The Symbols Of Che Guevara

One of the most recognizable faces is none other than Che Guevara. Seen on hipster shirts everywhere, most attribute his face as a symbol of revolutions and standing up to the government. The real man is not as he would seem. He was born on 14 June 1928 in Rosario, Argentina . In 1952, he took a motorcycle ride through South America that inspired him to help fight against poverty and oppressive government. While this sounded like a noble cause it was not what he ended up doing. In reality, he helped free Cubans from the repressive Batista regime, only to enslave them in a totalitarian police state worse than the last. People do not remember the enslavement part however, mostly they see him as a man who helped people defeat a system he was against. They wear merchandise with a picture of his face on it, an irony considering he fought against capitalism yet is remembered in a very capitalistic manner. Che is not a man that should be the symbol of freedom from oppression but rather he is just

This made him a martyr in many people lives. It did not help that the year after his assassination saw huge developments for popular protest around the world and Che Guevara, now a martyr, became a symbol for a geographically diverse array of leftist social movements. Riding the global wave of protest, Che 's visibility in the international media peaked . At the time, people only saw him as a hero and the dirt about his past did not come up until later, such as the multiple executions of relatively innocent people. Soon the photo, taken by a fashion photographer, was showing up in the papers and even on things such as Smirnoff. Ironically, people used his image whenever there was a protest, the most recent in the gay rights movement. He was against freedom in that sense however, openly speaking out against homosexuals, holding “homosexuals to be beneath contempt”