More Than a T-Shirt Image
--from Che Guevara.com

Yahoo! News had a good article on Saturday about how that iconic image of Che Guevara has endured for so long. You recognize it over there on the left.

Or the print image used on the T-shirts there on the right.

One paragraph in the story was interesting:

Part political statement and part fashion statement, the image sometimes overshadows the man, as one T-shirt wryly acknowledges. Below the photo, a caption on the shirt reads: "I have no idea who this is."

The article also mentions this kind of send-up of the image:


for which Stephen Van Dyke at Hammer of Truth got some negative reactions.

There remains something about Che that is mysterious and mystical. Part of that is of course he never aged. He died a revolutionary martyr's death which also adds a certain charisma. There's something also about a man trained as a doctor, travelling about on a motorcycle gets radicalized and ends up being a revolutionary.

Myths are always interesting. They say more about those who support them than the person portrayed. Perhaps people are looking for a hero. Perhaps others are looking for a statement of revolution. Others may just like the image with that stare that looks more like a thousand mile stare into uncertainty than the power that it is supposed to portray.

I have to admit that Che has always intrigued me. Back in the 60s his image became the image of defiance to the establishment. Time has taught me, anyway, that such defiance more often leads to death and destruction. Not that the establishment doesn't need to be defied sometimes, challenged to be more compassionate and open. But the way of the gun and violence only leads to more violence and death, often of the innocent and unwitting.

Under it all, perhaps one of the people interviewed in the article gives us a hint why some people still wear the image:

"I realize the dark side. I've read about it. People talk about it," he says. But he's still keeping his Che T-shirt, even if he's not "a 100 percent fan."

"He chose to fight on. I don't think you really see that today," he says of Guevara. "I know at his age, I wasn't changing the world."