Che Guevara Statue Spurs Controversy in Ireland

[shakur420]

Che Guevara statue spurs controversy in Ireland







An Irish city's plan to erect a monument to the revolutionary icon has piqued conservatives.

Leeds, United Kingdom - The normally peaceful city of Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, has recently been making the news due to the polemical decision of its city council to build a monument to Ernesto "Che" Guevara. The decision has been based on the fact that Guevara, a descendant of the Lynch clan, was himself partly Irish. This attempt to celebrate Guevara's Irish heritage has been met with resistance in some conservative quarters within Ireland, and subsequently in the United States.

First, Irish businessman and campaigner Declan Ganley suggested the monument would drive away tourism from Galway - an unlikely outcome, as it is well-known that Che Guevara's image is found among the most popular merchandise in the world. Then, Yale-based academic Carlos Eire and Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lethinen added their voices to Ganley's and requested that, since Guevara was a murderer and a war criminal, the Irish should scrap the project altogether and, in the words of the latter, build instead a monument to "the enslaved Cuban people".

One can only wonder, why this opposition all of a sudden? More importantly, do they have a point?

Ernesto Guevara, better known as "Che", was a guerrilla fighter and one of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Soon after coming to power, Guevara was in charge of carrying out a number of executions - some accounts mention hundreds - of people that the new Cuban leadership considered to be "enemies of the revolution".

Although it is true that Guevara seemed to have no qualms about carrying out this gruesome task, his entire contribution to the history of the modern world should not be defined solely by this dark episode; and especially not so by taking the event out of context to demonise him, as Ganley, Eire, and Ros-Lethinen have done.

Before anybody jumps to conclusions, let me start by saying that as a pionero, growing up in revolutionary Cuba in the late 1970s and early 1980s I was subjected to all sorts of propaganda about Guevara - we were all expected to repeat every day at school the motto "pioneers for Communism; we'll be like Che". As a result, and understandably, I have never been particularly fond of the man.

As a historian, however, I am deeply aware that Guevara was much more than a grotesque criminal, as it has been suggested. Revolutions are by nature violent events, and those who oppose them are frequently at the end of that violence. By this measure, Washington, Toussaint, and Bolivar could all be considered war criminals if we look at their records - and yet, they all have monuments built to their memory in the United States. Their hands never trembled while giving orders to execute the enemies of the revolutions they led. Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to justify Guevara's actions, but I do think that they must be examined within the historical context in which they took place.

Besides the executions that seem to steal all the limelight these days, Guevara was also a committed revolutionary who, early in his life, came to realise that poverty and repression were rife in the continent where he was born. He was radicalised in 1954 when a CIA-sponsored coup d'etat in Guatemala deposed democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz.

Contrary to the one-dimensional opinions of Ganley, Eire, and Ros-Lethinen, and in the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, he went on to become "an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom". In Cuba, he was behind some of the most progressive measures taken by the revolutionary government, including agrarian reform in 1959 and a literacy campaign in 1961. Eventually, after assembling an unsuccessful guerrilla force against Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, he went to Bolivia, where he was assassinated, reportedly on the orders of President Rene Barrientos - and under the apparent approving supervision of CIA agent Felix Rodriguez.

Was Guevara an executioner of those he considered threats or traitors to the Cuban Revolution? Yes, but let's not forget, he also became a hero to many around the world. It should not be taken lightly that well-respected figures such as Mandela, Jean Paul Sartre, Graham Greene, Sunsan Sontag, and Christopher Hitchens have written about his impact on the contemporary world, and that poets Pablo Neruda, Rafael Alberti, Julio Cortazar and Derek Walcott have published works in tribute to him and his legacy.

Ultimately, as Miami-based Cuban-American scholar Uva de Aragon has suggested, we will have to wait "many years for history to deliver a definite judgement on Che, when the passions of both sides have passed". Those Cuban-American public figures trying to meddle with the Galway City Council decisions should take a step back and think again. The man and his legacy cannot be defined by a blunt "good and evil" perspective.


