[News] An Exclusive Interview with Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos

[Anti-Imperialist News]

The Extra Element: Organization

http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1856.html


An Exclusive Interview with Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos: Part I





By Sergio Rodríguez Lascano
Rebeldía Magazine

May 30, 2006

Rebeldía: For a long time the EZLN (Zapatista 
Army of National Liberation) has talked about a 
global tendency: the crisis of the Nation-State. 
At the core of this idea is the transformation of 
a series of political paradigms that once were 
the bases of the theory of the Nation-State. 
We’re not asking for another explanation of what 
you have already said. The question is more 
concrete: What relationship does this vision have 
with the proposals of the Other Campaign?

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos: The most basic 
thing we see is that this crisis is yet to be 
resolved. Not, as some think, by returning to the 
fundamental and original bases of the Nation 
State, but, rather, in the context of what is 
happening at the global level, with globalization 
and neoliberalism. We say that the destruction of 
the bases of the national States has been so 
extreme that it is impossible to reconstruct them from above.

But there is an entire sector of the new 
political class, or the reactivation of some 
sectors of the political class, that proposes to 
reorganize the Nation State: to make it function 
anew, today, in this stage of savage capitalism.

This reconstruction or this reorganization of the 
national States, that are already inside the 
perspective of globalization, means, on the one 
hand, the most important threat to social 
movements, to popular movements, and in general 
to the movements of rebellion throughout the 
world. And on the other hand, this reordering of 
the States and their governments is going to mean 
that they have just assured the destruction of 
the planet. And I don’t refer to that in a symbolic way, but a real one.

That is, the big multinational businesses in 
their voraciousness are literally destroying 
nature: the springs, forests, beaches and rivers. 
And then that State, that new State is emerging. 
The tips of its iceberg are: the new State in 
Brazil with (President) Lula (da Silva), also in 
some other parts of South America, and in this 
proposal by the parliamentary left or the 
institutional left of the PRD (Democratic 
Revolution Party in Mexico) and of (its 
presidential candidate Andrés Manuel) López Obrador.

The EZLN has begun to make note of this 
reordering process. It’s already going to be 
different than it was with (former Mexican 
president Ernesto) Zedillo and with (president 
Vicente) Fox, this species of disorder or chaos 
in which the managers that are in the government 
and in the State are simply operating things. Now 
it’s about a recuperation of the Man of the 
State, the statist of old, but now with another 
perspective. This reordering, a dispute over the 
social project will be, and – as they say up 
above – what the project of the nation will be, 
is coming. And if there is no alternative to the 
proposal from above, a major moral defeat is 
coming, almost comparable with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Nothing is more worrisome, we say, because this 
trick being pulled off from above is going to be 
able to solve the thing in a way that, one way or 
another, turns each of us into an accomplice to that destruction.

This analysis, that we offered in the Sixth 
Declaration comes in a spiral – before this the 
EZLN gave other clues about how it makes its 
decisions, its steps, of what happens in each 
place and later above, and later higher above – 
which is the caracol that is growing. And then we 
proposed that this thing that is the EZLN is 
later going national, and later global.

And it’s not here yet, but the vision is here – 
in the Sixth Declaration – that there is going to 
have to be a dispute. It doesn’t address the 
problem of what are the characteristics that new 
State underway is going to have, but, rather, it 
addresses their implications. For us, the fight 
against that offers the only possibility of 
survival as a nation. The new National State, or 
the new confederate of the multinational one that 
is being created, means the destruction of what 
we call homeland and everything that is part of it.

Thus, the Sixth Declaration makes this analysis, 
takes that decision, and says: what remains to be 
seen is whether in our country and in the world 
there are others who are seeing what we are 
seeing and are thinking about the same thing. The 
proposal of the Other Campaign is a proposal to 
unite; first by getting to know each other and 
listening to each other and to these points of 
agreement which, at first, we thought were going 
to be fewer and more dispersed and that are, with 
the advance of the Other Campaign, becoming 
concrete. I am not referring just to the steps of 
the Sixth Commission but to how the Other 
Campaign is evolving: it turns out that, no, that 
there are more, that there are many, and that 
their experience is even greater. And that they 
agree on this: that this fight is not just ours, 
but it is also the last chance that we have.

If we let this crisis pass and let it be solved 
from above, the cost for all social movements, 
not only of the left, defined as of the left, but 
including the spontaneous ones, will be death. That’s how we see it.

Rebeldía: Exploitation, looting, disrespect and 
repression were listed in the Sixth Declaration 
of the Lacandon Jungle as the four whips of 
capitalism in its actual phase, unleashed against 
humanity and especially against the poorest. 
After traveling through 20 states of the country, 
do you think that these four whips effectively 
represent the objective to combat against?

SCI Marcos: Yes, we think that what is happening 
is that there are two stages of this development 
in capitalism at the global level and in Mexico. 
It’s about looting, robbing and later exploiting 
what immediately appears as a source of wealth: 
work, and the land. And we say that ideological 
forms of political and cultural domination are 
being constructed, in turn, over these two 
spokes, that are synthesized in these two words: disrespect and repression.

