N° 15, Agosto-Noviembre
de 2003
The World: Seven
Thoughts in May of 2003
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos *
Introduction
While the Power's calendars break down, and while the large media corporations
vacillate between those absurdities and tragedies being staged and promoted by
the world's political class, below, in the great and extensive basement of the
tottering modern Tower of Babel, the movements are not ceasing and, even though
they are still faltering, they are beginning to regain the word and their
ability to act as mirror and lens. While the politics of discord are being
decreed above, in the basement of the world, the others are finding each other
and the other who, being different, is another below.
As part of this rebuilding of the word as mirror and lens, the Zapatista Army
of National Liberation has reengaged in dialogues with social and political
movements and organizations in the world. Initially - with brothers and sisters
from Mexico, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, the Spanish State, Argentina
and the American Union - it has been about building a common Agenda for
discussion.
It is not an attempt to establish political and programmatic agreements, nor to
attempt a new version of the International. Nor does it have to do with
unifying theoretical concepts or standardizing conceptions, but with finding,
and or building, common points of discussion. Something like constructing
theoretical and practical images which are seen and experienced from different
places.
As part of this effort at encuentro, the EZLN is now presenting these 7
thoughts. Anchoring them in a space and time horizon means, for us, a
recognition of our theoretical, practical and, above all universal, visionary
limitations. This is our first contribution to the building of a world Agenda
for discussion.
We are grateful to the Mexican magazine Rebeldía for having opened their pages
for these thoughts. We are equally grateful to those publications in Italy,
France, the Spanish State, the American Union and Latin American which do the
same.
I. Theory
The position of theory (and of theoretical analysis) in political and social
movements is usually obvious. However, everything obvious usually conceals a
problem, in this case: that of the effects of a theory on practice and the
theoretical "rebound" of the latter.
I am not equating the idea of "theoretician" or "theoretical
analyst" with that of "intellectual." The latter is more broad. The
theoretician is an intellectual, but the intellectual is not always a
theoretician.
The intellectual (and, therefore, the theoretician) feels that he has the right
to express his opinion concerning movements. It is not his right, it is his
duty. Some intellectuals go further and become the new "political
commissars" of thought and of action, handing out titles of
"good" and "bad." Their "judgment" has to do with
the position they are in and with the position which they aspire to be in.
We think that a movement should not "return" the judgments which it
receives and classify intellectuals as "good" or "bad,"
according to how those intellectuals characterize the movement. Anti-intellectualism
is nothing more than a misunderstood self apologia and, as such, it marks a
movement as being "adolescent."
We believe that the word leaves traces, traces mark directions, directions
entail definitions and commitments. Those who commit their word for or against
a movement have a responsibility not only to talk about it, but also to
"hone" it, keeping its objectives in mind. "For what?" and
"Against what?" are questions which should accompany the word. Not in
order to silence it or to lower its voice, but in order to complete it and to
make it effective. In other words, so that what it speaks can be heard by the
one who should hear it.
Producing theory from within a social or political movement is not the same as
producing it from within academia. And I am not speaking of
"academia" in the sense of sterility or (nonexistent) scientific
"objectivity," but only in order to note the place of reflection and
intellectual production as being "outside" of a movement. And
"outside" does not mean that there are no "sympathies" or
"antipathies," but that that intellectual production does not take
place within the movement, rather above it. And so the academic analyst
assesses and judges good and bad points, wise moves and errors, of past and
present movements, and, in addition, ventures prophecies concerning directions
and fates.
Sometimes it so happens that certain academic analysts aspire to lead a
movement, that is, that the movement should follow his directives. And so the
academic's basic reproach is that the movement is not "obeying" him. That
all of the movement's errors are owing, fundamentally, to the fact that they
are not clearly seeing what is obvious to the academic. Lack of memory and
dishonesty are generally pervasive (not always, it's true) among these armchair
analysts. One day they say one thing, and they predict something, on the other
the opposite happens, but the analyst has lost his memory and goes back to
theorizing while ignoring what he said previously. In addition to that, he is
also being dishonest, because he does not bother to respect his readers or listeners.
