The Return of the Neozapatistas

The Return of the Neozapatistas

By: Erreh Svaia

“Struggle is a circle, you can start it at any point, but it never ends…”

Subcomandante Marcos

Without the emergence of the EZLN (National Liberation Zapatist) in 1994, most of us wouldn't even knew what was really happening in Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico, at the time, the south region was virtually ignored and put aside from the dynamic of the country, and conditions there were really poor, the modern world in which Mexico was supposed to be entering thanks to the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) didn't include the south, the country was literally torn into two parts (and it still is), and the south was (and still is sometimes) like a vestige from the chaotic 70s, perpetual local leaders, backed by the government called "caciques" or landlords were in power, Marxist Leninist guerrillas were hiding high in the mountains, all this while the  Liberation Theology, still alive from it South American roots, was alive and well known, all this came to collision and gave us a very postmodern Marxist guerrilla that defied imagination, Samuel Ruiz, the archbishop in Chiapas reminded one of those priest that lead indigenous people on leftist revolts in Central America, while the Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the EZLN, was a figure created on the image of El Che Guevara, adding a mask, was a surrealist turn that linked directly to Mexico's affinity to masked wrestlers; finally religion, Marxism, the indigenous world, globalization and Mexican folklore finally collided in Chiapas

The EZLN was not exactly a revolutionary army, they were poorly armed, their combative actions lasted little, but Marcos, a literate and superb communicator, was able to spread his message all over the world, suddenly, we knew about Chiapas, about that alternate reality, about the long forgotten indigenous world, suddenly there was another priest, evoking memories of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, "the father of our homeland", and suddenly, after the collapse of the USSR, there was a new Marxist guerrilla, but as Marcos said, he was more influenced by leftist intellectuals like Carlos Monsivais, rather than by Karl Marx, which was rather unusual, coming from a guerrilla leader, although military trained in Cuba, Marcos' war was more a media war, he was there to shock the political left wingers, he was there to shock the religious traditionalists, he was there to shock the nation and even the world with his out of reality looks and resurrection of El Che Guevara romantic revolutionary aura with a postmodern spin. 

I was very enthusiastic when the EZLN appeared in the 1994, it was a curios rebellion, a near poetic rebellion, it had the romantic aura of the Cuban Revolution and obviously it played a little bit with the mysterious image of Marcos, I was a teenager sympathetic with the early communist movements form the union movements in 1919, to the 70s events that ended up in Tlatelolco, it was pretty deceiving when left wing radical parties like the PMS (Mexican Socialist Party), the PMT (Mexican Workers Party) and the PSUM (Mexican United Socialist Party) dissolved in order to create the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party), along with members of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), it ended the progressive ambitions of the left and supplanted them for Revolutionary Nationalism, a deformed idea created by Lenin in order to install socialism (supposedly designed to be installed in rich nations by Karl Marx) in still developing nations, so Neozapatism was something that attracted me from the start, Marcos was more of a poet and an intellectual and the Liberation Theology priest Ruiz was another big asset in the movement, created as a pressure groups rather than a bellicose unit like the EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army) in the Guerrero state, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the mask, it took seriousness to the who Neozapatist thing.

The EZLN gave the political left wing an unexpected and interesting turn, like a Jose Carlos Mariategui dream come true, the EZLN became an attractive fraction of the left, and reminded us of more combative times of organization like the near clandestine PCM (Mexican Communist Party), and distanced themselves from more close to the center groups like the PRD, it centered in the religious world, a reality long forgotten by the left, but like many novelties, the EZLN faded relatively quick from the public view, only to return to the mountain and the jungle, appearing only with perfect timing on elections time, these days appearing again to announce that an indigenous female candidate will take advantage of the independent candidate figure, in order to participate in the presidential elections of 2018, making even deeper inroads to the already pulverized opposition coming from the left side of the political specter, a gimmick, a political stunt, a bad joke or a true attempt at gaining more indigenous sovereignty, only the months to come will tell us. 

A female indigenous candidate is without a doubt a very attractive and very well thought bet for the EZLN, considering that the left wing parties have forgotten to defend indigenous causes and female causes, it tells how connected and identified is the EZLN with the times, even more than the current left, still obsessed with Revolutionary Nationalism, a political current close to old PRIism and Peronism, so far from true progressive policies, if the EZLN could add sexual diversity and environmental issues to their political base, we could be about to witness a true challenger from the left that could move both the PRD and MoReNa (National Regeneration Movement) agenda way more to the left the way Bernie Sanders did on Hillary Clinton's political agenda, it could be an earthquake on the left, but at the same time it could just be just another political gimmick in order to divide the left, and a total joke if the candidate appears with her mask, the way Marcos uses to do.