Chiapas Support Committee
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EZLN: Rewind 2: On Death and Other Alibis
REWIND 2: ON DEATH AND OTHER ALIBIS
Sup Marcos
December 2013.
“One knows one has died when everything around them has stopped dying.”
Elías Contreras. Profession: EZLN Investigation Commission. Civil Condition: Dead. Age: 521 years old and counting.
It is before dawn, and, if they should ask me, which they haven’t, I would say that the problem with the dead is the living.
Because in their absence, you tend to get that absurd, meaningless, and outrageous argument: “I knew them/ saw them/ was told by them,” really just an alibi that hides the real statement “I am the administrator of that life because I administer its death.”
It’s something like having a “copyright” on death, thus converting it into merchandise that can be possessed, exchanged, circulated, and consumed. There are even historiographical books, biographies, museums, commemorations, theses, newspapers, magazines, and colloquia for this.
Then there is that trick of editing one’s own history in order to smooth over one’s errors.
And so they use the dead to build a monument to themselves.
But, in my humble opinion, the problem with the dead is the task of surviving them.
One can die with them, a little or a lot each time.
One can name oneself their spokesperson. After all, they can’t talk, and it’s not their history anyway being told, they are just the justification for one’s own story.
One can also use them to pontificate with that boring mantra of “When I was your age…” when really the only honest way to complete that cheap and unoriginal blackmail (almost always aimed at young people and children) would be to finish it off with “I had made more errors than you have.”
And behind the hijacking of the dead is that incoherent, useless cult of historiography from above, the belief that the history that counts is the one that is found in a book, a thesis, a museum, a monument, and their current and future equivalents, that are nothing other than an infantile way to domesticate history from below.
Because there are those who live at the cost of others’ death, and upon their deaths they construct theses, essays, writings, books, films, lyrics, songs, and other more or less stylized ways of justifying their own inaction… or their fruitless action.
The saying, “you haven’t died,” remains merely a slogan if nobody continues on the path the dead had walked. Because in our modest and non-academic point of view, what’s important is the path, not the one who walks it.
Taking advantage of the fact that I am rewinding this tape days, months, years, decades already, I ask, for example: for SubPedro, Señor Ik, Comandanta Ramona, is it their genealogical tree that matters, their DNA, their birth certificates with full names?
Or is what matters the path they walked with those without name and without face—that is, without family lineage or crest?
Is what is important about SubPedro his real name, his face, his way of being, all collected in a thesis, a biography—that is, in a documented and convenient lie?
Or is what matters the memory of him held in the villages and peoples that he organized? Religious fanatics would surely accuse, judge, and condemn him for being an atheist; race fanatics would too, because he was mestizo and did not have skin the color of the earth, in that inverse racism that pretends to be “indigenous.”
But does the decision to struggle made by SubPedro, by Comandante Hugo, by Comandanta Ramona, by the Insurgents Álvaro, Fredy, and Rafael matter because someone gave it a name, a calendar and a geography? Or because that decision was collective and there are those who continue to carry it out?
When someone lives and dies in struggle, does their absence say: “remember me, honor me, carry me”? Or does it tell us to “keep going,” “don’t give up,” “don’t give in,” “don’t sell out”?
I feel (and talking to other compas I know that I am not alone) that the accounting I have to give to our dead is in regard to what has been done, what still has to be done, and what we are doing to complete or fulfill what first motivated this struggle. Probably I am mistaken, and someone will tell me that the meaning of all struggle is to go down in history, in spoken or written history, because it is the example of the dead—and their administered biography—which motivates people to struggle, and not the conditions of injustice, of slavery (which is the real name for the lack of freedom), and of authoritarianism.
I have talked to some compañeras, compañeros, Zapatistas of the EZLN. Not all of them, it’s true, but with those I can still see, those whom I can still be with.
There was tobacco, coffee, words, silences and agreements.
It was not the eagerness to “survive” but a sense of duty that put us here, for better or for worse. It was the need to do something in the face of millennial injustice; the indignation that we felt was the most forceful characteristic of “humanity.” We are not striving for any place whatsoever in museums, theses, biographies, books.
In that sense, in our last breath do we Zapatistas ask ourselves “will they remember me?” Or do we ask our selves “did we take a step along the path?” and “will someone keep walking it?”
When we go to Pedro’s grave, do we tell him what we have done so that people remember him, or do we tell him what steps have been taken in struggle, what is still missing (what is missing is always yet to come), how small we still are?
Do we tell him good stories about how if we take “Power” we’ll put up a statue for him?
Or do we say “Hey there Pedrín, we are still here, we haven’t given in, haven’t given up, haven’t sold out”?
And while we’re in questioning mode…
This thing about taking another name and hiding one’s face, is that done to hide from the enemy or to challenge their ladder-climbing to a privileged spot in the mausoleum, to a title in the hierarchy, to the buy-off and sell-out offers disguised as bureaucratic posts, prizes, praise and acclamations, or small or large clubs of followers?
“Yes my dear, times change. Before, one courted the teacher—or their equivalent in the regime of knowledge—by carrying their books, hanging on their every word, gazing at them with rapture. Now one posts their writings, gives them “likes” on their webpage, and adds oneself to the number of followers that trill along in disorder…”
What I mean to say is, does it matter who we are? Or does it matter what we do?
Is the evaluation that interests and affects us that of outside observers or that of reality?
Is the measure of our success or our failure in what is said about us in the mass media, in theses, in the comments section, in the number of “thumbs up” we get, in history books, in museums?
Or is it in what we have achieved, in where we have failed, in what we have gotten right, in what is still pending?
And if we rewind even more…
In the case of Chapis, does it matter that she was a believer, a Christian who acted according to her beliefs, or that she lived and struggled, with and in her Christian being, for those who she never met? The atheist fanatics will surely accuse, judge, and condemn her for not professing the religion of the –isms that try to monopolize the explanation and direction of all struggles.
At some point, after reading “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” by José Saramago, Chapis went to look for that writer and compañero to tell him not only that she didn’t like his book, but also that she was going to write her own version. Does it matter if she managed to meet with Saramago, if she told him this, if she wrote her version? Or is it her decision to do so that matters?
And Tata Don Juan, was he important because of his last names “Chávez Alonso,” his Purépecha blood, the hat that both shielded and showed him, as if it were a ski mask? Or was he important because of the paths he honored with his indigenous step on various continents?
The children that were murdered in the ABC Daycare in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, who barely reached a few letters of biography, are they important because of the number of lines and minutes they got in the media? Or because of the blood that gave them life and blood and which now maintains a dignified stubbornness in the search for justice? Because these children also appear and matter now, although absent, in the mothers and fathers that their death gave birth to.
Because justice, friends and enemies, also means putting and end to the repetition of injustice, so that it cannot simply change the name, face, flag, ideological alibi, or political, racial, or gendered justification.
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What I mean is that we (and others like us, many others, all others) struggle to be better, and we accept when reality tells us we have failed in this, but that does not mean we stop struggling.
It isn’t that here we don’t honor our dead. We do. But we do so by struggling, every day, every hour. And on and on until we meet the ground, first at eye level, and then above us, covering us with the step of a compañero.
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Anyway, the sheets of paper grow long and with them the certainty that none of this matters to anyone, that it is not significant, that it isn’t what the Nation-historic-moment-current-conjuncture demands, that it is better to tell a story… or write a biography… or put up a monument.
Of those three things, I am firmly convinced that the only the first is worthwhile.
So I will tell you, just as Durito told me, the history of the Cat-Dog (note: now you can read “Rewind 3”).
