For a while I was thinking part of my role as a YouTuber might be to engage with the content others were putting out there, to try to provide a perspective of a professional historian. I made a few videos like this one about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, which gave me an opportunity to provide some background historical details that I think clarify the sweeping assertions made in the argument over whether Che was a hero or a villain. If people are interested in this type of thing, maybe I’ll do a bit more of it.
This episode of the TED-ED series, like several others, was written by Alex Gendler, who describes himself as "a freelance writer, editor, translator, and general dilettante with specialties ranging from history and political theory to internet culture and animal videos."
To its credit, the episode begins with a quote which says "We'll still have to wait many years for history to deliver a definite judgment of Che, when the passions of both sides have passed". The question, of course, may be WILL the passions pass until the conditions that led to Che's activities have?
The narrative begins by saying "His face is recognized all over the world". This is true, and I think it's worth really asking why. "But was Che a heroic champion of the poor or a ruthless warlord?" Do we have to choose one? And, while we're thinking about that question, should we be asking the same type of question about everybody else -- especially the people Che was opposing?
I think it's interesting that in this episode, it's the old guy who is defending Che and the young guy who's attacking. I wonder if that means anything? This advocate says that when he traveled, Che became convinced that "saving lives required more than medicine". This seems like a somewhat passive way of describing Che's evolution. Another way might be to say that he realized that treating the symptoms of immediate misery would ultimately be futile if someone didn't fight the causes of that misery.
The young guy objects that Che became "a terrorist seeking to violently overthrow the region's governments" and the old guy says "the region's governments were brutal oligarchies." I think a more accurate term for Che would be guerrilla, since he wasn't targeting civilian populations in the ways that define terrorism. And the governments Che opposed were not just brutal oligarchies, they were neo-colonial regimes often established with the help of foreign military intervention.
The real name of the US Banana Co. is the United Fruit Co. (est. 1899, its successor is now known as Chiquita Brands International). The next couple of statements are true.
Che said of the coup: "The last Latin American revolutionary democracy – that of Jacobo Árbenz – failed as a result of the cold premeditated aggression carried out by the United States. Its visible head was the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a man who, through a rare coincidence, was also a stockholder and attorney for the United Fruit Company. The Secretary of State's brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the CIA and sat on UFC's board of directors.
Arbenz offered UFC what he thought was a fair price for the land: the value the company had declared on their tax forms.
The "turn a vibrant Cuba into a dictatorship" line plays into the popular image of Fidel Castro in America. The way this statement is made in the video reflects the way similar statements about Cuba are made in American media. Completely fact-free and convinced there's no need to refer to facts, because everyone accepts this assertion.
The counter-assertion about how bad Batista was is relatively accurate, but the Kennedy quote shouldn't be taken to suggest that the US president was sympathetic to the revolution. He continued Eisenhower's policy of trying to overthrow the Castro regime and assassinate Fidel. The Bay of Pigs invasion Kennedy authorized was planned by Allen Dulles and its failure led to his resignation.
The description of the totalitarian elements of the Castro regime can't be compared? Again, an assertion that doesn't seem to require recourse to facts.
The reign of terror vs. reading poetry section again illustrates the all-or-nothing aspect of the debate, I think. And the mass executions -- well, the Haitians treated the slave-owners similarly in the 1790s. Was this regrettable? Sure. But was it difficult to understand?
The "Which people?" section is interesting. But advocates have valid points. A mob isn't a viable democracy. But who said democracy was the goal? It's a bit ironic that the US, which had backed Batista and engineered the UFC coup, was running around the world during the cold war claiming to be the voice of democracy. Why would the people rebelling against the regime the US supported feel obligated to emulate a system America didn't seem too committed to?
The LGBT issue seems a bit out of place. The camps (which were originally set up as alternative forms of service for pacifists and conscientious objectors) were closed in 1968 and Fidel Castro did admit, "They weren't units of internment or punishment.... However, after a visit I discovered the distortion in some places, of the original idea, because you can't deny that there were prejudices against homosexuals. I personally started a review of this matter. Those units only lasted three years." If anything, this seems a bit early -- how were gay people being treated int he US in 1968?
Wait, literacy was designed to aid government propaganda?
"Massive drops in productivity" are common when an economy is reorganized with a goal of equity. Similar drops in productivity happened in Bolivia when the dictatorship ended and land reform allowed peasants to produce food for their families rather than exports for profit. Measuring productivity by exports applies a standard that seems to make sense, but only from the perspective of the wealthy.
Censorship does seem to be a problem in Cuba, including on the internet.
The Missile Crisis and the alignment with the USSR did not seem to be Castro's first choice. If Che pushed in that direction, it could have been in response to countless assassination attempts and an invasion plan scheduled for that very October in 1962. This also makes it seem like the blockade was a reaction to the missiles. In fact, it began in 1960 and was extended to include almost all imports in February 1962. This type of sanction may also have helped drive the Cubans (who had wanted to be non-aligned) into the arms of the Soviets.
Exporting revolution didn't go that well, but that may have been partly due to the efforts of the CIA in support of the Congo National Army. One guy against a superpower, and we're surprised he wasn't successful.
Che went back to Bolivia because a coup (supported by guess who) had overthrown the elected government that had been doing the land reform. He hoped to use the Andes in the same way he had used the Sierra Maestra mountains in Cuba, as a secure base for guerrilla (not terrorist) actions. The neutralization involved him being apprehended with CIA help and summarily executed.
The revolution is immortal -- at least as long as the conditions that lead people to rebel are not changed.
Che is a trendy symbol of rebellion. But is that all he is?
Did he die a hero or had he already become a villain is the wrong question. He was arguably BOTH the whole time. A better question might be, were his actions justified?
and "should revolutions be judged by their ideals or their outcomes?" is also an incomplete question. A broader question might be, should any society be judged by the ideals it professes or the actions it takes and their outcomes? Other questions we might ask include, does fighting monsters turn you into one? And finally, what are we to think about people who fight the monsters they find in the world, even when that turns them into monsters? Say, as opposed to the people who send others to do the fighting for them, into wars they really don't understand at all?
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