Don’t be a DouChe’

My office is near several colleges and universities here in Chicago and I often see young, impressionable students congregating on the sidewalk wearing the emblematic Che’ T-shirts, glorifying the life of a mass murder. What exactly were the fruits of Che’s revolcion? “A typical Ché t-shirt costs more than the entire monthly salary of a Cuban worker, which is an average of roughly US$17.00.”

Seeing one of those T-shirts today reminded me of this document from the Cuba Archive. Some indelible quotes from that document:

A harsh disciplinarian even with his own troops, Ché played a leading or supporting role in the summary execution of at least 21 persons in the Sierra Maestra; at least one shot by his own hand. The victims were usually local peasants accused of collaborating with the Batista army, generally as informants.

[...]

Other subordinates in the tribunals have reported that he would admonish them: ‘Do not delay the proceedings. This is a revolution. Do not use bourgeois legal methods; evidence is secondary. We must proceed to convict.’ They have testified that he would lecture them: ‘There is no need for much inquiry to execute anyone. We only need to know if they should be executed -nothing else.’

[...]

Aside from trampling on the right to life, Ché also advocated and inflicted repression of many more fundamental rights. His uncompromising approach required the subjugation of the Cuban population. Brutalizing and silencing opponents and dissenters were, in his view, key elements for success.

[...]

Those who idolize Ché cannot even claim that he was a visionary of a better world that was constructed by his inspiration. In fact, the debacle he left in his wake lasts to this day and has left Cuba in ruins, its people impoverished. From having the highest socio-economic indicators in Latin America in 1958, Cuba has steadily declined into one of the poorest countries in the world. Today, Cuba‘s GDP per capita is barely ahead of only Haiti in the Americas, and perhaps only because Cuba‘s methodology to calculate GDP ignores standard practice. A typical Ché t-shirt costs more than the entire monthly salary of a Cuban worker, which is an average of roughly US$17.00.

If you want to idolize a revolutionary, you should start here. We all know the fruits of his revolution.

Here’s a better version of the Che’ T-shirt.

hasta la victoria siempre