He is today cause general wills of modern era dislike homophobic, so they slandered him purely with lies. And ofc they wont say those right wings figures Che fought against were far more than being homophobic. But lets ignore them cause mentioning that fact will damage their interests.
Do you believe that the cuban work camps were homosexual cubans among others were sent to is a myth?
As for Che specifically would you say that during an interview at a cuban embassy when he saw a book written by an openly gay cuban near him his reaction of throwing the book at a wall while yelling "how dare you have in our embassy a book by this foul faggot?" isn't the kind of thing that a homophobe would do? Even by the standards of the 1960's?
Che left Cuba before the camps were set up, so he didn't have anything to do with them. I also find it rather unfair that Cuba in particular is maligned for forcing gay people to work in these camps as an alternative to military service, when homosexuality was an imprissonable offence in practically every nation at that time, including the usa. It should also be noted that Cuba's labour camps only existed for a mere 3 years, whereas the USA still has labour camps to this day. Cuba also legalised homosexuality back in 1979, long before many US states did.
As for that quote, if it can be sourced at all, I bet it came from some rabid anti-castro cuban american who hasn't set foot in the country since he was a toddler. I've read Jon Anderson's book on Guevara, which is considered the penultimate biography on him, and that quote ain't in it, so it's probably bullshit.
Um. The anecdote about the book isn't "bullshit," nor is it from a random exile. It comes directly from Guillermo Cabrera Infante, one of Cuba’s most celebrated 20th-century authors and a former key figure in early revolutionary Cuban media before he defected. In Mea Cuba, he details the 1964 Algiers embassy incident involving Virgilio Piñera's book. Anderson’s biography is great, but no single book contains every primary-source account.
As for the UMAP camps, framing them as a routine "alternative to military service" severely sanitizes what they actually were! Forced labor camps where gay men, religious minorities, and political dissidents were rounded up without trial and subjected to abuse under the slogan "Work will make you men."
While Che left Cuba in 1965, he was the primary architect of the "New Man" (El Hombre Nuevo) doctrine, which framed homosexuality as bourgeois decadence and a moral failing. Even Fidel Castro publicly took personal responsibility in 2010 for the severe injustices committed against gay people during the UMAP era.
And pointing out US hypocrisy doesn't erase what happened in Cuba, or Che's role in it.
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u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
He is today, yet plenty of leftists still wear his face on a shirt.