But the moment comes when these limits on wealth 
are not enough. In this vista we have the big 
cities with great concentrations of wealth 
surrounded by a poverty belt. But today in these 
cities – to use the same simile – this center of 
the network of capitalist power advances each day 
more upon what was its periphery, the spaces that 
didn’t matter to it before. Concretely, we say it 
comes against our poverty. It’s not enough that 
we are poor. They also want that poverty because 
they have discovered that there is still something here.

In the case of the poorest and most marginalized 
sector of this country, which is the Indian 
peoples, it’s crystal clear: its about kicking 
them out of their home, because now their home 
has become a product. And I am referring to the 
forests, to the springs, the rivers, the coasts, 
that is, the beaches, and even the air.

Thus, we have also posited that this is happening 
in other sectors, like that of the workers’ 
movement, like that of the non-indigenous 
farmers’ movement, in social security, in health 
care, in everything, well, that the system begins 
to do to a society. What is happening is that in 
the central nucleus of capital, which is its 
exploitation of the workforce and all the tricks 
that are pulled in turn, a kind of brutal 
whirlpool begins to form against all the sectors 
to take everything away from everyone. Although 
the central nucleus, in our analysis, is the exploitation of the workforce.

But this begins to be done in that way and it 
creates this central nucleus, the fact that the 
exploitation, the looting, the disrespect and the 
repression begin to open up large sectors of the 
population to see what it does, it allows this 
central nucleus to count on what is called the 
use of reserves
 What allows it to shrink 
salaries even more, to raise the exploitation 
toll and push the development of capitalism in 
Mexico back one hundred years. Apart from that is 
the phenomenon of immigration, which is a problem 
for those below and also for those above as is 
being seen in the responses by the United States government.

Applying the notion of capitalism to these 
manifestations is what allows the majority of the 
people that form part of the Other Campaign to 
understand that this is what it does to us, as 
Indian peoples, as workers, as farmers, as 
students, as teachers, as people, well, from 
below. Anyone can see these four elements of 
capital that, in other ways, seem vague.

If we speak about disrespect and racism, for 
example, against the Indian peoples it seems very 
vague. But since it is clearly accompanied by the 
looting of communal lands and ejidos, it then 
becomes clear who is the enemy and that it is not 
enough – because here what all of the Other 
Campaign is concluding that the fights we wage at 
the individual or group level are not enough – 
that the horizon has been surpassed, broken, not 
by us – because we have a wide vision – but it was broken by capital, by power.

Thus, who is it that decides that the Indian 
people should look ahead and stop fighting only 
for recognition of their indigenous rights, and 
instead should now fight against capital as well? 
It is capital; that which is broken. It has said 
so clearly: The problem is not whether we 
recognize you as indigenous or not, because for 
me you are not going to exist. I am going to destroy you.

And in the case of the workers’ movement, this is 
what is called the pulverization of the workers’ 
movement and the workers’ sector. And I am not 
referring only to their being cut up in many 
pieces, but, rather, it’s chronological: you are 
a worker for a while and suddenly you are not. 
You don’t have any security. At times you are on 
one side and at times you are not, you are then 
on the other side. This big lie says that the 
entrance of capital and industries means 
employment for the population that is here and it 
ends up with the workers being brought in from 
outside, because that is how those who are looting them are inclined.

It becomes a war that, as we say, in those four 
aspects is the place where we all are cast 
together. And it is where the sex workers, the 
gays and lesbians, the indigenous, the youths, 
the children, are able to say: Yes, here it is. 
This changes its name but is has the same effect 
on us. And it means – the advance of all this – 
for us, the destruction of what we are. In some 
cases, even physical destruction.

Rebeldía: It seemed that the Other Campaign in 
Puebla meant a kind of point of redefinition of 
the Other Campaign, especially in the meetings 
that took place in Altepexi. A new proletariat, 
different, very “other” than the traditional one 
grouped in the big industrial unions appeared, 
told of its pain and identified its enemy, not 
only in the abstract, but it named names. This 
proletariat – very indigenous – doesn’t have 
years of union organizing experience, nor has it 
been touched by the ideology of the Mexican 
revolution, but it has an impressive clarity 
regarding what its exploitation means and 
considers its boss as its enemy. What does this 
proletariat say to the EZLN? Are they looking 
into the same mirror? Do you identify with their pain and their fight?

SCI Marcos: What does it mean for us? And what 
does it mean for the political organizations with 
a traditional or more rigid view of the workers’ 
movement? For us it means, on the one hand, our 
destiny. Because all these people that are today 
in the sweatshops are indigenous people that, 
because of the looting of their lands, leave – 
above all, youths – to find work and they begin 
with this reality. Now they have arrived from the 
countryside to the city, as the saying goes, but 
in the most brutal form that can be imagined. In 
this sense we identify with the roots, the common 
denominator, and I think that, one way or 
another, when we met them it was easier for us 
than with the traditional workers, because we 
have the same roots, the same origin.

And at the hour that they explained this, they 
explained it like we explain ourselves. And we 
have said it again and again: these people go 
there because they are expelled. They don’t go to 
find better living conditions, but, rather, to 
survive, because there is no other option. And 
that is what allows for such brutal conditions of 
exploitation: workdays of 14 to 16 hours; very 
minimum wages of 45 or 50 pesos (less than five 
dollars a day); and a high cost of living because 
in the city you have to scratch yourself with your own fingernails.

