-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 184 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --We are here. We have arrived. [Marcos speech] --Stop the Torture Trade --A Call to Take a Closer Look at the Culture of 'Whiteness' --Out of the jungle, a global hero --Mexico's Masked Man Strides Into the Capital --Reader commentary =================================================================== We are here. We have arrived. Speech by Subcomandante Marcos, EZLN March 11, 2001 in the Zocalo of Mexico City Translated by Justin Podur City of Mexico: We have arrived. Here we are. We are the Indigenous National Congress and Zapatistas who together, salute you. If the place we're standing is where it is, it is not an accident. It is because from the beginning, the government has been at our backs. Sometimes with armed helicopters, sometimes with paramilitaries, sometimes with bomber planes, sometimes with tanks, sometimes with soldiers, sometimes with police, sometimes with offers to buy or sell consciences, sometimes with offers of rendition, sometimes with lies, sometimes with strident declarations, sometimes with forgetfulness, sometimes with expectant silences. Sometimes, times like today, with impotent silences. Because of this the government never sees us, because of this they never hear us. If they would hurry up a little maybe they could reach us. They could see us then, and hear us. They could discover the long and strong horizontal-ness of one who is persecuted and who nevertheless is not distressed, because she knows that it is the step that follows the one that requires attention and persistence. Brother, Sister: Indigenous, worker, farmer, teacher, student, homemaker, driver, fisher, cab driver, office worker, employee, street vendor, gang, unemployed, journalist, religious, homosexual, lesbian, transexual, artist, militant intellectual, activist, marine, soldier, athlete, legislator, bureaucrat, man, woman, child, youth, senior. Brother, Sister of the Indigenous National Congress, indigenous peoples of Mexico: We should not be here. After hearing this, I'm sure that, for the first time, those behind me are applauding furiously. For this reason I'll repeat myself. We should not be here. The ones who should be here are the indigenous Zapatista communities, their 7 years of struggle and resistance, their voices and their faces. The Zapatistas, the men, women, children and seniors, bases of support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who are the feet that we walk, the voice that we speak, the face that makes us visible, the sound that gives us our voice. The ones who should be here are the insurgents, their persistent shadow, their quiet strength, their risen memory. The insurgents. The women and men who are the regular troops of the EZLN and who are the guardian of the heart of our peoples. It is they who deserve to see all of you and hear all of you and speak to all of you. We should not be here. And yet we are. And we are here with those, with all of those who people the indigenous peoples throughout Mexico. The indigenous peoples, our most first peoples, our most first speakers, our most first hearers. To those who, being first, last to appear and perish... Indigenous Brother, Sister: Tenek. We come from very far. Tlahuica. We walk time. Tlapaneco. We walk the earth. Tojolobal. We are the bow and arrow. Totonaco. The walking wind. Triqui. We are the heart and blood. Tzeltal. The warrior and protector. Tzotzil. The friendly embrace. Wixaritari. They think we are defeated. Yaqui. Dumb. Zapoteco. Silenced. Zoque. We carry much time in our hands. Maya. We have come here to name ourselves. Kumiai. We have come to say 'we are'. Mayo. We have come to be seen. Mazahua. We have come to see that we are seen. Mazateco. Here our name is said by our walking. Mixe. We are this. The one who grows between fences. The one who sings. The one who cares for the old word. The one who speaks. The one who is of corn. The one who lives in the mountain. The one who walks the earth. The one who shares an idea. The true us. The true person. The ancestor. The person of the web. The one who respects history. The one who dresses humbly. The one who speaks flowers. Who is rain. Who has knowledge to give. Who hunts with arrows. Who is the river. Who is the desert. Who is the sea. The different. The one who is a person. The one who walks faster. Who is the people. Who is the mountain. Who is painted with color. Who speaks the truth. Who has three hearts. Who is father and elder brother. Who walks the night. Who works. The man who is man. The one who walks among the clouds. The one who has words. The one who shares blood and ideas. The child of the sun. The one who goes one and another way. The one who walks in the mist. The one who is mysterious. The one who works the word. The one who orders in the mountain. The one who is brother, sister. Amuzgo. All this says our name. Cora. And it says more. Cuicateco. But it is hardly heard. Chinateco. Another name used to strike at ours. Chocholteco. We are here to be with those who are us. Chol. We are the mirror through which we are seen and are. Chontal. We, we who are the color of the earth. Guarijio. From now on, never again ashamed because of our skin. Huasteco. Language. Huave. Dress. Kikapu. Dance. Kukapa. Song. Mame. Height. Matlatzinca. History. Mixteco. From