Marco, p. 102
The mountain told us to take up arms so we could have a voice.
It told us to cover our faces so we would have a face.
It told us to forget our names so we can be named.
It told us to protect our past we could have a future.
This week’s readings focus on the Zapatista social movements and leaders. Beginning with Our Word is Our Weapon, the work engages us in a compilation of conference speeches, military communiqués, and open letters spliced with poems, short stories, and allegories to provide a human face to what many would consider an evolving “postmodern” movement. Setting a foundation for the grass-roots elements of the revolutionary Zapatista movement, the collection of writings communicates a participatory, arguably non-hierarchical style of politics. Given that there is a constant “we” in the social, Subcomandante Marcos aims to highlight the political space as an ongoing struggle for life outside of death. As such, the Zapatista movement must extend beyond one person. Recognizing this, Taylor (2014) marks the moment when Subcomandante Marcos declares the death of his political persona. While the Subcomandante’s individual inventiveness fulfills a symbolic function, his (re)construction of Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano takes a communal narrative. The reinvented activist explains, the Zapatista movement must always focus on the people, as such his rebirth must be as a collective (Taylor, par. 10).
As the Zapatista movement continues to develop, the dark ski mask that covers the activists face has transformed into the veil of the internet. Lane (2003) highlights one specific instance where the unorthodox methods of the Zapatista Electronic Disturbance Theatre created an “air force” of paper planes to cross digital “barbed wire” in an effort to distribute a poem discussing the struggle for peace in Chiapas, Mexico (p. 130). In an interview with Taylor, Ricardo Dominguez explains digital Zapatismo can be considered postmodern “because they had somehow accomplished, by ripping into the electronic fabric, this possibility of expanding a network and manifesting a network without having access to a network (par. 7). Like Sup. Marcos had previously done, digital Zapatistas reinvent themselves online to embody an appropriate response to injustices and to further expand grass roots globally.