We think that with this proletariat, with this 
new proletariat, there is an almost immediate 
identification. The indigenous roots give it 
strength and clarity, at least for us. And in the 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue41/article1749.html>worker’s 
gathering it was very clear that the workers from 
this sector and with this tradition came saying: 
this is about a system, not a union. In spite of 
what have been struggles to gain recognition for 
unions and for better working conditions, the 
presence of the boss is so immediate and brutal: 
almost the same as the presence of a plantation 
owner in the times of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_Diaz>porfirista 
hacienda. And the fact that these sectors also 
identify not with the workers’ movement of Fidel 
Velásquez for union independence, but that begin 
to present similarities – perhaps not conscious 
of it – with the workers’ movement in the epoch 
of Porfirio Diaz. Very combative, very radical, 
very ready to confront capital, right there, at 
the place of work. We strike, we strive, we rebel 
on the same assembly line, a line that has, 
today, almost no employment on this side.

Since the current workers’ movement – we are 
speaking of that which is most known – is not 
found on the assembly line but, rather, it is 
seen outside: through the union or through 
mobilizations. I don’t know, I’m very ignorant 
about this, but there are very few workers’ 
struggles on the assembly line. And these are 
coming forward here. Here is where the rebellion 
is being fought. At least that’s what they were 
telling us. At the hour when the sweatshop 
workers send the assembly line to hell, or rise 
up, or strike, then all the repression will 
follow. We believe that we have here an important 
teacher: that, on their part, they still don’t 
have the notion that they have a lot to teach; 
maybe that is made opaque by their own will and 
the radical nature of their struggle.

When the EZLN and the Sixth Commission say that 
the indigenous are those who will fight to the 
end, we are not just referring to the traditional 
indigenous people that are in their communities 
and make their wares and then later the 
plantation owners and police come to take them 
off their land. We are also, and above all, 
referring to them, to those that here in Mexico 
or on the Other Side are confronting the 
exploitation in another form, but they are 
confronting it with their roots. And this is what 
brings their radical nature and their determination in the struggle.

We think that the political and union 
organizations ought to look there to learn many things.


A Message for the Intellectuals and their 
“Magnificent Alibi to Avoid Struggle and Confrontation”




An Exclusive Interview with Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos: Part II





By Sergio Rodríguez Lascano
Rebeldía Magazine

May 31, 2006

Rebeldía: There has been a very strong criticism 
from some intellectuals of the left (at least 
that’s how they define them selves) and from 
currents of the left – that act along the margins 
between the institutionalism of the PRD 
(Democratic Revolution Party) and charros 
(corrupt union leaders) and the social-autonomous 
movement – against the EZLN (Zapatista Army of 
National Liberation) with this phrase (spoken 
recently by Marcos): “I shit on the correlation 
of forces.” We’ve always known that there is a 
species of culture in which the analysis of 
correlation of forces is a magnificent alibi to 
avoid struggle and confrontation. We also know 
that many times the cult of correlation of forces 
helps to throw principles and ethics out of 
political action. We know that the tireless 
repetition of the concept of correlation of 
forces is nothing less than hypocritical 
resignation in front of the thinking and practice 
of the right. What evaluation do you make of this criticism?

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos: The problem goes 
higher than that. We say that there is a problem 
in the intellectual sector, not in just the part 
you talk about but among the entire intellectual 
sector – including on the radical left – which is 
the separation or detachment of intellectual 
action and political action. At the hour that you 
are producing theory or theoretical reflection, 
not linked to a movement, in this species of 
outsider that the intellectual poses himself to 
be, he is spontaneously taking a concept from 
reality and that concept is what permits him to 
edit reality and choose: “this is what is most 
important.” It is the idea that, well, if 
spontaneously – not as a product of a social 
movement but spontaneously – of what I see in 
reality – that what you see in reality is what 
other intellectuals say, what the media says, 
what is said in the cultural circles: which is 
imperialism, or the Empire, or the new 
correlation of forces – that is what allows them 
to say: “this is what is important” and it allows 
them to construct theories like those of the 
currents and different tendencies that say, “this 
is reality.” And yes, if you begin with this 
concept, yes, you are able to obtain elements of 
reality that confirm your thesis and also the 
contrary. But they never get to that part.

We say that theory, in this sense, over there, 
above, is always going to stumble with that. 
Because the saying – I don’t remember who said it 
– that the problem of theory is that praxis, 
fundamentally praxis, is not taken into 
consideration. And praxis is not teaching a 
class. It is not writing an article. It is 
connecting yourself directly with a social or 
political movement. Now, inside of that sector, 
this is what is called comfort in the cultural 
code. Anything that alters my position as an 
intellectual; that which puts it in crisis or 
which questions it, is something that the 
intellectual spontaneously rejects. If there are 
elements of reality or of movements that in 
reality are proposing a radicalization of 
society, that means that the intellectual loses 
his space of safety from which to produce theory.

The elements precipitate and don’t rise to 
produce theoretical reflection. What is the 
fundamental complaint by the intellectuals of the 
left and of the right with respect to the 
interruption by the Sixth Commission beginning in 
Atenco? It messes up the scenario. We already 
have here two elements: the political parties and 
the IFE (Federal Elections Institute)
 And soon – 
from where? Through what window? – there appears 
and enters this band of plebes that not only do I 
not control them but I don’t know what they are 
about, I don’t want to understand them, and they 
mess up the entire panorama for me. And that is 
the desperation that turns into hatred and anger.

