Guerrillero_Heroico_-_Che_Guevara

Guerrillero Heroico (Heroic Guerrilla fighter) Dowana Daoud September 28, 2009 Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario Argentina. During childhood and adolescence, Che excelled in his studies and enjoyed subjects such as philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, history and archaeology. Along with his excellent academic performance, and despite fighting crippling bouts of acute asthma, Che excelled as an athlete. Growing up in a family with leftist ideals, Ernesto (as he was then called) was introduced to a wide variety of political perspectives. The Guevara home also contained more than 3,000 books and Che became an enthusiastic reader and enjoyed the writings of such authors as Pablo Neruda, Karl Marx, William Faulkner, H.G. Wells and Robert Frost, just to name a few. In 1948, at the age of 19, Che entered the medical school at the University of Buenos Aires. During these years Guevara read Stalin and Mussolini but did not join radical student organizations. Years later, due to his wide range of academic interests and avid love for reading Che would be noted by the CIA in a declassified biographical and personality report as being “quite well read” and “fairly intellectual for a Latino”. In 1951, Che took a year off from studies to embark on a journey covering South America with intensions to spend a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru. Along his route, he was astonished by the extreme and endemic poverty in remote rural areas. He was struck by the fact that poor peasantfarmers worked small plots of land owned by wealthy landlords but still he continued on his journey. Later, Guevara was impressed by the camaraderieamong the inhabitants of the Leper colony and wrote that “the highest forms of human solidarity and loyalty arise among such lonely and desperate people”. Returning to Argentina, he completed his studies and received his medical degree in June of 1953, however his trip instilled in him the idea that Latin America was not a collection of separate nations, but is a single entity requiring a continent-wide liberationstrategy. His dream of a borderless, united Hispanic America sharing a common Latino heritage then became a theme that prominently recurred during his later revolutionary activities. Upon graduation, Guevara began practicing medicine where he then made the realization that in order to help his people he needed to leave the realm of medicine and consider the political arena of armed struggle. His experiences led him to believe that South America’s economic inequalities were the result of monopoly capitalism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism and that the only remedy was a world revolution. While influenced by many philosophers and writers, Che’s beliefs stems mostly from the teachings of Karl Marx. Marx argued that capitalism, like other socioeconomic systems before it, will eventually produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Marx believed that Socialism will replace capitalism and lead to a stateless, classless society. However, while Marx maintained that the socio-economic change that is needed occurred through organized revolutionary action, Guevara criticized orthodox communist policy in Latin America and argued against any copying of the Soviet model. He argued that, while it should be followed, revolutionary theory must be based upon and influenced by experience of struggle in each country. He also advocated the development of socialist political culture based on moral rather than material incentives. This is what motivated Che to justify the use of armed warfare in his battle to unite South America. References Anderson, Jon Lee (1997). Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press Answers.com (2009). Che Guevara [Online]. Available from: http://www.answers.com/topic/che-guevara [Accessed September 27, 2009] Encyclopaedia Britannica (2009). Che Guevara (Argentine-Cuban revolutionary) [Online]. Available from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248399/Che-Guevara [Accessed September 27, 2009] Hey-Che (2007) ADetailed Chronology of Che Guevara [Online]. Available from: http://www.hey-che.com/chronology-of-che-guevara.html [Accessed September 27, 2009] Mostly Water (2009). Commandant Ernesto “Che” Guevara (1928 – 1967) [Online]. Available from: http://mostlywater.org/commandante_ernesto_che_guevara_1928_1967 [Accessed September 27, 2009] Spartacus Educational (2009). Che Guevara [Online]. Available from: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDguevara.htm [Accessed September 27, 2009] Wikipedia.com (2009). Guerrillero Heroico [Online]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrillero_Heroico [Accessed September 27, 2009] Wikipedia.com (2009). Che Guevara [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara [Accessed September 27, 2009]