...Che Guevara Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born in Rosario, Argentina, but the exact date of his birth is unknown. He was the eldest of five children in a family of mixed Spanish and Irish descent; both his father and mother were of Basque ancestry. Guevara's family was an upper-class family with some leftist views. He became known for his dynamic personality and radical perspective even as a boy. While a student, Guevara spent long periods traveling around Latin America. Through his first-hand observations of poverty, oppression, and powerlessness of the masses, Guevara soon became highly influenced by his informal Marxist studies. He concluded that the only solution for Latin America's economic and social inequities lay in revolution. His travels also inspired him to look upon Latin America not as a collection of separate nations but as a single entity, the liberation of which would require a continent-wide strategy; he began to imagine the possibility of a united Ibero-America without borders, bound together by a common 'mestizo' culture, an idea that would figure prominently in his later revolutionary activities. After completion of his formal studies, Guevara traveled to Guatemala. Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a populist government that through various programs, particularly land reform, would attempt to bring about a social revolution. Explaining his motive for settling down for a time in Guatemala, Guevara wrote, "In Guatemala I will perfect...
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...two ideas together everywhere. Many songs are written with peaceful meanings; some people decide to make peaceful strikes, and some believe in their hearts for a better future. We can also see how peace can come from revolutions: in Greece people are striking against their government because Greece is now bankrupt; in Libya, the rebels killed the dictator Qaddafi; the Syrian revolution; the Cuban revolution, where Fidel Castro with Che Guevara’s help overthrew Batista’s dictatorship; and many other revolutions. All these revolutions happened, some are happening, and some are going to happen for a better and peaceful future. We can also see those two ideas together in the picture above. In this picture, on the left is John Lennon and on the right is Ernesto Che Guevara, both playing guitar. Music in this picture also plays a big role. In the background of the picture seems to be a container on the left. The background of the picture was taken in Chicago on August 11th 1966 when John Lennon was there. This picture is fake, because Che Guevara on August 11th 1966 was travelling to Bolivia. However, the meaning of this picture is huge and that’s why I chose this picture to write about. John Lennon was an English musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member of ‘’The Beatles’’. He is a symbol of peace, who lived and loved. He believed everyone should be equal: men, women, black, white, gay, and straight. Also, he wrote some of the best songs of all time and he...
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...Joey Palmer Oct. 18th, 2015 Essay # 2 Prof. Roliz Throughout history, there has always been situations where an individual or group has rebelled against their government or religion. An individual is justified to rebel against his government when there's an excess of police brutality, that individual can be living in a nation where the government is not an ideal government, or unjust treatment of an ethnicity. There are many ways to rebel against ones government and/or religious institution, in the past rebelling has varied from protesting to a world wide revolution. Revolutionary leaders such as Che Guevara and Martin Luther King Jr. both lead groups which allowed people who rebelled against their government to obtain justice. Two philosophers who spoke on rebelling against their government or religion were Friedrich Nietzsche in “Morality as Anti-Nature” and Henry Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience.” A situation that occurred to justify an individuals rebellion against their government is the act of excess police brutality. A perfect example of excessive police brutality is the Eric Garner case. In this case Eric Garner was put in a choke hold by a New York City Police Department officer named Daniel Pantaleo, he ended up killing him and did not get indicted. This decision came nearly a week after a cop killed an unarmed African American, Michael Brown. This caused many people to walk and protest in Time Square chanting “This Stops Today” and “I Can't Breathe,” which were...