now on, no more shame. Nahuatl. Here, from now on pride in being the color that we are, the color of the earth. Nahnu. Here, the dignity that is to see us being seen to be the color that we are, the color of the earth. O'Odham. Here the voice from which we were born. Pame. Here, from now on, never again the silence. Popoluca. Here, from now on, the shout. Purepecha. Here the place that was hidden. Raramuri. Here the dark light, time and feeling. Indigenous brother, sister: Non-indigenous brother, sister: We are here to say that we are here. And when we say 'we are here', we are also naming the other. Brother, sister who is Mexican or not. With you we say 'we are here' and we are here with you. Brother, sister, indigenous or no: We are a mirror. We are here to see and be seen, for you to see us, for you to see yourself, for the other to see himself in our image. We are here and we are a mirror. Not reality, just a reflection. Not light, but just reflected light. Not the road, but just a few steps. Not the guide, but just one of many paths which lead to the morning. Brother, sister City of Mexico: When we say 'we are' we also say 'we are not' and 'we will not be'. Because of this it is good that, those who are above are money and those who speak for it, take note of these words, pay attention and listen and carefully look at what it is that what they are looking at doesn't want. We are not those who aspire to power, and from power, impose the way and the word. We will never be. We are not those who put a price on our dignity or the dignity of others, and change the struggle to the market where politics is what merchants, who dispute not over projects but clients, want. We will not be. We are not those who seek an apology and a limousine from someone who pretends to help but is really buying and who is not apologizing but humiliating one who, by existing, claims, demands. We will not be. We are not those who, foolishly, hope that from above will come the justice that can only come from below, the freedom which can only be won with all, the democracy which is struggled for at all levels and all the time. We will not be. We are not some fleeting fashion which, when it passes, will be stored in a calendar of failures for the country to look on with nostalgia. We will not be. We are not the slick calculus which pretends in the word and hides a new pretense in it, we are not a phony peace which yearns for eternal war, we are not one who says 'three' and then 'two' or 'four' or 'all' or 'none'. We will not be. We are not the morning's regret, who becomes an increasingly grotesque image of power, who pretends to 'good sense' and 'prudence' when there is nothing but a transaction. We will not be. We are and we will be one more in the march. The march of indigenous dignity. The march of the color of the earth. That which uncovers the many Mexicos which hide and hurt under Mexico. We are not their microphone. We are one voice among all these voices. One echo of the dignity that is repeated through all the voices. We add our voice to these, we multiply our voices with them. We will continue to be an echo, we are and will continue to be a voice. We are a reflection and a shout. We will always be. We can be with or without a face, armed or without fire, but Zapatistas we are, we are and we will be forever. For 90 years, the powerful have asked those below them, to whom Zapata called: 'with what permission, senors?' And we, those from below, responded and respond: 'with ours.' And with our permission, starting exactly 90 years ago, we shouted, and they called us 'rebels'. And today we repeat: we are rebels. We will be rebels. But to be that we want to be that with everyone. Without war, as a place and a way. Because so speaks the color of the earth: struggle has many paths, and only one destination: to be the color with all the colors that dress the earth. Brother, sister: They say up there above that this is the end of a tremor. That everything will pass and leave them above us as before. They say that you are here to see a show, to hear without even listening. They say that we are few, that we are weak, that we are not more than a photograph, an anecdote, a spectacle, a perishable product soon to reach its expiry date. They say that you will leave us alone. That alone and empty we will return to the land we came from. They say that forgetting is failure and they hope you forget and fail. They know but do not want to say: there will be no forgetting and there will be no defeat of the color of the earth. They do not want to say this because to say this is to acknowledge it and to acknowledge it is to see that everything has changed and it has not changed for nothing but because everything changes changing. This movement, of the color of the earth, is yours and because it is yours it is ours. Now, and this is what they fear, there is no 'you' and 'we' because we are all the color of the earth. It is time that the Fox and those he serves listens and listens to us. It is time that the Fox and those who give him orders see us. Our word says only one thing. We seek only one thing. Constitutional recognition of indigenous rights and culture. A dignified place for the color of the earth. It is time that this country stop being a shame