Number Six
Reports Live From Chiapas

Roger's Chiapas Journal
August 22, 2005

(This will probably be my last report from Mexico, this trip anyway, since I'll be back in Marin by the weekend. NOTE: This report will be an utterly sincere advertisement for the school.)

MPJC'istas:

Study in Solidarity with the Zapatistas: AN ADVERTISEMENT

I've just finished five weeks at "Centro de Lenguas," the language school at Oventic Caracol, Chiapas, Mexico. Mexico is full of language schools. I chose the Centro de Lenguas at Oventic because I wanted to study Spanish and at the same time act in solidarity with the zapatista movement. This school is part of the project of building international solidarity, as well as indigenous autonomy in the zapatista zones. Among other things, the school generates income to support the zapatista secondary school which is also at Oventic.

The Oventic language school is not just a place to study a language, but something much more. First, to attend the language school, you have to be accredited by the Mexico Solidarity Network in the United States.
(www.mexicosolidarity.org.) Other solidarity organizations provide accreditation to students from other countries.

Mexico Solidarity Network (MSN) is a terrific organization that does solidarity work in Chiapas and, more recently, on the Mexico/U.S. border, notably in the city of Juarez, where appalling working conditions, rock bottom wages, and destruction of communities brought by the maquiladoras have been accompanied by countless murders of the vulnerable and super-exploited women workers.

Getting accredited doesn't mean you have to be a member of MSN, or even know anything about the group, it just means that you should be the sort of person who would want to go all the way to Chiapas to study Spanish ("castillano"), or Tsotsil, the local Mayan language, for much the same reasons I did.

The language instruction at Oventic is always collaborative and flexible, completely responsive to the student's requests. On most days class is held with small groups of students for a couple hours or more. Later in the afternoon or evening, there's be an educational activity, either in the same groups or together with all the other students and "promotores" ("education promoter" is the egalitarian zapatista term for "teacher"). This activity might be a hike up the mountain, where there's a panaramic view of Oventic, the surrounding indigenous communities, and Mexican military encampments. There you'll get a history lesson on the region (in castillano, naturally). About once a week there's a fiesta with songs (lyric sheets provided), most with political themes, some composed by the promotores themselves. And naturally, during my time there we analyzed, discussed and argued over the zapatistas' very recent "Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle," in which the zapatistas propose a new path for the struggle in Mexico and the world.

Classes are always fascinating, politically hip, and often funny. For example, one day our group of three students asked for a lesson focusing on the subjunctive. Our promotor grabbed a story by Subcommandante Marcos and a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, both laden with the subjunctive. It was a terrific lesson. But it didn't end there. Some days later, when the subject of the subjunctive arose again, our promoter entertained us with the theory (brand new to me) that capitalism had to develop first in the northern european countries, because their languages lack a true subjunctive (eg., England, Netherlands, Germany). References to Kant and Max Weber were carefully explained, and occasionally our promotor would seek help by consulting a little stuffed Karl Marx doll, which he held on his lap and affectionately called "Carlito." (By the way, I found each one of my promotores to be a wonderful teacher and lovable human being whom I hated to say good-bye to.)

The other students were just as interesting as the promotores: activists and solidarity workers from around the globe (even one from Mexico, studying Tsotsil). A good number of them were half my age, yet some had arrest records so long they put mine to shame. There were veterans of the historic demonstrations in Seattle, Cancun, Quebec, Paris, Washington D.C. and New York, each with a story to make your hair stand on end (those who still have hair).

So if you're thinking of language school in Mexico, for a couple of months or even just a week, Oventic's the place. Check it out at
www.mexicosolidarity.org.

¡Zapata Vive!
From the internet cafes and tourist hotels of southeastern Mexico,

Sub-periodista Rogelio

August 6, 2005
Chiapas journal: Postcard from Oventic
Hello MPJC'istas,
(NOTE: It so happens that I'm in San Cristobal, and I am sending a report that's almost a week old and written in Oventic, so the time and place references refer to there and then rather than here and now.)

There's limited and somewhat unpredictable internet access here, so this will be a little superficial.

Oventic is high in the mountains, on the slope of a hill, surrounded by beautiful green ridges and peaks. On the slopes are rectangular cornfields (called "milpas") planted on inclines so steep you wonder how the farmers can even climb them, let alone plant and harvest there. The weather is cool and rainy, but usually sunny for part of the day. Oventic can also be covered in a thick fog, which the writer Eduardo Galleano called the "ski-mask of the mountains," referring to the famous "pasamontañas" (black ski-masks) worn by the zapatistas.

Oventic is not really a community, but rather a place where people come to work in the Zapatista government, the various projects, and the collective and cooperative industries and stores. There are cooperative stores that sell the famous embroidered clothes of the region, an all-volunteer boot factory, a restaurant, and so on. The indigenous communites are located in the surrounding hills.

Oventic is one of the 5 "caracoles," which function more or less as government centers in the zapatista zones. Each caracol has a governing committee called the "Junta del Buen Gobierno" ("JBG"). Councils for the various municipal districts are here, as well as the Political Commission and various other offices.