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...Between the years of 1925 and 1934, many events took place in Cuban history, but three events had a large impact that helped to shape Cuban history. The election and reelection of Gerado Machado, a dictator who created a communist government, made Cuba what it is today. Machado, who was once seen as a consequential figure to the government, was pressured under the stress of the Great Depression. The people of Cuba revolted against Machado, and this was the beginning of the Cuban Revolution. In 1924, Machado ran for president and defeated Mario G. to become Cuba's 5th president. With the support of the last president Alfredo Zayas, Machado held a great deal of popularity, and easily won five of the six states. Machado's campaign for national regeneration initially received wide support. which helped to win him more states. What they didn't know is the tables would turn and they would end up revolting against him. Machado worked to advanced tourism, industry in mining, and launched the construction of a 700 mile highway. He also taxed American investments. At the time, Machado was seen as the most important achievement in Cuban politics. In 1927 Machado then took full control of the Cuban political parties by becoming the only candidate for reelection. He was reelected in 1928, despite objection from students and professional men, and began to rule even more dictatorially. Widespread disorder erupted, and in 1933, U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles was sent by President Franklin...
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...Organization & Leadership - Assignment Fidel Castro is one of the most recognizable leaders in world history. He led Cuba as Prime Minister and, subsequently, as President for almost fifty years. He was born and raised upper-middle class as his father was a very successful farmer and did quite well for himself and his family. There were several key events that led to Castro’s rise as a powerful leader and shaped him into the man who successfully led the Cuban revolution. First of all, although he benefited from a decent education and was exposed to the upper echelon of society at times, he also played with and grew up around the children of the migrant workers of the farm. He maintains that this conservative upbringing helped him to stay grounded and to develop empathy for the working class. Consequently, Fidel rebelled against what he perceived to be classism. While in law school in Havana, he became intertwined with the student protest movement. The government of the time decided to crack down on student protesters and a lot of student leaders were being killed. Instead of fighting against the governmental regime, however, the student protesters began turning on one another and becoming involved in crime. Being surrounded by this, Fidel decided to focus on political goals where he became enthralled by anti-imperialism and the opposition of U.S. involvement in Cuban (and Caribbean) politics. Law school exposed Castro to several student leftist groups and...
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...Finding Truths In my life, I have taken many journeys without which I would not have experienced important truths. My father started us off early, taking us on many journeys to help us understand that true knowledge comes only from experience. We took trips every winter break to Madrid, Mexico, Costa Rica, and to Jamaica and Trinidad, my parents’ homeland for Christmas. Silly things I remember from those trips include the mango chili sauce on the pork in Maui, the names of the women who gave out the towels by the pools in Selva Verde, Costa Rica, eating dinner at 10 p.m. in Spain. These were all tourist experiences that I, at first, found spellbinding. My truths were the truths of the tourist brochures: beautiful hotels, beaches, and cities. I did not see the blindfolds. I did not appreciate how being held hostage by the beauty of the surface—the beaches and cities—blinded me to the absence of Puerto Rican natives on the streets of San Juan; I did not understand how the prevalence and familiarity of English conspired to veil the beauty of the Spanish language beneath volumes of English translations. I learned more about these truths in my sophomore year of high school, when I was among a group of students selected to visit Cuba. My grandmother was born in Cuba, yet I had never thought to research my own heritage. I have remained the naïve American who saw Castro as some distant enemy of my country, accepting this as fact because this seemed to be the accepted wisdom. I soon...
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...Dianet Perez Garcia Politics of International Investment May 1, 2012 Foreign Direct Investment Risk Analysis on Cuba Background: Cuba is an island in the Caribbean. La Habana is the capital of Cuba and its biggest city. Cuba is not an industrialized country and it mainly consists of farms. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the most populated with a population of over 11 million people. Cuba is a totalitarian communist country and has been ruled by Fidel Castro since 1959. Raul Castro has succeeded Fidel Castro and is now president. In 2008 Fidel Castro renounced his presidency after becoming ill and passed his presidency on to Raul Castro, his brother and Vice President. Raul Castro now performs all roles. The country has suffered oppression and the effects of Castro’s dictatorship for over 50 years now. Cuba’s largest profit comes from their tourism and from the export of sugar cane and tobacco. The population is majorly Catholic. Cuban citizens have recently been given the right to purchase, own and pass on property. This totalitarian communism, which maintain control of all information and for purposes of their own benefit and to maintain their desired image publish incorrect numbers to the public and withhold information on a regular basis. Political Indicators 2012 2017 1. Political Stability 6 6 Although there have not been major changes in recent years, Cuba’s government is highly unpredictable. Being that the government...