Grey moral grounds

Professor Eire's letter to the Irish Nation constitutes an archetypical example of how to bend history to satisfy one's views. He called the project "monstrous" and rubbished the opinions of those "who think highly of Che" by comparing them with "Holocaust deniers". Maybe Professor Eire is not aware of Godwin's law - if you use Hitler or the Holocaust in an unrelated argument, you automatically forfeit the argument - or maybe he is, and still could not resist the temptation of comparing Guevara's actions with Hitler's. In any case, his hyperbolic assessment goes a long way to showing the lack of objective judgement shown by those who passionately loathe Guevara's figure and legacy.

While I disagree with Professor Eire's intervention in what I believe should be an Irish affair, I still respect his opinion. Nevertheless, I do believe that he should refrain from using the phrase "We Cubans" in future writings, because it erroneously gives the impression that all Cubans agree with him, which is not the case. The Irish should know that Professor Eire may speak for himself and on behalf of a number of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, but he certainly does not speak on my behalf, or on behalf of many of the Cubans I know.

More difficult to digest are Ileana Ros-Lethinen's arguments, considering her own positions about themes such as terrorism and executions. Here is a US Republican congresswoman whose own definitions of terrorism and crime are blurred, to say the least. Here is a woman who not once, but twice welcomed any assassination attempt of Fidel Castro during an interview with the British makers of the documentary 638 Ways to Kill Castro.

Here is a woman who, in the 1980s, campaigned for the release of confessed and convicted (by none other than the US government) Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, the mastermind behind the terrorist attack that destroyed Cubana Flight 455 on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 passengers and crew upon take-off from Barbados. Here is a woman who lobbied the George W Bush administration for the release of Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz, both of whom had been convicted for the assassination, also in 1976, of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, an opponent of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

No wonder Ann Louise Bardach, writing for the Washington Post a few years ago, called the environment fomented by Ros-Lethinen in Miami "a peculiar ecosystem" where "the definition of terrorism is a pliable one: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter".

If the Irish are going to take advice from anyone, they should certainly think twice before taking it from this Cuban-American congresswoman or any of her cronies. As a matter of fact, the Irish, and Galway City Council in particular, should be able to decide whether to build the monument or not without allowing any foreign interests to meddle in their internal affairs.

It is not for Cuban Americans, Cubans, or Argentineans to decide what the good people of Galway should do. It is for them to weigh the pros and the cons, and to discuss why and how to deal with the issue. Whatever they do, Guevara's face will continue to appear upon tourist merchandise around the world, and his figure and legacy will still provoke all sorts of controversy and opinions. Somehow, I think he would be proud of the reactions of Ganley, Eire, and Ros-Lethinen; after all, they are naively putting him in the place he liked best: on the battleground against his enemies.


March 30, 2012
Manuel Barcia
Al Jazeera

[Just Jim]

I don't agree with everything our county council do but the attraction to Eyre Square has died down a bit in the last few years with little attempt to revive one of Galway's main tourist spots. As far as I know, they want to build the statue in Eyre Square which I think would be brilliant, it's new and controversial(unfortunately) and people will come to see it. So if we take every other reasoning behind it's erection away, we get a well needed tourism boost in the west coast.

I'm going to e-mail the council today, and get a few more to do the same in support of their idea.

Also


Michael Collins was a revolutionary for Ireland, he killed people when it was needed and he is seen as an Irish hero.

[Younes]

Urgh, Ileana Ros-Lethinen...

[1871]

Quote:If the Irish are going to take advice from anyone, they should certainly think twice before taking it from this Cuban-American congresswoman or any of her cronies. As a matter of fact, the Irish, and Galway City Council in particular, should be able to decide whether to build the monument or not without allowing any foreign interests to meddle in their internal affairs.

It is not for Cuban Americans, Cubans, or Argentineans to decide what the good people of Galway should do. It is for them to weigh the pros and the cons, and to discuss why and how to deal with the issue. Whatever they do, Guevara's face will continue to appear upon tourist merchandise around the world, and his figure and legacy will still provoke all sorts of controversy and opinions. Somehow, I think he would be proud of the reactions of Ganley, Eire, and Ros-Lethinen; after all, they are naively putting him in the place he liked best: on the battleground against his enemies.

or from foreign so-called lefties. (Or the so called left in alliance with the right domestically )

Che Guevara monument would ‘shame the people of Galway and Ireland’


28/02/1213,696 Views 171 Comments
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The iconic image of Che Guevara by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda that was used by Jim Fitzpatrick for his portrait in 1968.

