Towheed Feroze
If Che Guevara had been on the streets of Dhaka during the turbulent July-August 2024, he would have been proud.
Although, during his lifetime, Guevara was more active in propagating an armed revolt against what he termed pervasive social oppression, in 2025, he possibly would have put down the automatic rifle to take up the smart phone.
As real life experiences show, sensitising the masses about repressive measures has the unique capacity to influence and provoke the much wanted change.
Where smart phones succeed, bullets may fail!
As social heretics and romantic visionaries commemorate the death anniversary of the Che Guevara on 9 October, the revolutionary and his ideals cannily adapt to an evolved society, quietly but inexorably impacting modern day youth ideology.
Actually, Che’s shadow had always been a perennial inspiration for sweeping changes in Bangladesh. This automatically begs the question as to why the Argentine revolutionary’s cachet never diminishes.
Death brings immortality in the Bolivian jungle:
When Che was shot and killed in the Bolivian jungle, he was 39 years old and, still a young man. While his death and the subsequent disclosure of images of a lifeless body aimed to snuff out the glory and mystique surrounding the revolutionary, the result was the opposite.
It’s often said that before being shot, Che told his assailant: “go ahead, shoot, you will only kill a man!” There’s no proof of this but the person who fired the gun never realised that with this killing, he was turning Che into a global crusader for the rights of the oppressed.
The person who shot him, one sergeant Teran, and CIA operative, Felix Rodriguez, reportedly the mastermind behind the operation to hunt down Guevara, would slip into historical oblivion while the man they killed would go on to become an inspiration for millions.
In the late 60s and early 70s, with the world starkly divided between socialists and capitalists, a new wave of socialism flourished in developing nations, thanks to Che’s indefatigable effort to overthrow what was perceived as totalitarian regimes aligned to powerful imperial states.
That specific period of time was ripe for socialist ideas to influence youth and intellectuals because stimulated by the counter culture movement, the dominant social ideology questioned authority, defied convention, believing that a just society could be formed through a mass uprising.
Suffice to say, the death in the jungle did not kill the flame; on the contrary, it only stoked the desire among millions to break the shackles.
In the Bangladeshi context, Che, his thoughts and revolutionary visions inspired an urban intellectual movement in the 70s, which saw a large number of university graduates openly declaring their allegiance to leftist values.
A high thinking and moderate living creed spawned a generation that avidly believed in the possibility of creating a semi Utopian society where social justice would be ensured. Such a belief also seeped into the political sphere of the time, leading to several bungled attempts to stir up a socialist revolution.
Although the armed revolutions were quashed, the concept of an ideal socialist society flourished among the educated class. That is where Che found a new breed of followers!
Not gun carrying soldiers but academics, thinkers whose weapons were their thought, an unflinching approach and a liberal outlook. All throughout the 80s, when Bangladesh was seeing convulsions due to a nationwide movement to bring down an unelected regime, Che continued to be a guiding force.
A large number of youths staunchly believed a socialist Utopia could be achieved. We all know that did not happen but history teaches us that revolution time ideals are usually too Quixotic with realpolitik ultimately taking over.
Che survives in the conviction of the modern day young:
The Che t-shirt still sells and the revolutionary has found his way on a plethora of merchandise, from plates to note books to pens and caps. Purists may scoff at this trend, denouncing it as a cheap commodification of the legendary revolutionary.
Perhaps it would be prudent to address this phenomenon as the new incarnation of Che, in a tech driven, consumerist society. If his image is on a modern day item, it means Guevara’s memory has moved beyond a specific time period.
Nothing wrong in the image of a rock star playing to a full house, wearing a shirt featuring that iconic face, holding the fierce gaze. In the slogans of the youth who took the streets in July 2024, armed with self-belief and an undeniable sense of right and wrong, the principles of all those who opposed repression over the centuries were present.
In the fiery processions across the country in July 2024, we saw the reflections of Bagha Jatin, Subhash Bose, Surya Sen and Che Guevara.
With the Bangladeshi movie making scene seeing a radical shift from the done to death predictable ‘vanilla’ templates to the realm of the avant garde, kooky and the zany, a film plot showing a a young protagonist named Che fighting online predators and fraudsters may just be around the corner.
The most fascinating thing about Che Guevara is that his attraction adapts to the transforming faces of society. A revolutionary who envisioned an egalitarian society had a terrible end in the Bolivian jungle, but his romanticism never lost its enchantment.
I use the term ‘romanticism’ consciously because without it, life would cease to have its magnetism. His allure lives because his brand of revolution had romanticism written all over it.
A little impractical? Perhaps! Outdated? Never!
The writer is a journalist