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...lead to renewed and intensely meaningful understandings of ourselves and the world around us. This is depicted in Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s bildungsroman memoir ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ which details the adventures that feed Guevara’s thirst for knowledge and adventure, which subsequently shaped his perspective of the lower class proletariat. The memoir accentuates the notion that the catalyst for ideological discoveries, is the exposure to a different environment or context. Likewise, in pondering upon his childhood tendency to wander from home, the protagonist...
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...Introduction; Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926 near Biran, in the eastern Orient Province of Cuba. He was the third child out of six and had two brothers and three sisters; his father was a wealthy sugar plantation owner, although he is originally from Spain. His mother was a maid to his father’s first wife, Maria Luisa Argota at the time of Fidel’s birth. As his father married his mom at the age of 17 Fidel had his last name changed from “Ruz” to “Castro”. He soon got married in 1984 he married a woman named Mirta Diaz Balart who was from a wealthy home and had one child and named him Fidel and him wedding to Mirta gave him any strong political connections. Paragraph; In 1945 Castro began studying law at the University of Havana admitting...
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...what caused Fidel to fight back against the government. Ever since 1953, Fidel had been leading attacks against the government. One such attack took place on April 3, 1958 when Castro led his rebels to attack Havana. Although this attack did not overthrow the government, it was another example of how Castro was becoming a force to be reckoned with. President Batista now realized his regime was at risk of being overthrown and on May 24, 1958, Batista began an offensive against the rebels. Batista's government began to weaken further as the US stopped selling arms to Cuba. This was done in an effort to prevent Castro’s rebels from obtaining weapons but also greatly affected the government. Another attack led by the rebellion was when Che Guevara, a leader in Castro's military, took the city of Santa Clara. This took place in December 1958 and became known as the Battle of Santa Clara. One of the most notable events of this battle was when Guevara used tractors from a nearby school to derail an armored train carrying soldiers and weapons. After this, the soldiers in Santa Clara quickly surrendered. Early in the day, on January 1, 1959, Castro launched another attack against Havana, this time with more success, causing President Batista had fled to the Dominican Republic. Within 12 hours of Guevara’s success, Fidel Castro took control of the country despite Manuel Urrutia Lleó being appointed the official president. Castro announced his success from the balcony of Santiago’s...
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...1959 was one of the most defining years in Cuba's development. When Castro overthrew Batista and took over the government as the leader of the free people, he assumed full control of the government. However, his policies encompassed a variety of issues including economics, education, agriculture, immigration, and social desire. Castro focused a large amount of his energy on redefining Cuba's identity by introducing different policies to transform the social setting of the country. He expected the public to clearly separate themselves into distinguishable groups and to focus on choosing one identity. This gave way to a very identitarian discourse that dictated the policies in Cuba. The Cuban government focused on repressing desire in the public by tackling some of the potent issues such as prostitution and homosexuality. This led to dissidence in the public and caused them to push back against this stark identitarian regime that Castro had created. Before the revolution, prostitution helped to channel the unrest and desire that were developing under the surface of the public. It was the way of life for many young women in early Cuba who helped develop the country's economy through "sexual tourism." Being a member of a brothel offered stability and a home for many women who found it very difficult to find a job during that time. However, after the revolution, prostitution was inappropriate and had no place in the new identity of Cuba. As a prostitute says in The Rehabilitation...
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...However, the corrupt Batista seized power of Cuba, again, through government coup and therefore prohibiting any possibility of legitimate national elections (Crain, 2013). Infuriated, Castro began the Cuban revolution in 1953 with a botched attempt to overthrow Batista’s regime (Chomsky, 2011). He was sentenced to prison for short duration, then exiled to Mexico where he established a group of revolutionaries and a strategy to overthrow Batista permanently (The Documentary, 2016). It was in Mexico that Castro met Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentinian-born doctor who was likewise inspired to banish imperial powers from Latin America (Crain, 2013). By 1959 Castro and his band of revolutionaries had effectively fought Batista’s army, over a period of three years using propaganda techniques and guerrilla warfare, and forced the dictator to flee Cuba (The Documentary, 2016). Castro and Che began a mass persecution, execution, and imprisonment of Batista supporters (Gorman, 2013). Thus, after much bloodshed, the Cuban Revolution had been completed, and Castro’s socialist regime officially began its reign over the...