Image: Franklin Reyes/AP/Press Association Images

THE PROPOSAL TO erect a monument to the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Galway city has been heavily criticised by the businessman Declan Ganley.

It was reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend that Galway city council are considering a proposal to erect a monument commemorating the Marxist guerrilla who helped Fidel Castro to seize power in Cuba in 1959, power he retains to this day.

The paper reported that the embassies of Cuba and Argentina, where Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was born, will help fund the art project celebrating the links Guevara has with Galway through his grandmother who was a descendant of the local Lynch family.

But Ganley, the founder of the Libertas political party which came to prominence during the Lisbon treaty referendum, has said the proposal is a ”pet project of a small number of extremists in the Labour Party”.

The Galway-based entrepreneur describes Guevara as a “mass-murderer” and says that commemorating him in this way will damage the reputation of Galway internationally.

“I actually first heard about this proposal during a trip to the United States last week, when the issue was raised with me by members of the American business community. To say that they are shocked to see Galway considering a step like this would be an understatement,” he claimed.

He said that a Labour councillor, who he did not name, was proposing a partnership with the Cuban regime – currently headed by Castro’s brother Raul – to raise the €90,000 needed to build the monument which would be based on the iconic print of Guevara by Dublin artist Jim Fitzpatrick.

However the Sunday Times reported that the Argentine and Cuban embassies plan to launch a global fundraising initiative that would pay for the monument which would then be gifted to the city of Galway.

“This monument will damage Galway. It will make us less attractive for investment. It will drive away tourism. It will pour salt in he wounds of those this man tortured, kidnapped, maimed and killed,” Ganley said.

“It would be a monument to the insensitivity and ignorance of those who dreamt it up, and it would shame the people of Galway and Ireland.”

One of the councillors reported to be behind the campaign for the monument, Labour’s Billy Cameron, did not return TheJournal.ie‘s request for comment.

http://www.thejournal.ie/che-guevara-mon...0-Feb2012/

Re Collins can look after himself. Fuck Labour anyway. Trying to deflect attention from Barry and his men. Shame on them.
Let the Cubans fund a statue to them - far more relevant. They should have no objection. Ireland has its own home grown heros it could honour first.

[Asshole]

[1871]

[Coggeh]

I'm from Ireland and this thing has been blown way out of proportion by the mass media! the vast vast majority of Irish people either support a Che statue in
Galway or don't care about it.

Edit: Declan Ganley is a weapons dealer for the US Military. His group "Libertas" have 0 seats in the Irish parliament, or in the local councils or anywhere nobody cares what he says!

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(04-03-2012 11:27 AM)Just Jim Wrote:  Michael Collins was a revolutionary for Ireland, he killed people when it was needed and he is seen as an Irish hero.

You must be joking. Michael Collins was Scum to the highest order he betrayed the Irish people when he signed that treaty. He also founded Cumman Na Gaedhael a party which joined with the Fascist Blueshirts (named after hitlers brownshirts) to form Fine Gael. If your looking for Irish revolutionaries look no further than James Connolly Or Jim Larkin
:

[1871]

Collins is scum based on what? The fascist blueshirts werent based on the brownshirts but fought in the Civil War in Spain.

Shame on you you didnt give a thumbs up to Barry. What about Leslie Price ?

The vast vast majority of Irish dont support a Che statue. Most dont give a fuck. Lots of Irish are against it. There are plenty of Irish freedom fighters that could be commemorated. What about a statue of the Queen everyone loves her there now.

Obviously not a Cork woman then!

[Patrick Bateman]

I don't get it. Why would Ireland put up a statue of Che? Shouldn't they be erecting statues of local heroes?
The statue would be so out of place.

[ClichéGuevara]

It's cause of what dude symbolises. Look at Ireland's history with Britain and it'll make sense.

[Just Jim]

what Sean said....PLUS, more of a reason for foreigners to come to Galway.

Anyway I haven't heard anything on this for a while, not that I read the local newspaper but...doesn't look like it'll happen.

[Patrick Bateman]

Doesn't Ireland have its own heroes that represent the same thing. Ireland has a massive history, their must be at least one person who represents something of a similar nature to Che.