“I wish Che’s face symbolized more than pimpled years of angst.”
David Tomas Martínez[1]
“The history of Latin America foreshadowed―almost in the religious sense of the term―a figure like Che Guevara.”
Enrique Krauze[2]
When kids suddenly appear in life, everything changes. The television, for example, ceases to be your own exclusive property. In our house, my wife sometimes indulges herself by watching her favorite telenovela while I put our two sons to bed. She loves the Brazilian shows on Telemundo, translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese. Depending on how exhausted the kids are that day, I usually catch most of the episode, attempting to follow along with my limited Spanglish. One of the main characters in the show A Regra do Jogo (Reglas del Juego in Spanish), played by Alexandre Nero, has a Ché Guevara poster featured in his living room. Nero portrays an edgy personality, who is putting up a front as a so-called man of the people. The Ché image catches my eye. What is the point of featuring Ché in the front room? How does this one image still hold so much symbolism for people?
The classic portrait of Ché still instills ideas of rebellion. However, Ché in a telenovela? The photo serves a point that, at first, I missed with my North American eyes. For example, in a USA sitcom, the image would most likely be identified with a young twenty-something college student who has not experienced the hard knocks of real life. The narrative would go something like this: “You know Ché fought with Castro, and Castro’s a dictator, so Ché stands for tyranny.” That is how the story usually goes in the US In fact, on an episode of the Netflix show One Day at a Time, a Cuban family living in Florida harangue their white friend for wearing the infamous Ché shirt. He thinks he is being an ally to Latino/a causes, but the family responds that Ché “burned books, personally banned music, personally oversaw executions – he’s a mass murderer!” The diatribe is a little on the nose when they make the analogy that wearing a Ché shirt around a Cuban American is like wearing a Hitler shirt around the Jews! Whatever one’s opinion about the show, it at least does not hide the point that the historical and heavily commercialized Ché should provoke some type of emotional response.[3]
There is no lost love for many Cuban Americans toward Ché. However, for many US Latino/as, his image remains iconic, sometimes handled with a holy reverence. Again, this might appear incomprehensible for some US Anglo’s, but recall that even Fidel Castro’s conversation about religion with priest Frei Betto became an international best seller.[4] Castro’s musings about religion with Betto was not the first-time theologians took notice. For example, if the reader is a little suspicious, note that even Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff was impressed with Castro’s theological comprehension.[5] On the one hand, Castro was a communist, a dictator who jailed writers; on the other hand, he was well read and articulate about Latin American liberation theology.
Writer Richard Rodríguez captures the way Latino/as were viewed by US families who circled around their television sets in the age of Kennedy’s Camelot:
By the time I Love Lucy went to divorce court, Desi Arnaz had been replaced on our television screens by Fidel Castro. Castro was a perverted hotblooded―he was a cold warrior―as was his Byronic sidekick, Ché. Our fantasy toyed for a time with what lay beneath the beards. When we eventually got a translation, we took fright. Bad wolf! Rhetoric too red for our fantasy.[6]
These two continue to be too red in the US.[7] Whereas Castro’s legacy is something that will be debated for decades as distance from the Cold War continues, there is something about Ché that remains inspiring for some. The history books already recognize his complicated significance.[8] The recent fifty-year anniversary of his murder conjures up memories of the popularity of the Ché’s photo.
Guevara’s image went through a makeover with the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, starring Mexican actor Gael García Bernal. Bernal’s performance as the young, idealist Ché, who is a traveling doctor to the poor and outcast, before he met the Castro brothers, is hard not to root for. He sees the poverty of the people and wants to change things for the better, even as he battles his own health concerns. Even the most cynical viewer may relate positively to the rise of Ché’s social-political consciousness in the film. Unlike many do-gooders, Ché’s journey leads him to become a revolutionary. Ché’s most conservative critics will never accept him because of his strident condemnation of capitalism and his part in guerrilla violence.[9] Still, violence cannot be the only reason for rejecting him, since armed resistance has never been a disqualifier for hero status in the US especially since the country was founded by a successful armed revolution. Of course, many leftists envision Ché as one of the most enduring examples of sociopolitical sacrifice. What fascinates me is how some Christian theologians were also touched by the theme of sacrifice in the words and works of Ché Guevara. Some theologians were bold enough to see Christ-like qualities. As an example of biography as theology, I will explore how this guerrilla fighter became transformed as a selfless martyr, fighting on behalf of the oppressed of the world, and modeling self-sacrifice through his death. This will be accomplished by examining two theologians, José Míguez Bonino and George Casalis, who analyze Ché’s influence on liberation theology, and some strands of this type of thinking in Chicano/a activism. Finally, I will close the paper with a reflection about how we may move away from this phenomenon of the selfless martyr as seen in Ché and remain committed to the Christian model of nonviolence.