The JBG has various duties, such as regulating entry into the caracoles and surrounding communities by visitors and solidarity workers. It also settles disputes for the communities, oversees most of the finances of the caracol, and makes some decisions about various local projects (clinics, collective stores, etc.). I haven't mastered the details of zapatista governance, and even the little I've said here is probably inaccurate. This is mostly because I'm lazy, although partly because I'm having trouble grasping the scrupulous "horizontality" of zapatista governance, so accustomed am I to thinking of government as a sort of pyramid where you can climb from an enormous base of diffuse governing bodies, up to where there are fewer and fewer bodies having greater and greater authority over the ones below. That just isn't the case here, where the governing philosophy is "mandar obedeciendo," or "to govern by obeying". This echoes the Zapatista theory of struggle, which is "caminar preguntando," or "to go forward by questioning." Neither of these translations gets at the inseparability of the paired ideas. Perhaps I'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, there are plenty of sources that try to explain zapatista civil governance. (Check the EZLN and FZLN sites and their links, and especially, read the very recent SIXTH DECLARATION FROM THE LANCONDON JUNGLE, which addresses the formation of the government structures, and speaks to all of our movements and struggles around the world in such a beautiful way that your correspondent was moved to tears.)

Oventic has something like a primary and a secondary school. These schools are supported in part by the fees from the language courses I'm taking. The schools are bi-lingual, spanish and tsotsil, which happens to be the most common first language in this area. (In other regions, tseltal, tojolabal, chol, or zoque can be the first language of the communities. I know of one zapatista school elsewhere that is taught tri-lingually.) The schools are collaborative, collective operations, infused with a democratic consciousness, boundless humanity, and a sense of solidarity that are the hallmarks and essence of zapatismo. (Okay, I'll cut that out.) The curriculum is not fixed like in the Mexican government run schools. The zapatista philosophy of education is "enseña aprendiendo," which translates something like "teach by learning," but not really, because the spanish phrase makes teaching and learning inseparable, something more like "teach-learn," echoing the zapatista theory of governance. The teachers aren't even called "teachers," but rather "education promoters." (The zapatista school system is something else I should really take the time and trouble to understand. Alas...)

The zapatista school year just ended, so on saturday morning there was a ceremony honoring the students and graduates from the school, then a dance at night that one of my fellow language students affectionately called a "Zapatista Prom." The morning ceremony lasted a few hours, but it was fun, moving, filled with music and meaning. There were games: musical chairs, a banana-eating contest, a puzzle contest between two students (which ended in a tie, to their mutual delight). Groups of students sang songs and played guitars, including a group of young women who sang a song about domestic
violence, with lines saying that women should not let themselves be mistreated, and certainly not hit, by their husbands, that they have a right to equality in the household, and that it's better to leave than be mistreated. One of the graduation speeches explained that education is itself a form of resistence to oppression, and that the graduates will continue their education for the rest of their lives when they return to their communities to use their knowledge and experience to serve their communites in the struggle. The ceremonies began with the Mexican and Zapatista flags presented, while the Mexican national anthem, and then the revolutionary Himno Zapatista were sung; they ended with a play in tsotsil perfomed by the students, reenacting something of the half-millenium of indigenous resistance to the conquistadors. In short, it was all very much like the ceremony I attended on the occasion of my nephew's recent graduation from Redwood High School in Larkspur. (A little joke, Henry.)As far as the news, I don't really have any, since I haven't read the paper or listened to radio since I've been here.

Your correspondent likes it here, and doesn't really miss urban life well, maybe warm showers would be nice. But he does miss all of his comrades very much.

Salud.
Adelante.
From the Mountains of Southeastern Mexico,
Sub-periodista Rogelio.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Just one last tiny entry before i leave for Oventic language school tomorrow.

As the following excerpt from La Jornada's July 10 issue shows, the military
remains a constant presence in the zapatista zones:
La Jornada, July 10, 2005
by Hermann Bellinghausen, Envoy
Ocosingo, Chiapas

"Three weeks of general red alert. Approaching the rebel communities means
encountering a tenacious and overwhelming silence. Or exasperating, according
to how one looks at it." The government insists, "'nothing is happening, there
is calm.'"

"The resistance, once again and as always, is at the heart of the problem in the
"formerly called conflict zone" (according to the new formula of the
commisssioner for dialogue and reconciliation)."

"The official dialoguer says that there is no longer "conflict." And that being
so, the more than 100 positions of the Mexican Army, are perhaps vacationing...
Or if we rub our eyes, at best they disappear, together with the cases of police
torture, like occurred in Yabteclum the same day that the Red Alert was
established. The low-intensity war in Chiapas seems to go slowly,
imperceptibly. But it doesn't stop."

*****The translation quoted is by Mary Ann Tenuto, of the awesome and prolific
Chiapas Support Committee in Oakland, California (www.chiapas-support.org).

