"Che Guevara: Hero or Villain?" Argues that he is different depending on your perspective and context.

Che Guevara: Hero or Villain?

Che Guevara has been described as the most complete human of our age. He is the face that adorns the t-shirts of the world's youth, the symbolic leader of those who wish to rebel and the brains behind the 1959 liberation of Cuba from a corrupt military dictatorship. Practical and idealistic, secretive and outspoken, restless and complex, caring and brutal, self-serving and naïve-this is just the beginning of a large spectrum of contradictory traits possessed by this intriguing historic icon. As a result of this, one cannot classify Ernesto Guevara as either a hero or a villain as he clearly possesses traits of both. Because different people view him in different ways he is both a romantic idealist who wanted to create a better world for all and a power hungry murder with the belief that his ideas were superior to all others.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina on June 14, 1928 into a liberal middleclass family.

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English: Hilda Gadea and Ernesto "Che" Guevara on ...

Raul Castro, left, with has his arm around second-...

He obtained a degree in medicine from the University of Buenos Aires before embarking on travels around much of Latin America where his eyes began to open to the depth of poverty and suffering of his fellows. Whilst in Guatemala, Guevara sees firsthand the government of Jacobo Arbenz overthrown by a CIA coordinated military organization and it appears that this ignites his hatred for imperialism. Fearing persecution for his opposition to the coup Guevara fled to Mexico City and it was here in July 1955 that he met a young Cuban lawyer with whom he would develop a special friendship. His name was Fidel Castro.

On November 25, 1956 Guevara joined Castro and his Cuban revolutionaries in an expedition that was aimed to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista. After many years of struggle, involving...