Biography as Theology and Liberation
“Nor should it be forgotten that the new revolutionary ethic that was Che Guevara’s constant dream was based on this concept – a concept that makes use of the most specific channels for the efficacy of love in its transformation of history.”
Hugo Assmann[10]
“The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
Ché Guevara[11]
In the 1970s a religious interpretation defined as biography as theology was born.[12] The book that popularized this theory was written by the Baptist theologian James McClendon, who taught ethical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary before his passing in 2000. McClendon presented on the lived practices of public figures to evaluate their religious beliefs. He focused on a variety of Christians, the most recognizable being Martin Luther King, Jr. The point of biography as theology was to say that Christian ethics should focus on the way imperfect men lived the Christian life, not simply following Christian abstract, universal principles jotted down on lined note paper. I note men on purpose since no women, or for that matter Latino/as, made the list. It is amazing that these books continue to be published, and I am left wondering why even Cesar Chavez, at the very least, does not make the list.[13] In Remembering Lived Lives, I try to update McClendon’s method by stating that there needs to be a focus on what the empirical, historical community of faith actually looks like, resurrecting the biographies that have either been ignored or forgotten due to perceived ethnic gendered barriers.[14] We are luckily living in a moment where these types of books are beginning to be published, yet there is still much work to be done.
Another Christian figure often incorporated into this genre is the German Lutheran pastor and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[15] Bonhoeffer is famous for being involved in an assassination plot to remove Hitler even though he was a committed pacifist. He was executed for taking part in this conspiracy. The martyrdom of King and Bonhoeffer serve as guidance for future generations and as good examples of biography as theology.[16] In fact, both King and Bonhoeffer were and remain important heroes and martyrs for liberation theology.[17]
The most typical example of a type of biography as theology by a liberation theologian can be viewed in the work of Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves, who highlights the non-violent witness of Gandhi, King, and Oscar Romero as representatives of the God of the Oppressed, a common theme among liberation theologians.[18] In fact, Archbishop Romero from El Salvador is probably the most cited Latino martyr among liberation theologians. For example, Salvadoran liberation theologian Jon Sobrino consistently focuses on the witness of Romero.[19] The result is a liberationist biography as theology of Romero throughout his writings. In short, like King and Bonhoeffer, Romero’s biography is a crucial element in examining his theology, particularly in choosing the path of peace during very violent social-political times.
Priest-turned-guerrilla-fighter Camilo Torres is also popular among liberation theologians. Torres eventually died a martyr in Columbia, which led to some to see him as a kind of Latin American Bonhoeffer, putting his life on the line for a revolutionary cause, even resorting to armed self-defense.[20] It was actually a French Protestant theologian well versed in Latin American theology, Georges Casalis, who made the positive comparison between Torres and Bonhoeffer. Casalis’s essay “Resisting Conformity: Dietrich and Camilo” was a rarity outside of the Latin American sociopolitical context. Torres is a sort of test case in understanding the Ché phenomenon we are about to examine in the following pages. In fact, Salvadoran liberation theologian Ignacio Ellacuría points out that those who can theologically argue for war have a hard time being consistent when they condemn Torres’s actions.[21]
Bonhoeffer is the go-to figure for examples of biography as theology. Since he was a pacifist who eventually got caught up into a plot to assassinate Hitler, his biography serves as a helpful source for ethicists to ponder the way we make choices based on our theological convictions. The publishing of Bonhoeffer’s books and scholarship about him since the end of WWII increases as time goes on. But what about figures outside of the United States and Europe, who respond to colonial violence with revolutionary love? Are their hands too bloody? Or are our ethics too safe? Is the continued attention to Bonhoeffer just another way of how empire and colonization co-opt and distort the stories of martyrs and simply centers those historical narratives around Europe and Anglo North America? My guess is that because Bonhoeffer’s target was Hitler, the gravity of theological violence is toned down. Perhaps because of the radical period of the late 1960s-1970s, while death of God theologians used Bonhoeffer to embrace bourgeois secular ethics, many writers, including activists and theologians, embraced Ché and even Fidel Castro. As we will see, many Latino/as and other ethnic minority groups living in the United States viewed Ché as a type of religious symbol of liberation even though Ché himself was irreligious.
