Author: Ana Laura Landa
Zapata vive, la lucha sigue, Evolution of the Revolution - a Durito, the beetle, story
Note: Durito is a character from the writings of Sub comandante Marcos, Durito criticizes and analyses the theories or ideas that Marcos has, and it is part of the ideas of recovering the imaginary into the reality, with Don Quixote book, is a fantastic resource for a reality world.
“No hay mejor forma para entender el sistema político mexicano en su parte trágica y en su parte cómica que Hamlet, Macbeth y El Quijote”
[“There is no better way to understand the Mexican political system in its tragic and comic side, than with Hamlet, Macbeth and Don Quixote”]
Sub Comandante Marcos 21st March 2001
— Durito the beetle is taking a rest after traveling around the world for 80 days, his tortoise, “Pegasus”, is waiting for him laying on the grass, chewing British grass in Westminster abbey. Durito is concerned, the gray skies, the cold weather, neither Excalibur nor its name (El ilustre hidalgo Don Durito de la Lacandona) have any presence in there. Quickly he takes out a new tool that the European community of beetles gave to him, a computer.
Durito remembers the time when he was with his friend Sub comandante Marcos in the Lacandon Jungle in Chiapas in 1994, concerned about the satellites that tried to end their huge meeting in the jungle. More than 10 years have gone by since that moment when they begun their history in Chiapas, in a nice jungle, inhabited by people with many problems and surrounded by injustice. Durito is part of the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional: The Zapatista Army of National Liberation) and now he has been invited to Europe to talk about the future of globalisation and neoliberalism, but mostly about cyberactivism. That is the reason that the European community of beetles gave him the computer, to keep the cyberactivism struggle, to develop a new revolution in the revolution. He is impresed because now he knows that the EZLN.org is the most famous Mexican web site in Europe and probably in the world. So maybe someone knows him because of the Sub comandante Marcos writings.
Durito starts walking trough the streets of London, Hyde Park is the place were he will meet everyone and begin the next stage of this fight. Now Durito knows that internet network, is the tool of the moment. Everyone is waiting for him; the grasshoppers are part of the reception, and then his speech begins.—
Durito: Long time ago the EZLN started as a movement in the Southeast of Mexico, this was labeled a guerrilla movement by the government of Mexico. But this movement started long time ago, since the Spanish colonization of Mexico. After 500 years, some people got together to elaborate a new Revolution in Mexico. The presence of resistance is implicit in everyday of our lives; resistance is not necessarily directed at the immediate source of appropriation. In as much as the objective of the resisters is typically to meet such pressing needs as physical safety, food, land, or income and to do so with relative safety, they may simply follow the line of less resistance (Scott 2002: 92-94). These are called “ ‘everyday forms of resistance’, were some part of the population will disagree with the ‘betters’” (Scott 2002:92), not always in political aspects, but in everyday life and so the movement of cultural resistance begins.
“Cultural resistance provides a sort of “free space” for developing ideas and practices. Freed from the limits and constraints of the dominant culture, you can experiment with new ways of seeing and being, and develop tools and resources for resistance” (Ducombe 2002: 5).
And this is what can make different forms of resistance, what is very important for the EZLN and therefore the use of the poetry of the zapatista uprising (of their communiqués and their actions) is not peripheral to their movement, not the external decoration of a fundamentally serious movement, but central to their whole struggle. Poetry (and indeed other forms of artistic expression) have come to play a central role in anti-capitalist struggle: poetry not as pretty words but as struggle against the prosaic logic of the world, poetry as the call of a world that does not yet exist (Holloway 2005) — Durito takes out from a huge bag some slippers, a hair brush and a tooth brush, and says — this were the first items that I used for traveling and with these I also taught the Sub comandante Marcos about the EZLN ideals — he displays them in the panel — now, I am going to explain their use and the metaphor of our problems, in Chiapas.
a) The slippers are an alternative to the boots, as you know, the Zapatistas use this kind of shoes, but my idea is that they are not convenient for the circumstances, the mud, the sticky floor, the slippers can be removed easily. Besides that, the slippers are part of our ancient outfit, and people use them representing fewer problems than boots.
b) The hairbrushes are very useful in events like these, where nostalgia is a contagious disease. Blowing through a small paper, you will have a musical instrument; with music you can give joy to the heart and feet. For dancing, there is nothing better than the slippers, ohh and they also work as hairbrushes!!