clothed only in the color of money. It is the time of the indigenous peoples, of the color of the earth, of all the colors of below we are and we are these colors in spite of the color of money. We are rebels because it the earth is a rebel to those who would sell and buy as if the earth did not exist, and as if the color of the earth, our color, did not exist. City of Mexico: Here we are. We are here as a rebel of the color of the earth, shouting: Democracy! Liberty! Justice! Mexico: We did not come here to tell you what to do, nor to guide you in any particular way. We came to ask you humbly, respectfully, for help. That you do not permit the sun to rise without this flag having a dignified place for us who are the color of the earth. From the Zocalo of the City of Mexico. CCRI-Comandancia-General of the EZLN. Mexico, March 11, 2001. ------- The Collected Writings of Subcommandante Marcos are at: www.springtraining.org/revolt/mexico/marcos_index.html =================================================================== Stop the Torture Trade By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Tue, 13 Mar 2001 Torture predates the development of the corporation. But corporations are entangled in the modern-day commerce in devices of torture. In a new report, Amnesty International shines a spotlight on the makers o= f law enforcement equipment and how their devices are used by torturers around the world (including in the United States). Amnesty has compiled a list of more than 80 U.S. manufacturers and suppliers of electro-shock weapons and restraints. Amnesty does not allege that any one or another of these companies is involved in the international trade in equipment used in torture. But Amnesty's report, "Stopping the Torture Trade," does provide numerous examples of U.S. products being used by torturers overseas, as well as in the United States. We thought it'd be interesting to call up these companies and ask: Do you sell to known human rights abusers? Do you screen the persons or agencies to whom you sell domestically, to make sure they are not selling or exporting them to human rights abusers? So we started calling through the list. What immediately became apparent is the extent to which the industry is populated by small equipment maker= s and even smaller suppliers and distributors. As answering machines picked up call after call to the companies' main numbers, it became obvious how tiny most of these operations are. Some of the equipment makers and sellers we reached were familiar with the Amnesty report, and some weren't. Not surprisingly, of the ones we reached, and who agreed to speak with us, none tried to justify the use of their equipment for torture. Several of the companies said they only sell to domestic law enforcement agencies. That's not totally comforting to those aware of the brutal practices of far too many police in the United States, but it is hard to fault the companies for selling legitimate law enforcement equipment (such as handcuffs) to domestic police forces. None of the domestic-only companies to which we spoke employ measures to block resale and export, though the companies selling to law enforcement agencies argued that those agencies were unlikely to sell their equipment abroad. We talked to one of the handful of major corporate players in the law enforcement equipment business, Peerless Handcuffs. Their spokesperson refused to give us his name. Peerless does export a variety of restraints, including leg cuffs. The chapter of Amnesty's report on restraints used in torture begins with a gruesome anecdote from southern Lebanon. The Khiam detention center, closed in May 2000, "had been run by the South Lebanon Army, Israel's proxy militia in the former occupied south Lebanon, with the involvement of the Israeli army, but the handcuffs used to suspend detainees from an electricity pylon where they were doused with water and given electric shocks were clearly marked "The Peerless Handcuff Co. Springfield, Mass. Made in USA,'" Amnesty reports. In a letter to Amnesty, Peerless expressed disgust that its products were used in the Khiam prison, stating, "In no way does Peerless Handcuff Company condone or support the use of our products for torture or for any other human rights abuse. "We have not sold any restraints to the Israeli government or Israeli companies in almost 10 years." We asked our anonymous representative at Peerless, Do you take steps to control the sale of equipment to torturers? "We restrict our sales as best we can to what we know are legitimate law enforcement authorities," he replied. Since it is often the case that it is "legitimate" law enforcement authorities who are the torturers, we asked if Peerless has refused orders. The answer is yes. The company refuses to sell to, among other countries, China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and has turned down sales requests from these and other nations. But it is not as if Peerless is reading Amnesty International reports before establishing its sales screens. "We have no interest in promoting" sales to torturers, the Peerless spokesperson said. But, he added, "I don=D5t think manufacturers can be held responsible" for misuse by law enforcement agencies. We don't agree. Anyone selling equipment prone to abuse by torturers has a special obligation to