He will never say "yesterday I said this, and it didn't happen or the
opposite happened, I was wrong." Hooked on the "today" of the
media, the armchair theoretician seizes the opportunity to "forget." This
academic produces the theoretical equivalent of junk food of the intellect. In
other words, it does not nourish, it only distracts.
Other times, a movement replaces its spontaneity with the theoretical patronage
of academia. The solution is usually more detrimental than the deficiency. If
academia is wrong, it "forgets." If the movement is wrong, it fails. Occasionally
the leadership of a movement seeks a "theoretical alibi," that is,
something which backs it up and lends coherence to its practices. It then goes
to academia in order to accumulate it. In these cases, theory is nothing more
than an uncritical and somewhat rhetorical apologia.
We believe that a movement should produce its own theoretical reflection (note:
not its apologia). There it can incorporate what is impossible in an armchair theory,
that is, the transformative practices of that movement. We have preferred to
listen and discuss with those who analyze and reflect theoretically in and with
movements and organizations, and not outside them or, which is worse, at their
expense. We have, nonetheless, made an effort to listen to all voices, paying
attention not to who is speaking, but from where they are speaking.
In our theoretical reflections, we talk about what we see as tendencies, not
consummated or inevitable acts. Tendencies which have not only not yet become
homogeneous and hegemonic (yet), but which can (and should) be reverted to.
Our theoretical reflection as zapatistas is not generally about ourselves, but
about the reality in which we move. And its nature is approximate and limited
in time, in space, in concepts and in the structure of those concepts. That is
why we reject attempts at universality and eternity in what we say and do.
Answers to questions about zapatismo are not in our theoretical reflections and
analyses, but in our practice. And practice, in our case, carries a heavy
moral, ethical burden. That is, we try to act (not always successfully) in
accordance not only with a theoretical analysis, but also, and above all,
according to what we consider our duty to be. We try to be consistent, always. Perhaps
that is why we are not pragmatic (another way of saying "action without
theory and without principles").
Vanguards feel the duty to direct something or someone (and in this sense they
demonstrate many similarities with academic theoreticians). Vanguards set out
to lead and they work for that. Some of them are even willing to pay the price
for errors and deviations in their political work. Academics do not.
We believe that our duty is initiating, following, accompanying, finding and
opening spaces for something and someone, including ourselves.
A tour, even if it is merely expository, of the different resistances in a
nation or on the planet, is not just an inventory. There one can divine, even
more than the present, the future.
Those who are part of that tour, and those who make the inventory, can discover
things that those who add and subtract in the armchairs of the social sciences
cannot manage to see. To wit, that the traveler and his path matter, yes, but what
matters above all is the path, the direction, the tendency. In noting and
analyzing, in discussing and arguing, we are doing so not only in order to know
what is happening and to understand it, but also, and above all, in order to
try and transform it.
II. The Nation State and the Polis
In the dying calendar of the Nation States, the political class was the one
which had decision-making Power. A Power which did, in fact, take into
consideration economic, ideological and social power, but which maintained a
relative autonomy in relation to them. That relative autonomy gave it the
ability to "see beyond" and to lead national societies to that
future. In that future, economic power not only continued to be power, but it
was the most powerful.
In the art of politics, the artist of the polis, the one who governs, was then
a specialized conductor, knowledgeable in the sciences and the human arts,
including military ones. The wisdom of governing consists in suitably managing
the different resources for leading the State. Greater or lesser recourse to
one or the other of these resources defines the style of government. Balanced
administration, politics and repression, an advanced democracy. Much politics,
little administration and hidden repression, a populist regime. Much repression
and no politics or administration, a military dictatorship.