Vale. Cheers and, about the dead, look above all, at the path they tread, that still needs steps to walk it.
El Sup, adjusting his ski mask in a macabre flirtation
P.S. THAT INTERVENES IN A CURRENT DEBATE: “Videogames are the continuation of war by other means,” concludes Durito. He adds, “In the never ending struggle between the fans of PS and Xbox there can only be one loser—the user.” I didn’t dare ask him what this has to do with anything, but I imagine that more than one of you will understand.
P.S. THAT IS TOO LONG TO FIT IN A “TWEET” (probably because of the size of the invoice). The self-proclaimed “governor” of Chiapas, Mexico, has solemnly declared that his administration has “tightened its belt” with the implementation of an austerity program. As evidence of his resolve, the governor has spent more than 10 million dollars in a national publicity campaign whose enormity and cost doesn’t make it any less ridiculous…not to mention illegal. Yet, due to the fact that some in the media have received a nice slice of this pie, the “inexperienced” and “immature” employee of that business which is not a party, not green, not ecological and not even Mexican (well, why even get caught up in details given that he’s not even a governor) in the very pages and sections of the same press that at first attacked him for being a “brat,” is now a true “statesmen” who isn’t spending money on personal publicity but rather on “attracting tourism to Chiapas.” That’s right my friend, the tourist agencies have already launched their “all inclusive” tourist package: “Come meet El Güero Velasco,” which comes with a special “kit” including special blinders so as not to see the paramilitary groups, the poverty, or the crime that flourishes in the major cities of Chiapas (Tuxtla Gutiérrez, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Comitán, Tapachula and Palenque), a state where it’s presumed that the indigenous are the poor, not the urban mestizo. If that giant thief, Juan Sabines Guerrero, paid the media millions of dollars in order to simulate government where there was only dispossession, the current “junior” of local politics pays the media even more because he’s learned from the current national president (I think his name is Enrique Manlio Emilio… right? See what happens when you don’t have a twitter account?) that you can move from the list of those being investigated by the courts to the list of presidential candidates for 2018 with tens of millions of dollars, a little Photoshop, and a racy soap opera.
P.S. REGARDING THE REPETITIVE CONJUNCTURE: Allow me—ladies, gentlemen, mister, misses, boys, girls, others—allow me, impertinent till the very end, to not allow you to close that door, leaving you all alone, ruminating in your frustration and searching for who to blame, which is how those that have a fixed altar but a changing idol rage.
Come now, calm yourself, have a seat and take a deep breath. Be strong and act sensibly, like those couples that break up “like mature adults” even though they are dying to crack each other (man or woman, let’s not forget about gender equality) over the head.
So, let’s get this straight: when you all obtain something it’s all due to your own efforts? But when it’s time to harvest defeat then you democratize responsibility and automatically exclude yourself from it. “Forums are a farce,” you declared. “We won’t accept anyone that is masked” you pronounced (and there was no chance of filing a complaint with the CONAPRED for discrimination based on dress). “Only we can triumph and the nation will be eternally grateful to us, our names will be all over textbooks, conferences, statues, and museums” and you were already so happy.
Then what happened happened, and just like last time now you look around to see whom you can blame for the defeat handed to you in that struggle taking place up above. “A lack of unity,” you say, but what you really mean is, “they didn’t subordinate themselves to our leadership.”
Dispossession dressed in the guise of constitutional reform did not begin with this administration; it was first instituted by Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his reforms to Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. Agrarian dispossession was then “hidden” behind the same lies that are today being used to envelope the inappropriately named reforms: today the Mexican countryside is completely destroyed, as if some atomic bombs had flattened it. And the same thing will result from all these reforms—gasoline, electricity, education, justice; everything will be more expensive, of lesser quality, and scarce.
But even before that and way before the contemporary reforms, the indigenous peoples were and still are dispossessed of their territories, which also belong to the Nation. In addition, that modern liquid gold, water not petroleum, was stolen without even a mention in the established media. The theft of our subsoil, that was so clearly denounced at the Seminar Tata Juan Chávez Alonso by the National Indigenous Congress warranted a few measly lines in the commercial press, the same press that today laments the fact that “THE PEOPLE” (that pipe dream that’s so fashionable in the political press) aren’t doing anything to put an end to the that legal but illegitimate robbery that goes under the name of “reform of the energy sector.” Dispossession takes place everyday and everywhere. But only now do they claim that the country was betrayed.
And now you, who has up until now been deaf, become indignant because they don’t listen to you and they don’t follow you.
And you say that nothing is being done because you don’t see anything being done. You say and it is said, “what matters is what I do, what take place under my guidance, on my calendar, and in my geography. Everything else doesn’t exist because I don’t see it.”
But how are you going to see anything if you wear the blinders that Power has given you?
So, not only do you just discover that the State has renounced its roll as social cushion in this whirlwind of dispossession called Neoliberalism, but now you also run to fight over the crumbs that the real Power hurls at you?
Look, the fact is, the world is round, it turns on its axis, and it changes. And that catalog of dualisms that are so in fashion in the politics up above are totally useless—left and right, reactionary and progressive, old and modern, synonyms and antonyms.
Look, it’s simple, your thought is decrepit and it expired on the very day that you decided to embrace that guy above (using that old trick which is now turned back on you: left-right, progressive and reactionary, creating excuses and dressing them up in the very same words that are today used to trap you), ignoring that that those above never accept embraces, they demand genuflections.
It’s not that you don’t have ideas or banners. It’s that your ideas are totally dilapidated and that won’t change no matter how hard you try to dress them up as modern, how many highfalutin sounding words you use to describe them, how many times they are re-tweeted, or how many “likes” and comments they may elicit.
You, who awaited the call, the anonymous blood that would be spilled, that warlike call of the bugle, the images of blood sacrificed on the altar of the fatherland that of course, you and only you were going to save.
“No dude, I’m telling you, Zapatismo is not what it was before. Do you remember how almost 20 years ago we were overjoyed with the images of the dead? They were so anonymous that they didn’t even have a face or a name, so far away, so indigenous, so Chiapan.” “Oh by the way, is Ocosingo in the Middle East?” “Ah yes, and their initiatives were so brilliant as long as there was space on stage for us.” “On the other hand, who can possibly take someone seriously when they refuse to sign up to (or analyze, or classify, or judge, or archive) the latest fashionable mobilization or movement.” (Note: they’re not the same thing, learn how to understand the difference.) “That’s right, they’re done for, they don’t even invite the press to their celebrations anymore. What could they possibly celebrate that isn’t our own condemnation or absolution?” “Yes, but what we will never forgive these Zapatistas is not just that they didn’t all die, and thus they denied us the right to manage over their deaths in the long halls of the mausoleums, in song and verse, in the “you haven’t died comrade, your death will be managed.” It’s that their deaths made them so…so….so rebellious.”
But no you say, instead of all that all we got was a bunch of Postscripts!
I know it doesn’t matter to you, but for those masked men and women here the struggle that matters to them isn’t the one that has been won or lost. It’s the struggle that lies ahead, and for that calendars and geographies must be prepared.
There are no definitive battles for either victors or vanquished. The struggle continues and those that today bask in their victory will see their world crumble.
But regarding everything else, don’t worry; you haven’t really lost anything because you haven’t even really struggled. All that you’ve done is delegate to someone else the search for a victory that will never arrive.
The one above will fall, there’s no doubt. But his fall will not be the product of a struggle that is exclusive, monopolized, and fanatical.
