It was the name whose daring exploits made himself the beacon of struggle and radicalism of the generation of the late 60’s. The generation of the 70’s eulogized him going through the pages of his diary on the armed struggle. Even the generation of the 80’s, 90’s and of the present decade regard him as the source of inspiration. He is no longer a simple crusader fighting for the cause of the oppressed but has become a very cult figure, a legendary figure in the international fight against state owned injustices. He is Ernesto ‘Che’Guevara.
Che Guevara or El Che as he is commonly known was an Argentine born Marxist revolutionary. Aprt from his political associations he was also a medic, a politica figure and the leader of the Cuban and internationalist guerilla movement . his ideal was to overthrow all exploitative state structures in the global arena and it was this urge that has always made him restlessnes, moving between the countries and imparting the hapless peasants the technique to revolt against represion by means of armed offensives.
Having taken birth in a family of Spanish and Irish decent and being the eldest of the five children to parents belonging to the Basque ancestry grew up in a leftist-leaning déclassé family of aristocratic lineage. Being groomed in such a manner he soon became known for his dynamic personality and radical perspective even as a boy. Being a voracious reader he soon came to realise the basic concepts of expolitation and gross ineqality. In 1951 he went on a ride on a motorcycle with his friend Alberto Granado traversing the whole of the South America. Witnessing the widespread poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement throughout Latin America, and being influenced by Marxist classics and thoughts, Guevara came to the conclusion that the only solution for the region’s inequalities was armed revolution. His travels and readings also made him to realize view Latin America not as a group of separate nations but as a single entity requiring a continent-wide strategy for liberation.
In the year 1956 while in Mexico, a new orientation occurred. He met Hidel Castro of Cuba and joined his Revolutionary 26th of July Movement yultimately leading to te seizure of Cuba and the overthrow of the oppressive Batista government in 1959. The victory of the Cuban rebellion heightened the the significance of Che and forced him to accept responsible poitions. He halied as the Finance Minister of the Government of Cuba an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform and President of the National Bank of Cuba. He did full justice with his name. But due to the fiery ideals he left Cuba in 1965 with the intention of fomenting revolutions first in Congo-Kinshasa and then in Bolivia. His ideals are best found in a declaration, “There are no frontiers in this struggle to the death. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for any country against imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is our defeat”. In Bolivia he was captured by the joint military operation supported by the CIA and the US Army Special Forces. He was executed by the Bolivian Army on 9th October, 1967.
But in the following decades Che who has sacrificed his everything has become an icon of the left leaning revolutionary movements worldwide. His legenday photograph taken by photographer Albeto Korda widely available on badges, T-shirts has been termed as "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century."
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