Write Your Own Do Dow

How has reading The Motorcycle Diaries changed your impression of Che Guevara? After hearing Che's account of the living conditions and oppressed people in South America, have you been able to justify any of his motives and/or actions? If everyone in the United States read this book, would Che still be viewed as one of South America's most infamous villains?

Colombia and Venezuela

"Revolution is impersonal; it will take their lives, even utilizing their memory as an example or as an instrument for domesticating the youth who follow them." (164)

You will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle..." (164)

"...the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions." (164)

"I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people." (164)

"I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, the enemy's death; I steel my boy, ready to do battle, and prepare myself to be a sacred space within which the bestial howl of the triumphant proletariat can resound with new energy and new hope." (165)



The picture above alludes to the first and last quotes because Che is very prepared to fight for his beliefs, just like the soldiers shown from the movie 300. Both the army in the movie and Che were very determined to protect their countries and their ways of life from being overtaken by invading groups of people. This image is parallel to these quotations for its depiction of determination and willingness to conserve a group of people.



The picture above is from the Dr. Seuss story The Sneetches in which there are two groups of Sneetches that live completely divided because the star-bellied sneetches feel that they are superior to the non-star bellied sneetches. This picture alludes to the fourth quotation in which Che talks about humanity being divided into two antagonistic halves. The Sneetches' greed clearly inhibits their development and further divides them as a species, which is parallel to the situation that Che tries to correct in Latin America.

Peru Diction Quiz

Peru was probably the most unique country that Ernesto visited thus far, as it gave both Ernesto and Alberto a significant glimpse into the lives of the native people. Since much of Peru’s population is indigenous, the country is very clearly divided by language, culture, architecture, and history. Witnessing cultural division in Peru helped Ernesto to make a huge leap in his young life by ultimately leading to him coming very close to having his epiphany and realizing his life’s purpose.

Upon arriving in Peru, Ernesto and Alberto were confronted with great hospitality. Many of the Peruvians were curious about life in Argentina, and Ernesto described it as an ALLURING country, “where Peron lived with his wife Evita, where the poor have as much as the rich, and the Indian isn’t exploited…” (91). From the very moment that Ernesto arrived in Peru, it was evident that the poor state of the natives was DISQUIETING to Ernesto. By painting a wonderful picture of his country in their minds, he hoped to provide them with a shred of hope.

Arriving in Cuzco was one of the most important parts of Ernesto’s journey through Peru. Cuzco was once a city built as a fort by the Incas, simply to provide SUSTENANCE or preservation for a people in danger of invaders. Despite its original purpose as a fort, Cuzco was actually a very artfully crafted city, which contained several IDYLLIC walls and structures built by the Incas many years ago. Although the Incans proved their intelligence in their architecture, their empire was certainly not INTERMINABLE. Once the European settlers arrived, the Incans were BEREAVED of much of their land and many of their structures were RAZED. Ernesto states that the descendents of white settlers admire Cuzco because it was valiantly overtaken by their European ancestors. However, Ernesto’s narration contains several TIRADES about the unfairness and injustice that had BEFALLEN in this ancient city.

After visiting Cuzco, Ernesto and Alberto move on to Machu Picchu, meaning “old Mountain” in Quechua. Machu Picchu is IRREFUTABLY the most glorified site of Incan ruins, and according to Ernesto, attracts many tourists that believe the country has nothing else to offer. During his visit to Machu Picchu, Ernesto finds it ENIGMATIC that European settlers could take a glorious native settlement and turn it into the towns that cover the countryside to day over the course of just a few hundred years. Machu Picchu was yet another indicator of a long history of an oppressed race.

The final stage of Ernesto and Alberto’s stay in Peru was their time in the leper colony. Ernesto sought to change the ways of the colony in which the lepers live in isolation from the doctors. By initiating in games of soccer with the patients and befriending them, Ernesto provided some much needed change for the staff and patients alike. Before they set off on the Mambo-Tango, Ernesto and Alberto were thrown a farewell party in which Ernesto made a toast to a “United Latin America,” which, according to Ernesto, was received with praise.