At that time, in the international division of labor, statesmen (and
stateswomen) belonged to developed capitalism. Those countries with deformed
capitalism had governments of thugs. Military dictatorships represented the
true face of modernity: a bloodthirsty, animal face. The democracies were not
just a mask which concealed that brutal essence. They were also preparing
Nations for a new stage, where money would find better conditions for growth. Globalization,
that is, making the world world- wide, is not marked by just the digital
technological revolution. Money's ever-present internationalist designs found
the means and conditions for destroying those obstacles which were preventing
it from carrying out its vocation: conquering the entire planet with its logic.
One of those obstacles, borders and Nation States, suffered and are suffering a
world war (the 4th). Nation States are confronting this war without economic,
political, military and ideological resources and also, as recent wars and free
trade agreements have demonstrated, without legal defenses.
History did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of the
socialist camp. The New World Order is still an objective in the battle
formation of money, but now the Nation State is lying in the field, in its
death throes and waiting for help to arrive.
We call the management collective that has displaced the political class in
basic decision making the "society of Power." It is a group which
does not just hold economic power, and it does not do so in just one nation. More
than being organically drawn together (according to the "anonymous
society" model), the "society of Power" is trying to fill the
vacuum left by the Nation States and their political classes. "The
"society of Power" controls financial bodies (and, therefore, entire
countries), the media, industrial and commercial corporations, centers of
education, armies and public and private police. The "society of
Power" desires a World State with a supranational government, but it is
not engaged in building it.
Globalization has been a traumatic experience for humanity, yes, but especially
for the society of Power. Weighed down by the effort to pass, without any
mediation, from the barrios or communities to the Hyper- Polis, from the local
to the global, and while the supranational government is being built, the
society of Power has taken refuge once again in a fading Nation State. The
Nation State of the society of Power only gives an impression of vigor, which
is quite schizophrenic. A hologram, that is the Nation State in the metropolis.
Maintained for decades as the reference point for stability, the Nation State
is ceasing to exist, but its hologram remains, fed by those dogmas which are
fighting to fill the vacuum which has been not only produced by globalization,
but also emphasized by it. The making the world world-wide in time and space
is, for Power, something which still must be directed. The "others"
are no longer somewhere else, but everywhere and all the time. And for the
Power, the "other" is a threat. How is that threat to be confronted? Raising
the hologram of the nation and denouncing the "other" as aggressor. Wasn't
one of Señor Bush's arguments for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that both
were threatening the North American "nation"? But, apart from the
"reality" created by CNN, the flags which are waving in Kabul and
Baghdad are not the stars and stripes, but those of the great multinational
corporations.
In the hologram of the Nation State, the fallacy par excellence of modernity,
c'est a dire, "individual liberty," has been taken prisoner in a jail
which is no less oppressive for the fact that it is global. The individual is
so blurred that not even the images of yesterday's heroes can offer the most
minimal hope of standing out. The "self made man" no longer exists,
and, given that it is impossible to speak of a "self made
corporation," social expectations are adrift. What is the hope? Going back
to fighting for the street, the barrio? Neither. The fragmentation has been so
ruthless and reckless that not even those minimal units of identity have
remained stable. The family home? Where and how? If television came in like a
queen through the front door, the internet hacked its way in through the crack
of cyberspace. Almost every house on the planet was recently invaded by the
British and North American troops which occupied Iraq.
The Nation State which now appropriates the title "divine hand of
God" (the United States of America) exists solely on television, on the
radio, in some newspapers and magazines and in the movies. In the dream
factories of the great media consortiums, presidents are intelligent and
sympathetic, justice always triumphs. The community defeats the tyrant,
rebellion in the face of the arbitrary is met quickly and effectively, and
"happily ever after" is still the ending which the nation's society
is promised. But things are, in reality, the complete opposite.