That is what we say in general. In this part, 
concretely, it means: “We can’t – we can’t as 
intellectuals – place value on a correlation of 
forces that doesn’t come from above. If not, it 
brings us to the question ‘what are you going to 
do?’ When my work as an intellectual is to 
respond that there is nothing to be done.” And 
yes, you go confronting the proposals of the 
intellectuals of the left and of the right and it 
becomes: this doesn’t have to be done, this 
doesn’t have to be done, this doesn’t have to be 
done. And it doesn’t have to be. When someone 
says, “this has to be done,” well, someone is 
going to say to him, “man, come here, you have a 
place here, you have to enter it.”

Then, on that level, the correlation of forces 
becomes an alibi to do nothing, not even anything 
for a slow change. Because if one sees the 
argument that they make it is not that the 
correlation of forces says that it can’t be done 
via insurrectional or violent routes; or that a 
slow change is necessary – which is something 
worth debating – no, what they say is that change 
cannot be made, period. What can be done is 
inside of this endless structure but what is 
fundamental is making a few fixes. And fixes that 
benefit me as an intellectual.

Evidently, if everything will be solved in 
academic space and with this level of debate that 
is “I tell you and you tell me,” there, above, it 
is not passionate. I remember that some years ago 
the debate between intellectuals was passionate 
and didn’t mean sinking to a lower level. Now it 
turns out that if there is passion it is not on the theoretical level.

Thus, I can stay in this channel and continue 
being the comfortable conscience of the right, 
not of the left, but of the right. Saying: “no, 
excesses can’t be committed
. Yes, it’s okay, 
there has to be exploitation, there has to be 
looting, there has to be disrespect and there has 
to be repression, but within the parameters of 
civility.” In this sense, the analysis of the 
correlation of forces never arrives at its 
fundamental point, which in an analysis of 
correlation of forces is: Is it the system or is 
it not the system? Because more likely the 
correlation of forces is “you can’t change the 
system; changing the party in government, that 
you can do.” This is the leap that is made from one side to the other.

What we think is that this analysis of “what is 
the correlation of forces” that is being made is 
selecting the elements that allow them to make 
the argument of “I am not going to do it
 there 
is nothing to be done
 don’t move
 don’t make 
waves.” But if we really analyze the correlation 
of forces, the enemy probably does continue as 
the more powerful force, but there is another 
element of which they are not conscious: the 
force from below. And its rebellion is in organization.

This is not about what the EZLN is saying. It 
speaks of a feeling or a rebel subjectivity. The 
EZLN, at the moment that this is happening in the 
states, is detecting that this subjectivity is 
organized and has a history. This is not about 
spontaneous movements, nor about finding only the 
people who are ready. It turns out that the 
people already have their organizations and their 
history. Thus, if this is seen and what is above 
is seen, the correlation of forces then changes.

When the EZLN says: “I shit on the correlation of 
forces,” it’s that I shit on the vision that the 
academic sector has regarding the correlation of 
forces. Globally, nationally, as well as 
regionally and locally, according to how they go 
about seeing it. And what it means – at least in 
the very pedestrian terms that we use – is that 
they are looking toward above and they don’t look 
below. If only somebody looking below would say 
to us, “listen, I just saw
 this.” No, instead 
they look upon us with disrespect, as if we 
didn’t even exist. That is the fundamental thing 
that bothers them (the intellectuals) about the 
Other Campaign in Atenco: if it (the Other 
Campaign) didn’t exist, it would fall by any 
wayside, it wouldn’t have anything to do with it. 
Now that it (the Other Campaign) is involved in 
this (Atenco) they (the intellectuals) are 
obligated to look below and they don’t like what 
they are seeing. Because what is being seen is a 
plebian, rebel, rude, movement with bad grammar, 
that puts its feet up on the table, that eats 
with its elbows also on the table
 That doesn’t 
follow the established criteria.

We say that there’s nothing wrong with this 
analysis. Because, in every case, what the right 
offers gives more alibis. And that is what the 
institutional left moves toward. That is to say, 
the PRD could care less about what the analysts 
of <http://jornada.unam.mx>La Jornada say. What 
matters to them is what is said in 
<http://www.letraslibres.com.mx/>Letras Libres; 
what matters to them is what is said in Vuelta – 
well, okay, Vuelta doesn’t exist anymore – in 
<http://www.nexos.com.mx/>Nexos and all that, 
because they have constructed an interlocution 
with power and with the mass media. And the most 
marginalized sectors think that no, because the 
intellectuals invite (PRD politician) Jesus 
Ortega to lunch and that they pay attention to 
something, but in reality it doesn’t matter to 
them. Not their radical nature, nor their 
prudence. The intellectuals of the left above 
pray to power that it look at them, and they are 
happy with very little. If, instead of that, they 
can say: my correlation of forces that I am 
offering for the revolutionary movement of the 
world – because they are even prudent and modest 
at that – doesn’t have any effect, not below, not 
above, not even in academia – I don’t believe 
that they provoke any enthusiasm in the students.

