is violence ever acceptable as a form of revolution? part the first.

so, i'm no scholar, and this is not going to be a very well-thought-out entry. bear with me, though. it's something that i think i need to try to put into words.

so, che guevera is awesome, right? he's a hero of the people, goes the legend, a freedom fighter, a revolutionary that inspired millions, who called for a unified nation an end to brutality in south america. that's what i know about him, pretty much the sum total of what i know, actually. i also know one quote, written on the side of the wall backstage in the rc auditorium, and also given to me after i participated in a play called information for foreigners, written by an exiled playwright/activist about the desaparacidos in argentina in the 70s. the quote is this: "let me tell you, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by the greatest love."

so all that would lead me to believe that he is a fabulous guy who died fighting for what he believed in. he's an Aurelio of Garcia Marquez. he's a stand-up guy.

so when i heard about The Motorcycle Diaries, i was excited. plus the scenery of south america has always been extraordinarily beautiful to me. i studied mexican culture when i was in seventh grade. the incans and the aztecs totally fascinated me. it was really more native cultures in general, i.e. the people who were here before the english and the spanish. my ancestral family is from illinois, right near the famous cahokia mounds, which bear a striking resemblance to many of the temples erected in south and middle america. and having read neruda and garcia marquez, i had been imagining the landscape for so long i was really excited about actually being able to see it in what was supposed to be an extraordinary cinematographic experience.

and boy, was it ever. god, was it beautiful. i walked out of that movie feeling moved and changed. i was so in love with guevera, so trusting of him. if the man himself had walked into that theater as the credits were rolling and asked for new recruits for his revolutionary army, i would have been the first to volunteer. granted, the movie wasn't really about guevera as a revolutionary, but rather it documented most of a road trip he took when he was in his early twenties. it was supposedly, according to his diary, the trip that inspired him to do what he did. he was planning to become a doctor at the beginning, planning to return to his family at the end of a few months on the road. but instead he stayed in the north, set up a headquarters, and started a violent revolution to overthrow the military government, which resulted in him being placed before a firing quad and shot. he was in his mid thirties.

now, read this article.

did you read it? at least skim it?

ok then.

a great friend of mine, with whom i am in sporadic contact with, due to my being an ass who never responds to emails, sent me that article, with the hope of inspiring discussion. in that spirit, i am posting it here. what do you all think? did you see the movie? did you think about the things stated in that follow-up?

i have to say, i had my doubts about the movie. i have doubts about anything that is one-sided (which, for all its beauty and profundity, the movie pretty much was...although it was based on his diary, so go figure) and that presents one person as being almost godlike. which the movie absolutely did. there a scene where he swims across a river in the middle of the night to be with the lepers on the other side after making an inspiring speech to everyone else about the direction of the nation and the work they are doing. and everyone is just looking at him like he had a halo, their faces are shining, and then he just walks out and jumps in the river. i'm not saying that didn't happen, i'm saying the way it was presented left no room for us to say, wait, um, you just jumped in a river, you nutcase. all we can do is shake our heads and marvel at his devotion to the less fortunate. and they are whom we think of at the end when the credits roll and the "over the next ten years..." phrases pop up. it's the devotion that his friends have for him which accentuates the feelings we as viewers are supposed to be feeling. his friend has tears in his eyes when guevera leaves him at the end, and so do we. so, in a way, i did feel manipulated. it's one thing to watch a movie about someone's life that really fills in the gaps in an objective way. for example, i think The Aviator did a pretty good job of presenting howard hughes alternately as a genius and as a very sick man. and that movie ends with him being sick, not with sweeping justifications and epic music and sunsets. he fades into darkness alone and crazy. whereas with The Motorcycle Diaries, guevera was not a flawed human being who did some great things. the movie just reinforced the belief that Che Guevera Is A Wonderful Revolutionary Hero.

now, to the most important question here: is he? was he? does he deserve the credit we as a country give him, with our t-shirts and bumper stickers and flags hanging above dorm room bunk beds? more fundamentally, is violence ever acceptable as a form of revolution?

i'm running out of time to blab on and on about this. i have to go to work. so let's let this be part one. i'll change the title. there, now it says part one. now we can come back to this. in the meantime, leave some comments, let me know what you're thinking.