When failed communist revolutionary and t-shirt icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara made his trip around South America on motorcycle neither he nor his best friend had any high-tech phone helping lead the way. Maybe if Che had the Nokia 6110 Navigator he wouldn’t have tried to bring “socialist justice” to various South American countries. Well, the world never know, but we do know that this mobile phone helped Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting, Star Wars) and Charley Boorman during their Long Way Down from Scotland to the southern most tip of Africa.
The pair, both who made the trip on BMW motorcycles, uses the Nokia handset to route their path, GPS navigation, Web searches (“where do we find good Indian food in the middle of Africa” was probably a common search for the two Brits) and of course important calls back home. This trip was a follow-up to their original Long Way Round series, which was a popular reality based series that chronicled their adventures and misadventures along the way. And unlike Che these two best friends know a little capitalist technology like a mobile phone with a 2 megapixel camera goes a long way. More importantly McGregor is just as big as a t-shirt icon, and his hands aren’t in a museum somewhere to prove he’s dead!
Please expand the concept of failed communist revolutionary.
Do you realize the changes he brought to Latin America?
Even if you do not agree politically, do you realize the value of pursuing and ideal and devoting a life to that, giving up any convenience and warm of his aristocrcatic life?
Do you know he was not a communist?
Do you know he left Cuba in disgreement with the communist party and Castro?
Do you understand the difference between socialism and communism?
What about if I tell you the US is the bigest socialist country in the world? Just check what we expend in welfare to cover the inequalities of our wealth distribution system.
Now think on the regions he saw on his trips, their inequalities were much much extreme, to the point where many were diying everyday or even worst, leaving long lifes of misery and slavery like conditions.
I might be bias because althought I am a US Citizen, in my youth, I attended the same public high school and same public university that educated Ernesto.
I believe if Ernesto had a Nokia 6110 or an Iphone with a 2M camara and he documented with pictures (WHY I DO NOT HAVE VIDEO IN MY IPHONE????) his Argentina to Cuba long way up “socialy emotional educational” trip (do you realize we are floating in space, there is no up or down)
If he had a camera, the US flag would probably be all red because people will better understand the idea, behind the man, behind the face, behind the icon on my T-shirt.
Thank you for your blog. It is definetly THE best feed for Mobile data.
Now go and wash your mouth with soap before you use the failed adjective associated with el che :)
best regards
esteban
Hi Esteban–
Good points regarding Che. Still, the man failed to spread the revolution, hence my comment. And you can’t deny he is an international T-shirt icon today!
Thanks for posting. I’m always open to hearing other opinions.
Cheers,
Peter