Ché as a Liberating Ideal of Love
Using Camilo Torres and Ché as models for Christian living may seem strange because both espoused guerrilla violence specifically against US imperialism. I will deal with this point below. However, what might be more disconcerting is that the usual people we hold up as symbols of godly living and have a significant amount of scholarship like King, Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, Bonhoeffer, and Thomas Merton, lately, have been exposed for having more disturbing aspects in their lives. For example, most of the figures I listed were pacifists, preaching an idea of self-lessness, yet many wrestled with megalomania. Moreover, the relations some of these men had with women are disturbing.[22] The glaring facts are that these famous figures were at the very least very imperfect saints. It is the job of each generation to ask ethical questions about what a famous person’s legacy means for history, the present, and the future. The consensus may eventually lead to navigating away from the person’s usefulness especially if thinking about the ethics of a biography as theology.
What may be surprising for an audience in the US is that Ché’s success provided a paradigm for guerilla warfare, the foco, throughout Latin America. However, Ché’s popularity was not shocking for movements navigating the violence of proxy wars in Latin America and across the Global South during the Cold War. The appeal to guerillas was used by both European and Latin American thinkers like Giulio Girardi and Helio Gallardo.[23] The Cuban Revolution, according to Michael Löwy, was a turning point in history, crucial for understanding the rise of Latin American liberation theology as much as the doctrinal changes associated with Vatican II.[24] Argentine liberation theologian José Míguez Bonino, a key interpreter especially in regards to Ché and Castro, points out that the Cuban Revolution sparked “a new time in Latin America” but one that ultimately proved unrepeatable, as seen in Ché’s failed uprising in Bolivia.[25] In some ways, Cuba slipped by the notice of US foreign policy. The US’s subsequent support of military coups and right-wing regimes would ensure that another Cuba did not happen. Ché’s failure in Bolivia, along with other losses in socialist politics, brings the era of the first-generation of liberation theology to an end with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. These social-political changes are not the only reason for the pressures placed upon many of the first-generation Latin American liberation theologians. In fact, after the reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s, the shift to a more conservative Vatican leadership is seen as a major cause. Perhaps because of liberation theology’s genesis coinciding with the Cuban Revolution, and its utilization of Marxist analysis, this theology was seen as a threat by the United States during the Cold War.[26]
In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, Ché was transformed into a global symbol of revolution and martyrdom by those seeking radical social-political change rather than simply reforms. Löwy declares “Che is seen as the purest symbol of the fight for the liberation of the Third World.”[27] Alma Guillermoprieto describes him as “the century’s first Latin American” that was “born in Latin America’s hour of the hero.”[28] However, for this “harsh angel” he is willing to give up all comforts for the global revolution. But revolutions are messy. The timing was important because there had been other revolutions. Perhaps it is all thanks to the age of media that the world witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of Ché. With his capture and execution in Bolivia, he became a towering figure in Latino/a thought—something of a Christ-like martyr. Löwy and Guillermoprieto suggest that Ché became the first Pan-Latin American figure, an international hero. In the revolutionary 1960s-1970s, no other flesh and blood figure would inspire other activist minded Latino/as and Latin Americans from the United States all the way to Uruguay. These writers and artists would affirm his legacy as the Pan-Latin American giant. Ché’s life and words became idealized, with Castro leading the way. Ché had such a meteoric rise globally during revolutionary times that it makes sense that a theology focused on the oppressed would find him inspirational.