If you want keep pulling from above, you will celebrate every little movement of the monolith, but the rope will break each and every time.
Statues and authoritarianism have to be taken down from below, so as to assure that the base upon which they stood disappears and thus to assure that a new face doesn’t simply replace the one that was there before.
In the meantime, and this is just my humble opinion, the only thing worthwhile doing on that monolith up above is what the birds do: shit on it.
Vale de Helado de Nuez. Even though it’s cold.
The Sub preparing to………
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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text.
From the Iberian Punk Rock group Arzua25, this track called “Zapatista,” from the album “Welcome to the Resistance.”
From the group SKA-FE, from Colombia, the track “Death to Death”. ¡Brincooooolín!
From the series “How it should have ended,” alternative endings to “Batman, the Dark Knight Rises.” Video dedicated to the masked “bad guys” (who aren’t accepted in the “important” mobilizations), like Gatúbela and Bane (with their inverted skimasks and excellent diction).
From the immortal Cuco Sánchez, “No soy monedita de oro,” (I’m not a little gold coin) which explains itself.
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En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/12/22/rebobinar-2-de-la-muerte-y-otras-coartadas/
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Solidarity & Tenderness for the Zapatista Communities
Happy Holidays to All Our Friends and Compañer@s
An appeal for solidarity
A call for tenderness across borders
La solidaridad es la ternura de los pueblos. | Solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples.
—Gioconda Belli
December 2013
Dear Friends & Supporters of the Chiapas Support Committee:
Please join us in giving a generous year-end donation to support the Zapatista community’s projects of building autonomy.
Over the last twelve months, the Chiapas Support Committee (CSC, the Comité) has worked hard to build support and solidarity with the Zapatista communities’ vision and struggle for justice, democracy and equality.
The Comité has also worked to deepen awareness about the brutal consequences of neoliberalism and the drug war in Mexico and their devastating impacts on Indigenous communities and working people.
In 2013, the Chiapas Support Committee:
- Mobilized and organized support for CSC members and allies to participate in the Zapatistas’ Las escuelitas. Click here to see the Comité’s video-report on Las escuelitas.
- Thousands of community leaders, world-class intellectuals and political figures from across the world went to Chiapas to learn directly from the Zapatistas how they organized their revolution and are building autonomy.
- Organized a series of educational forums and activities to dialogue and learn more about the Zapatista struggles and express solidarity including:
- A report-back with Emory Douglas, former Black Panther Party Minister of Culture, and international artist Rigo 23, who had been invited by Zapatista artists to collaborate on a mural project and traditional weavings of Mr. Douglas’ iconic posters by Zapatista artists.
- Screenings of documentaries and movies about the Zapatista struggles and daily life in Oakland’s Eastside Cultural Arts Center and a local community restaurant;
- Published print and on-line newsletters and updates featuring reports and analysis on the key issues facing the U.S. and Mexico, neoliberalism, the drug wars and the Zapatista-led indigenous movement. And,
- Organized an October event to share Comité members’ experiences at Las escuelitas with the community and raise funds to directly support autonomous Zapatistas education projects.
On the Eve of Twenty Years of Zapatista Resistance
One year ago, to mark the beginning of a new time of struggle for peace and justice, thousands of community base members of the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) marched with fists raised to the sky in the main cities and towns of Chiapas to remind Mexico and the world that they had been organizing and building their vision of self-determination and autonomy.
The Zapatista communities erupted on December 21, 2012, to mark the end of the Mayan long-calendar and announce the start of a new stage in the Zapatista movement for deep community and justice.
Now we are on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising. In November 1993, the U.S. with Canada and Mexico were poised to begin a new era of capitalism, announcing that NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, would be implemented on January 1, 1994.
Unbeknownst to the world, Mayan indigenous communities in Mexico’s southeastern state of Chiapas had been organizing silently and diligently for years a national liberation movement and army.
On that January 1, the EZLN declared that NAFTA represented a death sentence for Indigenous people and rose up to say no to NAFTA and yes to humanity. NAFTA represented an imperial land grab of energy and natural resources, workers, violent displacement of Indigenous communities, and the start of a deepening neoliberal crisis that has spiraled out of control.
Since 1994, a drug war has swept Mexico, where the armed conflict between drug cartels, the police and military have resulted in over 100,000 casualties and thousands more displaced or organizing to defend themselves from the government and the cartels. Over 25,000 Mexican and international migrants have disappeared, as the drug-traffickers diversified their offerings to include human trafficking.
Indigenous people, migrants and workers in the U.S. and Mexico have borne the brunt of twenty years of “free” trade, including gentrification and the militarization of social and economic development.
Solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples.
Every year since 1994, the Zapatista communities and the EZLN have taken bold actions and shared clear words of their struggles, inspiring and building a community-based global justice movement against the disasters of neoliberal wars and plunder and for humanity.
The Chiapas Support Committee is asking you for a generous donation to mark this historic turning point to support the Zapatistas communities build their schools and education system for autonomy.
And we are asking you to pitch in to help us send a big message to the world that U.S.-based communities are expressing solidarity and tenderness for the Zapatista communities in Chiapas.
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Zapatista uprising, your donation will ensure that we send a powerful message of tenderness and solidarity supporting the Zapatista labor of love creating autonomy and community. Just go to our website and click on the donate button.
For peace & solidarity,
Board of Directors of the Chiapas Support Committee
Alicia Bravo
Todd Davies
Carolina Dutton
Arnoldo García
Laura Rivas-Andrade
José Plascencia
Mary Ann Tenuto-Sánchez
Two Important Notices from the EZLN
TWO IMPORTANT NOTICES
Comandante Moisés
December 19, 2013.
Compañeras and compañeros:
This is Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés writing you with two notices:
1. If you requested and received an invitation for the Zapatista Little School in December or January but did not receive your registration code, you may get it directly at CIDECI, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas on the following dates:
–December 23 and 24 for the course that runs December 25-29, 2013, whether you will be going to community or taking the course at CIDECI.
–January 1 and 2 for the course that runs January 3-7, 2014, whether you will be going to community or taking the course at CIDECI.
If you did not get into this round of the Little School for either of these dates, you may request an invitation for the next dates as soon as they are made public.
2. I also want to remind you that the 20th anniversary celebrations for the Zapatista uprising will be held in all five Zapatista caracoles and the celebrations are open to everyone, except the press.
That’s all.
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
December 2013
Raúl Zibechi on Colombia Peace Talks and Petro’s Dismissal
The Peace Dialogues and the Dismissal of Petro in Colombia
By: Raúl Zibechi
The decision of the attorney general, Alejandro Ordóñez, to dismiss the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, and disqualify him for occupying public positions for 15 years, is a blow to the peace process that the FARC and the government of Juan Manuel Santos negotiate in Havana. But it is also an example of the kind of democracy that reigns in the South American country, through which the dominant elites attempt to protect their class interests.
Petro was a member of M-19, demobilized more than two decades ago. He is the first mayor of Colombia’s principal city that exercises the position from the left. In his electoral campaign he promised to defend the public, the environment and to fight the mafias. Although he is not a radical but rather a lukewarm social democrat, after assuming the office of mayor in January 2012 he attempted to reform the city’s garbage collection, in the hands of private businesses linked to the paramilitaries.
What unleashed the crisis and his subsequent dismissal was the December 18, 2012 decision to transfer garbage collection to the Aguas de Bogotá public company. The company executives boycotted the transfer and for some days and the city was flooded with garbage, because of which city hall was forced to contract dump trucks to clean it up. He also proposed formalizing 14, 500 workers that carried out the informal collection of garbage.