Nevertheless, since the caracoles reopened on Thursday, the mood is festive, at
least in some of the caracoles, as saturday's July 16th issue of La Jornada
reports. From La Garrucha, Hermann Bellinghausen reports (my translation): "With
partying and dancing, the communities in the tseltal jungle have lifted the red
alert. ... The four municipal councils are in session at their offices. The
music played loudly the entire day. In fact, the celebration had already begun
on Thursday." And in Oventic, where your humble correspondent is headed, Elio
Hernandez reports: "After three weeks of a general red alert, activity has
returned to normal today in the caracol located in this community, where more
than a thousand indigenous have gathered to participate in sports tournaments,
and the party organized to mark the beginning of the new stage in the struggle
of the EZLN [Zapatista National Liberation Army]."

so hasta whenever, friends,
Sub-periodista Rogelio

Roger's Chiapas Journal
July 15, 2005

The first thing I should note is that since the red alert in the zapatista zones
has been lifted and internationals (like me) are invited to return to the
territories, your correspondent is off to language school in the mountains and
may not be able to report for a while after this.

....................................

The closer it gets to August, the heavier becomes the tourist load. And not
just the french, spanish and italians. There are even a few more north
americans. For instance, I actually saw a Brooklyn license plate on a newer
model something-or-other parked a block from the Zocalo. So I went to peek in
the windows. I must have leaned on it or something, because the car alarm went
off. But it wasn't your usual beeps and sirens, it was just this very
woebegotten elderly, male, jewish voice saying over and over, "You know this is
going to kill your mother."

.......................................

By the way, your imperious webmaster decided to make me the chiapas
correspondent without first asking or telling me or anyone else. this has
created problems, due chiefly to your correspondent's near monolinguaglism and
neurotic inability to start talking to strangers in any language. so this week,
for instance, i'd really like to tell you about this cool forum i went to
wednesday night in san cristobal. there were well over 200 people there. but
since i understood very little of what was said, and can't be too sure of what i
thought i did catch, i can't really report on it. but i tell this to your
webmaster, and he says, "So just make it all up. That's the way we do it here
in the states. What's the matter? You been away too long?"

.......................................

Once a month at a cafe that's maybe a little more than twice the size of our
beloved Aroma Cafe in San Rafael, there's a forum held on political topics.
This month it was called "Perspectives on the Sixth Declaration from the
Lacondon Jungle." The place was packed to overflowing.

<<<<<<<<<IMPORTANT NOTE: To read the Sixth Declaration and all the recent
communiques from the EZLN (the zapatista liberation army), check out the
indymedia site for Chiapas, or the FZLN site (the zapatista liberation front, a
parallel overground political group)>>>>>>>>

At the forum were four or five panelists, and then people from the audience made
comments or asked questions. the event went on for at least a couple hours.
Some of the panelists were from these political groups that i think had the
words "peace" or "indigenous" somewhere in their acronyms, and some were
academics -- or at least they looked that way. All of the speakers except one
were pretty enthusiastic about the Sixth Declaration. I drank camomile tea.
(Don't ask why I didn't drink coffee. Even though I'm in Mexico, where we're
all supposed to get you-know-what, I'm still in denial.)

One speaker was excited about the Declaration, but added as a caveat that he
hoped the proposal for a broad left response to capitalism and neoliberalism in
Mexico will be "truly a broad left, without limits."

The next speaker speaker, the only one who was not at all excited about the 6th
Declaration, and even a little down on it, said she wondered why the zapatistas
even issued it: "there is no plan, no campaign laid out, and thus no possibility
of success." At this point she was softly, almost politely, hissed. (That's
the way they do it here. Everybody's nice all the time. Go figure.) And since
she was the second speaker, a lot of the others felt they had to defend the
Sixth Declaration.

Another speaker responded that, "to the contrary, the 6th Declaration is a
detailed plan, with concrete proposals for meetings among the various
organizations planned for the summer and fall. And it couldn't possibly have a
specific plan for its national campaign, since it necessarily seeks a broad left
to embark on that plan, and that left hasn't even met, let alone made plans.
The zapatistas want a meeting in order to listen, something they are very good
at. The Declaration has NO omissions." Then the speaker said that for him
there were "two very important things in the Declaration: first, that it calls
for a unified left front against neoliberalism, and second, that it calls for a
new mexican constitution. In sum, it is the EZLN's initiative for the left to
overcome its differences and tendency toward cannibalism." (He really said that
-- he said "cannibalism.")

The next speaker said the Declaration was something very new. He noted that the
zapatistas and peasant and worker organizations tried dialogue with the mexican
government, marches, elections. "There was even the San Andres Accords -- but
nothing has worked. The electoral parties seem to insist that the system is not
broken. But the Sixth Declaration says it clearly is, and therefore seeks a new
path."

Another speaker found three aspects of the Sixth Declaration the most
significant: first, that its call to unite the left has been initiated "from
the bottom," the poorest of the poor, the peasants, etc. second, it speaks in a
language "that encompasses our hopes, records our past, and possibly represents
the first preparatory step to transform mexican society." third, that it seeks
"a dialogue with all sectors of society. It is not a plan, of course, but it is
an important step."

Comments from the audience were even more uniformly positive. One guy said that
for him the Sixth Declaration is significant in that it identifies the "left
current" as the basis for social change. Another person said he liked the
Declaration's international aspects, its "references to Bolivia, and other
places where there's a struggle for left unity -- even in the united states."
The Declaration, he said, "is a great challenge for all Mexico, indeed for the
entire world in its struggle for dignity, [and for some other stuff he listed].

One audience commentator I recognized from this women's legal organization based
in San Cristobal, said that what is key is that the proposal of the Sixth
Declaration "comes to us from the EZLN, which is well-known for it's emphasis on
women's open participation in all aspects of political and civic life. And
since it reaches out beyond the indigenous population, it has great significance
for all women among the mestizo population."