make sure it doesn't wind up in the hands of people with a record of human rights abuses. However, what is clear from our brief survey of some of the equipment makers and suppliers is that a corporate liability system will not adequately address the problem. The companies are too small and diffuse to be controlled exclusively through such mechanisms. One that closes today can reopen tomorrow under another name. Governmental regulation is essential. Amnesty International is urging the United States and other governments to ban the use, manufacture, promotion and trade of police and security equipment whose use is inherently cruel, inhuman or degrading. The group includes leg irons, electro-shock stun belts and inherently painful devices such as serrated thumbcuffs in this category. Amnesty is calling for a suspension on the use and trade in devices, such as electro-shock equipment, whose medical effects are not fully known. Amnesty is also calling for a suspension of trade in equipment that has shown a substantial risk of abuse or unwarranted injury, including equipment such as legcuffs, thumbcuffs, restraint chairs and pepper gas weapons. It is crucially important that the United States act immediately in these areas, says Amnesty International USA spokesperson Alistair Hodgett. The United States has led the way in the development of new technologies used in torture, such as electro-shock devices. After export, they have quickly been replicated and spread around the world. There's no significant lobby for law enforcement equipment exports -- U.S. exports total only about $32 million a year. There's no conceivable excuse for a failure to stop the torture trade. ------------------ Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999). =================================================================== A Call to Take a Closer Look at the Culture of 'Whiteness' http://www.latimes.com/living/20010312/t000021897.html Los Angeles Times Tuesday, March 13, 2001 By Maria Elena Fernandez & Renee Tawa, Times Staff Writers A provocative essay about the school shooting in Santee posted on an alternative Web site zipped across the country with the speed of a computer virus -- a commentary that really shakes things up. The essay is so edgy it has spun off its own rumor mill: One man, the story goes, has been fired for posting the article on his office bulletin board. In the article, posted last week on AlterNet.org, white social justice activist Tim Wise blames the rash of school shootings on white America's "utter state of self-delusion" about the dysfunctions in its own community. He also takes issue with the FBI's insistence that there is no profile of a school shooter. "Come again?" writes Wise, 32, in the essay titled "School Shootings and White Denial." <http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10560> "White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use [his] classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? "Imagine if all these killers had been black: Would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators?" In the latest example of the Internet's ability to generate instant and open forums on news events, chat rooms and list serves have jumped into the fray. Wise also has received more than 2,500 e-mails from blacks, Latinos and suburban whites -- some of whom live in or nearby Santee. The majority have been from "overjoyed blacks and Latinos" who said they were struck by the fact that a white person looked at white people the way whites typically look at them. "It's good to hear but . . . the fact that it's so rare that this kind of analysis hits people like a breath of fresh air -- it's kind of sad," says Wise, who lives in Nashville. In the last five years, the academic community has picked up on the notion of a distinct white culture in a field known as "whiteness studies." The field examines the notion that "whiteness" should be addressed the same way that we look at the concept of "blackness" or the Asian community. The term is sometimes misinterpreted as a pseudonym for white supremacist theories, says Jeff Hitchcock, executive director of the Center for the Study of White American Culture, a nonprofit group based in Roselle, N.J. But the nonprofit center is actually pushing for a way to include all racial and cultural groups in the study of white American culture in the larger American society, and operates on the premise that knowledge of one's own racial background and culture is essential when learning how to relate to others. Through conferences and articles, the center encourages the idea of a "whiteness studies" program at colleges and universities. While there are a few classes across the nation, so far, no department yet exists, says Hitchcock, who is white. Scrutinizing 'White Culture' Academicians are only beginning to seriously look at the issue of a "white culture" through papers, books and conferences. In September 1997, for instance, UC Berkeley hosted a three-day conference called "The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness." In a follow-up conference report, event organizers said they were flooded with calls from journalists who had to be assured that the gathering was an "anti-racist, multiracial" event attended by more than 1,000 scholars, community organizers and others to investigate "whiteness" as a racial identity and how it "relates to the divisions that plague American social life." But the concept of "whiteness" has largely stayed within academic circles -- what Wise did was link the theory to school shootings using street language that would not normally be acceptable in the mainstream media, which he says is partly to blame. It's no surprise that Wise touched a nerve, says Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Race Relations Institute at historically black Fisk University in Nashville. Winbush had 15 or 16 copies of the article forwarded to him. (Wise is a board member at the institute). "As an African American, I'm tired of hearing every time one of these shootings occurs someone says, 'Oh, my goodness, these are aberrations. There is something with this kid, but there isn't anything wrong with the system.' What Tim's article does as a white person is he deconstructs those arguments." Yet others caution against buying into Wise's position full bore. "I think that where Wise talks about this as being a white phenomenon he is being perhaps intentionally provocative," says Keith Woods, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a media studies center in St. Petersburg, Fla. "But I think it would be important for people to pull back from that. "The minute you allow yourself to think there is something white about mass murder then you've opened the door to accept there is something black or Latino or Asian about any number of other social pathologies. "We shouldn't look at white boys or at black boys, but at our boys," Woods said. 'The Luxury of Invisibility' So who is this guy behind the stir? Wise makes his living speaking and writing about race relations. He has spoken on the subject at more than 200 college campuses. He's the author of "Little White Lies: Truth About Affirmative Action and Reverse Discrimination" (Loyola University, 1995), which argues for maintaining affirmative action as a tool for breaking down institutional white dominance. A Nashville native, his views on race were formed when he lived in New Orleans for 10 years. "When you're white, you have the luxury of invisibility," Wise said. "Anything that peels back the veil that keeps you invisible and makes you opaque is jarring and frightening to white folks. You don't ever have to think about being a dominant group member. Your world is natural and normal. It's not white. It just is." Among the passionate e-mails to Wise was one from a 33-year-old white mother of a 7-year-old boy in Merced: "When children are locked up in 'Fantasy Land' a.k.a. White America, their mind closes off and with it goes compassion for other human beings," Lisa Coelho wrote. "Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh, Charles Manson, all dysfunctional males from white society. If any of these men were black, it would have been a hate-fest on the black community and its violent nature. The dysfunctional (white) kids with guns at home/school, they're loners, picked-on victims." He also was lauded by many white suburbanites including some who live near Santana High School in Santee. Anita Carol Smith, a former teacher in Santee, wrote: "I taught at Santana's 'sister school' in the next community for 10 years, and I have to say that you really 'nailed it' when it comes to obliviousness to the profile: young, white, outcast, picked on, angry, armed." Other whites were critical, accusing him of being racist or anti-white. Cindy Mitchell, for instance, wrote: 'You are trying to reduce school violence into one simple cause when there are many. Things such as genetic propensity, lack of support in the schools and home, dysfunctional homes, unavailable parents, overpopulated schools . . . and inattention to warning signs. To say it is simply a matter of one thing or another is irresponsible." For his part, Wise offers no solutions to the problem, just points out that "white-blind," as he calls it, is about privilege, about being a member of the dominant race and class, and in the case of the mass school shootings, the dominant gender. White suburban boys grow up with a sense of entitlement that is tough for any adult to knock, Wise says. "Being teased is horrible, but how does that compare to being treated in a racist manner, or being poor? It just shows when you're a part of the dominant group, your skin is very thin," he says. "Not to romanticize the suffering of minorities, but when you're buffeted by poverty or racism, you build up defense and coping mechanisms. You are able to cope with disappointment and failure and navigate the obstacles in your life. White people don't have to grow up that way. There is a flip side to racial privilege. There are dysfunctions, things about being dominant and privileged that we really ought to rethink." =================================================================== THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2001 Out of the jungle, a global hero <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/03/15/p1s4.htm> By Howard LaFranchi Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor MEXICO CITY Subcomandante Marcos has enchanted the world's nostalgic leftists and=20 seminars of European intellectuals ever since he emerged as a force from=20 the Chiapas jungle seven years ago with his Zapatista indigenous