Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a man of the heart, not the mind. More reactionary than revolutionary, Guevara followed his passion for humanity with an admirable integrity, however misguided and shortsighted it was.
Because of his revolutionary spirit, Guevara’s legacy is one worthy of recollection during this era of dictatorial dominoes.
Upon such recollection, however, modern Middle Eastern revolutionaries will see exactly what not to do thanks to the failure of Guevara’s idealism.
Guevara assumed the position of guerilla warrior after bearing witness to the endemic poverty of 1950s Latin America. The brutal working conditions he found fueled a hatred for the United States and its capitalist businesses sprawled about the region.
Like today’s Middle Eastern oil trade, the American economy was heavily entrenched in Latin America at the time. After the Guatemalan government’s expropriation of land from the American United Fruit Company, followed by a takedown of the government led by the CIA, Guevara divined that the only means of establishing freedom was through violent revolutions a la Karl Marx.
Time would tell his services only proved valuable during necessary revolutions, however, and his atrocious handling of real government issues in Cuba as the minister of finance demonstrated the inadequacies of his idealism.
His philosophy would procure resentment from the Middle Eastern revolutionaries of today for a number of reasons.
Unlike Guevara, current revolutions across the Atlantic Ocean were not begun in reaction to the American way of life but were instead inspired by it. Free enterprise is the ideal, not the scapegoat. The dictatorships that have fallen did have their hands in business, but their subjects are smart enough to see that capitalism is a system abused — the masses have recognized their leaders’ malpractices.
The men and women of the Middle East are far more culturally aware than the poor for whom Guevara fought and died. They have seen the promise of free enterprise and strive not for the means of survival but for the means to excel however their individual ability would allow them.
For these reasons, Guevara’s politics would only sway those concerned with the bare minimum lifestyle because that is all his policy would guarantee — from each according to his ability and to each according to his need.
Unbeknownst to him, in idealizing humankind, Guevara ironically reduced it to the status of an animal.
When Guevara was assigned operation of Cuba’s economy, he put this mentality into practice. All land was taken from the “big bad corporations” and doled out evenly among the populace. Every person was assigned an amount to feed his fellow men.
When workers produced more than required, Guevara awarded them moral commendation rather than fiscal compensation. This policy resulted in American refusal to do business with Cuba — Guevara had seized American land — and the people’s refusal as well. Who would choose to work when necessity is the only determinant of one’s earnings?
The 21st century generation wants more.
This generation wants more than a guarantee of survival. It wants the guarantee of opportunity and self-fulfillment through work. Such fulfillment is impossible when a man’s excellence has no bearing on his reward.
Guevara’s preachy emotional arguments hold neither water nor relevance. He proclaimed money to be a vile and class-stratifying evil while failing to recognize a human being’s desire for objective self-value.
Humans want reward, yet Guevara’s system promised to take the most from those who produced in excess while rationing the fruits of labor to the inept. Only the man with neither dignity nor self-esteem would buy into a system that punished him for his ability.
Thankfully, Fidel Castro was ignorant enough to place Guevara’s ideology on the world stage so we could see how impossible his aspirations would prove. Thanks to Castro, our generation knows better.
Humans are more than mouths to feed.
Clayton Crockett is a 19-year-old international studies freshman from Lafayette. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_ccrockett.
 
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Contact Clayton Crockett at [email protected]