Another speaker from the floor liked the Sixth Declaration because it was a
"prick to the conscience of civil society."

So that's all for now.

From the tourist hotels and internet cafes of the mountains of southeast Mexico.
Salud.
Sub-periodista Rogelio

July 11, 2005 ...zapatistas del norte!

You know, your Marin Peace and Justic Coalition correspondent in Chiapas, Mexico, can sort of read a little and sort of translate written spanish when the material's familiar, but he really can't speak a word of it. Really! After much consideration and careful analysis, he has concluded that this deficiency could be a potential drawback in his role as Chiapas correspondent. He notes that he has come to this conclusion only recently, as he has just learned that Mexico is a country in which most Mexicans speak spanish most of the time.

(So, I started spanish lessons today.)

*****************************

Still reading the beloved Mexican daily, La Jornada (www.jornada.unam.mx). Not only does it feature essays by Mexican and Latin American commentators, but it regularly translates and prints the work of North American writers, like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and James Petras -- and that's just in the past week!

James Petras had a lengthy essay in yesterday's paper, titled "U.S. - Latin America Relations: Hegemony, Globalization, and Imperialism." Petras argues that we often use the words "globalization" and "hegemony" too loosely, and that the correct description of U.S. Latin American relations is "imperialism."

"Globalization," he explains, hardly describes the "huge flows of capital, profits, royalties, interest payments and laundered money leaving Latin America for the north. Nor does it explain the vast network of U.S. military bases and missions, or the intelligence operations through which Washington intervenes in the region. Neither does it describe the control and exploitation exercised by U.S. banks, investment groups and transnational corporations over the economy, commerce, energy, and raw materials of Latin America."

"Hegemony," writes Petras, "is not a helpful concept either, save in limited circumstances. The majority of U.S. policies, from the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas to the privatization of public services, telecommunications, water and energy, are vehemently opposed by most of Latin America's people, through mass protest, referenda, or removal of U.S. client regimes. Thus, the U.S. clearly does not exercise 'hegemony' over 70 per cent of the urban and rural population, especially workers, peasants and public employees. In fact, it's ideological and hegemonic influence extends only over the political and economic elites. Moreover, Latin American political elites are under pressure from the masses, in the form of general strikes, or menaced by popular uprisings which also reject, at least temporarily, the policies of Washington. Take for example the case of the attempted overthrow of the popularly elected president of Venezuela."

"On the whole, relations between the U.S. and Latin America, affecting most of the subcontinent, are based on domination, military and economic threat, and direct or indirect intervention. The notion of 'imperialism' captures much more the nature of these relations -- domination, exploitation and collaboration with client elites -- than do the terms 'globalization' and 'hegemony.'"

In a particularly concise list, Petras supports his argument that U.S. policies face majority opposition throughout Latin America: "In the period from 1990 to 2005 Washington's client presidencies have been overthrown in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador (three times), Bolivia (twice), Peru and Argentina. Referenda for the privatization of public enterprises have been defeated in Uruguay (water system), Peru (water), and Bolivia (water). Significant national uprisings have called for renationalizations of oil and gas (Bolivia), halted financial pillaging by foreign banks (Argentina), and held back U.S. sponsored programs to erradicate coca cultivation in Peru and Bolivia. Two important guerilla movements, counting more than 25,000 combatants, have managed to repel the counter-insurgency programs directed by the U.S. at a cost of three and a half billion dollars, and now control a third of Colombia. In Venezuela, a majority of 60 per cent of the people support president Chavez and his national popular program, his constitutional initiatives, and his allies in his government and the Venezuelan congress. A coup by civil and military elites, supported and financed by Washington, was defeated by an enormous popular mobilization joining with commissioned army officers."

Petras makes a sharp distinction between popular movements and uprisings and the governments of the so-called "center-left" in Latin America. "Most journalists and academicians continue to refer to the governments of Lula da Silva in Brazil, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Ricardo Lagos in Chile, and more recently Tabare Vasquez in Uruguay as 'center-left,' despite these regimes' adherence almost without exception to the entire neoliberal agenda. This erroneous characterization is based on those leaders' leftist pasts, and in some cases their own demagogic statements about themselves. In reality, these regimes have increased and extended privatization, raised surpluses budgeted to pay external debt, cut salaries, pensions and public sector empoyees and opened their countries to major ecological destruction by subsidizing increased agricultural exploitation in the Amazon and other precarious ecosystems."

Petras notes that the U.S. has not been able to make advances against the mass movements through coercive policies, but it has been able to do so through electoral parties of the "center-left."

But, says Petras, there are positive developments in combatting this phenomenon. "Within some of the principal movements of Latin America, especially Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil, debates and discussions turn toward the creation of a new sort of political instrument with which to take state power." [I note that in the case of Mexico, this is the central subject of the zapatistas' latest declaration, the Sixth Declaration from the Lacondon Jungle.]

