BEYOND « CHE » GUEVARA ?

Some reflexions in the Team of Network Cultures

How does subcommandante Marcos, who is not an Indian himself, succeed in expressing the indigena-vision and be accepted by the Mayas ?

It is a question of “translation”, a combination of truthfulness and subjective re-interpretation. Some of our interlocutors told us that he probably does not share the traditional cosmovision of the Mayas and probably entertains a relatively simplistic interpretation of it in the eyes of Mayas (even if to outsiders what he says is really deep). He is very good communicator : a post-modern leader riding a traditional wave ! Not a Lenin, nor a Guzman (Shining Path, Peru) nor a “Ché” Guevara.

The question arises whether EZLN’s use of armed violence may not become an obstacle, ultimately, in raising its important points to the ethical level which they deserve.

The whole movement is a most radical ethical judgement on the immorality of the Mexican situation of and of today’s world capitalism as embodied by NAFTA and neo-liberal fundamentalism. But may violence not become a contradiction of these ethical values which are raised so well ? Public opinion loves a hero like “Ché” Guevara and that is ambiguous. Is the depth of the ethical argument of EZLN not contradicted by EZLN’s use of armed force (300 people were killed during the first attack). Yet, the Chiapas situation is close to genocide on the Maya and the poor, and from that angle, it may justify violence. At least, the little military action actually engaged into was extraordinary successful in raising issues that were highly taboo. Mgr. Samuel Riuz said : “We must understand this violence, even if it cannot be justified”.

Is the Zapatista strategy based essentially on armed struggle or rather on public communication ?

Generally speaking, violence was and is of limited importance in the whole action. EZLN have no more than 1000 old riffles ! The arms they use are only a means to serve another force which is much stronger and efficient, a force which Luis Lopezllera calls “semiotic violence”. Says Luis : “The strength of the message is bigger than the force of the arms” ! It is in this perspective that the use of arms must be looked at. Sub-commandante Marcos’ statements are plenty of poetry, humour, tenderness towards people, respect for those most humiliated by the system of money, arrogance and “structural violence” which dominates southern Mexico.

Is this movements to be seen as an anachronistic regression to “Ché” Guevara times of idealistic but violent (and dogmatic ?) leninism or as “the first political revolt of the 21^st century” ?

We are faced here with a (post-modern …) but nonetheless very effective political struggle combining ethnicity and economic analysis, semiology and weapons, humour and deep concern in the face of injustice.

Note by editor: In this frame of thought, the article of Carroll and Ratner on neo-Gramscian thought about cultural dynamics and new social movements v. totalizing capitalism is a useful text to understand the full importance of the Chiapas revolt.