the dominant position within the Marxist Left.
"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
If Marielo Castro is fighting for marriage equality, then who is she fighting against? The Castro brothers, and the Communist Party, which has a monopoly on political power.
pew pew pew
She pushed for legal recognition of gender changes, free hormone therapy, and free sex reassignment surgery, which were all eventually adopted by the CP, making Cuba the most progressive Latin American nation on those issues. So, it's a mixed bag when it comes to LGBT issues.
"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
he was a great dude and a great revolutionary who, to his death in the struggle, took some seriously fucked up views about homosexuals that we should be glad to have abandoned ourselves
we're adults, we should be able to admit that che was a human and not fall into black and white thinking.
Yes, and that tells me that the supposedly "Marxist" left of the 1960s was dominated by groups and governments with shitty politics, as they couldn't recognize even on paper the role of the heteronormative nuclear family in propping up capitalist relations.
That's not much of an excuse. In the tens, support for the Democratic Party is the dominant position within the Marxist Left in the US - does this mean that we shouldn't criticise the politics of the CPUSA? And in any case the homophobia of the Stalinist parties was a step back from the revolutionary repeal of homophobic Tsarist laws by the Bolsheviks. (I'm also not sure if the PSP was that homophobic, compared to other parties in Cuba and the former PPC member F. Castro.)
I also don't understand why people go to such lengths to excuse Guevara, I mean if anyone said analogous things about Stalin or Mao they would get pounced on (quite correctly), but we can handwave Guevara's homophobia away with "everyone was a homophobe back then"?
So what? I mean, if Bebel could argue for decriminalization of homosexuality in 1898,I don't get why Che would get a free pass half a century later, in the heyday of the gay liberation movement. Plus ffs, most of the "Marxist left" still is homophobic, transphobic, nationalist and/or racist to some extent. It's not an excuse.
I'd also like to second Xhar-Xhar in asking why leftists (especially the "libertarian" ones smh) care so much about a failed stalinist guerrilla leader from the 60s.
"By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward" - Mikhail Bakunin
I'm not handwaving it away. I'm saying it existed but within his milieu his views on the subject were unremarkable. Should we demand more from people who claim to be revolutionaries? Yes. But Che's been dead longer than I've been alive, and I'd rather confront homo/bi/transphobic ideas in the revolutionary movements of 2015.
"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