Petras is hopeful about Venequela's "regionalist" energy strategy. And in the fact that Chavez' broad social welfare programs, especially in health and education, present an opposing model to Washington's imperial drive. "The defeat inflicted by Chavez against U.S. forces attempting to destabilize his government; his opposition to the invasion of Haiti, and his subsidized sale of oil and gas to carribean nations [notably to Cuba, in exchange for its help and expertise in establishing health and educational programs in Venezuela], has earned great sympathy in what is usually called "the U.S.'s back porch."

That's all for now.

Hasta luego, amigos.

>From the tourist hotels and the internet cafes of the Mountains of Southeastern Mexico.
Salud.
Sub-periodista Rogelio

July 9, 2005
Chiapas Journal: After the Bombing
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México
This is Roger, reporting.

hello all,

very rainy here. nice. went to the aroma cafe yesterday. (really, there's an "aroma cafe" in san cristóbal!) i looked but couldn´t find bill hard there eating a salad. but then i noticed there was someone who looked just like him, eating his ensalada at an agonizingly slow pace, lost in a thick book, putting down his fork now and then to lift up a pen and scribble a note in the margin. So eventually I struck up a conversation with him, whose name turned out to be Guillermo Duro, and then who should walk in to the aroma but ...

so anyway, yesterday the cover story of the respected national daily, La Jornada, was the bombing in London. and beginning right at the top of page two was the paper's own unsigned editorial. here it is. (the translation is mine.)

La Jornada, July 8, 2005
"Blair, Before the Mirror of his own Barbarism"

Solidarity with the innocent victims and repudiation of the bloody attacks of yesterday morning in London, occuring while the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world were meeting in Scotland, should not obscure the fact that the tragedy occurred in the context of a war into which Britain was clumsily, unjustifiably and criminally drawn by the current prime minister, Tony Blair.

All governments understand -- and Britain is no exception -- that when one's country is the agressor in a violent conflict one necessarily risks the security of its own people. England had no motive (at least none it would admit) to join the U.S. in its "war on terrorism," which began with the devastation and occupation of Afghanistan and continued with the invasion and destruction of Iraq. The historical experience of imperial Britain, which at the dawn of the last century had the capacity to occupy the greater part of the Arab world, should have informed the current government of the difficulties and consequences of a new colonial adventure in that region of the world.

Common sense indicates that terrorism is a police matter, not a matter for the armed forces; to eradicate it, moreover, calls for the full complement of political and diplomatic forces, including development and cooperation. Common decency should have obligated Britain to distance itself from the fabrications the Bush government used to cover its wars of plunder in Central Asia and the Middle East. But Blair decided to join him and thus made himself complicit in the tens of thousands of deaths of the victims of Afghanistan and Iraq -- victims just as innocent as those killed in London yesterday -- as well as the untold material destruction to those nations brought by the United States, Britain and their collaborators.

The invaders assured us that no bombs were "intentionally" dropped on Afghani or Iraqi civilians. Their bombs were launched with the most advanced technology. But that does not make the innocent dead of those unfortunate countries a secondary matter. The scenes of destruction, panic and death seen in the British capitol yesterday morning are daily affairs in occupied Baghdad. In the ethnocentric international media, the British deaths are considered scandalous, while the Iraqi deaths are a routine matter. In fact, the scandal is that some 30 Iraqi deaths would claim only a small fraction of the attention the news media now lavishes on the tragic attacks in London.

José María Aznar also thrust his own country into a war which it did not want. There it was sooner rather than later that the conflict arrived in Madrid on the eleventh of March of last year, in a series of attacks remarkably similar to those which occurred in London yesterday, and which claimed the lives of 200 in Spain. Days after the Madrid attacks, Aznar was thrown out of office by an indignant citizenry which understood the disastrous consequences of a war entered on a whim.

In this respect, it should be remembered, in contrast to Spain, which had in the Partido Socialista Obrero Español as a political option to take the country out of the war, England must decide at the ballot box between two hegemonic electoral powers: Blair's own version of Laborism, and the traditionally bellicose Conservatives -- two parties that are in agreement with the occupation of Iraq and all that implies.

One arrogance of the imperial style, which has come to several current western governments, is to suppose that it is possible to engage in hostilities against distant nations while keeping all death and destruction away from its own cities and towns. That is what the United States government believed until September 11, 2001. That is what Aznar believed until March 11, 2004. And that is what Blair, despite the bitter experiences of his counterparts, believed up until yesterday.

While the British soldiery were taking part in the oppression and devastation in Afghanistand and Iraq, Great Britain was celebrating its designation as the site of the olympic games, and receiving the most powerful statesmen on the planet in a Scottish locality which security measures had ostensibly rendered impenetrable. Throughout more than a century of British involvement in numerous remote conflagrations -- in the Arab world, in India, Korea, Suez, and the Malvinas -- Great Britain has not suffered attack in its own territory since the German bombing of World War II, aside from the attacks of the Ulster independence fighters in decades past. Now the war has arrived in London, just when that city was celebrating its future Olympic Games, and while the British government was boasting, in its role as host, of its membership in the elite club of powerful nations then meeting in Scotland for the G-8 talks. It is possible that in the next days and months the police will discover the perpetrators of the attacks of yesterday morning. And the intelligence organizations may find Al-Qaeda's network behind the explosive devices used. But the British people must be clear that the principal perpetrator of the crime in London is named Tony Blair.