c) The toothbrushes are very useful for scratching the back. They come in different colours, shapes and sizes. Even if they are all different they all work for the same purpose, what everyone in the world knows, they are for scratching the back.
d) The slippers show the logic and the boots do not work when you are dancing or dreaming. The hairbrushes show that for music and love everything is an excuse. The toothbrushes demonstrate that you can be different or the same.
e) Dance, music, pleasure and consciousness, those are the flags for the humanity and against the neoliberalism, those who doesn’t understand this is because they have a cardboard for a brain.
c) Finally, the bags can be classified in two kinds, their bags and ours. Theirs are the “bolsas de valores” stock exchange, remarkable, because they don’t have any value, and our bags “bolsas”, that as they are called, their function is to carry things, like our slippers, hairbrushes and toothbrushes. So, one bag that can’t carry all these things is a bag that doesn’t deserve to be used. (Sub Comandante Marcos. 1996).
— All the other attendants to the meeting were speechless; the words of Durito were very interesting but, at the same time, confusing. Durito, drunk some green tea, and continued his speech. —
Durito: Ok, I can see your faces, this is not very understandable for people with other languages, but as my friend — he smiled — Gramsci said “the philosophy is contained in: I. Language itself, which is a totality of determinate notions and concepts and not just of words grammatically devoid of content. II. ‘Common sense’ and ‘good sense’. III. Popular religion and, therefore, the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, which are collectively bundled together under the name of ‘folklore’” (Gramsci 2002: 59) — he smiled again —. So what I’m saying is that as cultural resistance can be happening in a small place like Chiapas, the general concern can be similar. “Being a diverse class of ‘low classness’, scattered across the countryside, often lacking the discipline and leadership that would encourage opposition of a more organized sort, the peasantry is best suited to extended guerrilla-style campaigns of attrition that require little or no coordination”(Scott 2002: 95). That doesn´t mean that everybody in this world has to carry the same tools as we do, that is why if you go to Chiapas you would find lots of new propaganda and zapatista items, such as keyrings, hats, t-shirts, belts, toys, dolls, lighters. When I arrived here I saw a girl wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, and in Mexico you can find a lot of people wearing something of the zapatistas. It is part of the propaganda that we use, the EZLN is not only known by internet or comuniquees, but by all this items, mostly made by indigenous artisans, or some other colaboration groups and part of the income of this sellings goes to our aims. Now, lets see the start of this organization. In 1994 the NAFTA (Northern American Free Trade Agreement) agreement was signed and running in Mexico, United States and Canada, reducing the possibilities of having a better life quality in some sectors in Mexico, and that was the point when EZLN decided to take arms and fight for a common cause.
“Zapatism, a movement opposed to neoliberalism [that] seeks, on a modest scale, to re-enchant the world. It is a movement freighted with magic, with myths, utopias, poetry, romanticism, enthusiasm, and wild hopes, with ‘mysticism’ and with faith.” (Lowy 1999:216).
My friend Sub comandante Marcos, who was a teacher of Media and Communication in the United States a long time ago, leads the EZLN. On the 1st January 1994, besides taking over some places in Chiapas, the EZLN started a new fight, using communication, helped by other organizations and friends; we sent the first Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle talking about the manifesto of EZLN, our ideas, and the way we were going to fight for them. “Contrary to widely held misconceptions, the EZLN’s struggle has the characteristics of a class conflict rather than a purely ethnic one” (Castro 1999: xxxii). And we are using and creating a kind of cyberspectacle for everyone interested in us. With this name we are not saying that everybody outside the EZLN is a spectator, or just audience, but they are part of the listeners, and also they can become part of the play on the scenario. Here is when we have to think about the public interest. With the years we have seen that the international audience, mostly anti-globalisation, anti-neoliberalism and anti-capitalism groups have been interested in us. Some have been contributing with money, supporting or publishing our ideas. Indeed some organizations have taken the Subcomandante Marcos cominiquees and adapted to their fights. Some others have come to Chiapas for interviews, documentaries, books and also closely support. All of them are part of this struggle and their help is fundamental for our existence in Mexico and also around the world.
Now, let’s go inside the EZLN ideas. Historical evidence supports the contention that the choice of guerrilla warfare, as a tactical weapon, is dictated by the conditions at the time of the insurgency, a desirable outcome for the insurgents is dependent, in most of the cases, on timing and the existing relations of power in the location where the insurgency takes place (Castro 1999: xxiii).