According to all analysis, the implementation of that just decision was something pressured, but no one has accused Petro of corruption or mismanagement of public funds. The reasons the attorney general brandished on Monday, December 9 for proceeding with the dismissal are three: having signed agreements for garbage collection with a company without sufficient experience; having wounded the principals of free enterprise and competition by imposing limitations on companies so that they don’t provide service; authorizing the use of trucks to clean up the city.
The relation between the accusations and the sanctions is absolutely disproportionate. Those harmed by Petro’s decision are two contractor managers: William Vélez, of the Grupo Ethuss, and Alberto Ríos, linked to Grupo Nule. Vélez is one of the big contractors of public works for the State (cleaning and urban buses and Bogatá airport) and is “the most representative of a new business class that was strengthened in the Uribe era on account of large contracts with the State, and that now becomes part of the new Colombian cacaos” (Semana, November 21 2009).
Vélez is a personal friend of ex President Álvaro Uribe, financed his re-election campaign and is considered linked to attempts of the paramilitaries to legalize their fortunes through “two kin ds of businesses: those that permit them to launder money because they could overcharge sales, and the state monopolies in regions where they had influence” (La Silla Vacía, August 2, 2009).
Grupo Nule, called the “Carousel of Contracting,” is also linked to the city’s large public works and was a central character in the country’s biggest corruption case, under the mandate of Mayor Samuel Moreno in 2010, in the irregular awarding of public works (Caracol Radio, February 25, 2011). Despite being investigated and detained preventively, the prosecutor suspended and disabled Moreno for 12 months, showing a strange difference with the treatment given Petro, who was only accused of committing errors.
Attorney General Ordóñez dismissed and disabled former Senator Piedad Córdoba for 18 years for having “collaborated” with the FARC, in the case about the negotiations to free hostages. On the other hand he absolved the “para-politicians” (members of parliament linked to the paramilitaries) after the Supreme Court condemned them, he defended soldiers accused of violating human rights and maintained silence about the “false positives,” the murder of innocent civilians to pass them off as guerrillas that died in combat.
Because of that many Colombians agree with the journalist Juanita León, director of La Silla Vacía (The Empty Chair), who considers Petro’s dismissal “one more arbitrary and political act from the attorney general” and questions “the consistency with democracy that the attorney general is able to dismiss popularly elected officials.” The Senate elected Ordóñez attorney general in December 2008 for a period of four years, with 81 votes in favor and only one against, and in 2012 re-elected him until 2017. Petro was one of the senators that voted in favor.
Beyond the attorney general’s personality, an ultra right-winger and a fundamentalist Catholic, the question is the character of Colombian democracy. The day after Petro’s dismissal, the FARC emitted a harsh comunicado: “Yesterday, with just one stroke of the pen, Ordóñez gave those of us risen up in arms a lesson about what democracy means to the oligarchy in Colombia and about the absence of guarantees for an Independent political exercise.”
This is exactly the theme that the government and the guerrilla agreed upon less than a month ago: the guarantees for the exercise of legal opposition. If they dismiss you for attempting to change the model for picking up garbage, what’s going to happen when the usurpers have to return stolen lands?
Reducing the problem to the attorney general to too simplistic. It is democracy that is in question. There was never anything other than “rationed democracy” in Colombia, a concept of the Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella recuperated by Lincoln Secco: a regime where “violence against the poor and opponents is combined with authoritarian actions inside of legality and the scant rights are distributed in droplets to the more moderate sectors of the opposition.”
It’s worth the pain of reflecting on this kind of democracy, which expands throughout the world: a regime where corrupt entrepreneurs command, enriched by the protection of business with the State and where officials can dismiss popular representatives with impunity.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, December 13, 2013
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/12/13/opinion/030a1pol
Noviembre de 2013 Resumen de Noticias sobre los ZAPATISTAS
NOVIEMBRE DE 2013 RESUMEN DE NOTICIAS SOBRE LOS ZAPATISTAS
En Chiapas
1. EZLN publica 3 comunicados – Los zapatistas publicaron 3 comunicados: Malas y No Tan Malas Noticias; Rebobinar 3; y Cupo Completo para el Primer Grado de La Escuelita Zapatista en las Vueltas de Diciembre y Enero. En el primer comunicado, Marcos habla de las cuentas para las escuelitas de agosto e informa que el pago de registro para estudiantes de 100 pesos no fue suficiente para cubrir los gastos y, por tanto, tienen que subir el costo para las escuelitas de diciembre/enero a 380 pesos por estudiante. Rebobinar 3 cuenta la historia de Durito y el Gato-Perro. Cupo Completo informa que no hay lugar para mas estudiantes en las escuelas de diciembre y enero. Sin embargo, agrega que habrá una cuarta escuelita en abril o agosto del próximo año.
2. Buenas noticias para San Sebastian Bachajón – ¡Por fin hay buenas noticias para los compañeros de San Sebastian Bachajón! Un tribunal federal en Tuxtla Gutierrez revocó la sentencia emitida por el juez séptimo de distrito acerca de sus tierras ejidales que el gobierno apropió y ocupó. El tribunal de apelaciones decidió que el juez séptimo de distrito no debía haber dado credibilidad a un documento introducido por un comisionado ejidal pro-gobierno (y anti-zapatista). Este caso se trata del acceso a las cascadas de Agua Azul, donde el gobierno pretende imponer el desarrollo de un lujoso complejo turístico. El gobierno quiere tener control de las tierras alrededor de las cascadas para poder rentarlas por enormes cantidades de dinero a inmobiliarias turísticas.
3. La Garrucha emite 2 denuncias – La junta de buen gobierno de La Garrucha denunció que hay otra orden de aprehensión en contra de Alfonso Cruz Espinoza, un base de apoyo zapatista que por casualidad es dueño de la propiedad llamada San Antonio Toniná, adyacente al sitio arqueológico Toniná, cerca de la ciudad de Ocosingo, Chiapas. Presuntamente la orden de aprehensión es porque Cruz Espinoza permitió a unos bases de apoyo zapatista talar un arbolito en su tierra para construir una tienda de artesanías para el municipio de Francisco Gómez, contando con la autorización de la junta de buen gobierno y de los cuatro municipios autónomos de la región. Esta es otra lucha mas sobre un sitio turístico potencialmente lucrativo, y no es la primera vez que las autoridades gubernamentales persiguen judicialmente a Cruz Espinoza en un intento de despojarle de sus tierras.
La segunda denuncia concierne a la disputa contínua entre camioneros “oficiales” (con permisos del gobierno) y los camioneros independientes (zapatistas). Los camioneros oficiales están confiscando los camiones pertenecientes a los camioneros independientes en la central camionera en la ciudad de Ocosingo, privándoles de su habilidad de ganarse la vida. La junta exige la devolución de los camiones y que les compensen por los sueldos perdidos.
4. Morelia denuncia invasión de territorio – El 12 de noviembre, la Junta de Buen Gobierno de Morelia denunció que miembros del CIOAC-Histórico, una organización campesina oficialista, invadieron terrenos zapatistas en el ejido 10 de abril. Esto occurrió durante el mes de octubre. La Junta arregló dos citas para que miembros del CIOAC pudieran presentar los casos por los cuales invadieron el predio. Nadie se presentó para la primera cita, pero 60 integrantes del CIOAC aparecieron durante la segunda cita el 25 de octubre. No pudieron presentar ningún documento dándoles el derecho al predio, y resolvieron no trabajar la tierra. De todas maneras, de nuevo invadieron el territorio el 6 de noviembre haciendo amenazas de muerte, continuando con las agresiones (incluyendo un intento de secuestro), y dividieron el terreno con una cerca. Los integrantes de CIOAC-Histórico dicen que son órdenes provenientes del gobernador de Chiapas.
