THE SPIRIT OF DON QUIXOTE
n~ THE ZAPATISTA REVOLUTION
by
JULIE ANNE KROGH
A THESIS
Presented to the Department of Romance Languages
and the Honors College of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts
May 2007
11
An Abstract of the Thesis of
Julie Anne Krogh for the degree of Bachelor of Arts
in the Department of Romance Languages to be taken May 2007
Title: THE SPIRIT OF DON QUIXOTE IN THE ZAPATISTA REVOLUTION
Approved
Professor Cecilia Enjuto Rangel
In 1605, Miguel Saavedra de Cervantes published the literary masterpiece Don
Quixote that has impacted the literary, political, and social world. Cervantes created the
crazy knight-errant Don Quixote and his humble peasant sidekick Sancho Panza in order
to criticize the popular tales of chivalry ofthe time. Additionally, Cervantes effectively
commented on the social, economic, and political condition of 1i h century Spain. While
many of his observations are negative criticisms, the character Don Quixote encourages
the reader as a living example of hope in the ability of an individual to shape his own
reality.
On January 1, 1994, the Ejercito Zapatista Nacional de Liberaci6n (EZLN) seized
San Crist6bal de Las Casas of the Mexican region Chiapas and declared war on the
Mexican Army demanding rights such as liberty, land, democracy, health, and education
for indigenous people. While the EZLN has roots in indigenous traditions and Marxist
ideologies, the hope of Don Quixote that people truly do possess the ability to change
their condition permeates the Zapatista movement. The writings of the most prominent
EZLN leader, Subcomandante Marcos, help to reveal the influence that Don Quixote has
had on the Zapatistas and their mission.
III
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 would like to first acknowledge Michael Benware for introducing me to Don Quixote
during my senior year at Jesuit High School. Perhaps you will not remember the time
that you raised your fist in the air and shouted "I am Don Quixote de La Mancha!" but 1
distinctly remember this moment as one which made me realize that there must be
something powerful and transforming about this novel. Thank you.
Arnie Leaverton has been at my side at every step of this thesis process. Arnie, thank you
for never letting me forget that 1 did not finish the last few chapters of Don Quixote in
Mr. Benware's class, for watching every movie that the Knight Library has to offer about
the Zapatistas and Marcos, for stmggling through the Spanish version of Don Quixote in
Professor Verano's class, for spending countless thesis-writing hours in the library, and
for having exuberant confidence in my abilities.
Professor Luis Verano teaches his Don Quixote class with an inspiring amount of passion
and knowledge. Thank you for sharing your insight with so many students every term.
Professor Joseph Fracchia has made a tremendous impact on my senior year in the
Honors College. Thank you for putting the daunting thesis into perspective, for
challenging me to think about freedom in a new way, and for encouraging idealism.
Thank you to Professor Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel for allowing me to work independently on
this project while always being approachable for guidance.
To Professor Richard Kraus and Professor Amalia Gladhart, thank you for agreeing to be
on my committee so willingly and for encouraging my scholarship.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
I. INTRODlJCTION .
Page
-
II. DON QUIXOTE............................................................ 2
III. HISTORIC BACKGROUND OF THE EZLN.................................... 15
The Mexican Revolution... 16
Post-Revolution Mexico....................................... 20
IV. THE FORMATION OF THE EZLN........................... 21
Purpose of the EZLN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Just Another Marxist-Leninist Revolution? 25
V. SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS: LEADER, AUTHOR, AND MAN......... 29
Don Durito as a Parody of Don Quixote............... 30
Marcos and Don Quixote............................................................ 35
VI. REVOLUTION FROM THE PUEBLO........................................... 38
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Marcos and the Indigenous People of Chiapas... 41
VII. LOOKING FORWARD OR BACKWARD? 47
VIII. CONCLUSION........................................................................ 47
IX. WORKS CITED... . . . . .. .. . .. .. .. . .. . . . . .. . .. .. . 49
-Introduction
Although the arts are often thought of as more ethereal than or superior to the
earthy and messy world of day to day human interactions, it is undeniable that the two
affect and shape one another, sometimes so strongly that the line between the
untouchable spirituality of art and the physical reality of the human experience becomes
blurred. Literature is one, though certainly not the only, art form that can influence and
move people not merely aesthetically but also ideologically and politically. Once a work
of literature has leapt from the page and instilled itself in the values and ideas of its
reader, it has the potential to be manifested physically through his or her actions, whether
it be in the form of new art, activism, or political movements. Don Quixote de La
Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes is one such work that has profoundly influenced
literature, culture, and politics both in Spain and throughout Western culture.
In the 21 st century, the Zapatista movement in southwestern Mexico is a concrete
example that Don Quixote's message still lives on. The writings and actions of their
spokesperson, Subcomandante Marcos, give life to Don Quixote almost 400 years after
publication and on the other side of the world. Neither Don Quixote nor the Zapatista
movement can be accurately bound by any existing theory, ideology, or philosophy, but
there is a common bond that unites the two. That bond is a real hope in the power of
individuals to actively create their own reality and shape the world they live in. The
spirit of Don Quixote, the hope in the ability of an individual to create his or her own
reality, lives on 400 years later in the Zapatista revolution in Chiapas, Mexico.
To uncover the theme of creation as a constructive means of change, this thesis
will first critically analyze the aspects both the literary work of Don Quixote and the
2political movement in southeastern Mexico that are relevant to this theme as individual
and separate topics. Then, a study will follow regarding the connections between the
two: specifically, how Don Quixote echoes in the Zapatista movement and what values or
lessons can be applied to the future ofthe Zapatistas in the 21 st century.
Don Quixote
In order to expose the shared commonalities between Don Quixote and the
modem day Zapatista movement, it is first necessary to understand the premise and
themes present in Don Quixote. While the influence that Don Quixote has had directly
or indirectly on the Zapatista ideology is highly contestable, the Zapatista leader
Subcomandante Marcos cites Don Quixote as the most important and influential political
book. The extent to which Don Quixote spans centuries and continents to reach Chiapas
will be discussed later on, but first we must establish which themes in Don Quixote are
relevant to the Zapatista movement.
Cervantes wrote the novel known today as The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote
(EI ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote) in two parts which were published in 1605 and 1615.
The novel enjoyed tremendous success in seventeenth century Spain and in contemporary
times remains a classic piece of literature read and appreciated around the globe. In the
prologue to the novel, Cervantes claims to write Don Quixote in order to criticize and
ultimately abolish books of chivalry set in the Arthurian age of medieval knights. He
does indeed proceed by blatantly denouncing chivalric novels through the episode of
book burning in Chapter VI, Part I. Cervantes also expresses the destructive nature of
such idle reading through the main event without which the essence of the novel would
be lost. Essentially, Alonso Quixano read so many novels of chivalry that he lost all
3sense of reality and "vino a dar en el mas estrafio pensamiento que jamas dio loco en el
mund;, Y fue que Ie pareci6 convenible y necesario ... hacerse caballero andante, y irse
por todo el mundo con sus armas y caballo a buscar las aventuras" (came to conceive
the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world. It now appeared to
him fitting and necessary... to become a knight-errant and roam the world on
horseback ... in quest of adventures.)! Although Cervantes stays true to his professed aim
of destroying chivalric novels, he simultaneously creates a story of universal and timeless
appeal by engaging his readers in discussions of literature and life, liberty, dignity, arms
and letters, virtue and lineage, and class struggles. Supporting the myriad of themes and
topics that Cervantes discusses in his novel is the underlying assumption that humans are
constructionists; that an individual is capable of creating his or her own version of reality
or destiny. Cervantes develops these universal themes by creating Don Quixote; an
ordinary character who one day decides to be extraordinary.
As a knight-errant, Alonso Quixano adopts the name Don Quixote de La Mancha
and sets out to right the wrongs of the world. Throughout the course of the novel, Don
Quixote sallies forth from La Mancha on three separate occasions and engages in many
different adventures as he travels through the Spanish countryside. The knight creates a
large number of these exploits for himself out of his own imagination and based on the
understanding he has developed from reading tales of chivalry. By the end of Part II, as
the fame of Don Quixote has grown, adventures seem to pursue them. Throughout the
1 When citing Don Quixote I have chosen to refer to the following Spanish edition and English translation.
In all following citations I will list the page number of the Spanish edition before the page number
of the English edition.
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, Don Quijote de la Mancha, (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 2000) 87.
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, Don Quixote of La Mancha, trans. Walter Starkie (New York: NAL
Penguin Inc., 1957) 59.
.,.
4
vast majority of his travels, Don Quixote is accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza,
who is a local peasant from La Mancha and largely serves as the antithesis to Don
Quixote and his romantic imagination through simple speech and a grounded sense of
reality. Perhaps the most famous tale of Don Quixote that is largely recognizable by
people who have never read the novel is that of the windmills in Chapter VIII of Part I.
