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Che vs Pinochet?
A friend of mine went to Cuba, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. It was one with this classic Che Guevara picture, with beret and all. Revolution, romanticism and a sexy-looking young man. That is all you need to be cool these days, it seems.
I have never worn it, though. Not that I do not want to look cool, I have just always been appalled by popular culture's choice of icons. I don't have a problem with icons, or with popular culture for that matter. It is just that I do not understand the idolization of murderers. Every time I see a picture of Che I ask myself: how would I look in a t-shirt picturing Augusto Pinochet?
Most people are shocked by the comparison. One man is dragged in front of courts in a wheel-chair, and his crimes are reported in the press over and over again, whereas the other one is the lover boy of, what it seems, much of an entire generation. Most recently he was portrayed in the blockbuster film Motorcycle Diaries.
Let us therefore look back at the legacy of the two men. Both Che and Pinochet are obviously murderers and in favour of dictatorship. But one helped installed a dictatorship that has led to poverty whereas the other one ran a dictatorship that brought wealth and stability to the country. In 1975, the Chilean GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power, was $1,321 (current international dollars). In 2003 it was $10,206. The average income of Chileans has thus been multiplied by almost eight in 28 years. Chile is now a stable democracy and the most prosperous country of South America. Cuba has gone in the opposite direction.
(True, Che Guevara did not run Cuba, but he was a buddy of Castro's and a proponent of the same kind of economic system and dictatorship. And, if you don't like the comparison, exchange Che for Fidel, who is also pictured in popular culture contexts around the world, however to a lesser extent).
So, leftists would say, economic growth is not everything. Cuba still works when it comes to health and education, for example. But Chile's economic growth has brought the country well ahead of Cuba in the UNDP's Human Development Index, the ranking most Cuba lovers tend to use to play down the worldwide success of capitalism.
I hate oppressors. And I have no mercy for dictators. And I don't like to be forced to choose between two evils. But if I had to, it would be an easy choice: Murder, torture and poverty versus murder, torture and poverty eradication? Therefore I plead to clothing manufacturers around the world: who wants to sell me a Pinochet t-shirt? I would not wear it with pride, but it would be a pleasure to provoke people and to display the absurdity of the Che idolatry.
I think you forget the most important thing of all; Pinochet did hand over his power back to democratical order!!! Possibly the only dictator in history who has done that!! Don´t forget; Pinochet wasnt a powerhorny dictatoraspirant, he did what he did because of the emerging socialistic dictatorship, when you recognize that, it is not that hard to understand why he brought Chile back to democracy, thus, i actually would wear a tshirt with his facelogo with pride, though the atrocities that occurred during his era do trouble me but again; according to Amnesty Int. the atrocities compared to Cuba is 1:4, Fidel & Co. did kill 4 times more people and that includes liberals, intellectuals, socaildemocrats, homosexuals etc where Pinochet & Co. mostly went after people who´s agenda was to impose a socialist regim, do one really have to feel sorry for them?
ReplyDeleteKafir, you are, of course, correct. Pinochet at least allowed Chile to go back to democratic rule and, far from taking its economy back to the Stone Age, left a country with both feet firmly planted in the path to sustained economic growth.
ReplyDeleteBut the region has had too many authoritarian experiments. We must understand that democracy and the Rule of Law is the only way to go.