5. El Comité Samuel Ruiz García denuncia a empresas mineras – El Comité Samuel Ruiz García para la Promoción y Defensa de la Vida ha denunciado que al menos una empresa minera quiere renovar la explotación del predio La Revancha en el ejido de La Grecia, municipio de Chicomuselo. Esta es la región donde Semarnat (Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) elaboró un informe de impacto ambiental alertando a l@s residentes sobre los riesgos en la salúd que se asocian con la minería. También es la zona donde Mariano Abarca Roblero, activista en contra de la minería, fué asesinado en 2009.
6. Alberto Patishtán vuelve a Chiapas – El 20 de noviembre, Alberto Patishtán regresó a Chiapas como un hombre libre tras recibir tratamiento médico en el Distrito Federal. Sus familiares, amigos y camaradas le dieron la bienvenida en el aeropuerto de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, y desde allí viajó a San Cristobal para asistir a una misa en Catedral. “Aqui no se acaba la lucha; aqui comienza”, expresó a su llegada, según publicó La Jornada.
Por otras partes de México
1. La violencia de la “guerra contra las drogas” continúa – El ejército mexicano ha tomado control del Puerto de Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, como una medida para controlar el narcotráfico y la extrema violencia en la región occidental de Michoacán. Se arguye que Lázaro Cárdenas es el puerto de entrada a México de grandes envíos de efedrina provenientes de China. La efedrina es usada (legalmente) en la elaboración de diferentes productos farmacéuticos, y los carteles mexicanos del narcotráfico lo usan (ilegalmente) en la producción de metanfetamina. Michoacán tiene una gran presencia del ejército debido al incremento en los conflictos violentos entre varios carteles de la droga, y de los carteles contra los residentes locales. Los residentes locales están formando grupos armados de auto-defensa para protejer a sus familias, hogares y comunidades de los carteles y de las corruptas fuerzas de seguridad (tanto policías como militares). Los gobiernos federales y estatales, sin embargo, han caracterizado a estos grupos de auto-defensa como “criminales.” La situación es similar en Guerrero entre los carteles del narco, los grupos de auto-defensa y las fuerzas de seguridad. Durante los últimos meses, el asesinato de varios líderes campesinos ha escalado la violencia en Guerrero; mientras en el estado de Jalisco, el gobierno ha descubierto fosas clandestinas con los restos de por lo menos 100 víctimas, presuntas víctimas de la violencia de los carteles
En Los Estados Unidos
1. México, principal preocupación para la DEA – Por ser la mayor puerta de entrada y un creciente productor de substancias ilícitas, México constituye la principal preocupación para la agencia antidrogas estadounidense (DEA, por sus siglas en inglés) . El informe, Evaluación de la amenaza de las drogas, señala que los narcos mexicanos han aumentado la producción de heroína y además, han comenzado a expanderse por el este y centro-oeste de los Estados Unidos. El informe indica que ha habido una reducción en la disponibilidad de cocaína y un crecimiento en la de heroína, metanfetamina y mariguana.
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Compilación mensual hecha por el Comité de Apoyo a Chiapas.
Nuestras principales fuentes de información son: La Jornada, Enlace Zapatista y el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas.
Zapatista News Summary for November 2013
NOVEMBER 2013 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY
In Chiapas
1. EZLN Issues 3 Comunicados – The Zapatistas released 3 comunicados: The Bad and the Not-So-Bad News; Rewind 3; and Spaces Full for the December and January Escuelitas (Little Schools). In the first comunicado, Marcos talks about finances for the August Escuelitas and reports that the original $100 peso fee for students was not enough to cover the costs and, therefore, they have to raise the fee for the December/January Escuelitas to $380 pesos per student. Rewind 3 tells the story of Durito and the Cat-Dog. Spaces Full reports that there is no room for any more students at the December or the January Escuelitas. However, it adds that there will be a fourth Escuelita in either April or August of next year.
2. Good News for San Sebastián Bachajón – Finally, some good news for the compañeros in San Sebastián Bachajón! A federal appeals court in Tuxtla Gutiérrez overturned a lower court decision regarding their ejido land that the government appropriated and occupied. The court of appeals ruled that the lower court judge should not have given credibility to the document introduced by a pro-government (and anti-Zapatista) ejido commissioner. This is a case that involves access to the Agua Azul Cascades, where the government hopes to develop a luxury tourist complex. The government wants to get control over the land surrounding the Cascades so that it can lease that land to tourist developers for enormous sums of money.
3. La Garrucha issues 2 Denunciations – The Good Government Junta in La Garrucha denounced that yet another arrest warrant has been issued for Alfonso Cruz Espinoza, a Zapatista support base who just happens to own the land called San Antonio Toniná adjacent to the Toniná archaeological site, near the city of Ocosingo, Chiapas. The arrest warrant is allegedly because Cruz Espinoza permitted Zapatista support bases to cut down a small tree on his property to build an artesianía store for Francisco Gómez autonomous municipality with the authorization of the Good Government Junta and the region’s four autonomous municipalities. This is another struggle over a potentially profitable tourist site and not the first time that government authorities have judicially pursued Cruz Espinoza in an attempt to take away his land.
The second denunciation concerns the on-going dispute between officially organized (with the government’s permission) truckers and independent truckers (Zapatistas). The official truckers are retaining trucks belonging to the independent truckers in the yard at their central headquarters in Ocosingo, thus depriving the independents of their ability to make a living. The Junta wants the trucks released and the independent truckers compensated for lost income.
4. Morelia Denounces Land Invasion – On November 12, Morelia’s Good Government Junta denounced that members of CIOAC-Historic, a pro-government campesino organization, invaded Zapatista lands in the 10 de Abril (April 10) Ejido. This occurred during the month of October. The Junta set 2 appointments for the CIOAC-Historic members to appear and make their case for why they invaded the lands. No one appeared for the first appointment, but 60 CIOAC-Historic members came to the second appointment on October 25. They failed to produce any document giving them rights to the land and they agreed to not work it. However, they entered the land on November 6 issuing death threats and continued to commit aggressions afterwards, including an attempted kidnapping, and they divided the land with a fence. The CIOAC-Historic members claim their orders are coming from the governor of Chiapas.
5. The Samuel Ruiz García Committee Denounces Mining Companies – The Samuel Ruiz García Committee for the Promotion and Defense of Life denounced that one or more mining companies want to renew exploitation on the La Revancha plot of the La Grecia Ejido in Chicomuselo municipality. That is the area where Semarnat (Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources) issued an environmental impact report alerting residents to the health hazards of mining. It is also the area where anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca Roblero was murdered.
6. Alberto Patishtán Returns to Chiapas – On November 30, Alberto Patishtán returned to Chiapas a free man after completing medical treatment in Mexico City. His supporters from several organizations and his family greeted him at the airport near Tuxtla Gutiérrez and then he went to San Cristóbal for a mass in the Cathedral. He was quoted in La Jornada as saying: “The struggle doesn’t end here; it starts here.”