Even a few throw away comments by Ché and Castro about love and Christianity would be applied by some theologians. For Castro, the earliest followers of Christ were the persecuted poor and outcasts. Christianity had betrayed its mission by becoming aligned with Roman power. In point of fact, the only Christian leaders that were exiled from Cuba during the transition to a socialist state were church leaders that were openly anti-revolution and in support of US imperialism.[29] What Castro provided with his speeches and interviews about Christianity was the blueprint picked up by some of his admirers in the Christian theological tradition. In fact, the revolutionary leaders present a very public turning point for Marxist and Christian dialogue.[30]
What did this mean for some liberation theologians? These theologians were enabled to claim this revolution as their own, reinterpreting Marxism in a way that downplayed the critique of religion being the opium of the masses or at least not see opium as the essence of Christianity. They were great students of history, so they saw Cuba as a turning point. They envisioned more would be done with social-political instability across Latin America. Would democracy be embraced? They believed that the God of the oppressed would be on the side of anyone who sought a better standard of living for the masses since US imperialism and capitalist market economics were often seen as the biggest social-political danger in Latin American societies. It is in this sense that some liberation theologians publicly praise Ché (and Castro to a lesser extent). Most of this praise occurred within the timeframe of the 1960s while Ché was seen as a global revolutionary symbol. We will look specifically at two theologians, Georges Casalis and José Miguez Bonino, because they specifically write about Ché’s legacy for theology.
Georges Casalis takes his admiration of Ché and Fidel to new heights. In his book on theological method, he quotes Guevara more than any theologian other than Bonhoeffer! The militant revolutionary surpasses other modes of Christian doctrine of human existence. Casalis provides large quotes of both Ché and Fidel on “partisan love” to lecture his readers on cheap and idealistic reconciliatory love often seems within the confines of middle-class church environment.[31] The most frequent critique by liberation theologians is reserved for any theology that snoozes while dreaming about maintaining the status quo. Ché realized that Latin America had a special connection to Christianity, declaring that if Christians lived to their revolutionary potential, it could change the world.[32] In an interview with Teófilo Cabestrero, Casalis interprets Ché as a Christ-like figure based on the kenosis passage in the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. According to Casalis, Ché is “the revolutionary who truly left everything to live, struggle, and die for the freedom of others.”[33] Kenosis theology articulates the way Christ empties himself of his glory, descending to earth as the incarnated baby in the manger. Divine status was not something Christ jealously held onto, because out of love he was willing to sacrifice himself for others. Casalis links Christ’s incarnation to Ché as he was the son of the bourgeois, leaving behind the privileges of his social class to live among the freedom fighters. The fact that both die prematurely because of their commitments leads to their intimate connection for interpreters like Casalis. This is an amazing disclosure especially regarding a globally recognized revolutionary only a few years after his death.
Ché’s statement that “a true revolutionary is led by great feelings of love” appears as the most analyzed and quoted by intellectuals like Casalis and Bonino.[34] Casalis believes that Ché embodies the Christian idea of selfless love. The commandment is to live for others, even to give one’s life for one’s friends. True happiness comes from living for something bigger than selfish material desires.
The view of the Christ-like Ché is not limited to liberation theologians. Similar to the kenosis reading of Ché, Chicano intellectual George Mariscal presents numerous samples of inspirational art about Ché among Chicano/a writers, poets, and artists. He dedicates a whole chapter to Ché in his book about the Chicano/a Movement in the 1960s-1970s.[35] From being painted as the Christ figure in a Latino/a version of the Last Supper by artist José Antonio Burciaga to inhabiting the center figure of the model of Latino/a mestizo identity, it seems there is no limit to what Latino/a figures across the Americas can envision about Ché as an icon. Burciaga’s painting is telling since he created this mural in the 1980s, only a few years after Ché’s death. The fact that Ché, out of all the Latin American and Latino/a figures, is featured prominently as Jesus Christ illustrates the power and influence of the Ché ideology.
Probably the work of art in Mariscal’s book most similar to Casalis’s vision of Ché as Christ is Tejano poet David García’s “A Tribute to Che.” The poem states that Ché is the “Christo image” who like Jesus Christ was “brown,” adding that “Christ was the Che of a religious revolution.” Here the models have flipped. Ché is not simply a modern-day messianic figure, but Christ becomes the Ché. Mariscal’s study illustrates that, in a matter of a decade, it was not only Latin American liberation theologians and admirers that saw Ché as a Christ-like figure but that even some US Latino/a artists viewed Ché this way.
