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Ernesto Guevara Iconic Status Essay

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Ernesto Guevara Iconic Status

Aged twenty-four, Ernesto Guevara pens a regular letter home to Rosario, Argentina from his flat in Mexico. It concludes: "Things are moving with tremendous speed and no one can know, or predict, where or for what reason one will be next year"[1]. This, perhaps, is one indication of the mans legendary appeal - not as a hero of socialism or political ideologist, but as a free-spirited and non-fictitious adventurer. After all, how many of us could end our letters with the same thrilling poignancy, at any age? Further still, how many of us manage to more then dream of exploring the sprawling sceneries of our home-land as Guevara did in 1951 (from Buenos Aires to …show more content…

Like the much used stencil of Guevara's determined visage, the general perception of his life is flat and two-dimensional.

No where more so, it seems, then in the country richest in Guevara's history, Cuba. An article printed July 21st 1997 in Newsweek, entitled 'Return Of The Rebel', explored Cuban society in the wake of the long-awaited discovery of Guevara's skeleton in Bolivian town of Vallegrande. In it journalist Brook Lamer explains how 'the Cuban Government played a pivotal role in creating the Che mystique, and it is not about to let its franchise slip away'[2]. Understandable, viewing the twenty-two ton statue of Guevara that still rules over Santa Clara. In Cuba, Guevara remains imbedded in national pride and retains the mythology of a moral saint. This is an impression maintained through decades of censorship and flat denial of facts - something Lamer attributes to the reality that Cuba is "scrambling to stay afloat by abandoning many of the socialist principles Che held sacred". Across Cuba, Guevara's execution of Cuban defectors is unheard of, while shopping centers such as Havana's Palacio de Artesanias thrive by selling everything from Coke-a-Cola to Adidas clothing. 'Return Of The Rebel' questions not only whether

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