Where are the heroes of the invasion of Afghanistan? Where are the ones from
the occupation of Iraq? What I mean is that September 11, 2001 had its heroes,
the firefighters and residents of the city of New York, working to rescue the
victims of the messianic madness. But those real heroes were not of any use to
Power, that is why they were quickly forgotten. For Power, the "hero"
is the one who conquers (that is, destroys), not the one who saves (that is,
creates). The image of the firefighter covered in ashes, working amidst the
rubble of the twin towers in New York, was replaced by the tank pulling down
the statue of Hussein in Baghdad.
The only thing that the modern polis (I am using the term "polis"
instead of "city" in order to emphasize that I am referring to an
urban space of economic, ideological, cultural, religious and political
relationships) shares with the classical one (Plato) is the superficial and
frivolous image of the sheep (the people) and the shepherd (he who governs).
But modernity completely disrupted the platonic image. Now it is an industrial
complex: some sheep are sheared, and others are sacrificed in order to obtain
food. Some sheep, the "sick" ones, are isolated, eliminated and
"burned" so they don't contaminate the rest.
Neoliberalism presented itself as the efficient administration for that mix of
slaughterhouse/corral which is the polis, but pointed out that efficiency would
only be possible by breaking down the borders of the polis and extending them
(that is, invading) throughout the planet: the Hyper-Polis.
But it so happens that the "administrator" (the one who
governs/shepherd) has gone crazy, and he has decided to sacrifice all the
lambs, even though the owner can't eat them all, and even though there won't be
any sheep left to shear, nor any to sacrifice tomorrow. The old politician, the
one from before (and I'm not referring to "before Christ", but to the
end of the 20th century), specialized in maintaining the conditions for the
growth of the flock and so there would be sheep for various things and, in
addition, so that the sheep wouldn't rebel.
The neo-politician is no longer a "cultivated" shepherd. He is a
foolish and ignorant wolf (who doesn't even hide behind a sheepskin), who is
satisfied with eating the part of the flock which they give him, but who has
abandoned his fundamental tasks. It will not be long before the flock
disappears or rebels.
Might one think that it doesn't have to do with "humanizing" the
corral/factory/slaughterhouse of the modern polis, but with destroying that
logic? Pulling off the sheepskin and, without sheep, discovering that the
"shepherd/butcher/shearer" is not only useless, but an obstacle?
The logic of the Nation States was (in broad strokes): a polis-city gathers in
a territory (and not the reverse), a province gathers in a series of polis, a
nation gathers in a series of provinces. Ergo, the polis-city was the basic
cell of the Nation State, and the Polis-Capital imposed its logic on the rest
of the polis.
Then there was a kind of common cause, one or several factors which brought
that Polis together within itself, as there were factors which held together
the Nation State (territory, language, currency, legal-political system,
culture, history, etcetera). These factors have been eroded and dynamited
(often not in the figurative sense) by globalization.
But what about the polis during the current decline (almost to the point of
disappearance) of the Nation State? And which was first? The Polis or the
Nation State? The decline of the one or the other? It doesn't matter, at least
not in terms of what I'm speaking about now. If the fragmentation (and,
therefore, the tendential disappearance) of the Nation State is owing to the
fragmentation of the polis or vice versa is not the issue which I'm addressing.
The Polis, like the Nation State, has lost what held it together. Each Polis is
nothing more than a disorderly and chaotic fragmentation, a superimposition of
polis which are not only different among themselves, but are sometimes opposed.
The Power of Money demands a special space, which will not only be a mirror of
its greatness and well-being, but which will additionally protect it from the
"other" polis (those of the "others") which surround it and
threaten it. These "other" polis are not similar to the barbarian
communities of yesteryear. The Polis of Money tries to incorporate them into
their logic, and it needs them, but at the same time it fears them.
Where previously there was a Nation State (or they are still fighting with them
for the space), today there is a disorderly accumulation of Polis. The Polis of
Money in the world are the "houses" of the "society of
Power." However, where there previously was a legal and institutional
system which regulated the internal life of the Nation States and the
relationship between them (international legal structure), today there is
nothing.