But for them it works. Because each day they can 
look in the mirror and say that, “yes, you are 
doing your work of orienting the proletariat, but 
they don’t understand you, they don’t obey you.” 
But in reality, almost never do they say anything 
directed toward below, it is always toward above. 
“Don’t look at them, don’t pay attention to them 
because they are ultras, they’re plebes, they 
don’t take into account the correlation of forces.”

Rebeldía: In the same way the same intellectuals 
have said that the statements that “we’re going 
after the wealthy of this country,” or “we are 
going to topple the government that comes and it 
doesn’t matter which party is in power,” 
represent an unrealizable propagandistic idea, 
that what it reflects is a kind of infantile 
will. This, in a way, reveals the limited view of 
these people who can’t imagine a horizon of 
revolutionary, radical or rebel – however they 
want to say it – rupture. To what do you think this limited view is owed?

SCI Marcos: This point about will has its 
counter-weight. It is a dishonest statement on 
the part of those intellectuals because all of 
them are led toward another kind of will that is 
perfectly defined. Because they say: It’s true 
that the PRD doesn’t have troops on the left; 
that it is true that the governing group is made 
up of troops from the PRI (Institutional 
Revolutionary Party) or the PAN (National Action 
Party)
 but there is López Obrador, and with his 
will, his honesty, that is what will allow a 
change in things, in spite of the fact that the 
environment – and they recognize it, but they 
don’t mention it – is lined up against it, is from the right.

Thus, they say: here are all the elements that 
show that our will, which is endorsed by us as 
intellectuals, does work and the plebian will 
from below doesn’t work. The EZLN is not asking 
for permission to be noticed or that they 
classify us up above. It is fundamentally a 
challenge to this intellectual sector. How are 
the costs calculated and decided? It is part of 
our history. But the EZLN has been very clear 
about that: it doesn’t matter to us if they wink 
at us or if they don’t shake our hands, or that 
they don’t orient us, or that they don’t pay attention to us.

To the contrary: Our proposal also confronts 
that, is also rebellious when facing that. And 
what the EZLN is doing is what it has done for 
its entire lifetime, ever since it was born 22 
years ago, that is, touching what is below and to 
read what it is touching. And to say it clearly, 
we can’t pretend that the problems that we are 
detecting are going to be solved unless the 
fundamental things in this country are changed: 
that would be a lie. We’re not going to do it. If 
we did it, we wouldn’t be anything, not even reformists.

The social project of this nation can’t be 
maintained with the lie that evolution happens 
above and that it happens below. We’ve come to 
the point where the bill has already been paid. 
It means, then, that for one to survive the other 
has to die; the other in terms of its national 
project. Thus, why are we going to say that this 
movement will end with national democracy when we 
see that what is leaping forward is a direct 
democracy? What is going to happen to electoral 
democracy, or the democracy of the political 
class – which is what it is today – when direct 
democracy or other kinds of democracy that are 
emerging arrive? Well, it will have to disappear. 
And it is not going to resign itself to 
disappearance. It will then be necessary to 
destroy it, not as people, but as a political class.

And at what moment will it be possible to take 
away the wealth that is being accumulated and 
distribute it equally? We say: that is already 
impossible. It is necessary to destroy what this 
wealth has in its possession and pass it to its 
true owner, those who were looted of that wealth: 
the worker, the Indian people, all the people that are below.

So, what should we do? Lie or tell a half-truth? 
Say that yes, the situation is very bad in this 
country, say that there is going to be a 
rebellion, and what is going to happen after 
that? No, well, I think that the rich, the 
government, are going to say yes, it is true, we 
are going to give them some concessions. Our 
experience as indigenous Zapatistas is the 
opposite: what we have achieved doesn’t have 
anything to do with what they have offered from 
above. Not the right to live, nor the right to 
live better. If the EZLN survived it was because 
of its ability to connect with others and the 
nobility of people in other lands supporting it. 
But not because the government solved anything: 
It has said, yeah, the situation is very difficult, we’ll give them something.

And if you think that what happens in the 
communities governed by the PRI - that have 
accepted government aid – where it is supposed 
that the aid was a product of understanding on 
the part of the government: yes, it’s true that 
the indigenous live under grave conditions. And 
in the indigenous communities you can see – 
without having to look too hard – that they are 
going to disappear, the ones that receive this 
aid. They will physically disappear: it is from 
those communities that the immigration to the 
cities and to the United States comes from. Thus, 
why are we going to lie or sit on the fence with 
all that it means for our survival? Survival as a 
nation, as the Mexico from below, requires the 
destruction of the Mexico from above; for its 
expulsion, to grind it into pieces, as we say here.

So, what is the political class’ problem? There 
are two things: we are coming after the rich of 
this country, we are going to kick them out, and 
if they have committed crimes, well, we will put 
them in prison
 because this is the time that has 
come. We say that coexisting with them is not 
possible, because their existence means our 
disappearance. And, apart from that, is the 
question of the government. That is, how is it 
possible that you pass – which is what (Carlos) 
Loret de Mola (of Televisa) asked us – “how is it 
possible that you pass over the 40 million 
Mexicans that went and voted and chose their 
government?” And I asked him, “And the other 70 
million?” Because its not even 40 million who 
vote, it is going to me more like 30 million, or 
20 million, or such. And what of the other 70 million?

