Che Guevara: A Rockstar?

I was walking in the street when I heard the conversation
of two students;

Student 1: "Hey! Who's that guy in your shirt?"
Student 2: "You don't know him? duh.. He's a famous ROCK STAR dude!"
Student 1: "Really?! That's cool! Where can I buy one? "


The picture of a man in the shirt is referred to as the most popular photograph in the world. Its a photograph of Che Guevara. Almost everybody knows it's him. Almost everybody heard his name. But not all knew who he really was.

Public Domain Picture

Ernesto Guevara De La Serna is the real name of Che Guevara. He was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario Argentina. Guevara was the eldest of five children of Spanish-Irish descent, middle-class family.

Che Guevara studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. Aside from medicine, Guevara was also interested in exploring the world. He spent many of his time in travelling across Latin America through a motorcycle. Che made an account of this travel entitled "The Motorcycle Diaries". Through such journey, his eyes were opened to the reality of great poverty in Latin America. The masses were being victims of greedy capitalists. This observations changed the views of  Guevara towards political and socio-economic aspect of life. He believed that the only way to solve the problem was a violent revolution. He then began to change the status quo of Latin America.

Che Guevara went to Guatemala in 1953 and met Jacobo Arbenz who headed a social revolution. But this revolt was overthrown by U.S CIA in 1954. From Guatemala, Che went to Mexico where he met Fidel and Raul Castro (they're brothers), political exiles who were opposing the regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Together with Fidel Castro, they started the "Cuban Revolutionary War". Being an excellent diarist, Che recorded their struggles and victories in overthrowing Batista's regime in "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War". They established a Marxist Government in January 2 1959 after winning Havana. Che Guevara became a famous figure in Cuban revolutionary war.

After the revolution, Che Guevara lived and became a citizen of Cuba. He served as the president of National Bank of Cuba, chief of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform. He became famous for his opposition of all types of imperialism and U.S. foreign policy. This can be traced in his writings in "Man and Socialism in Cuba". In 1965, Che Guevara dropped his public office and went to Congo. He went there together with other guerrilla fighters. They aided the Patrice Lumumba Battalion, which fought in Congo's civil war. On October 8, 1967, Che together with other guerrillas were defeated in battle by the Bolivian Army with the help of CIA. Che Guevara was captured and shot.

His death is not the end of story. Che Guevara became an icon of liberality and serves as an inspiration to many young leftist and radicals around the globe. And one thing is for sure, he's not a rock star!