The international legal system is obsolete, and its place is being occupied by
the spontaneous "legal" system of Capital: the brutal and merciless
competition through any means, among them, war.
What are the public security programs of cities but the protection of those who
have everything in the face of those who have nothing? "Mutatis
mutandis," national security programs are no longer national, confronting
other nations, but they are against everything, everywhere. The image of the
city surrounded (and threatened) by rings of misery and the image of the nation
harassed by other countries, has begun to be transformed. Poverty and
dissidence (those "others" who don't have the manners to disappear)
are no longer in the periphery, but can be seen in almost any part of the
metropolises and of the countries.
What I am pointing out is that the "reorganization," which is being
carried out in the governments of the polis, of those fragments, as rehearsal
or "training" for national reorganization, is useless. Because what
it has to do with, more than reordering, is isolating the "harmful"
fragments and moderating the impact which their demands, struggles and
resistances might have in the polis of money.
Those who are governing the city are only administering the fragmentation
process of the polis, in hopes of moving on to administer the process of
national fragmentation.
The privatization of space in the cities is nothing more than fear violating
its own regulations. The polis has been converted into an anarchic space of
islands. The "coexistence" among the few is possible because of the
common fear they have of the "other." Long live private streets! Private
neighborhoods will follow, then cities, provinces, nations, the entire world
privatized, that is, isolated and protected from the "other." But it
will not be long before the rich neighbor is also an "other."
What nuclear war did not do, the corporations can. Destroy everything, even
that which gives them wealth. A world where no worlds fit, not even its own. This
is the project of the Hyper-Polis which is being erected on the rubble of the
Nation State.
III. Politics
Are there no longer any national causes which hold the polis, nations,
societies, together? Or are there no longer politicians capable of embracing
those causes? The discrediting of politics is something more than that: it has
something of hate and bitterness. The average citizen is moving, tendentially,
from indifference to the political classes' outrages, to a repudiation which is
taking increasingly "expressive" forms. The "flock" is
resisting the new logic.
The politician of yesteryear defined the common task. The modern one tries to
and fails. Why? Perhaps because he himself has brought about his own loss of
prestige, or, more accurately, more than prostituting a cause, he has
prostituted a profession.
Lacking a reality as reference point, the modern political class produces a
hologram which is not based on the size of its aspirations, but on the size of
their current calendar: Those who are governing a people have not renounced the
governing of a city, a province, a nation, the entire world. It is just that
their today determines a population, and they have to wait for the next
elections for the next step.
If the Nation State previously had the ability to "see further" and
to project the necessary conditions for capital to reproduce "in
crescendo," and to help it deal with its periodic crises, the destruction
of its fundamental bases are preventing it from completing that task.
The social "ship" is adrift, and the problem is not only the lack of
an able captain. It so happens that they have stolen the rudder, and it isn't
turning up anywhere.
While money was the dynamite, politicians were the "operatives" of
the demolition. By destroying the bases of the Nation State, the traditional
political class also destroyed its alibi: the all-powerful athletes of politics
are now looking, surprised and incredulous, at a shite shopkeeper, who has no
idea whatsoever of the arts of the State. He hasn't even defeated them, he
simply replaced them.
That traditional political class is incapable of rebuilding the foundations of
the Nation State. Like a bird of prey, it makes do with feeding on the spoils
of a country, and it feeds in the mud and blood on what the empire of money has
built. While it feeds, the Senor of Money is waiting at the table.
The free market has suffered a terrible metamorphosis: now you are free to
choose which shopping center to go to, but the shop is the same, and the brand
is also the same. The false initial freedom in the tyranny of merchandise,
"free supply and free demand," has been shattered.
The foundations of "western democracy" have been dynamited. Campaigns
and elections are being conducted on their rubble. Election pyrotechnics shine
quite high, so high that they don't manage to illuminate the ruins which cover
the political work even a bit.
In the same way, the spinal column of government work, the Reasons of State,
are no longer useful. Now it is the Reasons of the Marketplace which direct
politics. Why employ politicians if the marketing analysts understand the new
logic of Power better?