“The main aim of revolutionary strategy is the transformation of the permanent political crisis into an armed struggle and of the political situation into a military solution destroying the bureaucratic-military machine of the state and replacing it with the people in arms (Marighella 1999: 148).”
— Someone in the meeting raised his hand (leg) and asked: Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? —
Durito: As Che Guevara said: “We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer that takes up arms responding to the protest of the people against their oppressors. He fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unnamed brothers in ignominy and misery” (Guevara 1999:68). Talking about Che Guevara, I’m going to go deeper in the threads of EZLN, but lets try to understand that even if they are a basis for the EZLN ideals, there is a rupture between this and the zapatistas, we are considering all, but we are taking them inside a new way of revolution. “But we do not want just to struggle against the negation of dignity, we want to create a society based upon the mutual recognition of dignity. Our struggle, then, is not the struggle of Revolution, not just of rebellion, but of revolution. In this revolutionary struggle, there are no models, no recipes, just a desperately urgent question. Not an empty question but a question filled with a thousand answers” (Holloway 2005).
The most important of all the revolutionary ideas in the EZLN is the foco theory, which maintains that in any country in which class contradictions aren’t tolerated it is possible for a small nucleus of well armed individuals to begin a guerrilla campaign that would act as a catalyst to mobilize the population at large to topple the existing system (Castro 1999: xviii). People must see clearly the futility of maintaining a fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. Peace is considered already broken when the forces of oppression maintain the power for themselves against established law. It is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people (Guevara 1999: 66-67). This theory is used as a base and modified for our purposes. As well as Guevara and Castro changed the proletarian revolution of Marx to a peasant revolution. We take their ideas to our aims in Chiapas.
Now we can see the most visible threads of the EZLN:
It is in the very spirit of the EZLN to retain elements of this heritage, the importance of armed forces and the peasantry, the rifle as a material expression of the distrustful relation between the exploited people and their oppressors, the readiness to risk one’s life for the emancipation of one’s brothers and sisters but that is not everything for EZLN, weapons are symbols of this revolution, symbols for the rest of the world, so the resistance could be take it seriously, even if is not more than a self defense tool inside our group.
Talking about heritage and symbols the most direct, is of course the legacy of Emiliano Zapata in the Mexican Revolution. It is the uprising of the peasantry and indigenous people, the Ejército del Sur as an army of the masses, the uncompromising struggle against the powerful that does not seek to seize power, the agrarian program for the redistribution of land, and the community organization of peasant life. But at the same time it is Zapata the internationalist who, in a famous letter, in February 1918, hailed the Russian Revolution, emphasizing “the visible analogy, the obvious parallelism, the absolute parity” between it and the agrarian Revolution in Mexico. (Lowy 1999: 216). The Mexican Revolution transformed the character and nature of guerrilla warfare (Castro 1999: xvii).
Zapata was drawn early into conflict with the system, defending his fellow workers against the haciendas and the local police and “rurales” (rural constabulary) (Castro 1999: 24). The situation is not different nowadays, and that’s why I’m going to read something written by Zapata: “we do not want the peace of slaves nor the peace of the grave… we want peace based on liberty, on the political and agrarian reform promised by our political creed; we are incapable of trafficking with the blood of our brothers and we do not want the bones of our victims to serve us as a staircase to public offices, prebends or canonships” (Castro 1999: 29). This sentence and his phrase “Land and Liberty” remain the central slogan of the new Zapatistas, who are continuing a revolution “interrupted” in 1919 with the assassination of Zapata in Chinameca.
Other thread is perhaps the most important, in matters of geography, the Mayan culture of the native people of Chiapas, with its magical relation to nature, its community solidarity, its resistance to neoliberal modernization. As Spanish domination spread to the mainland, so did popular resistance. In almost every instance, the rebel’s choice of guerrilla warfare was dictated more by the conditions prevailing at the time of the insurgency than by the exigencies of a preconceived strategy (Castro 1999: xv).
