Who is this Subcomandante Marcos dude I keep mentioning?

Above: Subcomander Marcos shows that he is not afraid of cancer. courtesy of http://kassandraproject.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/el-subcomandante-marcos/

I am studying Spanish. Yet I write these entries in English so that people back at home can read them. I also spend some time here taking classes about history and current and past issues facing Mexico, along with the rest of the world.* So, when I refer to these things, people may get confused.

I've made at least two references to Subcommander Marcos though, without explaining who he is. For my blog's two official followers, I assume this is not a problem. For everyone else, it might be.

Actually no one really knows who he is. Like all of the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) officials he nearly always appears in ninja-type ski-mask outfits which he regrets making the norm for his appearences given the Mexican heat.

Marcos is not his real name. I've also heard that he decided to change his name to Delegate Zero. He claims the mask isn't just to hide himself but to make more people identify with him by not making himself a specific person.

The Mexican government believes that he is Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, a former philosophy profesor in Mexico City. He denies this, but it does fit the popular account in which he came into the state of Chiapas trying to tell the local Maya "workers of the world unite!" and that they should grab land from the evil greedy capitalist thieves etc. The Maya "just stared at him."

They told him that the land wasn't property and they didn't consider themselves workers. This is the version that Wikipedia believes in. So, it has to be true. In any case, he claims to have been converted to their way of thinking.

He's a spokesperson for the "Zapatistas" The name comes from Emiliano Zapata, a leader in the 1910 revolution.

One of the ideas behind the EZLN was that the NAFTA trade aggreement and other policies of were favoring big plantations over small farms. There were many other issues of course, but if I had to pick one, that would be it.

I find it telling that, according to my teacher Antonio (himself a gay-rights/AIDS activist), Marcos is on record as saying "transgenic" instead of "transgender" when trying to talk about LGBT rights. It probably means he often can't think about anything besides corn.

They captured control of a series of towns in 1994, and still hold control of some areas.

They claim to be an organization of direct-democracy with Marcos acting only as a spokesperson for the Mayan communities which he represents. I can admire the idea, if it is in fact true. My friend Rudy Rodriguez-Vivero thinks that they are pawns of Europeans who want mineral rights in Chiapas. The EZLN often gets labeled as a foreign group of armed terrorists,especially here in Mexico.

Which is why Subcomandante Marcos and other Zapatistas have, more or less quit trying to expand militarilly in Chiapas and are now doing speaking tours around Mexico, and apparently writing childrens books.

Mexico has, however, moved on. Many leftists now support Lopez-Obrador (whom Marcos hates). I get the feeling that most ordinary Mexicans would rather run across the border than fight the system. After all, they get better results from that usually.

Idealizing foreign rebels is exactly the wrong strategy for people in the U.S. right now. We have "indigenous" people in our own country too!** Supporting rebels in foreign countries (also including his holiness the Dalai Lama) sends the message that we just want to save some random exotic race and not ourselves. The left is just as guilty as the right on this.

If there's anything I've learned here from studying Atenco, or the 13 Pueblos movement,*** or even the "Zapatistas" it's that these movements draw strength from being rooted in Mexican or more often local identity. People in the U.S. should seriously take the hint already.

*Unlike when my sister did this program I am not going to Guatemala on any official visits (people said it was too distracting). However, we have discussed U.S./United Fruit Company interventions in El Salvador and Guatemala, we just haven't been there.

**The term "Nativo Americano" never caught on in Mexico, because literally interpreted it includes nearly all Mexican Citizens.

***A group against the creation of the landfill in Loma de Mejilla.