With Sancho by his side Don Quixote perceives the windmills to be giants that he must
slay in the name of his love, Dulcinea del Toboso. At this point in time, Cervantes has
developed neither Sancho nor Don Quixote's characters beyond that of their archetypal
representations of reality and insanity respectively. As Don Quixote prepares to slay
giants, Sancho begs his master to refrain from attacking the windmills. Don Quixote
replies, "bien parece... que no estas cursado en esto de las aventuras: ellos son gigantes; y
si tienes miedo, quitate de ahi, y ponte en oraci6n en el espacio que yo voy a entrar con
ellos en fiera y desigual batalla," (it is clear that you are not experienced in adventures.
Those are giants, and if you are afraid, tum aside and pray whilst I enter into fierce and
unequal battle with them,) and charges the windmills with gust02. The adventure ends
comically as an arm of the windmill tosses Don Quixote through the air confirming the
reader's and Sancho's visions of reality and Don Quixote's madness.
This episode demonstrates the commonly accepted conceptions of limits,
possibility, and sanity. At this early point in the novel, the characters of Sancho and Don
Quixote are in complete opposition and neither contains much depth. In this episode,
Sancho plays the unquestioning observer and defender of societal norms and beliefs
while Don Quixote, a seeming mad man, challenges those norms and beliefs. Readers
support Sancho's sound advice to avoid the windmills and wonder at the apparent
2 Cervantes 145, 142
5insanity of Don Quixote. However, it is important to note that Don Quixote is not truly
defeated by the windmill giants. Instead of being convinced of his futility and
powerlessness, he continues on in search of greater conquests and victory. This
challenge against widely accepted standards of what is sane or even possible is the only
way to actually affect change. The Zapatistas have also been ridiculed and discredited
for their ambitious plans against apparently unconquerable enemies yet it is in the
continual rising from small losses that true success is obtained.
Don Quixote sallies forth from La Mancha three distinct times during the novel;
once alone and twice with Sancho by his side. Cervantes writes Part II in response to a
false sequel written by Avellaneda and published throughout Spain after the vast success
of Part I. This time, at the end of Part II, Cervantes cures Don Quixote of his madness
and the old Alonso Quixano dies in bed after denouncing his follies as knight-eITant. In
an unexpected twist, Don Quixote announces, "Yo tengo juicio ya, libre y claro, sin las
sombras caliginosa de la ignorancia, que sobre el me pusieron mi amarga y continua
leyenda de los detestable libros de las caballerias ... ya yo no soy don Quijote de la
Mancha, sino Alonso Quijano," (My judgment is now clear and unfettered, and that dark
cloud of ignorance has disappeared, which the continual reading of those detestable
books of knight-errantry had cast over my understanding ... 1am no longer Don Quixote
of La Mancha but Alonso Quixano.)3 By ending Don Quixote's life Cervantes made
certain that no more pretenders would follow.
Don Quixote de La Mancha is often cited as the first modem novel. Though this
claim can be debated, the importance of Don Quixote still remains as a significant factor
in the development of the novel as we know it today. Mark Twain, Hennan Melville, and
3 Cervantes 1312-13, 1045
...~
-
6
Jorge Luis Borges are some of the often cited reflections of Cervantes' echoes into the
more contemporary literary world. One of the unique characteristics of the novel at its
time was the combination of idealism and realism. Through the characters of Sancho
Panza as concrete actuality and Don Quixote as highly idealistic values, Cervantes blends
two outlooks on life into one holistic world view.
The first theme of Don Quixote that is relevant to the Zapatista movement is the
direct, intimate, and dynamic relationship between literature and life. Each one affects
the other profoundly and neither can be fully appreciated or understood on its own.
Cervantes employs a technique of layered levels of authorship to blur the line between
reality and fiction for his readers. He does this first by claiming that his role in the telling
of Don Quixote's adventures is that of an editor, one who has compiled historical
accounts from the Arab historian Cide Hamete Benegelli. Cervantes calls the reliability
of the account ever further into question by explaining that Moorish historians often lie or
bend the truth. Cervantes reminds the readers that he is a compiler of historical accounts
rather than a writer of fiction as
"abruptly, in the middle of an adventure, in part I, chapter 9, we have to pause, the
action is frozen and the two rivals of that adventure are paralyzed, their swords
still in the air, because we have run out of text. This device, of pausing the
narrative while searching for the lost manuscript, is an example of how Cervantes
distances himself in order to provide perspective to full advantage and with
dramatic impact.,,4
By separating himself from Don Quixote through a historian and a translator, Cervantes
creates the illusion that Don Quixote is a history rather than a fictional novel. E.C. Riley
comments that "what truth is to history, verisimilitude is to fiction."s By extension of
4 Duran, Manuel and Fay R. Rogg, Fighting Windmills: Encounters with Don Quixote (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2006) S8
5 Riley, E.e, Don Quixote (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986). 127
7this logic, if a fiction is believable enough to pass for history, it can become historical
truth. Cervantes tries to pass Don Quixote off to the reader as a historically verifiable
person by creating a fictional novel that retains just enough verisimilitude to cause the
reader to question his or her conception of the line between reality and fiction.
Another technique that Cervantes utilizes is that of interpolated stories. These
stories are told by characters in the novel and add yet another layer of authorship that
serves the purpose of distancing Cervantes from the action of the novel and thereby
creates the illusion that Don Quixote occupies the same space of reality as the reader. In
Part I, Chapter XXXIII, Cervantes inserts an interpolated story about two friends
Anselmo and Loratio. This story is called "EI curioso impertinente" (The Impertinent
Curiosity) and relates the tragic tale of two best friends tom apart by an elaborate plan to
test the fidelity of Anselmo's wife. The story is read by the priests to the guests in the inn
who seem to be hearing it for the first time just as the reader of Don Quixote is reading it
for the first time. As the reader of Don Quixote becomes involved in the story, he or she
identifies with the audience in the inn through the shared experience of the entertaining
story and thus seemingly coexists with them in the same plane of reality.
The confusion that Cervantes creates between reality and fiction relates directly to
one of the main themes of the novel: the interaction between literature and life. It is
important to note that Don Quixote does not simply mimic the fictional knights that he so
idealizes, but rather immerses himself fully in the sincere belief that his actual identity
has changed. If Don Quixote had merely admired knights-errant or nostalgically pined
away for the Golden Age, it would have been logical for him "to have written romances
>8
himself, for instance.,,6 Instead, Don Quixote's madness causes him to substitute his very
life for the pen. He is aware that a historian is writing his biography and occasionally
verbally composes verses or improvises prose as he is confident in the knowledge that
they will be recorded in his personal history. Through his actions and words, Don
Quixote challenges the traditional role of the author as creator and replaces it with the
individual as the artist of his own life. 7
The indigenous people of Chiapas also blur the distinction between literature and
life through their legends. These legends mix reality with fiction and influence the
actions of the indigenous people today. Some of these legends will be discussed in
greater detail later on. The mestizo leadership of the Zapatistas blurs the line between
literature and life as Subcomandante Marcos looks to authors such as Shakespeare and
Gabriel Garcia Marquez to form his political and philosophical ideas. The connection
between life and literature is so strong that it is quite impossible to separate the two
completely. This is not to say that life would cease to exist without literature. However,
just as the experience of and reflection on life construct literature, the experience of and
reflection on literature also influence the construction of new life as a reader is introduced
to new ideas and concepts that help him or her understand and respond to the world in
which he or she lives. Marcos seems to understand that it is necessary to find a balance
of reading, living, and writing in order to maximize the potential of each of those
activities individually.
The tension between words and action described above manifests itself in the
traditional Spanish debate between arms and letters. Don Quixote himself addresses the
6 Rilev 125
7 •
Riley 126
9issue of arms or letters near the beginning of Part I and concludes that arms are nobler as
long as they are used to secure peace, "que es el mayor bien que los hombres pueden
desear en esta vida" (the greatest blessing that man can enjoy in his life).8 As a man of
action, his conclusion makes sense but he never fails to proclaim the value of letters.
While with his words Don Quixote maintains the superiority of arms, his life reflects a
deeper commitment to letters. In fact, prior to his self-dubbed knighthood he was an
extremely avid reader. Such active and addictive reading was what caused him to pursue
arms in the first place. Accordingly, it is reasonable to conclude that neither arms nor
letters are superior. As with life and literature, the two must be applied in synthesis. Don
Quixote compares arms to justice and letters to peace, which are the two codependent
aspects of Don Quixote'S idealized return to the Golden Age of Spain. Arms bring about
justice through force and letters in the form of the law ensure peace. It seems that in Don
Quixote'S world one cannot exist without the other. The Zapatistas share the view that
arms and letters must accompany one another in order to achieve success, although they
profess to value the power of the word over the power of weapons. Either way, the belief
that people must combine academic ideas, or letters, with real physical action, or arms, is
one that both Don Quixote and the Zapatistas share in order create change in their worlds.
While Cervantes presents some opposites as two sides of the same coin, each with
its own necessary value, he supports very clear biases between other contrasts.
Regarding the prominent theme of the superiority of virtue or lineage, Cervantes
forcefully argues in favor of virtue rather than lineage as the measure of a person's worth.