END

July 6, 2005

zapatista´s del norte --

reporting from chiapas. little has passed. except that my favorite restaurant, El Gato Gordo, was mysteriously closed yesterday. the tall wooden doors were chained and locked. i was more surprised than perturbed. what could this mean? I thought. but then, upon reading the fine print on their flier, i realized that it is always closed on tuesdays.

one more important note: today i had my laundry done. i made a point of asking them not to iron the shirts.

Vale. Sauld.
>From the tourist hotels and internet cafes of southeastern mexico,

Subturista Rogelio
BIG, BIG P.S.: here´s another piece from monday´s La Jornada. i think the author might be a sociology prof at the UNAM in mexico city. i think the piece is really good, and celebrates the zapatistas with style and spirit. too bad little of that will survive my translation. (note, the comments in brackets are mine.)

"Let´s Walk Together" by Pablo Gonzalez Casanova (La Jornada/July 4, 2005)[or maybe the title should be "Let´s Make Our Way Together," or possibly "Onward Together"]

The casting off of social responsibility and compassion are characteristic of the neoliberal state, along with the impoverishment and increased exploitation of the workers and the people.

Powerless and barred from recourse to law and politics as instruments of struggle in an attempt to solve their basic problems, many fall into scepticism and despair when they see mass demonstrations fail to make substantive changes in the system of domination and accumulation oppressing them.

These states discard not only their social responsibilities, but their national ones. The government and parties that manage to win office initiate programs in which there is never a mention of the minimal guarantees owed the nation and its citizens, or if the politicians come to the people with promises before the elections, these are fogotten as soon has they have won.

The problem is repeated in one or another country in our América wherever neoliberal policies are applied. Even parties of the left join in accepting the role neoliberalism has assigned them: as mere pressure groups, more or less paternalistic, or perhaps populist, offering crumbs and scraps as if these would solve social and national problems. In their campaigns the use neither the critical discourse of the left, nor those terms that define it, when denouncing imperialism, capitalism, plunder and exploitation.

Mexico is no exception: state and political system, government and electoral parties scarcely hear frivolous protests and vacuous, inconsequential demands, before touting neoliberalism as the answer, but it is a false solution offered by a usurped democracy.

This in reality amounts to a "democracy of the bosses, by the bosses and for the bosses," a "democracy of the few, by the few and for the few," while the suffering and impoverishment of the indigenous, the workers, the middle classes, the lower and middle managers increases throughout the length and breadth of the country. And it is now a country which has dissipated its natural resources, energy sources, and systems of education, health and nutrition, dedicating an increasing part of its revenue to the payment of a new colonial tribute, euphemistically called "external debt."

The state and he political parties apparently do not understand the words, nor the demonstrations, nor the protests and criticisms of the great majority of the people, save during elections, and then only for the purpose of manipulating and influencing the citizenry, the workers and the people, and converting them into spectators and victims of their own misfortune.

It is under these conditions there arise the most distinct, original, and effective alternatives in the countries of Latin America: among the landless peasants of Brazil, the coca farmers of Bolivia, the society and state of Venezuela, and of course in Cuba, which continues day by day a process of recreation of the struggle for socialism, as liberation, democracy and social justice, including not only economic justice, but the universal distribution of consciousness -- popular, national and international.

In Mexico, the Comité Clandestino Revolucionario Indígena y la Comandancia General (CCRI-CG) [clandestine indigenous revoutionary committee and general command] del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) [zapatista liberation army], after declaring a "red alert," and having convened its troops and leadership base for consultations, has entered into a "new phase at the risk of everything." They have raised a program of peaceful action on a national scale (and potentially universal) in the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. This is a new step by one of the most original and genuine movements of our time. Its members declare that they have learned how to learn; which is to say, to keep learning.

In its previous metamorphoses, this movement which grew out of the guerillas of the seventies, declared war against the federal goverment. Then, under immense pressure from civil society, silenced its guns and submitted its struggle to dialogue and negotiation. After a firm agreement between the government and all the political parties of Mexico, all of them -- except the zapatistas -- betrayed the process, rejecting the agreement and thereby snatching away the rights of indian peoples.

To these and other metamorphoses of the zapatistas (which occurred through meetings, rallies and demonstrations in which over half of Mexico participated, although they held no executive, legislative or judicial power, have added a new and immensely creative transformation. The zapatistas built de facto autonomy in the form of the Caracoles [the five government centers for the 30 plus zapatista communities] and the Juntas de Buen Gobierno [the Juntas of Good Government, whose members change weekly or monthly, which function as the government in the Caracoles]. They use slogans fundamental for a politics that struggles for the general interest and common good and against all forms of oppression. This novel and realistic politics, in which those who lead, "lead by obeying," ["mandar obedeciendo," a zapatista slogan], and in which those who struggle for the general interest, with the aid of the collective, do so from the heart, to the purpose that all will be for everyone, and nothing for just a few, whether individuals or groups [echoing the zapatista slogan, "todo por todos, nada por nosotros" ("everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves")].