In other parts of Mexico
1. “Drug War” Violence Continues – The Mexican Army has taken control of the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán as a means of controlling drug trafficking and the extreme violence in western Michoacán. Lázaro Cárdenas is allegedly the port where large shipments of ephedrine from China enter Mexico. Ephedrine is used (legally) in different pharmaceuticals and Mexican drug cartels use it (illegally) in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Michoacán has a large Army presence due to an increase in violent conflicts among several drug cartels and by the drug cartels against local residents. The local residents are forming armed self-defense groups to protect their families, homes and communities from the cartels and from corrupt security forces (both police and military). The federal and state governments, however, have characterized these self-defense groups as “criminal.” The situation is similar in Guerrero with the drug cartels, self-defense groups and security forces. Within the last several months, the murders of several campesino leaders have escalated the violence in Guerrero; while in the state of Jalisco, the government is finding clandestine graves with the remains of at least 100 victims, allegedly victims of cartel violence.
In the United States
1. The DEA’s Principal Concern Is Mexico – Due to being the largest port of entry and a growing production center for illicit substances, Mexico is the DEA’s principal concern. A report, Evaluation of the drug threat, points out that Mexican cartels have increased their production of heroine and also initiated their expansion through the east and center west of the United States. The report indicated a decrease in the availability of cocaine and an increase in heroine, meth and marijuana.
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Zapatista Schools Are Full in December and January
Space Full for First Grade at the Little Zapatista School in December 2013 and January 2014
Comandante Moisés
November 2013.
To the compañeras and compañeros of the Sixth:
To Who it May Concern:
From: Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.
Past, present, and future compas:
We send you our greetings. Once again we are informing you that we are doing a second and third round of the first grade of the Zapatista Little School, even though we only barely managed to cover our costs the first round, and this thanks to the fact that someone gave more to cover our compañeras and compañeros from near and far. That’s how we took care of the costs that couldn’t be covered by what had been collected in the donation jar.
Even so, for the second and third rounds of the First Grade of the Little School we increased the number of compañeras and compañeros who could come, so that now we can receive up to 2,250 students in each round. That is, we had space for 2250 in the December 2013 round and 2250 in the January 2014 round. I say we “had” because both rounds have already filled up.
In other words, the Zapatista people worked to be able to bring 1000 more students than came last August.
Of course, the problem is to see if the 380 pesos per student will be enough to cover our costs, but our compañeras and compañeros from the support teams of the Sixth Commission tell me that many students are already organizing to get the payment together and won’t act the fool when they get to registration. And what we think is really great is that students who were already here with us in the first round are organizing so that they can help others come and learn with us. So it seems those students learned something while they were here.
In the new magazine that we are going to release as well as in the writings we will be publishing on the Enlace Zapatista page, we’ll let you know our own evaluation of the Little School. In this magazine you will be able to read the words of the Votanes who took care of you, of the teachers, and of the families that received you. This will be their evaluation, that is to say their word and thoughts on what they saw and felt about the first students.
Now, in the position of responsibility I have been given for the Little School, I want to let you know that the available spaces for both rounds have been filled. The round in December 2013 already has 2250 people, and so does the January 2014 round. In other words, we are already full compañeras and compañeros.
We hope you sent in your request on time, and that it is filled out correctly, with no tricks. But if you didn’t make it into this round, don’t worry. We are going to see if we can do a fourth round in April or August of next year.
We remind everyone that only those who are invited will receive registration codes. We say this because some people are trying to cheat by sending in their form without having been invited. So don’t cheat. These are the steps: you send your request for an invitation, you are sent an invitation, you send back the form, and you are sent your registration code.
One very important thing that you have to understand is that the registration for the Little School is individual. In other words, you can’t write: “I am coming and bringing two more people.” Each person has to request their own invitation because each student needs an individual registration because we board each person with a Zapatista family and assign them a Votán, a Guardian or Guardiana. That goes for everyone, man, woman, other, boy, girl, teen, adult or elder.
Therefore it is important that each person send their registration request, those who have been invited that is, because those who don’t will not have a place in these rounds of the little school. You have now been notified. It is also important that you state which of the two dates you can come. Even better is if you say you can come on either date because that way we can accommodate you more easily.
And please don’t register if you’re not going to come. We request that you let us know if you have an invitation but won’t be able to come, because otherwise you’ll take the spot of someone who wants to come but can’t because the spaces are already filled. We say this because some people did that in the August round, signed up and then never arrived. And they didn’t even have the good manners to give notice that they wouldn’t be coming. It is much better to notify us and give the spot to someone who can come this time, and then wait to see on which of the next dates you can attend.
To our sisters and brothers in the National Indigenous Congress and of Original Peoples from all over the world, we remind you that later on we will have special encounters with you. We will all agree on the details of that together.
Well compañeros of the Sixth, I will leave it at that and we hope that you can come and see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears our struggle for liberty.
SupMarcos is going to continue writing to you later on, for now the cat-dog bit him and so the Insurgent Health Service is treating him. That is, they’re treating the cat-dog because he got hurt biting SupMarcos. In any case, I had him add some videos for you to think about or sing to or dance to and all that.
Okay then. We’re here waiting for you.
SubComandante Insurgente Moisés
Head of the Zapatista Little School
Mexico, November of 2013
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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
Greeting sent to the Zapatista Little School by our compañero the Honorary Insurgent Major Félix Serdán Nájera who has been a rebel his whole life.
Video made by the compas of the Coordinadora Valle de Chalco Libre in their first grade course of the Zapatista Little School.
Fernando Delgadillo warns us about the complicity between ignorance and Power.
Alejandro Filio and León Gieco, two of those who don’t sell themselves, in this song entitled “A Price.”
Pablo González Casanova: indigenous communities are redefining the world
González Casanova: the original communities are redefining the world
** They contribute a national and universal perspective, the former UNAM rector points out
Photo: José Antonio López
[Above: Pablo González Casanova, during the Course in Research and Education about Sustainable Development, which he is carrying out at UNAM’s the Institute of Social Investigations.]
By: Emir Olivares Alonso
The original communities of Mexico and Latin America, in particular the autonomous organization of the Zapatista peoples, are redefining the world starting with their positions, but not through an aldeismo (a narrow or isolationist view) or Indianism, but with a national and universal perspective, asserted Pablo González Casanova, ex rector of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM).
During the sessions of the Course in Research and Education about Sustainable Development, which is under his coordination and is held at the Institute of Social Investigations of said house of studies, which will end next Friday, González Casanova expressed that the indigenous peoples maintain a cosmovision in which differences in culture, religion, ideologies and political positions are respected.
Within that context, the academic –who in 2011 was invested through the UNAM with an honorary doctorate – emphasized that Zapatismo is the most advanced project “that comes from below” on the continent as well as on a worldwide scale. This form of organization, proposes, invites, not to remake, but rather to construct a new world.
In an interview, he stated that the idea of these activities is that the investigators participate, but also those being investigated, “since they are not things but rather people that tell us what their problems are and, at times, what the solutions are.” The objective of the course is that it be replicated in other Spanish speaking countries and even in Brazil or Portugal. Also –following the statutes of the UNAM–, it can be converted into a specialty in the postgraduate students and, eventually, into a masters program.
In one of the two sessions held yesterday, Gilberto López y Rivas talked about the indigenous communities’ systems of autonomous self-government and he emphasized Zapatismo’s horizontal organization in making decisions.
He indicated that the situation of almost a national catastrophe that the country is living through obliges that “an academia emerge committed to finding paths for getting out of the cavern in which the neoliberals have put us.” In that sense, he emphasized that the original peoples have systematically resisted the violence and trans-nationalization of neoliberalism.