But inside is necessary a revolutionary theory that supports the foco, this could be the Guevarism-Marxism- Leninism. Since the Cuban Revolution this line became the main theory of rebellious movements in Latin America. Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos gave birth to these new ideas of revolutionary struggle. But the important change is that zapatistas are not following the same examples, and we are tranforming this theories to our own purposes. Remember that EZLN is not using arms all the time, is just a defence tool, and part of the identity of a revolutionary fighter. This Cuban revolution was based on Marx’s ideals, as well as some of Lenin and Mao. Lets see some of their ideas:
Marx said (clarifying that the Latin American and EZLN struggles have never use the proletarian but the peasant word) “The proletarian revolution will abolish all classes, the proletarian included, as a culmination of a process.” (Chaliand 1977:152). Remember that for Marx the proletarians were the only ones that could start a revolution, but zapatista movement is taking the peasants, indegenous, and the women, in a struggle for the dignity of all the people.
In Lenin’s case, in a certain way different from Marx’s, but using the communism ideas: “the working class would exercise its dictatorship by way of councils whose members would be directly elected by the workers and subject to recall. The economy and the state would be built from the bottom” (Chaliand 1977:153). This is considered one of the main aspects of all the Cuban Revolution and also, the Cuba problem. That takes us to a question very important to clarify, is EZLN a vanguard party? “¡Ya basta! turns too against a Left that had grown stale and stiff and alienating. It is the rejection both the Lenin’s revolutionary vanguardism and the Marx’s state-oriented reformism, the rejection of the party as an organisational form and of the pursuit of power as an aim” (Holloway 2005), and that is why is created the councils, is related to the question of community. Is the idea of knowing the people you are living with, because of the common work practices or decision making, what is very common on places like Chiapas. The revival of a council or assembly is the rejection of the party.
Maoist theory of people’s war divides warfare into three phases. “In the first phase, the guerrillas gain support of the population through attacks on the machinery of government and propaganda distribution. In the second phase, escalating attacks are made on the government’s military and vital institutions. In the third phase, conventional fighting is used to seize cities, overthrow the government and take control of the country” (Guerrilla definitions. 2005). These theory was taken by Guevara for the Cuban revolution, because is more appropriate in terms of the countryside, peasants and mass resistance.
All these theories represent the base of the struggle, but is important to point out that these are updated and adapted into the Chiapas situation, what is making a difference between other revolutionary acts around the world.
“The last, most recent thread, added to the others after January 1994, consists of the democratic demands made by Mexican civil society, by that vast network of unions, neighborhood associations that have risen up through at Mexico to support the demands of the Zapatistas: democracy, dignity, justice” (Lowy 1999: 217).
After considering the unsuccessful rebellions in Latin America in the last 20 years, the EZLN decided to explore other parts of the theories like the one Che Guevara proposed for Latin America guerrillas. These can be the three fundamental lessons to the success of revolutionary movements in America, but lets remember that they are not the main aim of zapatistas even if it looks like what we are doing.
1. Popular forces can win a war against the army.
2. It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.
3. In undeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.
The Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other struggles in Latin America never succeed; the reason could be probably because they could never adapt the theory to their situation, because in every country the situations are different. The politics that they used were most of the times meetings and speeches of the theories, that were not suitable for the rest of the group. And also because they did not try to take politics after the armed revolutions, this happened also with Zapata, he never took the presidency seat, and perhaps that could have been the real change for Mexico.
After the Cold War the two visible revolutions still existing are the Colombian and Mexican with the EZLN. Both very different in strategies and in a certain way they are living the same kind of guerrilla in the countryside, but they are adapting these to a new moment to their demands and proposals.
Because of the countryside isolation the communication with the outer world is difficult, and therefore it should include a series of intermediate points named by people of complete reliability, where products can be stored and where contacts can go to hide themselves at critical times. Internal lines of communication can also be created (Guevara 1999: 80).
“The fundamental characteristic of a guerrilla band is mobility.” (Guevara 1999: 73)
Having this mobility, Sub comandante Marcos came with an idea, which for me was too extravagant and difficult to accomplish, mostly considering my size and my mobility. He decided to use the internet network as the most important weapon of the rebellion. This is part of the political campaigns on the EZLN, the councils, the encounters, the march, but not meetings or demonstrations, the visibility is inside the network and inside the media, that is the tactic taken. Here is when thousands of questions came to my mind and to the other member’s heads. The main questions where: how are we going to use internet if Chiapas is one of the poorest, and the second most non technologic states in Mexico in 1994? My magic is not good enough to create such technologically advanced systems to communicate immediately with the rest of the world, mostly if telephone is not available where we were staying. Then the other questions were: how are we going to use a computer if we don’t even know how to write and read? And where are we going to get the money to pay for those items? What would be the government’s and the world’s reaction? Would it work? Sub comandante Marcos smoked his pipe, thinking about the answers of all these questions, and I was on his side, pointing with my sword on his neck, waiting for a clever and sensible answer. I remember his answer: “cyberactivism”. That was the word, and after that he left and started writing some of these ideas he then showed me. He was talking with me about this word that I had never heard before.