The examples of Ché as Christ so soon after his death illustrate perhaps the starvation for models in the 1960s for US Latinos/as in general. Mariscal asserts that the dedications to Ché and other activist and revolutionary figures are not appropriations of “frozen icons” but instead “living signifiers for the utopian desire of many young people around the world.”[36] The Ché phenomenon was a global symbolization, but its major impact was felt in Latin America since Ché was from Latin America and major revolutionary situations arose across its landscape. Liberation philosopher and historian Enrique Dussel agreed with Mariscal’s line of reasoning. He writes that in all the major historical revolutions there are leaders who become the “symbolic reference” of the revolutionary event in the present-future.[37] The symbolic use of revolutionary figures among Latin Americans and US Latino/as was commonplace. However, what was different was the way Christian leaders openly embraced non-Christian figures who clearly had blood on their hands. The conservatives in the Vatican were uncomfortable with the use of communist sociology in liberation theology, so they must have been beside themselves with righteous indignation to see Castro and Guevara quoted as theological authorities.[38] Why did some Latin American clergy accept this paradigm?
Bonino theorized on this link between Christ and Ché by discussing his encounter with a group he calls “Guevara Christians.”[39] He wrote about a play put on by the youth at a Protestant church in Uruguay. In response to the question about who Christ is today, one student shouted out that it was Ché. This encounter led Bonino to make the following declaration about Latin Americans equating Christ with who they viewed presently as a hero for humanity:
This or that missionary or priest, or the suffering Indian or mixed blood, was cast as a model for the Christ. What is new, and startling is that a group of Christians would name for that role a guerilla fighter and, moreover, a man who was―quite consciously and lucidly―not a Christian but a Marxist revolutionary.[40]
Bonino followed this statement with Ché’s own suggestion about the potential of Christians being revolutionary and not reactionary, which might possibly lead to Latin America becoming truly liberated. How then does Bonino interpret the Guevara Christians? He posits three ideas.
First, Bonino claims that there no longer exists a “pre-Guevara time” for Christianity in Latin America because the revolutionary times have changed the coordinates of how to talk about Christian faith. This seems to be the most consistent idea throughout most of the writers who idealized Ché. Second, since at the heart of Christianity is the gospel mission to spread the message across the globe, according to Bonino, this evangelization must take place within the concrete, social-political concerns of the people of the land. Here, Bonino appears close to the doctrinal and religious concerns of Vatican II and the main tenets of liberation theology. This view is nuanced since, in fact, Bonino is not Catholic but a Protestant Methodist. However, his viewpoint illustrates the ecumenical and global appeal of liberation theology at the time. Finally, the shout “Christ is Ché” means “liberation and revolution are a legitimate transcription of the gospel.”[41]
The way historical actors appeal to figures and ideals of history are not always predictable. Ché inspired many across the world who were hungry for radical change. His short life served as a type of Christological model for those seeking radical social-political change. However, whereas Camilo Torres was examined in a type of liberationist biography as theology in juxtaposition with other Christian figures like King and Bonhoeffer, Ché’s importance among Latin Americans and US Latinos/as, especially in liberation theology, still needs to be highlighted. The utilization of Christological themes attributed to Ché because of his life and words makes the format of biography as theology a potentially useful format to write this narrative and understand his historical and theological legacy.
Conclusion: Revolutionary, Nonviolent Christian Love
“Though I am more Che than Chavez, I am still a dove. And I do not apologize.”
David Tomas Martínez[42]
What does the Ché image mean for us today? There is never just one answer. I do get a sense that Latino/as in the United States of America, many going through the process of assimilation, have very little knowledge of the man behind the beret. His introduction might come in a college general education history class, but that is often wishful thinking since Latino/a history is still marginalized. My guess is that the primary way Latino/as in the US learn about Ché is from seeing the famous photo that was discussed in the telenovela. It still pops up everywhere. However, across Latin America, Ché continues to be identified with resistance to the Yankees from the North or to the various powers that abuse the people. Thus, Jorge G. Castañeda points: “Half a century since his death, Guevara’s legacy and relevance is practically nil, in terms of his aspirations and achievements.”[43] Castañeda claims it is as a symbol that Ché is remembered.