That government, above, and that political class 
doesn’t have an ideological identity: It is not 
of the left, nor of the right, nor of the center. 
It is a class that is looking for work and where 
it can be found it shows its face. Paradoxically, 
it would wear a ski mask if convenient. And this 
can be clearly seen in its speeches. When it is 
convenient to be of the left, – and I’m not just 
referring to López Obrador, but also to 
(candidates Felipe) Calderón and (Roberto) 
Madrazo – and when it is convenient to be tough, 
and when it is convenient they act like asses. 
There is no place where it can be said, here are 
the candidates who are of the left everywhere 
they go. No, it depends on the audience, on the issue.

So, if no government above is going to question 
the economic direction – or the macro-economy, to 
say it better – then this government has to be 
toppled. As we understand it, unless (social 
democrat candidate) Patricia Mercado or (other 
candidate) Campa Cifrián or Doctor Simi (the 
drugstore magnate and perennial politician) has 
an ace up her or his sleeve, no administration to 
come is going to come proposing that. They think 
that it is possible to continue, as a nation, 
with the macroeconomic variants. We say no. 
Today, whether it has to do with will or not, it 
is going to be seen here whether we as the Other 
Campaign will be able to organize all the people 
and confront the reality that things can’t 
continue as they are, since I don’t see how we 
have to maintain a government that is going to destroy us as a nation.

So, what will we do to that government? Well, we 
will topple it, or take it away – because they 
say that to topple it has to do with weapons but 
our will has to do with movements – whatever you 
call it. With a civilian and peaceful movement we 
will take the government away from us, which is 
our Constitutional right. And we will make 
another one. Today, that is what we are saying, 
and that’s why we speak of the rich. It is 
necessary to change the system and take from them 
– those who now control the means of production – 
what they took from us. In other words, take back 
the land and work it our selves. Take back the 
banks, the businesses, and work them our selves. 
Somebody once said that already, no? And back 
then, yes, there were a lot of people who fought



A Different Path for Latin America Rides Through Mexico




An Exclusive Interview with Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos: Part III





By Sergio Rodríguez Lascano
Rebeldía Magazine

May 31, 2006

Rebeldía: Some years ago, after the fall of the 
Berlin Wall, Eduardo Galeano said that the Latin 
American left – and to some extent globally – 
seemed like a child lost in the fog. I think the 
idea of this orphan has to do with the fact that 
today there is nothing “beyond capitalism.” 
Development and progress are only noticed if 
capital is present, if there is foreign 
investment, if the laws of the market are 
respected. And what then remains as the horizon 
for the left is to fight so that the poor are a 
little less poor and the rich are a little less 
rich. What is the opinion of the EZLN (Zapatista 
Army of National Liberation) regarding this 
scenario? Is it valid for a project of the left?

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos: Look, we are 
beginning in reverse. It’s not about whether 
development and progress are seen only in 
capitalism. We say that the destruction and 
misery of all are only possible in capitalism. 
Thus, if we don’t agree with being destroyed as 
humanity, or as a nation in the Mexican case, and 
we want to get out of this misery, we will have 
to destroy the system that is provoking it. It’s 
that together with development and progress there 
is an above and a below. Not only that. That 
fiction that a man builds a fortune can’t be 
sustained anymore. The rich and powerful of this 
country and the world are that way because of a 
fundamental crime which is looting and, in many 
cases, blood crimes, of death and destruction.

Progress and development for them has gone beyond 
their being rich over there and us beingpoor. 
Fundamentally, that wealth that they are brutally 
accumulating comes from looting, from 
exploitation, from repression and the disrespect 
that we suffer below. Their development and 
progress mean, necessarily, our destruction and our misery.

So, we are proposing this struggle, this 
anti-capitalist fight, at this moment and in this 
radical form because according to us it is a 
question of survival, not just as a nation, above 
all, as a project of the left. There is no 
political organization of the left that is going 
to survive this if it is really of the left. This 
is last call for political organizations of the 
left. I’m referring to the entire spectrum: 
socialists, communists, Trotskyites, guevarists, 
anarchists, libertarians, punks or Zapatistas. 
Not one project of the left is going to survive. 
It won’t have anything left to fight for as a 
political project. And this is fundamental 
because there are some who think: no, we have to 
let the lesser evil win because it will give us 
breathing room. We say no: It will not give us 
breathing room. If we don’t destroy it, there 
won’t be any air at all. We have to, first, 
construct this space and, next, confront it.

About this image of Eduardo Galeano
 yes, in the 
global left we are like a child lost in the fog. 
But now we already know that ahead of us is an 
abyss and we have to look for something else. If 
we continue inside of the capitalist system – 
whether we see the precipice over there or not – 
we are going to disappear. That’s why we have to 
construct something else, because there is no 
other reference. Yes, there is
 but no, there 
isn’t. Because what exists is a tradition of 
struggle, theory exists, a science that has 
constructed this exit door. It also does not 
exist, because at the cultural level it seems 
there isn’t this perspective, because everything 
was bet on that wall. What a paradox, no? A wall. 
That is to say, the Berlin Wall and what it 
meant, since everyone agrees that this is the 
symbol that surpassed all others, without there 
having been other things, but that is not our problem.

