Che Guevara exhibit, man behind the image

Re “What would Che say?” Opinion, June 11

While Trisha Ziff complains that the Victoria and Albert Museum botched her glitterati guest list for the opening-night party of the London Che Guevara exhibit, nowhere in her frivolous exercise is there any reflection of Che’s certain questioning of the exhibit, which Ziff “created and curated” herself. She even goes as far as defending photographer Alberto Diaz Korda’s copyrighted image against the black marketers while ignoring that, as one of Castro’s early ministers, Che himself abolished the idea of copyright in Cuba. No wonder Ziff remarks that the famous portrait is the “reflection of an idea” but cannot, alas, tell us what that idea is.

Even the most sympathetic among Che’s biographers agree that, as failed revolutionary and murderer in Cuba and Africa, Che was bent on destroying capitalism. Indeed, we need to ask what Che would say: not about swinging London party lists but about the global industry that exploits naive Western consumers in his pathetic image and name.

ENRICO MARIO SANTi

Professor of Hispanic Studies

University of Kentucky

Lexington

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Here we are, many years after Castro’s revolution has been shown to be nothing but a sad failure, and there are still people who do not know Guevara for the communist troublemaker that he was. Guevara was a foreigner who chose to insinuate his agenda into a country that had enough troublemakers of its own. And for this he has been immortalized as some sort of hero?

I am sure I speak for many fellow Cuban Americans when I answer the question posed by Ziff with a resounding: Who cares what Che would say?

TATY VALLADARES

Agoura Hills

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Although Ziff concentrates on Irish Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and the Che exhibit, the overarching issue is why in the first place Ziff would have a retrospective review of Guevara’s life. Like Castro, he was a despicable tyrant, and to have a review of his “iconic status” is to wonder if Ziff’s next project will be one for Mao or Stalin.

JACK SALEM

Los Angeles