Un grandissimo uomo...

Italian TV has a poor reputation however its entertainment value is underestimated; everyone is always in a good mood, the conversation is light, there's an endless procession of good looking women (there are always some hunks on hand for the females in the audience too) and there's just enough spice, or beloved polemica, as the locals say, to keep you on your toes at all times.

So it's Saturday evening and I am surfing pointlessly on the internet while quiz show, Fratelli di Test, the Italian version of Test the Nation, is on in the background on Rai Uno. The host, Carlo Conti, reads off questions in different categories and introduces a historical one by asking the audience to watch a quick video showing "four very great men" ("quattro grandissimi uomini' - note the use of the -issimi superlative ). Twenty to thirty seconds of black and white footage follow with John Lennon's Imagine playing in the background showing a succession of 20th century historical figures - Martin Luther King, Ernesto Guevara, John F. Kennedy and Mahatma Gandhi. As the video ends the following question appears on screen (this is just a capture from RAI's website where you can take the televised test yourself online).
Who said that, "nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind"?



Wait. Hang on a second, there's something that I don't get. What's Ernesto Guevara doing in that list? I suppose that he qualifies as a man and arguably even as an icon, however I don't think that a cold-blooded and violent revolutionary like him is a grandissimo uomo and he certainly would be the last person who would have been quoted saying something like that.
On the contrary, Guevara's main concern, as with most pacifists (?!), was that someone would pick up his gun and keep on shooting it if he fell!

On a slightly less sarcastic note and even if it's just a game show, I do find that putting him in the same category as Martin Luther King and Gandhi is irresponsible didactically and an insult to the memories of men like the latter who despised violence. Even a more controversial figure like Kennedy can at least be credited with having helped to avoid a global nuclear war - a cataclysmic conflict that Guevara and his sandbox pal Castro would have been greatly responsible for.

They say that winners write history books, but why is it that communists are the only ones who have lost and/or created social and economic havoc (read injustice) everywhere, yet are still able to infiltrate culture and politics at all levels to peddle their lies and brainwash people?