army. But his star has never been brighter than in the anti-globalization cosmos. There to greet Marcos's triumphal arrival in Mexico City's central square Sunday - at the conclusion of his two-week "Zapatour"- was French farmer Jose Bove. Mr. Bove is famous for leading a vandalistic attack on a McDonald's restaurant in southern France to protest globalization. Orbiting around Mexico's masked rebel leader as security guards during his indigenous rights march across the country were the monos blancos, white-jumpsuited members of a mostly Italian anti-globalization group. Ostensibly, the Zapatista delegation - Marcos plus 23 lesser-known Zapatista leaders - is here to negotiate passage of Indian rights legislation, one of the Zapatistas' key conditions for reopening peace talks with the government. But as the flock of anti-globalization activists accompanying the Zapatista caravan suggests, the rebels, and especially their enigmatic leader, are emerging as the grand marshals of the worldwide anti-globalization parade. That's why Bove was here Sunday amid the crowd of some 100,000, lauding the Zapatistas as "an important phenomenon for the global small-farmers' movement" and "part of our struggle against the free-market system." Also attending were American, Canadian, and European veterans of the mobilizations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, and last year's protests against the World Bank in Washington and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Portuguese Nobel literature prize laureate Jose Saramago, a longtime Communist, and even Danielle Mitterrand, widow of former French president Francois Mitterrand and now a prominent international human rights activist, also came to greet Marcos. The Zapatistas are recognized as the world's original globalization detractors, because of the date they launched their attack on the Mexican government: Jan. 1, 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement among Mexico, the United States, and Canada, took effect. Though battles in the Chiapas war lasted only a few days, the first shots fired - by Indians refusing to lose their identity in Mexico's leap into the modern world - are now considered by many the first volleys in the war on globalization. But it is also Marcos's postmodern prose, transcending a merely national cause and disseminated around the world thanks to the former Marxist academic's deft use of the Internet and the worldwide web, that have earned him hero status. In a recent Mexican TV interview, Marcos offered some of the rhetoric that thrills developed-world "globophobes" and can prompt the losers of globalization in the developing world - small farmers, the unskilled, the laid-off workers of privatized services - to think: "I, too, am an Indian." Referring to the agenda of Mexico's pro-free-market President Vicente Fox, Marcos said, "The world Fox is preparing is one of homogenization, where all would be equal because of buying power. We are preparing a world," he countered, "where we have the right to be different." The Indian with his differences, he added, "only fits in the globalizing free market as a low-cost laborer." For some observers, Marcos is emerging as a kind of social conscience, awakening many to the realization that globalization's promise of shared prosperity is not being kept. "Marcos and the Zapatista movement have opened many eyes to an advancing dual society," says Rafael Fernandez de Castro, director of Foreign Affairs en Espanol in Mexico City. "Many Mexicans and Latin Americans see themselves only growing poorer as an elite minority reaps the system's material benefits. Marcos reminds people," he adds, "that they are not partaking of the fruits of globalization." Marcos's praise of difference appeals to those who oppose a standardization of cultures. "The Zapatistas' struggle has caught on because it is emblematic of groups in other countries seeking recognition from the state," says Augustin Gutierrez Canet, dean of international studies at Mexico City's Ibero-American University. Mr. Gutierrez says perhaps the greatest paradox of Marcos is that he is a product of the very thing he protests. "The rise of a symbol like Marcos, through new means of global communication like the Internet, would not have been possible without globalization," Gutierrez says. Some Zapatista supporters say that while the technological globalization that sprouted a Marcos is not reversible, the other globalization - with increasing concentration of wealth and standardization of everything from culture to food - is. Hopes for such a reversal may end up working against Marcos and his Zapatistas signing a peace accord with the Mexican government, some observers believe. "Marcos would cease to be a symbol for the anti-globalization forces if he signed a peace treaty," says Guti=E9rrez. "The aura of enchantment would be lost." ------------------- For further information: EZLN.org (Spanish) <http://www.ezln.org/> The Zapatistas' Parade FEED <http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id=3D1634> Subcomandante Marcos: the Mexican grand tour Economist <http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D518368> Zapatistas in Cyberspace, A Guide to Analysis & Information <http://www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/zapsincyber.html> =================================================================== Mexico's