What I remember of his words is this: cyberactivism is more effective than traditional activism for a number of reasons. First of all, activism generally involves a large number of people in a protest. This is a problem because not only is it hard to find big crowds, but also arrests are easy. Cyberactivism avoids this because only a small number of people, who are very skilled at computers, are needed and they can move from place to place, avoiding the authorities. Secondly, cyberactivism reaches everyone all over the globe. Cyberactivism works outside the government, giving email evidence directly to the independent press. A protest can be blocked, but electronic evidence is almost impossible to ignore. And it can always remain nonviolent. (Kronk , Supernant and Wahlen 2005).
I couldn’t believe what I was listening in that moment, and then he decided to write a letter to everyone in the world where it said something about this, so here I include two paragraphs of it that I’m going to read:
“Bases for cyberactivism:
First. That we will make a collective network of all our particular struggles and resistances. An intercontinental network of resistance against neoliberalism, an intercontinental network of resistance for humanity.
Second. That we will make a network of communication among all our struggles and resistances. An intercontinental network of alternative communication against neoliberalism, an intercontinental network of alternative communication for humanit.”y (Sub comandante Marcos, 1994).
All this started after the problem with the censored information in newspapers, television and radio in Mexico; they weren’t showing the reality of the conflict. The advantage that we had was the relationship with activist groups around the world, they gave us their support the first months. Initially, the Internet was used mainly by academics to provide information about the Zapatistas conflict and its background, until then a relatively unknown force (Froehling 2002). However, as the conflict persisted email listservs such as Chiapas95 and bulletin boards sprung up, accompanied by actions such as write-in and fax campaigns to Mexican consulates, protests, rallies and the U.S. government urging a nonmilitary resolution of the conflict. In addition, web pages like ZAPNET were constructed, with up-to-date and extensive background information, pictures, and links to other sites. The Zapatista dispatches went out to Usenet groups, Peacenet conferences and Internet lists whose members were already concerned with Mexico (Andrychuk 2002). Now we can look into a very good example, Ricardo Dominguez (another good friend of mine) said that “we discovered that Zapatistas no longer have to be this kind of a modernist guerrilla, movement that followed; you know “death on arms”. Instead we created this kind of information guerrilla movement” (Stepard and Ducombe 2002: 385). He was part of the Electronic Disturbance, and with his group hacked the main Mexico government website, crashing the system and making a big issue in the Mexican government, the United States, the C.I.A. and random corporations. This is one kind of support by activism that was given and is still given by some in the world. With this, we keep the whole idea of spectacle, the zapatista movement was more famous because of these incidents, and EZLN had power over the media, was a new and interestig subject to put on papers, and television news, some new polemical topic; and because of that untouchable, in a certain way. The government would not risk anything more to stop this movement, because everyone in the world would know, and its relationships and interest would be over.
But the questions were still in the air, the insurrection offers the seeming contradiction of a high-tech medium assisting an uprising of indigenous peasants who are hardly aware of its existence (Froehling 2002). Despite those kind of critics, we know that the plan was different, the EZLN is not communicating directly with the internet, it is following in a certain way the idea of Che Guevara, of using different people in strategical points to establish communication, but to resist in the same place, as in 2003 the Sub comandante Marcos said in an interview with García Marquez, a famous writer, that he sends the writings or declarations with some of the reporters or international helpers and then they send it or post it to different places, or media. Even the “official” Internet presence of the EZLN on the internet is actually a site created and maintained by Zapatista supporters. The internet acts as a tool for supporters, who coordinate actions, disperse information and relay EZLN communiqués.