During this time in Spain's history, a noble ruling class still existed on the basis of
lineage. As evidenced by the story of Cardenio in Part I, Chapters XXIV and XXVII, it
8 Cervantes 504, 387
10
was important to be from a family with a good name. Neither Cardenio's sincere love
nor virtue could elevate him above the selfish and traitorous duke Ferdinand to win the
blessing of Lucinda's father. However, as we see in the Duchess and Duke in Part II,
noble blood does not predetermine noble character. Don Quixote explains to Sancho,
"-Mira, Sancho: si tomas par media la virtud, y te precias de hacer hechos
virtuosos, no har para que tener envidia a los que los tienen prfncipes y senores;
porque la sangre se hereda, y la virtud se aquista, y la virtud vale par sf sola 10
que la sangre no vale" (Remember, Sancho, that if you make virtue your rule in
life and if you pride yourself on acting always in accordance with such a precept,
you will have no cause to envy princes and lords, for blood is inherited, but virtue
is acquired, and virtue in itself is worth more than noble birth).9
The Zapatistas also address, although less directly, the issue of lineage versus virtue. The
indigenous people of Chiapas have experienced the injustice of racial discrimination and
exploitation for 500 years which has all been justified through an assumption that
European lineage is superior to indigenous blood. By using words and weapons to incite
change in Mexico, the Zapatistas challenge the status quo that accepts lineage as opposed
to virtue as the value of a person. This attitude reflects the recurring idea that people
create their own world to live in. As Don Quixote says, "cada uno es hijo de sus obras"
(Every man is the son of his works).lo
In order for people to exercise their virtues, Cervantes believes that the liberty and
dignity of man must be valued and protected. In his typical role of teacher, Don Quixote
explains,
"La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los mas preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron
los cielos; can ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni la
mar encubre; par la libertad, asf como par la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la
vida, y, par el contrario, el cautiverio es el mayor mal que puede venir a los
hombres"
9 Cervantes 1050, 825
10 Cervantes 110,76
11
(Liberty, Sancho, my friend, is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has
bestowed on mankind; all the treasures the Earth contains within its bosom or the
ocean within its depths cannot be compared with it. For liberty, as well as for
honor, man ought to risk even his life, and he should reckon captivity the greatest
evil life can bring) (2a, LVIII). II
In a way, Don Quixote's prior life as a hidalgo was captivity. He was trapped inside his
house with the single mental escape of reading books of chivalry. Becoming a knight and
actually embodying the very fantasy he read about was able to seize this most precious
treasure of human existence. Even if all those around him considered him crazy, from
the moment Don Quixote believed himself to be a knight, he became free.
Don Quixote's sense of liberty extends beyond his own freedom and into a moral
gray area that challenges the reader to question the ultimate or unqualified goodness of
liberty. In one of his adventures, Don Quixote crosses paths with a group of criminals
who are being taken to the galleys as slaves to serve their punishment for their crimes.
Don Quixote asks each convict to give him an account of his crime and finally concludes,
"me parece duro caso hacer esclavos a los que Dios y naturaleza hizo fibres" (it seems to
me a harsh thing to make slaves of those whom God and nature made free) (1 a, XXII). 12
All Don Quixote sees is that these men are going to be punished against their will and it
does not matter that they have committed crimes. In his mind, that is not liberty and their
freedom must be restored. Through this episode the reader realizes the extent to which
Don Quixote believes in his virtues and how he will not allow his convictions to be
swayed by any extraneous information. One of the main demands of the Zapatistas is
liberty. In the Mexican context, liberty means the freedom to earn a living wage, own
land, and have a meaningful voice in the governance of the country. Liberty of the
II Cervantes 1182, 935
12 Cervantes 292, 216
12
individual is at the very heart of Don Quixote's credo and the Zapatistas have extended
that mission to an entire population. While the morality of Don Quixote's decision to
free the galley slaves is questionable since the prisoners were each admittedly guilty of
some crime, the Zapatista effort to obtain liberty for the indigenous people of Chiapas is
less controversial ethically. The liberty and freedom that the Zapatistas seek is not from
legitimate criminal punishment but rather from historic social, cultural, and economic
oppressIOn.
Status based on economic privilege and cultural class division severely impacts
the level of freedom a person is able to exercise in his or her world. As a hidalgo it is
known that Don Quixote had a house, food, an education, and the privilege of leisure
time which he chose to fill by reading books whose sole purpose was to entertain and not
to instruct. Yet, a hidalgo was the lowest level of nobility. By his very station in society
it is known that he was considered too noble to work but, as evidenced by the condition
of his house, land and food, he was too poor to live like a noble. Hidalgos did not have
to pay taxes like the working classes, but they also did not receive benefits like the real
nobility did. I3 This social state of limbo resulted in the likely fate of idling life away just
like Alonso Quijano. His status separated him from the majority of Spaniards who
performed manual labor to earn the money necessary to support themselves and their
families although his actual monetary wealth did not support such a distinction.
Cervantes recognizes the stigma attached to being poor when he describes Sancho for the
first time as a "hombre de bien-si es que este titulo se puede dar al que es pobre"
13 Defourneaux, Marcelin, Daily Life in Spain in the Golden Age (Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press, 1979) 41.
-13
(honest fellow, if such a tenn can be applied to one who is poor.) (1 a, VII). 14 Cervantes
also describes the power that money wields in the episode ofthe Duke and the Duchess
who had so much money and leisure time that life seemed meaningless and empty and
their only fonn of amusement was the destructive taunting of Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza.
The entire Zapatista movement is a response to economic oppression. Without
money in either Spain or Mexico, a poor person would always be at the mercy of the rich
people. In any capitalist economy, certain individuals may realize the dream of working
up from the meager existence of wage labor to the comfortable wealth of the capitalists,
but there will necessarily always be a large population whose labor is exploited in order
for capitalism to function. The growth and globalization of neoliberalism only intensifies
the gap between those who physically produce the capital and those who reap the benefits
of its growth.
While the themes discussed above do not represent all of the issues that Cervantes
tackles in his novel, they display the most powerful technique that Cervantes employs to
engage his readers: humor. At its most basic level, Don Quixote can be read as an
amusing tale about a man who has completely lost all sense of reality. However, humor
can go deeper than simple amusement. Duran explains that "a person with a good sense
of humor can observe the world around him or her with a certain amount of detachment,
yet humor leads to critical analysis and ultimately becomes a tool to better understand
both the society we are part of and also a few individuals in this society.,,15 A true
14 Cervantes 137,95
15 Duran 20
14
appreciation of humor requires a certain level of intelligence and an ability to analyze a
situation and see it for what it really is.
In order to read Don Quixote into the modem day Zapatista movement in
Chiapas, Mexico, it is necessary to establish the outlook the Don Quixote had on life and
his ability to be a vehicle of change to realize the "impossible dream." Luis Rosales
summarizes Don Quixote's logic as one of hope rather than of reason, which intrinsically
implies that Don Quixote is vision oriented, always looking toward the future imagining
what might be rather than dwelling on and accepting what currently exists. 16 If Don
Quixote's logic is understood to be one of hope, then his actions regarding the freeing of
the galley slaves no longer appears crazy, or illogical, but instead coincides with the
hopeful logic that if these men were freed they would enjoy that freedom positively rather
than destmctively. After reading adventure after adventure in which Don Quixote places
himself, it becomes apparent that he
"mira la vida interpretandola ...y no percibe la realidad, sino el sentido de 10
real, pues para el ingenioso hidalgo todas las cosas son simbolos y ... la
coherencia de su pensamiento ... no obedece a las leyes de la logica, sino a las
leyes de la itica"
(looks at life interpreting it and does not perceive reality, but rather the feeling of
what is real. So for the ingenious hidalgo everything is a symbol and the
coherence of his thinking does not obey the laws of logic, but rather the laws of
h· ) 17et lCS .
Don Quixote does not allow public opinion or social mles limit or qualify his sense of
right and wrong. He knows what he values and is discouraged by nothing in his quest to
shape the world according to the way he thinks it should be. This is the greatest lesson of
Don Quixote to be applied to the Zapatista's cause.
16 Rosales, Luis, Cervantes y la libertad (Madrid: Instituto de cooperaci6n iberoamericana, 1985).453
17 Rosales 455
-..
15
Historic Background of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN)
Nearly 400 years later and across the Atlantic Ocean, the same spirit of
proactively shaping circumstances, rather than passively being shaped by them,
resurfaced in the Southeastern corner of Mexico. The emergence of the Ejercito Zapatista
de Liberaci6n Nacional (EZLN) must be understood in the greater historical context of
Mexican class struggles and land reform. Colonial oppression of the indigenous
Amerindians has dominated Central and South America since 1492 creating a new ethnic
divide between upper and lower economic classes. Very established societies such as the
Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas inhabited the continent for years before the arrival of the
Europeans and there should be no illusion that those societies embodied utopian ideals of
equality. Yet while other societies in different parts of the world have been able to
develop, evolve, and address issues of inequality and freedom within their own cultural
constructs, the indigenous people of Central and South America have found themselves
systematically, politically, and economically oppressed by outside European forces.
Specifically in Mexico, ownership and access to land and markets has been a key point of
contention between the characteristically whiter upper class and the more indigenous
population that makes up the lower classes. Mexico's post-colonial history is filled with
clashes and conflicts between ethnic and economic groups, but the most recent and most
directly influential event to the formation of the EZLN was the Mexican Revolution.
