OSAMA & CHE: TWO OF A KIND?

Two famous men, Osama bin Laden and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, had several things in common, it seems to me:

1. They were both extreme idealists, focused more on the way the world should be rather than the way it is.
2. They believed they had the answers to the world's most pressing problems, more so than other people.
3. They believed in violence, often extreme violence, as the best way or only way to create political change. Elections were not good enough.
4. They both thought they were special people in the world. Perhaps they were narcissists. I'm not a shrink, so I don't know.
5. Both men, although violent, were known as polite and sometimes even deferential in person. Che was extremely attractive to women, and admirable to many men personally. He was hard to resist in person. Very charismatic. I don't know about OBL.

Che killed or participated in the killing of several hundred people in Latin America. Osama, of course, planned and took credit for the killing of about 3,000 people in the USA on 9-11-2001.

In case you don't know, Osama Bin Laden was the "head" of Al Qaeda who was killed last Sunday night (1 May 2011) by U.S. special forces in in his walled compound in Pakistan. I say "head" because apparently Al Qaeda is extremely decentralized.

Here is a photo of Osama:

Che Guevara was an Argentine adventurer who helped Fidel Castro overthrow Batista in Cuba in 1959 and establish a Communist state there. His is the revolutionary image you see everywhere in the world: 

The second photo is Che fishing on May 15, 1960 off the coast of Cuba in the "Ernest Hemingway Fishing Contest," a photo that is not so famous.

Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967 while trying to "export" the Cuban Communist revolution to other Latin American countries, a long-term project that Che believed in and which led to his death.

To me, the most interesting things are two: their belief in violence and their extreme self-confidence that their way was the right way.

They seemed to admit no higher authority than themselves. Even though Che was against "imperialism," it seems to me he was extremely imperialistic himself. He was a follower of Fidel and always deferred to Fidel's leadership, but he always thought his ideas and his ideals were correct.

Both men, it seems to me, were unwilling to accept the flaws and the foibles of human nature, and of human society, the way that it is and probably always will be. They clung to their ideals, in spite of everything. And tried to force their ideals on others.

They were both arrogant and violent, a bad combination. A fatal flaw.

-- Roger


(Links:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle