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Che chic: it's tres disgusting
National Review, Dec 31, 2004 by Jay Nordlinger
IT sometimes seems that Che Guevara is pictured on more items than Mickey Mouse. I'm talking about shirts and the like (but mainly shirts). One artist had the inspiration to combine the two: He put Mickey's ears on Guevara. Guevara's fans must not like it much.
The world is awash in Che paraphernalia, and this is an ongoing offense to truth, reason, and justice (a fine trio). Cuban Americans tend to be flummoxed by this phenomenon, and so do others who are decent and aware. There is a backlash against Che glorification, but it is tiny compared with the phenomenon itself. To turn the tide against Guevara would take massive reeducation--a term the old Communist would very much appreciate.
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You find his items in the most surprising places. Or maybe they are not so surprising. The New York Public Library has a gift shop, and until just the other day, it sold a Guevara watch. The article featured Che's face and the word "REVOLUTION." The ad copy went like this: "Revolution is a permanent state with this clever watch, featuring the classic romantic image of Che Guevara, around which the word 'revolution'-revolves." Clever, indeed.
That one of the world's most prestigious libraries should have peddled an item puffing a brutal henchman was not big news, but some Cuban Americans, and a few others, reacted. On learning of the watch, many sent letters to the library, imploring its officials to come to their senses. One Cuban American--trying to play on longstanding American sensibilities -wrote, "Would you sell watches with the images of the Grand Dragon of the KKK?" It was also pointed out that Communist Cuba, which Guevara did a great deal to found and shape, is especially hard on librarians. The independent-library movement has been brutally repressed, and some of the most inspiring political prisoners stem from that movement.
Yet there is virtually no solidarity between Free World librarians and Cuba's librarians, or would-be librarians. A year ago, the civil libertarian Nat Hentoff "renounced"--his word--the award given him by the American Library Association, because the ALA cold-shoulders the Cubans, preferring to stick with the loved "socialist" tyrant, Castro.
In any event, the New York Public Library withdrew the watch just before Christmas, offering no statement.
The fog of time and the strength of anti-anti-Communism have obscured the real Che. Who was he? He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabana, the fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grace, the bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredon, the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens--dissidents, democrats, artists, homosexuals--would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag. A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Anthony Daniels once quipped, "The difference between [Guevara] and Pol Pot was that [the former] never studied in Paris."
And yet, he is celebrated by "liberals," this most illiberal of men. As Paul Berman summed up recently in Slate, "Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a freethinker and a rebel."
Those who know, or care about, the truth concerning Guevara are often tempted to despair. The website of our own National Institutes of Health describes him this way: an "Argentine physician and freedom fighter." Guevara was a physician roughly like Mrs. Ceausescu was a chemist. As for freedom fighter ... again, the temptation to despair is great.
And yet, Cuban Americans and their friends do not succumb altogether, as we have seen in the New York Public Library episode. Here is another episode: Not long ago, Burlington Coat Factory--a giant clothing retailer--ran a television ad featuring a teenager in a Guevara shirt. The ad was called--get this--"Values." Anti-Communists organized boycotts, picketing, and letter-writing, and the company withdrew the shirt--but not before calling the activists "provocateurs," "fanatics," and "extremists." (The company should get with it: The preferred Castroite term for democrats and human-rights advocates is gusanos, or "worms.")
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, a store called La La Ling sells a Guevara shirt for babies--actually, a "onesie." The ad text is as follows: "Featured in Time Magazine's holiday web shopping guide, 'Viva la revolution [sic]!' Now even the smallest rebel can express himself in these awesome baby one-sies. This classic Che Guevara icon is also available on a long-sleeve tee in kids' sizes ... Long live the rebel in all of us ... there's no cooler iconic image than Che!"