Two key advantages of the internet as a vehicle for social movements are apparent. First, unlike traditional forms of communication, the Internet allows for uncensored, nonhierarchical discussion. Second, the international scope of the Internet permits world opinion to be voiced, thereby pressuring the Mexican government and influencing its actions not necessarily directly but because of what the government fears would happen (Froehling 2002). The contrast of this is the radio, also used by the Zapatistas, making a link between radio and the cyberactivism, the Radio Insurgente, adapts radio discussions into a web space, therefore the McLuhan idea of “The spoken word” was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way (McLuhan 1964:63) this same idea can be adapted to the internet, and its versatility can give more space to start a new kind of movement. McLuhan also proposed that the electronic media inaugurates a generalized planetary communication and should conduct us, by the mental effect alone of new technologies, beyond the atomizing rationality of the Gutenberg galaxy to the global village, to the new electronic tribalism (Baudrillard 2002: 101). “The media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process, the practical means of wich are in the hands of the masses themselves” (Enzensberger 1977: 22). Thinking about these two statements, made before the internet worked, we have to consider that probably at this stage of history internet and cyberactivism are the most logical solutions involving there the New Left, which takes the media as one of the bases for their politics.
“Propaganda, which does not release self relience but limits it, fits in to the same pattern. It leads to depoliticization” (Enzensberger 1977: 22).
The new media can be buit up intensively and also spread it extensively, is “egalitarian in structure. Anyone can take part in them by simple switching process” (Enzensberger 1977: 30).
Even if it is considered as something for the present and not for tradition, is also opposed to the eternity of burgeois culture, and is something done towards action, not contemplation (Enzensberger 1977: 31). Sub comandante Marcos has probaly taken some of this ideas and developed them into the new form of cyberactivism on the internet.
The internet makes possible to conduct new kinds of campaigns, such as “electronic direct action” or “electronic civil disobedience” (Wray 2002). As social conflicts have moved into cyberspace so too have traditional methods of protest. Tactics such as protest letter-writing campaigns, sit-ins, blockades, and graffiti and billboard art-modification have been adapted to the electronic environment. A minority of activists is challenging the idea that the internet should only be used as a platform for communication. Rather, they see the Internet as a tool for “electronic direct action” the electronic equivalent of the more traditional methods of protest. A common technique is to send a flood of email messages in some cases from pre-programmed computers hoping to cause the recipient’s computer to crash (Bray 2002).
— A big pause happened in that moment, the audience whispering between them, and again Durito speech —
Durito: But my ideas also criticize this kind of movement. Yes, I believe that the internet is a good and advanced weapon, but in a certain way, even if we are getting a lot of support from other countries, it is obvious that is not completely egalitarian, it is hierarchical because it does not consider the entire population around the world, and the worst part is that the most segregated, isolated and poorest population is the one that is not having the access to this information, to this movement, to the words of the movement. In a certain way we are not playing the role of a warfare made by the masses for the masses, it is not considering all the people. The good part is that we are getting support and we have survived for more than 10 years, physically isolated, but mentally free and sharing. We are using the media and communication theories besides the old and used books of guerrilla movements. I think we are the first group of people (and bugs) doing this, and probably we will give ideas for new mobilizations around the world. Does that mean that the EZLN is a pioneer of the net for global justice movements? If you think about the Indymedia network or the anti-globalisation groups then you can see that the ideas of politic propaganda through media and network is more popular around the world, and probably this could be part of the EZLN legacy.
I have to tell you that the advances in Mexico have been many, and very different, from other guerrilla or revolutionary movements, we have started a free conversation and and new possibilities with the rest of the world, and now almost everywhere people know something about us. Perhaps one of the interior changes could be the change of party form neoliberalist party to the right party, and probably this change because the people in Mexico understood that the first ones were not solving the Chiapas problem, but the contradiction is that the right has not change anything yet, even if the President Vicente Fox said that the Chiapas problem would be solved in 15 minutes. The population in Chiapas has always been free in taking any side that they want, lots of them have come to the conclusion that the EZLN is not a guerrilla movement, but a society movement, a new revolution, trying to help, and the help unfortunately doesn’t come from Mexico itself, but from other countries, with money, tools, work, tourism, exportation without exploitation. Mexican government is not supporting those ideas, and Chiapas is still the second poorest and most isolated state in the southeast of Mexico, if the struggle stays there, what is the concern of the government? Should we see into the Strategies of Urban and Rural Struggle.
