Rosario is Argentina’s second-largest city. Located by the Paraná river, it is the home of hard-working people, a busy port, the national flag memorial, and the country’s bitterest football rivalry between Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys.
Unfortunately, it is also the birthplace of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara.
In the last fifteen years or so, coincidentally with the rise of leftist populism in Argentina and the rest of South America, there have been plenty of tributes to the figure of “Ché.” All of these tributes are state-financed, one way or the other. The most prominent is a 4-meter high statue placed in a public square.
Fundación Bases has its main headquarters in Rosario. Teaming up with the Naumann Foundation, we launched a campaign to remove all the state tributes to “Ché” Guevara. We knew this would generate controversy, but we didn’t expect the level of reaction that has occurred.
Ché Guevara in a nutshell
So, who was this “Ché” Guevara? Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, globally known as “Ché,” came from an aristocratic, though impoverished, family. He studied medicine, and when he was about to finish university, he took an initiatory trip across Latin America. In some of the places he visited he saw harsh realities and even exploitation. This part of his life made it to the big screen, starred by the then-Latin sensation Gael García Bernal.
Nonetheless, he wasn’t a communist yet. As Juan José Sebreli explains, he was more adventurous, looking for a cause, whatever cause this might be. In fact, he was planning to go to Europe when he met the Castro brothers in Mexico in 1955. He joined them and became a revolutionary for the “liberation” of Cuba.
Under the command of Fidel Castro, “Ché” achieved his only military victory. All his other revolutionary adventures were disastrous and eventually got him killed. However, during the Cuban struggle, he was quickly known for his cruelty and violence. He executed many during the conflict and once the revolution got into power. He not only precisely described how he blew some poor bastard’s brains out but also acknowledged at the United Nations General Assembly that his government executed many and would continue executing as long as it was “necessary.”
He was also responsible for opening the first Cuban concentration camp — where homosexuals and Christians were tortured and re-educated.
Moreover, he believed hate was the most powerful force and was an admirer of Joseph Stalin.
As a public official, he was president of Cuba’s central bank and minister of industry. In both roles, he failed miserably. As a central banker, he basically destroyed the Cuban peso — which had been at parity with the US dollar for many decades. As an industry planner, his administration was so chaotic that they even bought snow removal machines for a Caribbean country like Cuba…
The regime “Ché” helped establish in Cuba is one of the most authoritarian in the world. Since the revolution’s triumph in 1959, more than 10,000 have been killed, 80,000 have died at sea trying to escape the island, and 1.5 million have had to migrate forcefully.
Murderers? No, thank you.
With all this in mind, Fundación Bases launched the campaign “Remove all tributes to ‘Ché’ Guevara.” We are asking the city government to eliminate the plethora of state tributes that have mushroomed in the last fifteen years.
We know it will be challenging to achieve this because the same politicians who started this “Ché” industry are still in power. But we also know we are starting a conversation and a necessary debate.
We want kids who wear “Ché” T-Shirts to know that he’s not an article of fashion but a cold killing machine. Wearing a T-Shirt with his face is the same as wearing one with Stalin, Mao, or Hitler.
Moreover, we want to explain to the people in our city that this “Ché” cult is a falsification of history. Not only do the local authorities who have raised him the level of pagan saint neglect to mention all his well-documented crimes, but he has also done nothing for Argentina. In fact, he only lived in Rosario until the age of one.
The general public’s reaction to our campaign has been spectacular. Our posts on social media are highly retweeted and shared. What’s more, the comments sections of the articles posted in media are usually 65 percent in favor of our view. Our online petition has thousands of signatures.
Of course, it would have been impossible to escape some hysterical leftist reactions. We have been called all names you can imagine, from “neoliberals” to “neonazis.”
We have received death threats and some other very sick wishes. For instance, a commentator on Facebook hoped for the arrival of a communist dictatorship to make us all disappear. “Ché” Guevara could not have said it better.
* Federico N. Fernández is Executive Director at Somos Innovación (a Latin American pro-innovation alliance) and CEO at We Are Innovation (Somos Innovación’s sister organization for Europe). Federico is Founder and President of Fundación Internacional Bases (Rosario, Argentina) and also the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the International Conference “The Austrian School of Economics in the 21st Century,” which takes place in Europe and LatAm alternatively.
Source: Fundación Internacional Bases