Masked Man Strides Into the Capital <http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0%2C4273%2C4150315%2C00.html> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0%2C3604%2C450352%2C00.html> By Duncan Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and Jo Tuckman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in Mexico City The Guardian (UK) Monday, March 12, 2001 The unimaginable happened. The Zapatistas, led by their masked commandantes and their enigmatic leader, Subcommandante Marcos, finally entered the heart of the capital of the nation with which they have been at war for seven years. Their entrance was remarkable in that these rebels not only came unarmed but also with a welcome from the president of the country that made them outlaws. "We came here only to say we are here," Subcommandante Marcos told an enraptured crowd of 150,000 in the Zocalo, the main square of the capital. "We are a reflection and a cry and we will always be there. We can be with or without a face, armed or without fire. But we are Zapatistas as we will always be." He had arrived with the 23 Zapatista commandantes on the back of an open lorry bearing the slogan "Never again a Mexico without us". Helicopters circled over as the caravan finally reached the end of its historic journey. In an appeal to all of Mexico for a fairer society, he called on "indigenous brothers and sisters, workers, peasants, teachers, students, farmworkers, housewives, drivers, fishermen, taxi-drivers, office workers, street vendors, gangs, the unemployed, journalists, professionals, nuns and monks, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, artists, intellectuals, sailors,soldiers, athletes and legislators, men, women, children, young people and old, brothers and sisters", all to join with them. But despite the enormous turnout and the success of the long march, the mood was not triumphalist in recognition, perhaps, of the uncertainty that lies ahead. Before Marcos spoke, other commandantes made brief appeals for greater respect for indigenous people. Commandante Tacho told the crowd: "We are Mexicans, too, so we say the homeland is ours as well," signing off as he spoke in the name of the "Zapatista high command". Each read their speeches, as they have done throughout the march, from spiral notebooks and then took their places back in the line as Marcos directed proceedings. The Mexican press was in no doubt as to the significance of the day. "Marcos takes the capital!" said one paper. "They're taking the plaza!" said another. La Prensa summed up the mood with the word "unimaginable". At dawn, the caravan of the Zapatistas and their supporters was already breakfasting on tamales in a sports complex on the outskirts of Mexico City where they had been billeted for the last night of their 16-day pilgrimage from Chiapas. They had come in pursuit of constitutional rights for the country's 10m indigenous people, around 10% of the population, and yesterday was the culmination of the journey that had taken them through 12 states. As the 2,100-mile, 16-day trek from Chiapas ended, they were joined by public figures from around the world: human rights ambassador Danielle Mitterand, Portuguese Nobel prizewinning author Jose Saramago, and the French anti-multinational activist Jose Bove. The Zocalo, the largest city square in the world after Red Square, greeted them, but the only sights trained from the rooftops and behind the belfries were those of the photographers and camera crews from around the world and the only explosions were of firecrackers and rockets. TRIUMPH It was in 1914 that Emiliano Zapata, the man who gave his name to the current movement, rode in revolutionary triumph into the same Zocalo. There had been rumours that the new Zapatistas would also gallop into the square on horseback but this, like many of the rumours that have shrouded the march and the Zapatistas, proved unfounded. But yesterday Marcos and the Zapatistas did indeed stand below the balcony of the palace where Zapata and Pancho Villa had greeted their own adoring crowds nearly 90 years earlier. Throughout the morning the street vendors there were busily selling their Zapatista masks, T-shirts, mugs, jugs and recorded music, their Marcos scarves and action dolls complete with pipe and balaclava, mixed in with images of Che Guevara. Watching the Zapatistas on their final push, Santos Orozco, 67, a canal boatman said: "They are the defenders of the poor, not just the indigenous." His views were reflected by many in the square. The Zapatistas finally marched on the capital, disdaining an invitation issued over the weekend by President Vicente Fox to meet in the presidential palace. Marcos accused Mr Fox of trivialising the indigenous cause. "He wants to turn a serious movement into a prime time event," said Marcos. "It would be a hollow media event." The transformation of the Zapatistas from a tiny, ill-armed, barely trained guerrilla fighting force to what is effectively an international cultural movement was emphasised by the remarkable mixture of supporters flocking the streets, from the capital's smartly turned-out bourgeoisie to body-pierced and pink-haired punks carrying placards proclaiming the Zapatistas as their inspiration, and