The Zapatista organization, he said, has formed individuals into autonomous subjects that stamp a community aspect on a global context, in which individualism reigns and it is attempted to eradicate support and solidarity. (They have done so despite the context of a counterinsurgency and a political-military circle.
Some innovations of that kind self-government are the horizontal decision-making and the relevance of the participation of youth and women. Besides, he added, the Zapatistas don’t offer this strategy as something idyllic or unique, but as one more form of organization.
In the previous session, Mariana Mora, from the Center of Investigations and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology, referred to the processes of cooperation among the communities. In particular, she talked about the Zapatista autonomous municipalities (municipios).
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Translation: Chiapas Support Committee
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/11/27/politica/010n1pol
Marcos: Rewind 3
REWIND 3.
Here we explain the reasons behind this strange title and those that will follow, narrate the story of an exceptional encounter between a beetle and a perplexing being (that is, more perplexing than the beetle) and the reflections of no immediate relevance or importance which occurred therein; and finally, given a particular anniversary, the Sub tries to explain, unsuccessfully, how the Zapatistas see their own history.
November 2013
To whom it may concern:
WARNING – As noted in the text entitled “The Bad and Not So Bad News,” the writings that preceded that text had not yet been published. Ergo, what we are going to do is “rebobinar” (that is, “rewind” the tape) to what should have appeared on the Day of the Dead. Having rewound, you may then read in inverse order the inverse order in which the texts will appear and that way you will…hmm…forget it, I’ve even managed to confuse myself. The point is that you get the gist of the “retrospective” perspective. It’s as if one is going in one direction but later returns to see how they got going in that direction in the first place. Got it? No?
WARNING TO THE WARNING – The following texts do not contain any reference to present, current, important, or pressing situations, nor do they have any political references or implications or anything of the kind. They are “innocent” texts, as are all the writings of the self-designated “Supcomandante of stainless steel” (that is, me). Any resemblance or similarity to real persons or events is purely coincidental and quite frankly schizophrenic…yes, just like the national and international situation where it is clear that…okay, okay, okay, no politics.
WARNING SQUARED – In the highly unlikely event that you feel that what is said below refers to you, you are categorically mistaken…or you are shameless fan of ad hoc conspiracy theories (which can be translated as “for every failure, there is a conspiracy theory that can explain everything and therefore repeat the mistakes.”)
All right then.
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P.S. Durito’s First Encounter with the Cat-Dog.
Durito was solemn; but not with that false posturing of government officials the world over. He was serious in that sense of when one is hit in the face by a heavy loss and there’s nothing one can do about it other than curse…or tell a story.
Don Durito of the Lacandón lights his pipe, this errant and wandering knight, comforter of the afflicted, delight of children, unrequited yearning of women and others, unattainable standard for men, nightmare of tyrant and despots, uncomfortable thesis for ignorant sophists.
Entranced in the light of our insomnia, he narrates, almost in a whisper, for me to transcribe:
THE STORY OF THE CAT-DOG
(How Durito met the Cat-Dog and what they said, in those dark morning hours, about fanaticism)
At first glance, the cat-dog looks like a dog…ok, maybe more like a cat…or a dog…until it meows…or a cat…until it barks.
The cat-dog is unknown to terrestrial and marine biologists (in which category of living things would it fit?), an irresolvable case for psychology (neural surgery cannot locate the part of the brain that defines dogness or catness), a mystery for anthropology (can traditions and customs be simultaneously similar and antithetical?), a source of despair for jurisprudence (what rights and duties emerge from both being and not being?), and the holy grail of genetic engineering (it is impossible to privatize that elusive DNA). In sum: it is the missing link that would bring down the entire Darwinist laboratory, seminar, symposium, and much-reiterated scientific fashion.
But let me tell you what happened.
As is the rule, it was the dark hours of the early morning. There was just enough light to cast a shadow. I walked calmly, taking steps only by memory. Then, I clearly heard someone say:
“A fanatic is someone who, in shame, hides their doubt.”
Internally agreeing with the assertion, I approached and found the voice. Without any introduction, I asked:
“Ah, so you are… a dog.”
“Meow,” he replied.
“…Oh, okay, a cat then,” I said tentatively.
“Woof,” he replied.
“Okay, a cat-dog,” I said to him and to myself.
“There you go,” he said… or I thought he said.
“So well, how’s life?” I asked (and I transcribed without hesitation, determined not to be surprised by anything, since it was a beetle who was dictating this exceptional story to me).
“Sometimes it’s worthwhile,” he responded with a kind of purr. “At times it’s like cats and dogs,” he growled.
“Is it a problem of identity?” I ask, lighting a pipe and taking out my multi-touch smartphone-tablet (in reality it’s more like a spiral notebook, but Durito wants to appear very modern—transcribers note).
“Nah, one doesn’t choose who they are, but rather who they could be,” the cat-dog barked disdainfully. “And life is no more than that complicated transition, achieved or truncated, from one thing to the other,” it added with a meow.
“So then, cat or dog?” I asked.
“Cat-dog,” he said, as if stating the obvious.
“And what brings you to this area?”
“A she, what else.”
“Ah.”
“I am going to sing to her, because some cats can actually sing you know.”
“Umm… before your serenade, which this female who stirs you will no doubt find sublime, can you clarify for me what you said at the beginning of this story?”
“About fanaticism you mean?”
“Yes, it was something like, ‘there are those who hide their doubts behind irrational devotion.’”
“Exactly.”
“But, how does one avoid ending up in one of the sinister rooms of that grim house of mirrors that is fanaticism? How does one resist the pressure and the blackmail to join in and embrace religious or lay fanaticism,.. the oldest kind, yes, but not the only current one?
“It’s simple,” said the cat-dog laconically, “don’t join.
Build many houses, each their own. Abandon the fear of difference.
Because there is something that is the same as or worse than a religious fanatic, and that is an anti-religious fanatic, or secular fanaticism. And I say that it could be worse because the latter uses reason as an alibi.
And, of course, it has its equivalents: homophobia and sexism, phobia of heterosexuality and hembrismo [the assumed moral superiority of women]. And you can add to this the long etcetera of the history of humanity.
The fanatics of race, color, creed, gender, politics, sport, etc., are, in the end, fanatics of themselves. They all share the same fear of difference. And they pigeonhole the entire world in the closed box of exclusive options: “if you aren’t this, than you must be its opposite.”
“Are you saying, my esteemed sir, that those who criticize sports fanatics are just as bad as the sports fanatics? Durito interrupts.
“It is the same thing. You have, for example, politics and sports, both professional: in both cases, the fanatics think that the professional is the one that counts; in both cases they are merely spectators applauding or booing the opponents, celebrating victories that are not their own and mourning losses that are not theirs. In both, they blame the players, the referee, the field, the opponent; in both they hope that “next time we’ll win,” both think that a change in coach, strategy, or tactic will resolve everything. Both pursue and harass the fans of the opposition; both ignore the fact that the problem is with the system.”
“Are you talking about soccer?” Durito asks as he takes out a ball that he himself autographed.
“Not only about soccer. In everything, the problem is who commands, the owner, he who makes the rules.
In both spheres, whatever is not paid is scorned: field or street soccer, the politics that doesn’t converge with electoral conjunctures. ‘If it doesn’t pay, then why do it?’ they ask.”
“Ah, are you talking about politics?”
“Not at all. Although, for example, with every passing day it is more evident that what they call ‘the Modern Nation-State’ is a heap of debris for sale, and that the respective political classes are determined to rebuild, again and again, the rooftop of a crumbling house of cards, without realizing that the deck is completely torn and tattered, unable to stand upright itself, let alone support something on top.”