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...In my life, I have taken many journeys without which I would not have experienced important truths. My father started us off early, taking us on many journeys to help us understand that true knowledge comes only from experience. We took trips every winter break to Madrid, Mexico, Costa Rica, and to Jamaica and Trinidad, my parents’ homeland for Christmas. Silly things I remember from those trips include the mango chili sauce on the pork in Maui, the names of the women who gave out the towels by the pools in Selva Verde, Costa Rica, eating dinner at 10 p.m. in Spain. These were all tourist experiences that I, at first, found spellbinding. My truths were the truths of the tourist brochures: beautiful hotels, beaches, and cities. I did not see the blindfolds. I did not appreciate how being held hostage by the beauty of the surface—the beaches and cities—blinded me to the absence of Puerto Rican natives on the streets of San Juan; I did not understand how the prevalence and familiarity of English conspired to veil the beauty of the Spanish language beneath volumes of English translations. I learned more about these truths in my sophomore year of high school, when I was among a group of students selected to visit Cuba. My grandmother was born in Cuba, yet I had never thought to research my own heritage. I have remained the naïve American who saw Castro as some distant enemy of my country, accepting this as fact because this seemed to be the accepted wisdom. I soon became intrigued...
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...Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. He suffered from asthma. At an early age he read history and sociology books and was influenced by the writings of the Chilean Communist poet Pablo Neruda. At 19 Guevara entered the medical school of the University of Buenos Aires. In 1952 "Che" Guevara ("Che" is an Argentine equivalent of "pal") broke off his studies in order to set out with a friend on a transcontinental trip which included motorcycling to Chile, riding a raft on the Amazon, and taking a plane to Florida. He returned to Argentina to resume his studies, graduating with a degree of doctor of medicine and surgery in 1953. Late in 1953 Guevara left Argentina, this time for good. He moved to Guatemala, where he had his first experience of a country at war. He supported the Jacobo Arbenz regime, and when it was overthrown in 1954 Guevara sought asylum in the Argentine embassy, remaining there until he could travel to Mexico. It was here that Guevara met the Castro brothers. At the time Fidel Castro was planning an expedition against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and Guevara agreed to go along as a doctor. On Dec. 2, 1956, the expeditionaries landed in eastern Cuba, becoming the nucleus of a guerrilla force which operated in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. The guerrillas contributed to the crumbling of the Batista regime on Dec. 31, 1958. In January 1959 Guevara was one of the first rebel commanders to enter Havana and take control of the capital...
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...April 18, 2013 History Extra Credit The Motorcycle Diaries Che Guevara describes how two young men travel to South America without money or a car, they travel in motorcycle! They both leave their family members and girlfriends behind. They left their college that they were currently attending and went to tour around! They go through good and bad times. Jumping around from being bad guys in a town to really "good experts" in other towns. Che writes his whole way to South America, during, and his way back. Him and his friend both change in many ways at then end of the book. While his visit to South America, they realize who is there for them and who isn't. Guevara's coming of age story. In many Native American cultures they used to practice a ritual "walk-about" sending off their young men into the wild to survive and live on their own for a couple of months. The idea being that when they came back they would be changed by that experience and have discovered some truths about themselves, and making them more mature. What started off simply as a spontaneous adventure ended up becoming a tale of relationships that one after another began to shape Guevara's perceptions of Latin American politics. Seeing the Native Americans persecuted and treated like objects no different from cattle, talking with many of the mine workers who sacrificed their health and some their lives for meager wages. Being inspired by the Incan ruins and the former greatness of that...
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