16
The Mexican Revolution
At the turn of the twentieth century the Mexican population was divided between
the few powerful rich and the many powerless peasants. While the peasants outnumbered
the wealthy,
The state supported the owners of great estates in their continuing land
conflicts with the peasantry; supported factory and mine owners in their
disputes with industrial workers; and supported the metropolitan elites,
foreigners, and provincial strongmen allied closely with the regime against
the growing demands for broader political and economic participation
from the increasingly estranged local and regional elites. I
The majority of peasants were landless and although President Porfirio Diaz continued to
invest in Mexico's economic growth through industry, the living situation of the peasants
was not improving and they were "frustrated with the government's indifference to their
cries for agrarian reform.,,19 The attempt at peaceful reform was made when Francisco
Madero challenged Diaz for the presidency in the elections of 1910. However, the
legitimacy of the election was questionable and Diaz was declared the winner while
Madero was thrown in prison.
During his incarceration, Madero wrote and published the Plan de San Luis
Potosi. This plan denounced Diaz as president and served as a catalyst to the Mexican
Revolution, which began as an uprising against Diaz. As soon as Diaz fled from Mexico,
Madero acted as president until he was democratically elected in the elections of 1912.20
Initially supported by agrarian reform and social justice advocates as well as the United
States, Madero failed to follow through with many of his promises. His presidency did
18 Hart, John Mason, "Mexican Revolution: Causes," Encyclopedia of Mexico, Michael S. Werner Ed.
(Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 847
19 "Mexico," Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics, Diana Kapiszewski Ed. Alexander Kazen Asst. Ed.
(Westport, Ct: Otyx Press, 2002: 200-219). 211
20 "Mexico", 211
..
17
not last long as he "was overthrown and assassinated in a 1913 coup staged by General
Victoriano Huerta [supported by the United States], whom Madero had placed in charge
of defeating the rebel forces.,,21
The third president in 3 years, Huerta ruled as president until 1914 when he fled
the country just as Diaz had 3 years earlier. Although internationally recognized as the
legitimate president, many Mexican citizens and Woodrow Wilson's administration did
not support Huerta's presidency. During Huerta's presidency, revolutionary leaders such
as Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Venustiano Carranza, and Alvaro Obregon failed to
unite and fought against one another in addition to their common enemy, Huerta's
government. For example, Zapata and his Conventionist forces from the south, battled
against the Constitutionalist forces of Carranza and Obregon in the north. Zapata and
Villa shared the same vision of agrarian reform and social justice, more revolutionary
demands than those of Carranza or Obregon who denounced Huerta's rise to presidency
as unconstitutional.
Carranza became president in 1914 after driving Huerta out but was challenged by
Villa and Zapata in a hostile takeover of Mexico City in 1915. Carranza improved his
relations with the masses by including agrarian and social reforms as well as "an
acknowledgement and celebration of Mexico's indigenous heritage,,22 in the Constitution
of 1917, the year in which he was officially elected as the president of Mexico. Despite
the advances of the Conventionist values, the infighting continued as Carranza was
assassinated and replaced by Obregon in 1920. Since then, the succession of the
presidency has been relatively peaceful, if not unanimously legitimate, and the reforms
21 Gentleman, Judith, "The Revolution," Encyclopedia Of Latin American History and Culture, Barbara A.
Tenenbaum Ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, 1996). IS
22 "Mexico", 211
.,.
18
made in the Constitution of 1917 remained until 1992 when President Carlos Salinas
amended the critical Article 27.
While all of the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution challenged the
existing system that oppressed the poor and indigenous populations, Emiliano Zapata is
the leader who has most profoundly impacted the creation and development of the EZLN.
Born into a middle class family in the town of Morelos in southern Mexico, he mobilized
the oppressed agricultural populations in central and southern Mexico to form the
Ejercito Libertador del Sur (Liberation Army of the South). Celebrated today as a
national hero, Zapata summarized his agenda in his rallying cry, "iTierray Libertad!"
(Land and Liberty!). He expanded upon his demands in his Plan de Ayala, put forward in
1911, which called for the "nationalization of land controlled by haciendas and other big
landowners, and its subsequent redistribution to the campesinos." 23 Some of the key
elements that the EZLN inherited from Zapata are his demands for food, education,
finance and security for campesinos, the complete opposition to pillaging or other acts of
disrespect during the process of requisitioning land from large landowners, and a
celebration of decentralized self-government. 24 While his call for the seizure and
redistribution of land seems like a socialist agenda, Zapata differs from the EZLN as he
did not call for the overthrow of capitalism and did not align himself with socialist
doctrines. Zapata's fiery campaign for land and liberty ended in 1919 when Carranza had
him assassinated,25 but his legacy has lived on in Mexico and recently been embodied in
the EZLN.
23 Rochlin, James F, Vanguard Revolutionaries in Latin America: Peru, Columbia, Mexico (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003). 174
24 Rochlin 175
25 Gentleman, 16
19
For the indigenous landless populations of Mexico, the greatest success of the
Mexican Revolution was Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution. The great success of the
revolution, Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, read:
Necessary measures shall be taken to divide up large landed estates; to develop
small landed holdings in operation; to create new agricultural centers, with
necessary lands and waters; to encourage agriculture in general and to prevent the
destruction of natural resources, and to protect property from damage to the
detriment of society. Centers of population which at present either have no lands
or water or which do not possess them in sufficient quantities for the needs of
their inhabitants, shall be entitled to grants thereof, which shall be taken from
adjacent properties, the rights of small landed holdings in operation being
respected at all times.26
This at1icle legalized communal farms, ejidos, and helped many Mexican peasants
become owners of their own means of production. The article primarily asserts that lands
and waters are the property of the state and as such can be acquired and redistributed
among the citizens. The Catholic Church lost its right to land and foreigners were
allowed more restricted access to owning Mexican land. Amid the celebration of the
individual's right to land, Article 27 legalized the communal ownership ofland, "a
provision that subsequently led to the development of the ejido system of cooperative
farms.,,27 While the new constitution put these rights into writing, the landless population
did not reap the benefits tangibly until the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas from 1934
to 1940 in which he enacted sweeping land reforms. 28 Prior to Cardenas, "less than a
tenth of the rural population directly benefited from the ref0D11." 29 The Mexican
Revolution was an important development in the history of Mexico but, as demonstrated
26" 1917 Constitution" March 11, 2007. March 23, 2006.
http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Mexico/mexicoI917.html
27 Ramos-Escandon, Carmen, "Constitution of 1917," Encyclopedia of Latin American History and
Culturel-Barbara A. Tenenbaum Ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, (996).26
28 Rochlin 175
29 Gentleman, 16
..
...
20
by the Presidency of Cardenas, the rights and lands of the indigenous and poor
populations were still largely in the hands of the ruling party.
Post-Revolutionary Mexico
For the majority of the twentieth century, the Partido Revolucionario
Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) (PRI) dominated Mexican politics.
During the PRI's reign that lasted until 2000, the country experienced a "significant if
uneven program of wealth and land redistribution," 30 as well as success from economic
protectionism. 31 The 1960s through the 1980s particularly reflected a sense of economic
progress in Mexico. Not everyone supported the PRI. The state sponsored massacres in
response to student protests in 1968 and a "dirty war" against suspected subversives and
guerillas. 32 Such action led to the formation of the rebel group, Ejercito Revolucionario
Popular (Popular Revolutionary Army) (ERP). 33 Class divisions, oppression, and
unequal access to land still characterized the Mexican landscape but progress seemed
steady and relatively promising.
The 1980s marked a turning point for the Mexican economy and the leadership of
the PRI. The economy began to plummet and in 1982 Mexico announced that it could
not repay international debts. As the economy suffered, so did the support of the PRI.
Both the elites and the masses began to question the legitimacy of the country's
leadership. Mexico's inability to repay its foreign lenders resulted in a restructuring of
the Mexican economy by the International Monetary Fund through the implementation of
30 Rochlin 177
3 I Rochlin 178
32 Rochlin 179
33 Rochlin 180
...
21
neoliberalism.34 Two of the key characteristics of the attempt to modernize the Mexican
economy were the dismantling of protectionist policies and an increased emphasis on
exportation. The result of these policy shifts was a more liberalized economy that did not
provide sufficient social support. It is unclear whether the economic crisis of the 1980s
was a cause or an indicator of subversive movements, but the two accompanied one
another. 35 The chasm between rich and poor widened as the government cut spending in
the hopes of gaining international status as a stable player in an increasingly global
economy. During this time when social welfare was not adequately provided by the state,
narco-trafficking to the United States increased dramatically and subsequently provided
the jobs and social services that the masses lacked access to.36 Another example of the
ineffectiveness of the state was the aftennath of the devastating earthquake of 1985. It
was "primarily society, and not the state, that successfully dealt with the severe
consequences.,,37 It is safe to say that Mexico was in a declining state of instability and
insecurity in which the greatest victims were those who had been systematically denied a
voice in the decisions and direction of the country. Finally, the end of the decade saw the
highly contested election of Carlos Salinas as president in 1988 and whatever legitimacy
the government still engendered in the masses was lost.