The politician, the State professional, that is, has been replaced by the
manager. And thus the vision of the State is reassembled as a vision of
marketing (the manager is nothing more than a foreman of yesteryear, who firmly
"believes" that the success of his company is his own success) and the
horizon shrinks, not just in terms of distance, but also in magnitude.
Deputies and senators no longer make laws, that work is done by the
"lobbies" of advisors and consultants.
Traditional politicians and their intellectuals, orphans and widows, are tearing
out their hair (those that still have any), and rehearsing new alibis over and
over again in order to offer them up in the market of ideas: it is useless. There
is an overabundance of sellers there, and there are no buyers.
Turning to the traditional political class as an ally in the resistance
struggle is a fine exercise in nostalgia. Turning to neo-politicians is a
symptom of schizophrenia. There is nothing to do up there, other than betting
that maybe something can be done.
There are those who are devoted to imagining that that the rudder exists and to
fighting for its possession. There are those who are seeking the rudder,
certain that it has been left somewhere. And there are those who make of an
island, not a refuge for self-satisfaction, but a ship for finding another
island and another and another.
IV. The War
In the postmodern stress of the society of Power, war is the couch. The
catharsis of death and destruction soothes, but it does not cure. The current
crises are worse than those of the past, and, therefore, the radical solution
that the Power provides for them, war, is worse than those of previous times.
Now, globalization, the greatest fraud in the history of humanity, does not
even have the decency to try and justify itself. Thousands of years after the
emergence of words, and, along with them, reasoned argument, force has again
come to occupy the decisive and deciding position.
In the history of the consolidation of Power, humanity's ability to live in
harmony has turned into coexistence. While at war. The dominant-dominated
dichotomy now defines the world community, and it attempts to be the new
criteria for "humanity," even for the most scattered fragments of
global society.
The vacuum left by statesmen is being filled, in the hologram of the Nation
State, by managers and arrivistes. In the apparent order of capital, however,
the company soldiers ( a new generation which not only reads and applies Sun
Tzu, but which has the material means to carry out his movements and maneuvers)
are incorporating military war (in order to differentiate it from economic,
ideological, psychological, diplomatic and other wars) as one more factor in
their marketing strategy.
The logic of the marketplace (more profits, always and at any cost) is imposed
on the old logic of war (destroy the fighting capacity of the opponent). International
legislation then gets in the way, and it must be ignored or it must be
destroyed. The time of plausible justifications is over. There is not even much
emphasis now on "moral" or even "political" justifications
in war. International bodies are useless and onerous monuments.
For the society of Power, human beings can be either clients or criminals. In
order to insure the mediocrity of the former, and to eliminate the latter, the
politician lends a legal face to the illegitimate violence of Power. War no
longer needs laws which "justify" or "back" it. It is
enough to have politicians who declare it and who sign the orders.
If the government of the United States has appropriated the role of
"Policeman" of the Hyper-Polis, it must be asked what order it wants
to maintain, what property should it defend, what criminals should it
incarcerate, and what law gives its actions coherence and order. In other
words, who are the "others" the society of Power must be protected
from.
There is no worse general for conducting a war than a military man, that is
why, previously, the great generals, the winners of wars (not the ones who
fought the battles), were politicians, statesmen. But, if there are no longer
any more of them, then who is conducting the current battle of world conquest? I
doubt that anyone in their right mind would assert that Bush or Rumsfeld is
leading the war in Iraq.
So the ones who are leading it are either military men, or they aren't. If they
are, the results will begin to be seen soon. The military isn't satisfied until
it totally destroys its opponent. Totally, in other words, not defeat it, but
disappear it, do away with it, annihilate it. And so the solution to the crisis
is just the prelude to a larger crisis, to a horror which is impossible to
describe in words.