dungareed Italian anti-globalisers. Even hours before the march was due to arrive, as bands played and Aztec dancers performed, the Zocalo was crowded and alive with excitement. President Fox was not in the Zocalo. However he was generous in his welcome, which he hopes will bring him a major political gain with a peace accord. "Welcome subcommandante Marcos, welcome Zapatistas, welcome to the political arena," was his message. Not that Marcos is yet ready to take off his mask and his guerrilla uniform. In a 20-minute address to the crowd and the nation beyond, Marcos referred to the way that the "first people" of Mexico had become the last in terms of how they had been treated. "We are the people of the colour of the earth. We ask you not to let another dawn break before that flag has a place for us, we who are the colour of the earth," he said in reference to the gigantic Mexican flag that was billowing from its pole in the centre of the Zocalo. His speech referred by name to many of the dozens of Mexican indigenous peoples in a list more poetic than polemical. But he made it clear that the Zapatistas' presence was seeking a political response and they wanted "the democracy, freedom and justice" which they felt they had been denied for too long. While opinion polls do show overwhelming support for the march, a peace accord and Mexico's need to act over trampled indigenous rights, not everyone is sympathetic to the Zapatistas. With the rebels already on the fringes of the capital the head of the country's biggest employers' organisation, Jorge Espina Reyes, called them "irresponsible utopian demagogues". But in the square yesterday the banners and the T-shirts proclaimed "We are all Marcos" and "You are not alone". For a moment at least, the Zapatistas who have made such an astonishing physical and metaphorical journey from Chiapas into the consciousness of the world must have felt it was true. =================================================================== Reader commentary: re: Mexico's Che by Jan McGirk I am writing in regard to the article posted March 13th, 2001. Title MEXICO'S CHE BRINGS CRUSADE OUT OF JUNGLE TO THE MASSES by Jan McGirk. The overall feeling of this article is that McGirk very much dislikes the Zapatistas and their cause to liberate, after 500 years of day by day oppression, of the indigenous, American Indians, American aboriginals, on this continent. McGirk takes a glib attitude towards the risks involved in this movement. Apparently, McGirk's own life is not at risk nor is her/his life style but the Zapatista caravan and its members are always at risk, in life and limb. I can subscribe to The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to get this type of globbed up messy reporting with a negative slant toward American Indians. I take exception to McGirk's use of Marcos being compared to CHE. Lefties like Che and I can understand a twinge of invoking his name but I am suspicious of anyone using Che as a comparison because the name Che causes the CIA to bristle with purpose for assassinating communists and the EZLN have made it very clear that they are not communists. Yet, Jan feels Che is a light weight choice of name when in fact it is dangerous. Why not choose to compare Zapata with Marcos. This is the name the EZLN have definitely chosen as their comparable icon not Che. But, hey! McGirk is not going to go home hungry or in a casket if she uses the name Che on someone else. What's the diff? Other CIA Psyop words I object to in McGirk's March 8, 2001 INDEPENDENT article are of the following: "The Zapatistas ...at war", "anti-hero","his anti-capitalist creed","toilet", "gaudy". Invoking Che with "the Zapatistas..at war" is not a good thing for the safety of the Maya traveling in that caravan. "anti-hero", where did she make that fluke word combo up from? Anti-hero of what? Un-hero is the preferred title. HIS anti-capitalist creed is not anti-capitalist. The Maya want the military to stop destroying their lives so they can go back to stable farming and have modern schools like they should have always had for these past 100 years, and good hospitals like any industrialized country. Marcos and the EZLN and especially the women have often expressed a true respect for the need of capitalism. They are opposed to poverty. GET IT? As to the use of "toilet" I really have to ask why [EMAIL PROTECTED] even posted this writer. And last but not least the use of the term "gaudy" in defining, like a true connoisseur of art, what the graffiti looked like on the bus, shows only that McGirk held no eye for the beauty in the existence, of the descendants, of the greatest empire builders the world has ever had. Ta-Hey! from Hypatia =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . " -Samuel Adams ====================================================== "You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." -Gandhi ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe or for a sample copy or a list of back issues, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ **How to assist RadTimes: An account is available at <www.paypal.com> which enables direct donations. If you are a current PayPal user, use this email address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, to contribute. 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