In all these areas, the zapatistas have made remarkable innovations regarding the importance of dignity, autonomy, ideological and religious pluralism; in overcoming differences between villages, ethnicities and neighborhoods; in the articulation of the struggles of the indian peoples within and as part of the rest of the Mexican people and the peoples of the world; in the rescue of their memory and life experiences, as well as the experiences of other peoples, cultures and civilizations present and past. Thus they have joined together as never before, the universal and the local so that they may free one another from the colonial mentality, and those colonizing and authoritarian attitudes which endure. And they have created something more: the rearticulation and redefinition of the social and national struggles, the struggle of indian peoples, of workers, of communities and of citizens.

It is evident that the Juntas of Good Government were a school for learning to make another type of government and another type of politics that would always be in the hands of the social base, so that those who govern must obey while governing, and may only govern so long as they obey. [refering, again, to the zapatista slogan and method, "mandar obedeciendo" (something like "lead by following")]

At present, the zapatistas are surrounded and harassed by the army of the neoliberal government, which malgoverns Mexico, and its associate oligarchs and subordinates, all with their troops in line, their paramilitaries and their paternalistic politicians who are part of the "civic action" of the "low-intensity warfare" This "civic action" serves to sugar-coat the military mission, combining punishment and reward through the appeasement and corruption of a part of the enemy and its base of support. And in the face of all this, the zapatistas not only show the extraordinary importance of moral solidarity (politically and militarily) but to dispel fear. Thus they redefine the old motto, "We will neither surrender nor sell out."

In the areas of education, information, persuasive argument, "intergalactic dialogue," they have achieved a global impact as no other movement in the past. And if they do not want to serve as a model for others, and if others do not have them for a model, zapatismo nevertheless mrks the most advanced form of doing politics in the world at present, consisting not only in the struggle against the politics of extortion, despoliation and genocide pursued by the Empire and its local functionaries, but against all the new assaults brought by the rich and powerful in order to strip communities of their lands and territories, destroying those communities and their own systems of making and delivering goods and services, subordinating them still more with food dependency and expulsion from their territories. These overlords would impose the ruler´s own mega-enterprises, in the process seizing energy sources on a national scale -- particularly oil, electricity, banking, water, transport and aviation, markets, and networks of supply and distribution.

The purpose of this process, of course, is to accumulate power and riches and reduce costs of production, at the expense of millions of workers and families, who become unemployed, disposable, and as such contribute to the downward pressure on direct and indirect wages paid workers. And there are repercussions in the middle classes, which already have limited access to the health care market and education in the professions of the social state -- a state which becomes more and more privatized. Nor do the middle classes stand much of a chance with "private initiatives" in health care, which only serve the rich, helping them to live well and die in ease.

The proposal of political alternatives by the zapatistas are many; but there is one that must be emphasized. Instead of continuing to feed the consuming logic of the state, they are organizing, intellectually, morally and practically, the logic of civil society.

This is so powerful a project that it has turned into the effort to build a society which defines its own politics where the state must govern accordingly, rather than in the service of only of those who govern society, or influence, manipulate, and exploit the people for the benefit of smaller and smaller groups -- groups which become richer and powerful beyond reason, and whom as a whole seem to lack the minimal sense to understand the danger in which they themselves are included, ever insisting on their petty, immediate interests, in their politics of criminalization, military intervention, "unconventional war," and naked terror. For the most part, these groups continue to show all probability of destroying themselves and humanity.

Faced with such insanity (that sometimes only manifests itself in the frivolity of rulers and their patrons, and even more in their crimes, irresponsibility, and massive corruption) this new phase of the EZLN and the zapatistas combines with the new movements we see in the World Social Forum, and with many others now steeling themselves for the building of another world that is both possible and necessary.

The message of the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle contains a profound critique and will be the new way of making politics and governing. But it also sets out a national (and global) project of democracy, liberty and justice, seen in the brave decision of the zapatistas to maintain "still" the political route. Their plan is to traverse the country for dialogue and concensus with other forces of workers and peasants, students, intellectuals, both the organized and the unorganized, in order to establish social bases for a new liberation movement in which the people organize themselves intellectually, morally, and materially in order to "lead by obeying" and to change the correlation of forces toward general, national and universal interests.

The response to the Sixth Declaration was not long in arriving. The Frente Sindical, Campesino, Indígena, Social y Popular, the Promotora por la Unidad Nacional Contra el Neoliberalismo, the Frente Sindical Mexicano, and the combative and always dignified Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas, showed immediate solidarity with the zapatistas, saying "Let´s walk together, unite our struggles, and join in resistence as brothers and sisters," vowing that "soon we will clasp hands."

The new history of Mexico is being shaped. Some can neither see nor hear it: those who obstinately cling to their politics of oppression and injustice; those who are daily less and less able to conceal themselves with their vain invocations to God, their military power, and their repeatedly exposed lies (which really never were believable).

Like the zapatistas "we see that in our country, that is called Mexico, there are many people that do not stop, do not give up, and cannot be bought. Or it could just be dignity. Whatever, it gives us much happiness and joy because with all those people it may not be so easy for the neoliberals to win, and maybe we will succeed in saving our country from the great robbers and the destruction they wreak."

We hope and believe that our "we" includes all these rebellions, all our currents of thought, and that another Mexico will be possible.