At the end of this section, Ernesto exposes that he is beginning to reach his epiphany through his desire to bridge the severe cultural gaps and live as one united country. Although Ernesto truly impacted many of the natives and patients he encountered in Peru, the impact that Peru left as a whole on him was still greater.

Essential Question #2

Ernesto wanted to become someone who could affect change in not only his own country, but in all of Latin America. He wanted the world around him to be more equal and for the gap in wealth between the rich and the poor to be eliminated. Che's journey helped him realize this goal by exposing him to other countries within South America and the various indigenous cultures. Once he realized that the same problems of oppression and exploitation existed within multiple countries, he made it his own goal to initiate change and bring the hope of a better life for the native people.
Che's sympathy for the natives first became noticeable in Chile, when he saw the dying asthma patient who could not survive due to her family's lack of money and whose poor health was a burden on her whole community. Despite Che's prior experience in medical school, he knew that no amount of medical training could alleviate conditions such as these that progress as a consequence of a poor financial state. Seeing the mines in Chile also impacted Che in a similar way. White settlers were not only destroying the landscape in their decision to utilize the mines, but they were also taking valuable land away from the natives, thus driving them further into poverty and a difficult state of living.

Chile

(image source: http://www.studyabroadinternational.com)

In Vaparaiso, Chile (shown above), Che sees a dying asthma patient that clearly has an impact on his outlook on life. He describes her as having been in a pitiful state and weezing, yet doing everything in her power to maintain her dignity. Instead of believing that this was simply an unfortunate disease that anyone could have been afflicted with, Che presumes that this woman's condition is partially a result of her family's poor financial state. After observing her condition, Che comments, "...individuals in poor families who can't pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony... and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life" (Guevara, 70). Che believes that not only does her family's lack of money prevent her from getting proper care, but it deems her as a very costly liability and too much of a burden on those who are still living healthy lives. Che goes on to say that "It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over" (70). This passage suggests that this same scenario exists not only in Chile or South America, but in the lower classes all over the world. Che's last comments about his visit with this patient revoke the "absurd idea of caste" and indicate that it is time for the government to spend much more money funding socially useful works.

This is the first event in the book that Che uses great detail to describe his sympathy for the oppressed lower classes and his anger that poor families appear to be in the same oppressed situations regardless of the country or region of the world. After his visit with this woman, Che took his anger one step further to criticize the government, claiming that it spends too much time publicizing its own virtues instead of using its money to prevent situations like these. These situations that provoked Che's criticism of governments would eventually lead to the determined revolutionary reader he would become.

Apples to Apples

The New York Times article entitled "US Unit Secretly in Pakistan Lends Ally Support" describes US actions that are very similar to what Che began to do in Bolivia because in both cases there is a force that believes that a certain group of people would live better under a different system of government. However, one difference between the two scenarios is that the US is rebelling against a group that deliberately attacked them, whereas Che was leading troops in Bolivia against the government when he was not directly affected by the conflict. I think that we have been led to believe that there is a huge difference between the US actions in the Middle East and Che's actions in Bolivia because of the American propaganda against communism that deems Che's actions as terrible to the well-being of South America. Although I agree that Che's revolutions in Bolivia, the Congo, etc were not beneficial to these countries because of the killing of countless people, I do not think the US actions in Iraq are excusable either because civilians in the Middle East are being killed as well.

Argentina

"One morning the doctor didn't shake his head in the usual way. That was enough. Within the hour we were gone, heading west toward our next destination - the lakes. The bike struggled, showing signs it was feeling the strain, especially in the bodywork which we constantly had to fix with Alberto's favorite spare part - wire." (41)

This quotation summarizes Ernesto's determination through the voice that he uses. He emphasizes that he and Alberto left as soon as possible, without absolute confirmation from the doctor, suggesting that continuing their travels was more important to Ernesto than his own health. He also talks about La Poderosa as if its struggles do not bother him at all, but that they are instead just a part of the whole journey.