The Formation of the EZLN
While the Mexican Revolution was a national effort that represented the landless
peasantry from both the northern and southern parts of Mexico, the region of Chiapas has
historically experienced greater levels of poverty, oppression, and limited access to land.
34 Gentleman 22
35 Rochlin 181
36 Rochlin 182
37 Rochlin 180
...
22
Chiapas benefited from fewer social services, lower quality land, and a higher lever of
poverty. To address these iniquities, in November of 1983, the EZLN was born of an
alliance between three mestizos and three indigenous members. 38 Prior to the creation
and activity of the EZLN, political groups such as the PRI and the LP had already moved
in to the Chiapas region with the purpose of inciting a Maoist style revolution. Conflicts
over the use of armed force and hierarchical structure lead to internal fractions and
ultimately the birth of the EZLN. 39 The EZLN drew on a number of socialist and
revolutionary inspirations, such as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, but ultimately formed
their own ideology and organization through the indigenous inspired process of listening
to the demands of the masses. From its inception, the EZLN began to slowly and quietly
build a weapons supply.4o It is evident that from the beginning, the EZLN planned for
the use of force as a mechanism to gain the recognition and rights that they demanded.
By the election, fraudulent or otherwise, of President Salinas in 1988, the EZLN
had already been learning, developing, and growing for 5 years. In 1992, Salinas
amended Article 27 of the Constitution of 1917, eliminating the explicit right to land and
the ability to own land communally.41 The effect of the changes made is that "peasant
land can now be bought and sold and the constitutionally guaranteed right to a land grant
has been eliminated," so that Mexico can bring corporations into that land to produce
crops for a world market and not for subsistence farming42 Ironically, 1992 marked the
500 year anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas and the start of indigenous
38 Rochlin 186
39 The book The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico prepared for the United States AmlY discusses in
greater detail the political groups and conflicts of leadership that characterize the development of the EZLN
as it exists today.
40 Rochlin 186
41 Rochlin 176
42 Cavise, Leonard "NAFTA Rebellion" Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights and
Responsibilities 21:4 (Fall, 1994): 36-39. (37)
..
23
oppression at the hands of Europeans. The irony was not lost on the indigenous
populations who demonstrated in riots throughout the country.43 As Salinas restricted the
already insufficient rights of the poor Mexican population, the EZLN was spurred into
action as they prepared for their public international debut.
On January 1, 1994 Mexico entered into the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada and the government celebrated
the symbolic transition to a more liberal economic policy that would supposedly elevate
Mexico to the status of a developed nation. While many celebrated, the EZLN had
another agenda. Also on January 1, 1994 the EZLN, also known as the Zapatistas, seized
San Crist6ba1 de las Casas and township centers in eastern Chiapas in an armed uprising
declaring war against the Mexican Army. The government responded quickly with
12,000 troops but refrained from annihilating the Zapatistas "in what would surely strike
Mexican and international civil society as a genocidal repression.,,44 This statement
implies that the Mexican Army had the ability to wipe out the Zapatistas with ease but
chose not too. While their numbers, training, and financial backing support this
assertion, it is interesting to note that it still took 12 days of fighting before President
Salinas declared a unilateral cease fire on January 12. Peace talks began on February 21
in San Crist6bal de las Casas and were mediated by Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, a
Catholic priest and follower of liberation theology who had worked with the indigenous
people of Chiapas for years. The EZLN was represented by the general command called
the Comite Clandestino de Revoluci6n Indigena (CCRI) which was composed of 18 men
and women while Manuel Camacho Solis served as Salinas's negotiator. By March 2 the
43 Rochlin 187
44 Collier, George A, "Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas," Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society, and
Culture, Michael S. Werner Ed. (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). 1635
....
24
two parties had reached tentative accords on thirty two of the thirty four points of
contention but the EZLN was unwilling to settle for anything less than everything.45
Purpose of the EZLN
The EZLN is primarily a supporter of indigenous rights as it was born out of a
sense of indignation and exasperation with the 500 years of oppression that the
indigenous people have experienced at the hands of European invaders and their
descendents. While the cry of Zapata for land and liberty is still central to the purpose of
the EZLN, they have added more demands that show that they will not be acquiesced
with small gestures of increasing access to land. The EZLN has looked beyond the
primary issues of land and liberty and has demanded a dramatic shift in Mexican society
and policy in order to provide a right to dignified life for all citizens, in all regions, and of
all races.
In 1993 The EZLN issued La Primera Declaracion de la Selva Lacandona (The
First Declaration from the Lacandona Jungle) as a declaration of war on the Mexican
Army. In this first, and arguably clearest, expression of the EZLN's purpose and aims,
the General Command asks the Mexican people for their ''participacion decidida
apoyando este plan del pueblo mexicano que lucha por trabajo, tierra, techo,
alimentacion, salud, educacion, independencia, libertad, democracia, justicia y paz"
(decided participation supporting this plan of the Meixcan people who fight for land,
houisng, nutrition, health, education, independence, liberty, democracy, justice and
peace).46 Through this declaration, the EZLN established its purpose as one the reaches
45 Collier 1635
46 Comandancia General del EZLN, "La Primera Declataci6n de la Selva Lacandona."(Mexico, 1993)
http://palabra.ezln.org.mx/comunicadosIl9941l993.htm
•25
beyond the indigenous struggle and extends to all of those Mexicans who lack any or all
of the demands listed in the declaration. These goals have remained the same over the
last 13 years and have been repeated and emphasized throughout following EZLN
communication. In 1996 the EZLN issued La Primera Declaracion de La Realidad:
Contra el Neoliberalismo y por la Humanidad (First Declaration of La Realidad: Against
Neoliberalism and For Humanity) to propose an international gathering in Chiapas for
everyone who fights for democracy, liberty and justice, who fight to resist neoliberalism,
and who are without the basics needs demanded in La Primera Declaracion de la Selva
Lacandona such as housing, education, and health. These goals are not exclusive to
indigenous people but rather command a sense of global unity as the EZLN seeks to unite
the international population in a universal quest for a solution to the destruction and
inequity caused by capitalism broadly and neoliberalism specifically.
Just another Marxist-Leninist Vanguard Revolution?
While the event of January 1, 1994 initially appears as an emotional and
disorganized peasant response to Mexico entering into NAFTA, it is really the
culmination of planning, training, waiting, thinking, listening, sharing, hoping and
dreaming in response to a long history of oppression. Many scholars and observers have
tried to label the EZLN as the first postmodern Marxist revolution or lump it together
with Latin American vanguard revolutionaries such as CM or the violent Sendero
Luminoso of Peru but it never quite fits. Perhaps the EZLN does not fit into a category
of the preexisting political left because it has successfully freed itself from the constraints
of German, Russian, Cuban, and Chinese doctrine and followed the dreams, traditions,
and knowledge of the indigenous people. By creating a culture of "leading by following"
26
and treating Karl Marx's writings as a resource rather than a rulebook, the EZLN has
prepared for the successful realization of democracy, liberty, dignity, and equality for all
people in a country that does not fulfill Marx's prerequisites of industrial development.
While Marx focuses the majority of his writings on criticism of capitalism, he also
recognizes its value for creating what he considers to be the necessary conditions for
socialism to arise. In Marx's opinion. socialism requires two main prerequisites: the
technology to eliminate scarcity and a bourgeois democracy. Capitalism spurred
industrialism so effectively that in the late 1800s the new economic problem was not one
of scarcity, but rather overproduction. From that point on, all poverty has been
artificially produced since as a society we can produce enough to meet the needs of every
person in the world. The reason that people still live in such devastating poverty is that
there is a gap between the means of production and distribution of goods created by
capital. While capitalism has not solved the problem of poverty, Marx points out that it
has created a system of production and industry that makes it possible to eliminate need.
The second prerequisite is a bourgeois democracy. In the Manifesto ofthe Communist
Party, Part II, Marx claims that "the first step in the revolution by the working class is to
raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.,,47 In
order for the proletariat to win the battle of democracy, there must already be a
democracy in place in which the proletariat can gain power peacefully, with numbers,
and representing the working class. Perhaps one of the reasons that Marxism has become
characterized by violence is that the first real attempt to put it into practice was in Russia
which did not meet Marx's requirements and therefore could not facilitate peaceful
47 Marx, Karl, "Manifesto of the Communist Party" Marx-Engels Reader Robert C. Tucker Ed. (New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1972: 469-500). 490
27
socialism. Mexico, while growing rapidly towards international status as a fully
developed nation, still hovers slightly below these standards with a history of election
corruption and economic struggle to compete internationally.