“1. The urban struggle acts as a complementary part to the rural struggle, and thus all urban warfare, whether from the guerrilla front or from the mass front (with the support of the respective supply network) always assumes a tactical character.
2. It will try to maneuver the proletarian which lacking the support of its fundamental ally, the peasantry, will try to preserve untouched the bureaucratic-military apparatus of the state’” (Marighella 1999: 149).
In 2003 with the Marcha Zapatista to Mexico City we tried to accomplish these ideas, but always knowing that EZLN is not planning to become an urban guerrilla warfare, but the government didn’t agree with our petitions and even if we have a lot of followers that doesn’t mean that everyone understood the Chiapas situation, there is still a lot of work to do. But that also has to happen with the help of Mexican people. Social movements have occurred throughout history. The advent of communications technology, whether telephone or fax machine, have historically played important roles, allowing social activists greater abilities to disseminate information and mobilize for a cause. Worldwide interactive telecommunication networks, the internet and World Wide Web, have given social activists an even greater platform from which to operate, whether through dissemination of information or calls to action.
— Everyone clapped, believing that the speech had finished, but Durito interrupted everyone with his hand. —
Durito: Ok, as a conclusion of my ideas on this movement, despite their ongoing clashes with the Mexican army, military victory has never been the primary aim of the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas reliance on words and ideas over weapons signals a new type of warfare. “Will this poetic romanticism prove more realistic than the previous socialist realism? We do not know. What we know is that the realism of power politics failed to achieve radical social change and that hope lies in breaking reality, in establishing our own reality, our own logic, our own language, our own colours, our own music, our own time, our own space. That is the core of the struggle not only against ’them’ but against ourselves, that is the core of the zapatista resonance”(Holloway 2005).
From the beginning, our logic has been that of “we are ordinary, therefore rebels” and their way forward has been a constant experimenting, a “caminar preguntando” (walk asking). This latest uprising by a large Latin American indigenous group captured the world’s attention and imagination. As a result, the true nature of the Chiapas rebellion has become the object of a multitude of arguments (Lowy 1999: 215) in the New Left and the anti-globalisation organizations, such as indymedia and Seattle lefty party.
“If the coordination is not working out between guerrilla activities and urban political struggle, the guerrillas are doomed forever to mark time in the countryside” (Chaliand 1977: 45-46).
That could be part of our problem, because EZLN is not sharing agreements with other organizations in Mexico City or in other state capitals in Mexico, and we don’t want to be part of other unsuccessful society movement. In Latin America, as we have seen, the fundamental cause for the failure of the various urban and rural guerrilla movements in the last fifteen years, is that they could not get the population to recognize the struggle as both national and social (Chaliand 1977: 179), and also the United States intervention, like in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala (that during 1960- 1990 had loose 150.000 people in the most devastating and hidded murder operation), and like Acteal in Chiapas in 1997 where 47 people were murdered by the Mexican army without being involved with the zapatistas. We have been playing this match against these capitalist governments with the media, with the idea of letting everyone know us. Bring every journalist into Chiapas Jungle, so they understand and spread the voice, that we are alive and fighting for the dignity of all the people.
We have to keep our ideals and analyse other theories to succeed in this globalised struggle, lets take the Zapata way to fight: That was part of the new way to make revolutions, wait for a dialog, attack, make some pressure, stop, dialog, and finally if it was possible, again fight, and then lets put in there the cyberactivism ideas. But remember: The crisis in Chiapas, or anywhere else, will not be solved in cyberspace. The Internet is as a powerful and useful tool for activism and for the rapid dissemination of information.
By itself, cyberspace provides only an illusion of participation. The true gage of success of the Internet as a vehicle for social movements can be measured by the actions information dissemination generates. Knowledge may be power, but one must do something with that knowledge if they are to affect change (Andrychuk 2002). The author has to work as the agent of the masses. He can lose himself in them only when they themselves become authors, the authors of history (Enzensberger 1977: 53).
— After that, Durito gave a strong “YA BASTA!” And everyone clapped.
He decided to stay for a while, listen to some other members of the European community of beetles and then, in the afternoon, left with his sword, his Pegasus and a big box of green tea, back to the Lacandon Jungle in Chiapas —.
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Guerrilla definitions, (2005)<>
Within this MySpace version of the electronic agora, cybernetic communism was mainstream and unexceptional. What had once been a revolutionary dream was now an enjoyable part of everyday life.