“Hmm… it would be very difficult to put this in a tweet,” Durito says as he counts to see if it could fit into 140 characters.
“The modern political class is fighting over who will be the pilot of a plane that crashed a long time ago into neoliberal reality,” pronounces the cat-dog, and Durito thanks him with a bow.
“So, what is to be done?” asks Durito as he demurely stows his Chiapas Jaguars banner.
“Avoid the trap which holds that freedom is the power to choose between the two imposed options.
All categorical options are a trap. There are not only two paths, just as there are not just two colors, two sexes, or two beliefs. The answer is neither here nor there. It is better to make a new path that goes where one wants to go.”
“And the conclusion?” Durito asks.
“Neither dog nor cat. Cat-dog, not at your service.
And let no one judge nor condemn that which they do not understand, because difference is a sign that all is not lost, the we still have a lot to see and to hear, that there are still other worlds to discover…”
And with that he left, the cat-dog that is, which, as its name indicates, has the disadvantages of both dog and cat… and the advantages of neither (if there are any).
Dawn had already come when I heard a sublime mix of meow and bark. It was the cat-dog serenading, out-of-tune, the light of our sweetest dreams.
And in some early morning hour, perhaps on a still distant calendar in an uncertain geography, she, the light that both unveils me and keeps me from sleeping, will understand that there were hidden lines, drawn for her, that maybe only then will be revealed or recognized in these words now, and she will know in that moment that it didn’t matter what path my steps tread. Because she was, is, and will be, always, the only worthwhile destination.
The end.
Postscript: where the Sup tries to explain, in a postmodern multimedia format, the way in which the Zapatistas see and are seen in their own history.
Well, first it’s necessary to clarify that for us, our history is not just who we have been, what has happened to us, and what we have done. It is also, and above all, what we want to be and do.
Now, in this avalanche of audiovisual media ranging from 4D cinema and LED 4K televisions to the polychrome and multi-touch screens of cell phones (which, allow me the digression, show reality in colors that have nothing to do with reality), we can place, in an improbable timeline, our way of seeing our history with… a kinetoscope.
Yes, I know that I went a bit far back, to the origins of cinema, but with the internet and the multiple wikis that abound and redound, you won’t have a problem figuring out what I’m referring to.
Sometimes, it can seem like we are getting close to 8 tracks and super 8 tracks, and even then the 16 millimeter format is still far off.
What I mean is that our way of explaining our history seems like an image of continuous and repetitive movement, with some variations that give that sense of mobile immobility: always attacked and persecuted, always resisting; always being annihilated, always reappearing. Maybe that’s why the denouncements made by the Zapatista support bases, via their Good Government Councils, have so few readers. It’s as if one had already read that before and they only changed the names and the geographies.
But it’s also where we show ourselves. For example, here:
Yes, it’s a little like Edison’s moving images from 1894, in his kinetoscope (“Annie Oakley”): we were the coin tossed into the air, while the young lady “civilization” shot at us over and over again (yes, the government would be the servile employee that tossed the coin). Or like in “The Arrival of a Train” from 1895 by the Lumiere brothers; we were the ones who stayed on the platform while the train of progress came and went. At the end of this text you will find some videos that will help you understand this.
But now and then the collective that we are takes and makes each still shot, drawing it and painting it as the reality that we were and that we are, many times with the black shades of persecutions and prisons, with the gray shades of contempt, and with the red of plunder and exploitation. But also with the browns and greens of we who are of the earth.
When someone from outside stops to look at our “movie,” they often comment: “what a skillful shooter!” Or “what a daring employee who throws the coin into the air without fear of injury!” But no one says anything about the coin.
Or, about the Lumiere brothers’ train, they say: “but how stupid, why do they stay on the platform and not board the train?” Or, “we have here another example of why the indigenous are how they are—because they don’t want to progress.” Or the more daring ones, “Did you see what ridiculous clothes they wore in that era?” But if someone would ask us why we don’t get on that train, we would say“because the next stations are ‘decadence,’ ‘war,’ and ‘destruction,’ and the final destination is ‘catastrophe.’ The pertinent question is not why we don’t board the train, but why you all don’t get off of it.”
Those who come to be with us, to look at us looking at ourselves, to listen to us, to learn from us in the little school, discover that in each still shot, we Zapatistas have aggregated an image that is not perceptible at first glance. It is as if the apparent movement of the images hides the particular that each still shot contains. That which is not seen in the daily comings and goings is the history that we are. And no smartphone captures those images. Only with a very big heart can they be detected.
Of course, there is always someone who comes and tells us that now there are tablets and cellphones with cameras in front and back, with colors more vivid than those of reality, that there are now cameras and printers in the third dimension, that there is plasma, LCD and LED, and representative democracy, and elections, and political parties, and modernity, and progress, and civilization.
They tell us that we should leave behind all that stuff about collectivism (which, besides, rhymes with primitivism): that we abandon this obsession with taking care of the environment, the discourse of mother earth, self-organization, autonomy, rebellion, freedom.
They tell us all this while clumsily editing out the fact that it is in their modernity where the most atrocious crimes are perpetrated: where children are burned alive and the pyromaniacs are congressional representatives and senators; where ignorance pretends to govern the destiny of a nation; where sources of work are destroyed; where teachers are persecuted and slandered; where one big lie is overshadowed by another, bigger one; where inhumanity is awarded and honored and any ethical or moral value is a symptom of “cultural backwardness.”
For the mass (paid) media, they are the modern ones, we are the archaic. They are the civilized, we are the barbarians. They are the ones who work, we the idle. They are the “decent people,” we the pariahs. They the wise, we the ignorant. They are the clean, we are the dirty. They are the beautiful, we are the ugly. They are the good, we are the bad.
And they forget what is most fundamental: this is our history, our way of seeing it and of seeing ourselves, our way of thinking ourselves, our way of making our path. It is ours, with our errors, our failures, our colors, our lives, our deaths. It is our freedom.
This is our history.
Because when we Zapatistas draw a key below and to the left in each still shot in our movie, we are thinking not about what door to open, but about what house with what door we need to create so that this key will have a purpose and a destiny. And if the soundtrack of this movie has the rhythm of polka-ballad-corrido-ranchera-cumbia-rock-ska-metal-reggae-trova-punk-hip-hop-rap-and-whatever else is added, it’s not because we don’t have musical taste. It’s because this house will have all colors and all sounds. And there will be therefore new gazes and new ears that will understand our efforts… even if we are only silence and shadow in those future worlds.
Ergo: we have imagination, they only have plans with terminal options.
That’s why their world is crumbling. That’s why ours is resurging, just like that little light that, although small, is not less when embraced by shadow.
Vale. Cheers, and here’s to celebrating our birthdays very happily, which is to say, in struggle.
El Sup, confusing himself with the videos that he wants to include in order to, as they say, put the candle on the cake that does not say, but knows itself to be, thirty-something.
Mexico, November 17, 2013.
Thirtieth anniversary of the EZLN.
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Watch and listen to the videos that accompany this text:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/11/19/rewind-3-2/
Video that tells the story of the “Dog that was a cat on the inside,” by Siri Melchoir. United Kingdom, 2002
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A cat-dog in action. Note how he returns to his secret identity when he is discovered.
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A very brief reference to the origin of cinema. Pay attention to the mini-short: “Annie Oakley,” seconds 20 through 26.
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En español: http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2013/11/17/rebobinar-3/
Chiapas Support Committee 