If Mexico does not meet Marx's prerequisites for the development of socialism,
Chiapas falls miserably short. Chiapas is the state in the far south east corner of Mexico
that was incorporated last and provides the lowest quality of life to its 1,000,000
indigenous inhabitants. In "A Storm and a Prophecy, Chiapas: The Southeast in Two
Winds," Subcomandante Marcos compares Chiapas' wealth in resources such as oil, gas,
cattle, and coffee to its life blood and imperialism to the teeth that sink in to drain that
blood. Although a small state, Chiapas provides 55% of national hydroelectric electric
energy and 20% of Mexico's total electricity but "only one third of the homes in Chiapas
have electricity.,,48 Marcos goes on to describe the environmentally disastrous impacts of
capitalism on Chiapas, the poor infrastructure, the worst education Mexico has to offer,
and the abhorrent state of health and nutrition that accompanies poverty. While
companies obtain exclusive rights to pillage raw resources from the land to sell for a
profit and distribute globally, the local campesino49 is restricted by threat of fine or jail
sentence from harvesting food for sustenance or wood for shelter to meet his basic animal
needs. Although this experience is not one of overproduction in a post-scarcity society,
the net effect of artificially induced poverty is the same. The indigenous people can see
the resources they need for dignified survival but are artificially, by law, prevented from
obtaining them. Without the legal right to farm for themselves, peasants were forced into
48 Marcos, Subcomandante, "A Storm and a Prophecy. Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds" Our Word
Is Our Weapon Ed. Juana Ponce de Leon (New' York: Seven Stories Press. 200 1:22-37).24
49 Rural peasant
..
28
farming on haciendas50 owned by a small landowning elite until 1917 when Article 27 of
the Mexican Constitution gave small farmers the right to own land in ejidos5/. Despite
this constitutionally granted right, few indigenous peasant farmers were economically
able to escape the haciendas. In this way, indigenous campesinos of Chiapas experience
the same exploitation as factory wage laborers.
In addition to the exploitation of labor, indigenous people of all different tribes share a
greater than 500 year experience of oppression since the arrival of Europeans in the
Americas. 52 This shared experience created a bond previously nonexistent between
indigenous tribes and has helped to form unified resistance movements. One top of 500
years of racially and ethnically based oppression, Chiapas as a state of Mexico has not
enjoyed the fruits of the few successes gained by the underprivileged and dispossessed
people of Mexico. Whether because of their late incorporation into Mexico of their
stronger cultural ties to Guatemala, Chiapatecos have been forgotten in the turmoil of
progress. Chiapas officially became part of Mexico in 1824 and thus its people began
their Mexican lives as outsiders. Even in the Mexican Revolution which demanded
agrarian reform and advocated on the side of peasants against large hacendados53 ,
Chiapas was left slightly behind. Emiliano Zapata made it very clear that he was fighting
for "jTierra y Libertad!" (Land and Liberty!); these were two things that Chiapatecos and
many other impoverished Mexicans lacked. Zapata became a national, almost legendary,
hero for his success but life in Chiapas for indigenous peasants still did not improve to a
50 Large plot of land, or ranch
51 Communally owned farming land
52 Leslie Silko's Almanac of the Dead also displays the communal tradition imbedded in Amerindian
culture
53 Large land owners of the haciendas
y...
29
level of dignity. The EZLN hopes to revive the spirit of Zapata and finish his mission
completely.
Subcomandante Marcos: Leader, Author, and Man
The strongest bridge between Don Quixote and the Zapatista movement for
indigenous equality is Subcomandante Marcos. Marcos has publicly withheld his identity
and always dons a ski mask, or pasamontana, to maintain an air of mystery. He claims
that he will only remove his mask when Mexico removes its own masks. His commonly
accepted identity is that of the former university professor Rafael Guillen. Whether
Guillen is the tme identity of Marcos or not, it is certain that Marcos is a Mexican mestizo
from a middle class background who has an extensive college education. In various
interviews he has cited his parents as well as revolutionary writers such as CM, Bolivar,
Marx, and Lenin as strong influences. If his tme identity is that of Guillen, he was
educated at the National University in Mexico City and received a national medal of
excellence from President Jose Lopez Portillo in the department of philosophy and
letters. His educational background is significant to and perhaps defines his role in the
EZLN as he attempts to communicate the thoughts and feelings of the uneducated
indigenous people of Chiapas to other Mexicans, the Mexican government, and the
world. His writing is poignant though at times dramatic and is arguably responsible for
the reputation that the EZLN has gained from the worldwide community as the first post
Cold War revolution. In addition to all of these influences, fictional literature such as
Cervantes' Don Quixote plays a special role in Marcos' life ofleadership. Specifically,
Marcos has projected Don Quixote as a symbol through blatant references, imitations of
Cervantes, and ever more subtle reflections ofthe knight-errant's life in his own actions.
..
30
Blatantly, Marcos explained the value of Don Quixote to Colombian author
Gabriel Garcia Marquez in an interview. When asked what he was currently reading
Marcos responded that Don Quixote is always at hand and that it is
"el mejor libro de teoria politica, seguido de Hamlet y Macbeth. No hay mejor
forma para entender el sistema politico mexicano, en su parte tragica y en su
parte camica: Hamlet, Macbeth y El Quijote. Mejor que cualquier columna de
analisis politico"
(the best book of political theory, followed by Hamlet and Macbeth. There is no
better way to understand the Mexican political system, in its tragic and comic
aspects: Hamlet, Macbeth and Don Quixote. Better than any political
I .) 54co ummst .
Marcos is very public about the influence that the novel has had on his political thought.
He has also been known to dress up as Don Quixote on horseback. However, these
public displays of admiration for a popular book in Spanish speaking cultures are
meaningless on their own. What is significant is how the spirit of Don Quixote has
manifested itself in Marcos' actions and writings. More than just an admirer of
Cervantes, Marcos can be seen as his imitator.
Don Durito as a Parody of Don Quixote
While many political leaders, past and present, cite Don Quixote as an
inspirational figure in the political arena, Marcos is a particularly interesting case because
he also identifies with authors such as Unamuno and Borges in his admiration for the
literary aspects of the novel. One of the significant ways that Don Quixote has impacted
the Zapatista movement has been through the literature that Marcos has written. In fact,
in 1999 Marcos published a book entitled Don Durito de la Lacandona that describes the
adventures and conversations that he has with Don Durito, a small black beetle who lives
in the Lacand6n jungle, home of the Zapatista movement.
54 "Habla Marcos: Entrevista can Gabriel Garcia Marquez y Roberto Pombo."
http://www.ezln.org/entTevistas/20010325.es.htm
p""
-
.,.
....
31
As Don Durito is a parody of Don Quixote, it is necessary to first understand the
use and significance of parody in literature. A parody exaggerates the style of an original
text with the purpose of creating humor, satire, or to "extend a work's range of thematic
and stylistic references.,,55 While similar, parody is not simply imitation, pastiche, or
plagiarism, nor is it necessarily burlesque as parody can admire or even elevate the
original text rather than mock it. The key characteristic of parody is the disagreement or
the differences between the original text and the parody. Critic David Bennett explains
that parody works within literature by accenting "the artifice or fictitiousness of its
model's representation of reality, reversing the formal self-effacement on which the
parodied discourse depends for its claims to ... truth.,,56 In terms of Don Durito as a
parody of Don Quixote, the similarities pay homage to the original text while lending
legitimacy and power to the distinct messages of the new text.
The connections between Don Quijote and Don Durito range from direct
quotation to stylistic replication. For example, the beginning of the seventh chapter of
Don Durito is a quote from Chapter 25 in Don Quijote. Marcos credits Don Durito with
speaking the words from Don Quijote and the character Marcos mentions to the beetle,
"Creo que se te estan confundiendo los tiempos y las novelas ... el inicio de tu discurso se
parece demasiado a una parte del QUijote de la Mancha" (I think that you are confusing
times and novels ... the beginning of your speech is too similar to a part from Don QUijote
de la Mancha).57 There are many other similar examples of direct quotations from Don
55 Lyle, A.W., "Parody," Encyclopedia of Literary Critics and Criticism, Chris Murray Ed. (Chicago:
Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999:827-828). 827
56 Bennet, David, "Parody, postmodernism, and the politics of reading," Critical Quarterly, Vol. 27, no. 4,
1985:27-41. 29
57 Marcos, Subcomandante, Don Durito de La Lacandona (San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico:
Centro de Informacion y Amilisis de Chiapas, A.C., 1999).33
32
Quixote in Don Durito and the author Marcos not only footnotes each reference but the
character Marcos verbally recognizes the usage of the quote.
The most frequent connection between Don Quixote and Don Durito is
parallelism. It is immediately apparent that Don Quixote and Don Durito are similar
names for the protagonists of the books, and furthermore they both named themselves,
abandoning their given names of Alonso Quixano and Nabucodonosor respectively.
Nabucodonosor is the Spanish name for the Biblical character Nebuchadnezzar.