If it is not military people, then who is leading? The corporations, one might
answer. But they also have logics which they superimpose on those of
individuals, and they direct them. Like a being with life and intelligence of
its own, the corporation lectures its members to go in such and such a
direction. Which? Towards profits. In this logic, money directs itself towards
where it can secure the best conditions for rapid, growing and continuous
profits. Will it direct itself towards where there are less or where there are
more? Yes, the corporation will go, tendentially, against another corporation.
Will the results of the war in Iraq resolve the crisis which is confronting
large corporations? No, or at least not immediately. The diversionary effect of
a conflict for the expectations of the Nation-State-With-
Aspirations-To-Being-Supranational has the lifespan of a television commercial.
"We've already won in Iraq" the citizens of the United States will
say. "And now? Another war? Where? Is this the new world order? A war
everywhere and always, just interrupted by TV commercials?"
V. Culture
Reclining on the couch of war, the society of Power looks at its complexes and
ghosts. They have many names and many faces, but one common denominator:
"the other." That "other" who, prior to globalization, was
far away in time and space, but which the disorderly construction of the
Hyper-Polis has brought to the society of Power's backyard.
The culture of the "other" becomes the despised mirror. Not because
it reflects the power in its inhuman cruelty, but because it recounts the
history of the "other." The different who not only does not depend on
the "I" of Power, but who also has his own history and splendor,
without even having noticed the existence of the "I" or having
imagined its future appearance.
In the society of Power, the failure of man in harmony, his being in the
collective being, is concealed behind individual success. But the latter, in
turn, conceals that that success is made possible by the destruction of the
other, of the collective being. For decades, in the Power's imagination, the
collective occupied the place of evil, arbitrariness, irascibility, cruelty,
implacability. The "other" is the face of the rebel Lucifer in the
new "Bible" of Power (which does not preach redemption, but
subjection), and it is necessary to once again expel him from paradise. And the
"smart bombs" play the role of the blazing sword.
The face of the "other" is his culture. That is where his difference
lies. Language, beliefs, values, traditions, histories, are made collective
body in a Nation, and allow it to differentiate itself from others, and, based
on those differences, to relate to others. A Nation without culture is an
entity without face, in other words without eyes, without ears, without a nose,
without a mouth and without a brain.
Destroying the culture of the "other" is the most resounding way of
eliminating it. The looting of cultural wealth in Iraq was not the product of
inattention or disinterest by the occupation troops. It was one more military
action in the war plan.
In the great wars, the great tyrants and genocides devote special efforts to
cultural destruction. The similarity between Hitler and Bush's cultural phobias
is not because they demonstrated common symptoms of madness. The similarity is
in the projects of making the world world- wide which drove the one and led the
other.
Culture is one of the few things which keep the Nation State still breathing. The
elimination of culture will be the coup d' grace. No one will attend the
funeral, and not because of a lack of knowledge, but because of the
"ratings."
VI. Manifestos and Demonstrations
The foundational act of war of the new century was not the collapse of the twin
towers, but nor was it the fall, graceless and unspectacular, of the statue of
Hussein. The 21st century began with the globalized "NO TO THE WAR"
which gave humanity back its essence and held it together in a cause. As never
before in the history of humanity, the planet was shaken by this
"NO."
From intellectuals of all stature, to unlettered residents of the forgotten
corners of the earth, the "NO" became a bridge which united communities,
towns, villas, cities, provinces, countries, continents. In manifestos and
demonstrations, the "NO" sought the vindication of reason in the face
of force.
Although that "NO" abated, in part, with the occupation of Baghdad,
there is more hope than impotence in its echo. Some, however, have moved to the
theoretical terrain, and they have exchanged the question "What to do in
order to stop the War?" for this other: "Where will the next invasion
be?"