Yes, we can get out of this fog, or not. That 
isn’t the problem. We already know that if we 
keep advancing we are heading toward destruction. 
And, so, that is where the Other Campaign says: 
we’re going to do something else. We are going to 
look at our history, we are going to look at 
another theory. Everything that is already here 
and that was left to the side as if it was a suit 
out of style, and that, it turns out, was not a 
suit, but is a perspective of what is history, of 
what is society, and of what is struggle. And I 
don’t only refer to scientists but also to 
ethicists, morals, politicians. And when the 
correlation of forces says that something has to 
be done – invariably it is to sell out, surrender 
or betray – ethics say “no way
 faced with the 
correlation of forces, I won’t sell out, I won’t surrender, I won’t betray.”

That, and also seeking and finding other people 
and saying: It’s okay, we’re going to add up the 
Berlin Wall and theory and all that. But are we 
going to propose something? What we are doing is 
so new, and so old at the same time. Rebellion, 
time and time again, is as old as humanity; not 
only along the chain of production, not only in 
the caves, not only at the pyramids, but in 
everything that has been the path of the history 
of humanity. Once more we find ourselves 
rebelling again and betting, again, with the 
enthusiasm of being incorrect – that for others 
is fear and for us is the enthusiasm to do 
something even if we are incorrect, but to do it 
– to create something new. Maybe it won’t happen, 
or not like we think, but yes it is going to be 
better than what there is now and, above all, it 
will mean our survival as a nation and also as a people: in the flesh.

That is what scares them – I think – that it 
doesn’t mean that we just have to re-read what we 
read before, but, rather, we have to understand 
again that what is being read, what is being 
heard, what is being seen, is saying: And you? 
And you? It is something that frightens the 
intellectuals, all of the sector of the cultural 
left: that you ask them, “And you, what are you 
doing?” That is what brings out, well, their marasmo.

Rebeldía: All of this has been reinforced by the 
arrival of governments of left in various South 
American countries. The victories by Lula in 
Brazil, by Kirchner in Argentina, by Tabaré in 
Uruguay, by Evo in Bolivia and by Chávez in 
Venezuela – the more tolerant types put Mrs. 
Bachelet (in Chile) on the list – are presented 
as evidence that the construction of an 
alternative to neoliberalism, that starts with a 
governmental policy, which is to say, from above, 
is viable. But when the government programs are 
analyzed (in the cases of Venezuela and Bolivia 
we have to give them time to see how they evolve) 
and above all their practice, it turns out that 
they respect the frames of reference of the 
neoliberal project. Why does the EZLN insist that 
we shouldn’t be looking toward above (the 
exception being when we point the finger up 
there) but, rather, we should look toward below?

SCI Marcos: Because we think that a fundamental, 
or different project, one that takes another 
path, is what Latin America needs. Not the path 
that we are seeing – above all in the case of 
Lula in Brazil, of Kirchner in Argentina, of 
Tabaré in Uruguay or of López Obrador in Mexico – 
which is: following the same path and – as he 
says – changing the horse for the horsemen. But 
the path is never stated. And the path is that 
which says: we have to maintain these 
macroeconomic variables and we are going to 
change the song that we sing along the path, or 
how we dress, all that, but the direction in which we are going is the same.

So, who is going to propose or from where will a 
proposal come that says we don’t want to go 
there? Not only because it brings us to an abyss, 
but also because what we want is something else 
and to change to a different path. Only the 
people from below and the grand social movements, 
spontaneous, organized, planned or that surge 
unseen by the mass media. That is where this is 
being proposed. Because this is the people, the 
people from below, that are seeing – at the same 
time that we are seeing our exploitation and at 
the hour that we begin to organize – a different 
path, another world, one where this exploitation, 
this looting, this racism, this disrespect, this repression, doesn’t exist.

So here the problem is not who is going to mount 
the horse or how the horse will be, as it is 
said, but, rather, to say: well, we’re seeing 
clearly, the problem here is not the horseman or 
the horse, but the path. Because we’re not going 
by horse, we’re not going by car, we’re just not 
going. They’re bringing us along at the point of 
a bayonet, or with tricks – according to how each 
person is touched – and we want to go somewhere else.

If Evo Morales, if Hugo Chávez – one in Bolivia, 
the other in Venezuela – or anyone in any place 
begins to follow another path it is going to be 
because fundamentally he is being pulled from 
below, not because he will understand things from 
up above. If the Cuban revolution was possible, 
any revolution that beats another path for a 
people, happened because a people said, “do it!” 
Although we understand that it centers around a 
figure: in Castro, or Guevara, in Lenin or in 
whoever. But fundamentally they were peoples 
those who turned to look somewhere else and said, 
“let’s go somewhere else!” And here is where 
political organization, the party, or the 
government, whatever, chooses: It will confront 
it – like Lula is doing in Brazil – or it will 
try to follow it, or try to find agreement.

But those from above are marking the path. Who is 
going to judge the role of Evo in Bolivia and of 
Chávez in Venezuela? The Bolivian people and the 
Venezuelan people: They are the ones that are 
going to say: Yes, they are with us, or no, they 
are not with us. Or that at times they are with 
us and at others times not. But fundamentally an 
Other Bolivia or an Other Venezuela is going to 
be produced from below; by the workers in the 
countryside and in the cities of those countries. 
And it’s the same anywhere else.