As recorded in the book of Daniel chapters 3 and 4,58 motivated by his pride and vanity
for all of the success he had experienced, King Nebuchadnezzar built a giant idol of gold
and ordered all of his subjects to worship it. When three Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, refused to worship the golden idol Nebuchadnezzar had them thrown into a
fiery furnace. According to the Bible, God spared their lives and in doing so convinced
Nebuchadnezzar of God's supremacy. Later on, the king experienced the fulfillment of a
dream which was interpreted by Daniel. He lost all sanity and became like an animal
eating grass and behaving bizarrely. This story of madness reminds the reader of Don
Quixote's sudden loss of sense, although Don Quixote only seems to be insane in regard
to knighthood and chivalry, and immediately gives the reader an idea of the character of
the small black beetle. The name that the beetle chooses once he ceases to be
Nebuchadnezzar and has presumably gone insane is Don Durito which means little hard
head, or stubborn one. Just as Don Quixote is absolutely convinced of his identity and
purpose, Don Durito can be expected to be just as convicted. Marcos' introduction to
Don Durito,
58 Daniel 3-4
-
bn
33
autodenominado caballero andante y con el nuevo apelativo de 'Don
Durito de la Lacandona, ' este pequeno escarabajo decide recorrer los
caminos del mundo para deshacer entuertos, socorrer doncellas, aliviar al
enfermo, apoyar al debit, ensenar al ignorante, humillar al poderoso,
levantar al humitde,
(the self-named knight errant with the new appellative of "Don Durito of
the Lacand6n," this little beetle decides to roam the world to right wrongs,
rescue damsels in distress, heal the sick, help the weak, teach the ignorant,
-9humble the powerful, and elevate the humble,))
resounds with phrases and style very reminiscent of Don Quixote. This excerpt also
demonstrates how Marcos parodies Don Quixote, similar to how Cervantes parodied the
tales of chivalry. While Cervantes parodied chivalric novels in order to criticize them for
entertaining without teaching, Marcos parodies Don Quixote as a way to catch the
reader's attention and add depth to the character of Don Durito. By parodying Don
Quixote and the Bible story of Nebuchadnezzar, Marcos informs the reader that Don
Durito has gone mad and that he is on a mission to which he will remain absolutely
devoted without needed to state so directly. Other parallels between Don Durito and Don
Quixote range from wording to organizational structure and can be found on almost every
page of Don Durito.
The most discrete connection between the two books is the shared goal of blurring
the line between reality and fiction. Sometimes Marcos imitates Cervantes' techniques
but at other times he achieves the same goal in new ways. They both insert true historical
figures into their fictional stories to encourage the reader to question the line between
history and fiction. As discussed earlier, one way Cervantes causes the reader to question
reality is by separating himself from the reader by inserting historians and a translator
between himself and Don Quixote. Essentially Cervantes claims no responsibility for the
content of the book because he is merely compiling historic reports. Marcos, on the other
59 Marcos, Don Durito 9
34
hand, hardly allows any space between himself and the reader and additionally inserts
himself as a character in the book. This technique, although elementally opposite of
Cervantes', also causes the reader to challenge his or her understanding of where reality
ends and fiction begins. The reader knows that the author Marcos lives, studies, trains,
and writes from the Lacandon Jungle just like the character Marcos, so he or she begins
to wonder how much of Marcos' fictional story is real.
In a style all his own, Marcos uses the voice of Don Durito to belittle his own
intelligence and importance to the Zapatistas. Don Durito repeatedly mocks the "Sup"
and trivializes his role as a leader of a revolution. By showing such disrespect toward his
creator, Don Durito becomes somewhat believable as an independent entity just as Don
Quixote seems to act independently of Cervantes. In Chapter IV, Marcos invites the
reader to look over Don Durito's shoulder and read the letter he has written to "Senor tal
y tal" (Mister so and so) regarding neoliberalism and the party-state. Throughout his
letter, Don Durito blatantly criticizes Marcos for his irreverent writing style and his
muddle ideas that are too hard to understand. Don Durito perceives that it is his
responsibility to clarify what Marcos has left so unclear. In response to a short paragraph
written by Marcos calling for democracy, liberty, and justice, Don Durito expands upon
such intangible concepts and explains what those ideas mean for Mexico. Ultimately,
Don Durito explains how democracy, liberty, and justice make up the pieces of the
revolution that will create a political space in which it is possible to make a revolution
that will produce a new system or structure. While Don Durito does not represent the
indigenous people, his role supports the idea that true knowledge and understanding of
the Mexican situation comes from those who are native to the land. He never denounces
35
Marcos but clearly sees him as the mestizo outsider that he is and takes every opportunity
to remind the reader of Marcos' shortcomings. Of course, Marcos is actually the author
behind Don Durito and through his self-mockery he seems to be admitting his limitations
and highlighting the wisdom and ideas that come from the indigenous people.
Readers also experience a similar sense of self-mockery when reading Cervantes'
Don Quixote. In the episode of the book burning in Part I, Chapter 6, the priest and the
barber sort through Don Quixote'S library evaluating and passing judgment on each book
in a manner reminiscent of the Spanish inquisition. Cervantes uses this episode to
criticize other works by sentencing them to be burned, but he also judges his own novel,
La Galatea. While the priest and barber refrain from sentencing the novel to a fiery
death, they decide to lock it up until Cervantes can produce a second part to make it
worthy of mercy. From these examples of self-criticism, the reader perceives a sense of
humility or self-awareness from both Cervantes and Marcos.
Marcos and Don Quixote
Besides being an intentional imitator of Don Quixote, Marcos can also be viewed
as a living reflection of the knight-errant. Although there certainly are many differences
between the knight and the revolutionary, there are some significant similarities that the
two men share as they live to change the worlds around them. Both Don Quixote and
Marcos grew up in families of social status and enjoyed access to education. Cervantes
immediately describes Don Quixote as a hidalgo, a class description for the lowest level
of nobility that comes from the phrase hijo de alga, "son of something." Marcos grew up
in a middle class Mexican family and obtained a university education. Both men left
their lives of status and traveled with people who, by society's standards, were inferior to
...
36
them. In both cases, reading books served as the catalyst for abandoning safety and
security for a wild world of adventure. Don Quixote read tales of chivalry and then set
out into the Spanish countryside on a decrepit old horse and with shoddy armor in search
of adventures while Marcos read Marx, Lenin, and CM (in addition to fictional novels
such as Don Quixote and One Hundred Years ofSolitude60) before he trekked into the
jungle to incite an armed rebellion. Perhaps most significantly, Don Quixote and Marcos
developed and grew as individuals through unexpectedly educational relationships with
Sancho Panza and the indigenous people of Chiapas respectively. Neither expected to
learn from people who society deemed inferiors, yet as time progressed, both Don
Quixote and Marcos found themselves letting go of the role of a teacher and embracing
the position of a student.
In light of the insight Marcos discovered from listening to and respecting the
indigenous people rather as opposed to forcing western doctrine on them, it is interesting
that Marcos chose Don Quixote as a symbol for the Zapatista movement. Don Quixote
not only represents Spanish culture but is arguably one of the most recognizable symbols
of Spanish culture abroad. Although the Spanish invasion of South and Central America
began over a century before the publication of Don Quixote, it is still the Spanish cultural
influence that Marcos is simultaneously opposing and embracing by using Don Quixote
as a political figure for the Zapatistas. Since Marcos and the other leaders of the EZLN
have so emphatically proclaimed that the Zapatista revolution is at the command of the
indigenous people, why celebrate Don Quixote at all? Why not elevate Mayan gods such
as Ik'al and Votan exclusively?
60 By Gabriel Garcia Marquez
37
One of Marcos' possible reasons for citing Don Quixote as inspiration for the
revolution is simply recognition. Don Quixote is widely regarded as a literary classic
worldwide but particularly in Spanish speaking countries. By associating himself with
Don Quixote and Cervantes, Marcos may hope to receive attention and respect from
people who otherwise may not have taken the time to read his stories and communiques
or take them seriously. Regardless of Don Quixote's Spanish heritage, he is one of the
most familiar international literary figures and therefore lends a sense of legitimacy to
Marcos' writings.
Another reason why adopting Don Quixote as a fellow Zapatista could be
appropriate is that he does not represent the powerful Spanish rulers, but rather the
Spanish hidalgos who were of noble blood but did not benefit economically like the elite
few. His mission was to defend the weak, not to elevate the privileged. Although the
EZLN is primarily an organization that promotes the human rights of indigenous people,
it also actively pursues solidarity with all those who experience the oppression of
capitalist or neoliberal economic systems. Identification with Don Quixote is not an
association with Spanish royalty or elites who led the conquest of South and Central
America for the sole purpose of profit and power. Identification with Don Quixote is an
association with all those who struggle against injustice.
While the decision to associate the Zapatistas with Don Quixote may be justified,
Marcos also realized the importance of learning about indigenous fictional heroes and he
created a more complete picture of what the Zapatista movement is about by
incorporating those heroes into his writings. In addition to writing a series of stories
about the beetle Don Durito, Marcos wrote about Old Don Antonio, the fictional
....
38
indigenous man who teaches Marcos about the beliefs and oral traditions of the
indigenous culture. Many of the stories about Old Don Antonio focus on the perception
of time, the life of the gods, and the value of asking questions. By dedicating much of his
writing to these stories, Marcos equates the importance of indigenous culture and history
with that of Spain and the rest of the western world.
Revolution from the pueblo
If a revolution is understood as a group or individual actively changing the
circumstances in which they find themselves, then it can be seen how Don Quixote and
the EZLN both wish to incite revolution. Since the inception of Marx's idea of socialism,
the relevant and important question has remained, who will bring about the revolution?