"On camp beds, the only beds we'd know from now on, and lying beside La Poderosa, our snail-like dwelling, we still looked into the future with impatient joy. We seemed to breathe more freely, a lighter air, an air of adventure. Distant countries, heroic deeds and beautiful women spun around and around in our turbulent imaginations." (40)

Ernesto's voice in this passage almost suggests that he takes pride in the fact that he and Alberto will only have access to camp beds for the next few months. Despite La Poderosa's lack of functioning, they are still very excited and full of anticipation for what they may encounter on the rest of their journey. In mentioning their "turbulent imaginations," Ernesto suggests that they had a very idealistic view of what this journey might hold for them (heroic deeds, etc), which is something that will definitely change as they continue their journey in order for Ernesto to reach his epiphany.

Ideology

Throughout the documentary, it is very obvious that Che has distinct values that he is willing to die to defend; however, I really don't think I have any ideals that I believe in nearly as strongly as Che. Just like much of the rest of society, I value honesty, integrity, and several other basic ideals, but I am definitely not willing to go to the same lengths as Che to enforce them. Even though I believe that these values are important, I do not believe that my values should be forced upon others, which was what Che intended to do by liberating Cuba with Castro.

El Che Reaction #1

From the documentary yesterday, it jumped out at me how renowned Che was in Cuba. I knew that he was a national hero for helping Fidel rise to power; however, I was not aware that the people glorified him at such a high level. I also was not aware that he was born into an upper class family in Argentina. It was shocking to me how he chose to lead a completely different life that what he was born into or what was expected from him. The amount of exposure that Che had to political activism and revolutions over the course of the few years after he got graduated from medical school was also very surprising and obviously helped him to determine and dictate how he wanted to live his life.

Timeline Post

The Motorcycle Diaries will be similar to Easy Rider in that throughout his journey, Che will see a variety of poeple across South America, their struggles, and how society has changed over time. Part of the change that Che will view in this novel will be how society is becoming more developed and how this has had a huge negative effect on the indigenous people. This will lead him to consider some of the same ideas presented in Das Kapital that capitalism is ultimately bad for society. In Das Kapital, Marx talks about the exploitation and alienation of labor, which Che will see in his journey as he witnesses the difficulty in living as an indigenous South American in modern day society. At the end of the book, Che will likely conclude that Marx's ideas are ideal because they will allow for a more moral society in which everyone has a fair chance to become prosperous. He will also desire a united South America in which everyone peacefully co-exists, and much of the struggle that comes with commerce and capitalism is eliminated.

Bio and Intro Post

From this type of book, I would expect Che to express his observations much more than his opinions. In order to best communicate the effect of his journey, Che will probably describe the landscape and the people he encounters in great detail throughout the book, and through the observations he chooses to express, the readers will be able to see his growth through his discoveries. In the end of the book, Che will probably be slightly more straightforward with his opinions, but throughout a majority of the book his opinions will probably be kept more subtle.
In The Great Gatsby and Invisible Man, Ellison and Fitzgerald wrote the story based on how they wanted the protagonists to grow, but in this case, the plot and the course of the novel will dictate how the protagonist grows. In this book, each event may not have as much significance as in the previous two novels that we have read this year, but instead, some events may be less important and only minor contributers to his growth in the long run.
The first preface by Che's daughter expressed a lot more pride and admiration for her father as a young man; however, his wife chose to take a much more neutral stance in writing the second preface. Hers was much shorter and much more objective, expressing only a summary of what will happen in the book and how his character changes instead of incorporating her own opinion and relating the book to her own knowledge of Che.

Glenn Beck Video

In the video, Glenn Beck expresses his shock and disgust at the public's ignorance to who Che Guevara actually was. He describes Guevara as a "cold-blooded killer" and a "Stalin wannabe," and he condemns the public for wearing Che icons without truly knowing who he was. Beck emphasizes that Guevara was part of a Stalinist regime, helped put Castro in power, and yet somehow got the western media to buy into his "legend." Anyone viewing this video would be shocked at the public's huge misconception of Che; however, this video fails to mention Che's past in which he expressed a genuine concern for the indigenous people. Che's good intentions in his early life do not compensate for his acts as an executioner; however, it is difficult to formulate an opinion from this video because it is hard to tell what else this video is leaving out about Che's life.