There are those who assert, ingenuously, that the US government's statement
that it will not do anything against Cuba demonstrates that there is no reason
to fear a North American military action against the Caribbean island. The
North American government's wish to invade and occupy Cuba is real, but it is
something more than a wish. There are already plans with routes, times,
contingencies, stages, partial and successive objectives. Cuba is not just a
territory to be conquered. It is, above all, an affront. An intolerable dent in
the luxury automobile of neoliberal modernity. And the marines are the body
men. If those plans are made concrete, it will be seen, as it now is in Iraq,
that the objective was not to topple Señor Castro Ruz, nor even to impose a
political regime change.
The invasion and occupation of Cuba (or of any other place in the geography of
the world) does not need intellectuals who are "surprised" by the
actions of the Nation State (perhaps the last which remains as such in Latin
America) for internal control.
If the North American government was not even moved by the lukewarm rejection
by the UN and first world governments, and nor was it worried about the
explicit condemnation of millions of human beings throughout the planet, the
words of rejection or encouragement by intellectuals are not going to encourage
or stop it (speaking of Cuba, the "heroic" action of Israeli soldiers
was recently learned about: they executed a Palestinian with a shot to the back
of the neck. The Palestinian was 17 months old. Was there any statement, any manifesto
with indignant signatures? Selective horror? Weariness of the heart? Or does
the "we condemn them anywhere and whomever they are" include now and
forever each and every one of the doses of terror which they up above shove
down the throats of those of below? Is it enough to say "no" once?).
Neither will protest demonstrations, no matter how massive and continuous they
might be, even within the US, stop them.
I mean: NOT BY ITSELF.
A fundamental factor is the capacity for resistance of the aggrieved, the
intelligence to combine ways of resistance, and, something which might sound
"subjective," the decision-making capacities of the aggrieved human
beings. The territory to be conquered (call it Syria, Cuba, Iran, the mountains
of the Mexican southeast) will then have to turn itself into a territory in
resistance. And I am not referring to the number of trenches, weapons, traps
and security systems (which are, however, also necessary), but to the
willingness (the "Morality/Morale" some might say) of those human
beings to resist.
VII. Resistance
Crises precede awareness of their existence, but reflection on the results or
solutions of those crises are turned into political actions. The rejection of
the political class is not a rejection of doing politics, but of one way of
doing it.
The fact that, in the very limited horizon of the Power's calendar, a new way
of doing politics has not appeared, does not mean that it is not happening in a
few or in many of the fragments of society throughout the world.
All resistances, in the history of humanity, have appeared ineffective, not
just on the eve, but also well into the night of the attack, but time is,
paradoxically, on their sides if it is conceived of in that way.
Many statues can fall, but if the decisiveness of generations is maintained and
encouraged, the triumph of resistance is possible. It will not have a precise
date, nor will there be tiresome parades, but the foreseeable decline of an
apparatus - which turns its own machinery into its project for a new order -
will end up being complete.
I am not preaching hollow hope, but remembering a little of world history and,
in each country, a bit of national history.
We are going to win, not because it is our destiny, or because that is how it
is written in our respective rebel or revolutionary libraries, but because we
are working and fighting for that.
That is why a little respect is needed for the other who is resisting someplace
else in his otherly self, as well as a lot of humility in order to remember
that much can still be learned from that otherly self, and wisdom to not copy,
but produce, a theory and a practice which does not include arrogance in its
principles, but which recognizes its horizons and the tools that serve for
those horizons.
It is not about solidifying existing statues, but about working for a world
where statues serve only for birds to crap on them.
A world where many resistances fit. Not an international of the resistance, but
a multihued flag, a melody with many tunes. If it seems dissonant, that is just
because the calendar of below is still arranging the score, where every note
will find its place, its resonance and, above all, its link with the other
notes.
History is far from over. In the future, harmonious coexistence will be
possible, not because of wars which attempt to dominate the other, but because
of the "no" which gave human beings - as it did before, in prehistory
- a common cause and, along with it, hope: that of humanity's survival, against
neoliberalism.
From the mountains
of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
* Originally published in Spanish by Revista
Rebeldía # 7. Translated by Irlandesa
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