Now, the change of governments of Lula in Brazil, 
Kirchner in Argentina, and Tabaré in Uruguay 
doesn’t only mean, “well, they are going to 
administrate a neoliberal project with the left 
hand. We are not going to say neoliberalism, we 
are going to be capitalism with a human face and 
well managed.” It’s not just that. From here 
there is emerging – I think that López Obrador is 
the one who is proposing it in Mexico – a new 
Nation-State. More subordinated, more tailored, 
without any of the traces of autonomy and 
independence that the national States had before 
the fall of the Berlin Wall. And this remains to 
be seen, because everywhere it is happening, the 
social movement of the left that doesn’t resist 
is co-opted, destroyed. And when it is not 
destroyed, it is attacked as if it were the 
enemy. And at times this is the alibi that serves 
the right. At times, an alibi isn’t even 
necessary, as with the confrontations that Lula 
has had with the Sin Tierra movements in Brazil.

This is going to be seen according to how it all 
goes. The proposal in Mexico is: we’ll grab a 
sector of the old political class, give it a new 
sheen, and from that we will draw the new Mexican 
State. It’s the biggest stupidity in the world. I 
don’t know how they are swallowing it up above – 
they need a lot of TV spots and many cups of 
coffee with the intellectuals – but who is going 
to say that a new project of the nation is coming 
out of this? Or how is it put? An alternative 
national project – recycled from the PRI 
political class? No, that’s not possible.

Rebeldía: One of the statements that caused a 
polemic among detractors of the Other Campaign 
(columnists, cartoonists, etcetera) was that in 
which you said that the EZLN didn’t have to go to 
the inauguration of Evo Morales and, later, at 
another moment, you said that the EZLN doesn’t 
look toward Bolivia and later that what was being 
done in Mexico was the greatest fucking thing and 
it had no comparison in the world. To what were 
you referring? Could you explain a little more 
what it is that you are saying with phrases like those?

SCI Marcos: First, the EZLN said that it should 
not go to the inauguration, not just that it 
didn’t have to, but that it should not do it, 
because that would mean looking toward above. The 
fundamental aspect of the Sixth Declaration of 
the Lacandon Jungle is this rupture.

Prior to the Sixth Declaration, the EZLN looked 
toward above. Not only toward the Evos, not only 
toward the columnists, cartoonists and 
progressive intellectuals, but also toward the 
Mexican government. And its privileged 
interlocution was with them. But now – after the 
Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, in 
relation to your question – the EZLN says: we 
should not do this because we have chosen another path, which is to look below.

And the richness of what we see below is such 
that it demands more attention than any other 
view, and that’s why we should not do it. What’s 
more, ethically, it would send a mixed signal. 
The reproach of not going to Evo Morales’ 
inauguration or any other is so elemental as to 
say: okay, at what time will you get the passport 
and the visa. It was, rather, that to go off to 
the inauguration of Evo Morales would be an 
immediate endorsement of the campaign of López 
Obrador. It would say that, yes, it is possible 
to change things from above. And later, we said 
that the EZLN doesn’t look toward Bolivia, that 
it doesn’t turn its view toward the Bolivia of 
above, but, rather, at the Bolivia from below. 
And these are the values that are taken into 
account: those of the popular movement that 
caused Bolivia to crash and opened the 
possibility that the government of Evo could decide for one side or the other.

Now, regarding the other one, what is being done 
in Mexico has no comparison because the EZLN is 
investing everything in the process.

It’s not the story of a group of illuminati that 
generates consciousness in the masses and that 
says we are going to fight for this and we are 
going to convince you to fight for this. Rather, 
the EZLN says: we are going to construct from 
below. From what I know – and I don’t know much 
about world history – there is no other process 
that began this way, that leaves the fundamental 
definitions in the air, that sketches nothing 
more than the general panorama and begins to 
construct from below, trusting that below – 
trusting in the people, really – that what comes 
from below will be an organic proposal for the 
direction, the steps, the company, the rhythm, 
the speed. All that has been proposed even before 
the Sixth Declaration, as a group decision, as an 
organization or a group of organizations.

And then, once this movement is constructed, we 
think that the problem of the government – and of 
seizing power – becomes inverted: it stops being 
the central goal of a movement of transformation 
and it becomes just one piece more in that 
movement. Look out: here comes another piece, and 
its not excluded from this movement. Yes, it will 
have to be done, but it is not the stepping off 
point, nor the point of arrival. It is one of the 
steps that will have to be taken in organizing 
society. And, probably – we think – we can 
construct a global reference that won’t be a 
wall, like that in Berlin, but that will be 
something else. It is a jigsaw puzzle whose shape 
is not defined and that is modified with every 
new piece that is added. And since it is from 
below, the problem here is not what image it will 
project in the end, but rather that each piece 
has one’s figure and color; that one is here.

And this is what the movement that the Other 
Campaign is accomplishes
 that the jigsaw puzzle 
continued being put together from below, not from 
above. And, eventually, the piece that is 
government is going to fit, or the piece that is 
electoral democracy, or that of rights
 many 
things that, well, are here. But it is not the 
first step nor – beware – the point of arrival. 
But it does not attempt to avoid it, either. That 
is what the EZLN is saying again and again.



The Freedom Archives
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www.freedomarchives.org 
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