END OF ARTICLE

July 4, 2005

zapatistas del norte --

(since i am still waiting in cristobal to find out whether i'll get to my language school in la zona, i'm keeping busy while carefully avoiding any sightseeing.)

i thought this essay in sunday's la jornada was so interesting that i audaciously decided to translate it freely (i.e., loosely, roughly, badly). it takes a critical yet thoughtful view of the sixth declaration. very stimulating. (true, with my beginner's spanish, it might actually be a feature article on fly fishing in the chiapas highlands...)

EZLN: A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE OF DIRECTION
by Guillermo Almeyra
La Jornada (3 July 2005)

The new direction taken by the EZLN in the Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle should be greeted with enthusiasm. It is of the greatest importance to the subordinate classes of eastern Mexico and to their own zapatismo.

With the endorsement of the indigenous communities awarded them in a massive vote of support, the comandantes of the EZLN have announced a new direction in the Sixth Declaration. The document begins (after a few superficial jokes in Marcos' style) by assessing the struggle up to this point. Noting that the EZLN military aparatus was useful for the progress and advancement of the communities, the declaration nevertheless outlines a move from that approach to the construction of a popular political and social front, comprised of indigenous communities, workers, peasants and students in a broad front that would struggle not only for the vindication of the indigenous of Chiapas, but for Constitutional changes and a real alternative for the subordinate classes of all Mexico as well.

Of course, there is no use in crying over spilled milk, but that said, the resolution, had it been taken years back, would have enriched the social movements -- particularly the youth and peasant movements. It would have diluted the noxious influence of the political parties over the leadership of the movements, and would have been a positive influence in the reorientation of those parts of those parts of the PRD that remain vital, as well as its base, in opposition to the party's bureaucratic aparatus. The country would be different now, and the EZLN would be much less isolated and worn down.

The proposed front cannot bear only the face of the EZLN, in name or substance. (Indeed, even the Frente Zapatista Liberación Nacional (FZLN) is not entirely limited to advancing and interpreting Marcos' pronouncements.) Rather, such a front must be truly open, pluralistic and multicultural, building itself around a common class-based and national program. To the dominant classes, the indigenous of Chiapas now define the front as a mass-based and ethnic movement, rather than as the expression of an oppressed, exploited peasantry. Thus, this new front must be a worker's front, built upon a base at once political, social, national and anti-imperialist. A front made of those in agreement with that line may contain elements that differ on ten percent, or even forty-five percent of the positions of the majority. Still, such a front means allying with these elements, and "democracy" means guaranteeing that minority opinions be heard.

The Sixth Declaration, despite what everyone says, demonstrates that the zapatistas are not only constructing power in their base, and the seeds of state power in their Juntas of Good Government (Juntas de Buen Gobierno) and experiments in autonomous communities and groups of communities, but that they are truly challenging state power in the political arena, on a national scale (although not oriented toward the violent seizure of state power). The Sixth Declaration also demonstrates that there is no Chinese Wall between that which is essentially political (the daily transactions that take place within those power relations mediating the class and cultural struggles) on the one hand, and institutional politics on the other.

Indeed, it is posible to manage such infected and corrupt material as institutional politics if one uses rubber gloves and other precautions, insuring that the considerations of the institutional struggle are subordinate to the real issues of power relations and the consciousness and organization of the oppressed.

A social front, it must be said, is in fact a "party," though not in the bureaucratic sense of the word. That is to say, it is a current of organized opinion, with an internal dialectic. For all that, it must exclude sectarianism, ideological fundamentalism, top-down decision-making and "caudillismo," in order to have the power to reach those who, from bitter experience, have rejected the notion of a party aparatus, having seen parties corrupted and become sources of corruption themselves.

In order for this to happen, the EZLN must note and bear in mind its past limitations and errors, and show all of its allies and former allies, including those it has despised and mistreated, that it indeed has taken a new direction. It would have to leave behind the rhetoric and invective that has filled Marcos' letters, and engage in analysis and open discussion with all those who are or ever were zapatistas but may not be among the absolute loyalists. The EZLN must allow a "Yes, but...), which to the faithful may sound blasphemous.

A front cannot be made in one's own image, nor as one's clone. A front is made of real individuals who are subjects of their own thought and action. It must welcome differences of opinion and tactics among those who share the same objectives and strategies. Within this common frame, there must be space for a "variable geometry" of opinions.

Finally, it must be noted that there will be a danger that the legalization of zapatismo implies disarming or the public emergence of all its cadres and structures, since it must not suffer the fate of M19 of Colombia, whose leaders upon entering legal above-ground politics were systematically assassinated. As with Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST), some of the EZLN's leaders must enter the public sphere, and others not, and its structures must be preserved. For this is yet another battle, while the war remains the same as ever.

END

July 3, 2005

9:25 am
Day 2 in San Crisóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. I have yet to make contact with the underground. It occurs to me, could it be because they are underground? Must consider this.

10:37 am
No unusual troop movements apparent. But then, the troops would no doubt be accustomed to the food here.

1:15 pm
Something curious and possibly significant caught my attention in the Avenida Utrillo. A woman who seemed to be a tourist, possibly british, stood in the street looking frantically back and forth between her street map and the arch of the entrance to a hotel. "Blimey," I overheard her say, "this isn't supposed to be here." At that very moment, a small hungry-looking dog walking in her direction abruptly swerved to avoid her. The dog glanced up at me, meaningfully. Perhaps this is nothing. Then again ...