What does it mean decades later that we still live in post-Guevara time since he is dead, but his legacy remains? Perhaps we are at a point in our history where we have given up seeking messianic figures wielding machine guns. What if post-Guevara time in this sense is over?[44] The bigger question is, what if Guevara time, symbolized through the image of the messianic guerilla fighter during the Cold War and around the same time as the birth of liberation theology, was a mistake? Can a Christian theology with the central message of option for the poor mix with liberation executioner style? Is there enough in liberation theology historically in Latin America with its commitment to the poor and the oppressed that critiques the corrupt social-economic system across much of Latin America that we may still find inspiration? However, did some—hypnotized by the romantic symbolization of the revolutionary 60s—get carried away in Ché’s idealization? Some might still read Ché’s “the new man” as a revolutionary hope, and as we have seen, Christianize it, yet to those who do not fit the requirements of “the new man” the symbol is monstrous because of the many killed in the name of armed revolution.
The appeal to Ché as a religious symbol by liberation theologians remains an important phenomenon kept alive in texts from a revolutionary moment in history. It is an event that is symbolized by murals of Ché throughout the Latino/a world. As a floating symbol detached from the historical person, the Ché phenomenon is completed by one’s own fantasy about revolutionary change. Castañeda poignantly addresses what this legacy means for today:
So which Guevara should we recall? The autocrat who executed hundreds of Batista collaborators outside Havana in 1959? The disheveled guerrillero captured under humiliating circumstances in Bolivia? The warrior whose irreverence is a symbol all over the world? Or the unwilling icon of the cultural revolution of 1968, to which we owe the lives we live today? He would have preferred being remembered as the martyred revolutionary, but those who survive him today can only thank him, despite himself, for becoming the cultural icon he did. That is his legacy, relevance and glory.[45]
Castañeda’s list illustrates the complexity of dealing with Ché’s legacy.[46] In some ways, what we might do is nuance the diatribe from One Day at a Time mentioned at the start of this essay. As discussed earlier, biography as theology chooses figures that are imperfect saints—even though the tendency of hagiography looms large for any religious and specifically Christian biography. The hagiography about Ché serviced no one. It is one thing to point out that murals of Ché are just lingering shadows of a revolutionary romanticism of past decades. It is another thing to continue to idolize a figure with so much blood on his hands. The execution of many Cubans is linked directly to Ché, which is why the actors in One Day at a Time were outraged to see him celebrated.[47] There are many anti-imperial figures that do not deserve adulation. Moreover, for all the criticism we might hand out to Christian historical accounts that downplay our heroes’ failures, there is a tendency to do the same thing with accounts of revolutionary figures.
Perhaps without losing sight of what Ché meant to the past generation, the current one may learn much from other Latino/a icons. The religious iconography that has surrounded Ché might be understood as an aspect of the Spanish Catholic obsession with Christian images of death and martyrdom. For example, the other famous Latin American communist, Frida Kahlo, whose popularity was on the rise at the same time as Ché’s stardom, painted herself with similar themes. Like Ché, we find her influence everywhere. Frida continues to inspire, even as we mourn with her over her tragedies.[48] Furthermore, the nonviolent labor leader Cesar Chavez was also treated with Christological images.[49] Chavez (and Dolores Huerta) are prime candidates for a new Latino/a based biography as theology especially because of their commitment to nonviolence based on Catholic social teachings.[50] The point is not to forget Ché’s place in history or to Christianize Frida, but to look at the impact these historical figures had on religious movements and their theology. In short, future thinkers should evaluate Ché’s influence over the last few decades and how elements of his story can both inspire to become more socially conscious and warn about using extreme means to deliver social justice. In so many cases, the example of biography as theology illustrates a powerful witness of individual will that is shaped and formed by community. Community in some form is not absent so perhaps the new Ché are human rights activists like Marielle Franco, who was recently murdered in Rio. I had never heard of this remarkable woman until those same Brazilian telenovela stars I watch on TV every night during the week took to their social media accounts, speaking about her in words mixed with sorrow, frustration, and admiration. Now, murals of her can be found across Brazil. Perhaps, if liberation theology has a place in this world, it will follow Franco and not Ché. The age of the glamorized martyrs with the gun is gone. They have become a parody like Pola Oloixarao’s Latin American studies professor in her wonderful novel Mona.[51] Whatever Ché’s legacy means for our future, it is paradoxically fascinating that a photo of Ché hung in Franco’s office.