Social elites are often inclined to view a future socialist revolution as a movement that
will be carried out by the working man, the proletariat, but only after being educated and
lead by the enlightened bourgeois intellectual. This conviction that a revolution of the
people will only be realized in conjunction with the guidance, or intelligence, of the
upper class, contradicts the ultimate goal that Marxist socialists claim to seek, namely a
classless society. Rosa Luxemburg offers a different vision of who will bring about the
revolution. She stresses that any successful liberation of oppressed people must
necessarily be the work of the oppressed people themselves. In a response to Lenin's
centralism Luxemburg argues that "there is no more effective guarantee against
opportunist intrigue and personal ambition than the independent revolutionary action of
the proletariat, as a result of which the workers acquire the sense of political
responsibility and self-reliance.,,61 She supports this point of view by looking to the past
61 Luxemburg, Rosa, "Lenin's Centralism" Marxism: Essential Writings David McLellan Ed. (Oxford
University Press, 1988).124
.,..
39
and concluding that "historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary
movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central
Committee.,,62 Cervantes foreshadows this vision of the working man elevating himself
by nearly 250 years in Don Quixote through the relationship between Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza, who represent the hidalgos, noble yet impoverished, and working classes
respectively. Approximately 150 years after Marx, Subcomandante Marcos and the other
founders of the Zapatista revolution traveled to the southeastern corner of Mexico to rally
the indigenous people and incite a socialist vanguard revolution only to come to the same
realization that a true revolution of the people must arise from the people themselves.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Before Alonso Quixano transforms himself into the knight-errant Don Quixote, he
enjoys many, although not all, of the benefits of belonging to the nobility of Spanish
society. While he is certainly not rich, he is educated, well read and e~oys leisure time
which he fills by reading countless novels of chivalry. Don Quixote sallies forth on his
first adventure from La Mancha as a lone knight elTant with nobody to talk to but himself
as he resolves to right wrongs, rescue damsels in distress, and help the helpless. This sort
of dedication to save the marginalized members of society reflects a timeless tendency of
the intellectual class to belittle the masses by presuming that they need to be rescued.
However, after he dubs himself a knight, Don Quixote returns to La Mancha and as he
sets out for the second time, "Cervantes creates for him [Don Quixote] a companion who
is much humbler in social rank and education yet capable of listening, learning, and
giving opinions that are often based upon common sense and are streetwise.,,63 The
62 Luxembourg 127
63 Duran 253
40
knight promises Sancho an island to govern in exchange for his services as squire. This
promise of governorship is the motivation that drives Sancho to remain loyal and
dedicated to his master even through the most humiliating, sickening, exhausting, and
painful experiences of adversity.
In Part II, Sancho becomes governor of an island through artificial means, the
amusement of the Duke and Duchess, and governs well. He bases his governing
decisions on a combination of wisdom that he has gained both through his service to Don
Quixote as well as from his own experiences as an illiterate peasant through proverbs and
common sense. At this point in the novel, Sancho has undergone a transformation such
that his peasant's outlook on life has been augmented by the intellectual ideas of the
hidalgo Don Quixote so that he emerges as a just leader who exhibits sound judgement.
Contrarily, Don Quixote never rules over anything despite his hopes of becoming
emperor or even settling for being an archbishop. Ultimately, it is the seemingly unlikely
representative of the majority working class who rules rationally and justly. The often
discussed idea of the quixotification of Sancho and the sanchification of Quixote is one
that can be applied to the many changes the two main characters experience throughout
the novel. One could argue that by the end of the novel that the two characters have
switched roles but a more complete view is that each individual has become more
complete through a fusion of their two different sets of strengths. In this case, we see that
ass representatives of the nobility and the peasantry respectively, Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza demonstrate how good leadership arises through a synthesis of intellectual
ideals and experiential common sense.
...
41
Marcos and the Indigenous People of Chiapas
It is easy to view Don Quixote as the definitive leader of the duo based on his
education and socioeconomic standing. It is just as easy to credit Marcos with the
ideology of the EZLN as he is an educated, well read man. However, since the
indigenous people of Chiapas, and all of Latin America, have been living under
oppression for 500 or more years, its no surprise that they have developed many of their
own ideas about freedom, dignity, land rights, and all other aspects of a future world that
they hope to realize. For example, on the anniversary of the assassination of Zapata,
April 10, 1994, the General Command of the EZLN wrote the public letter "Votan Zapata
or Five Hundred Years of History." This letter addressed simply to "brothers and sisters"
is about a man named Votan Zapata as the "guardian and heart of the people" who for
501 years has inhabited the bodies of historic Mexican leaders and champions of the
indigenous people. The name of this man is the combination of Mayan Tzelta1es culture
and more recent Mexican events. Votan corresponds to "the heart of the people" and in
Mayan religion was the first man sent by God to distribute land among the indigenous.
Zapata refers to Emiliano Zapata as a leader of the landless in Mexican society. The
General Command uses Votan Zapata to illustrate their conception of their struggle as
they say
He took a name in our being nameless, he took a face in our being
faceless ... It is the truth, brothers and sisters. We come from there. We
are going there. Being here we arrive. Dying death we live. Votan
Zapata, father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter, old and
young, we are living.64
64 General Command of the EZLN, "Votan-Zapata or Five Hundred Years of History" Our Word Is Our
Weapon. Ed. Juana Ponce de Leon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001) 20-21
42
Clearly, the indigenous perspective represented by the EZLN views this struggle as a
recurring theme in the history of their people that is bigger than the individuals currently
involved. Solidarity and a cyclical notion of time distinguish the Zapatista perspective
from many dominate European based outlooks on struggle and conflict.
Another example of indigenous perspectives regarding change emerges in one of
the stories about Old Don Antonio written by Marcos. Marcos wrote many stories about
Old Don Antonio to demonstrate what he learned from the people when he first arrived in
that comer of the world. In "The Story of Questions," Old Don Antonio tells Marcos
about two of the first gods who gave birth to the world. The gods Ik' al and Votan were
two gods who came from one, opposites, and the same. Ik'al and Votan initially were
stationary and could not move when they decided to. Only by asking questions like
"How," "Why," and "Where?" did they begin to move. After celebrating their success
they realized that the question had been, "How do we move?" and the answer was,
"Together by separately and in agreement." The gods carried on this way, always
walking with questions and never stopping, arriving, or leaving. According to Old Don
Antonio, "that is how true men and women learned that questions help to walk, and not to
stand still. ,,65 This illustrates another aspect of preexisting indigenous thought: that in
order to walk forward, or progress, people must first learn to ask questions.
Along with indigenous beliefs, the Catholic influence of liberation theology had
taken hold in Chiapas largely due to the efforts of Bishop Samuel Ruiz who has
consistently played a large role in the fight for the rights of indigenous Chiapatecos.
Liberation theology has been a popular way to make Catholicism relevant in the modem
65 Marcos, Subcomandante, "The Story ofthe Questions" Our Word Is Our Weapon Ed. luana Ponce de
Leon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001) 413-416,415
-
...
43
Latin American world of poverty and inequality or "a way to understand the grace and
salvation of Jesus in the context of the present and from the situation of the pOOr.,,66
Bishop Samuel Ruiz converted to liberation theology in 1968 and has played a very
influential role in the mediations between the EZLN and the Mexican government. He
predates the EZLN and has always had the interests of the indigenous people at heart as
he believes that they should "struggle vigorously for social justice in this world, rather
than be passive victims.,,67 Protestantism had also gained significant holds in Chiapas
and the two Christian sects have often combined efforts for the shared purpose of
empowering and liberating the indigenous peasants highlighting Jesus as a champion of
the poor. It is into this environment of preconceived ideas and beliefs that
Subcomandante Marcos and other founders of the EZLN entered to start a revolution.
Marcos first arrived in the Lacandona Jungle of Chiapas in 1984. He went there
as an idealistic and enthusiastic mestizo68 ready to empower the natives with knowledge
and lead them in a revolution to gain their freedom. This attitude reflects the influence of
other Latin American vanguard revolutionaries such as CM Guevarra who believed that
an educated elite would lead the masses to their freedom. He founded the EZLN with
two other mestizos and three indigenous members in November of 1983.69 Marcos went
to speak to the indigenous people but they could not understand him until he learned to
66 Gutierrez, G., "The task and content of liberation theology" Trans. Judith Condor. The Cambridge
Companion to Liberation Th~ChristopherRowland Ed. (Cambridge University Press. 1999)
19-38, 19
67 Rochlin 184
68 Refers to Mexicans of mixed European and Amerindian race, but in Chiapas it also refers to anyone from
urban Mexico
69 Rochlin, James F, Vanglli!rd Revolutionaries in Latin America: Peru, Columbia, Mexico (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003) 186
44
listen. 7o Marcos said the founding members came from a "tradition of Latin American
guerrillas of the 1970s, of vanguard groups, of Marxist-Leninist ideologues, who wanted
to struggle for a transformation of the world that would lead to the dictatorship of the
proletariat.,,71 For the first ten years of Marcos' presence in Chiapas there was a dual
learning process in which the mestizos had to learn how to survive physically in the
mountains and interpersonally with the indigenous people by learning about their beliefs
and culture. The indigenous people had to learn more formal subjects including the
Spanish language and sciences. Marcos did not expect to learn from and listen to the
indigenous people but it was a situation of necessity. Though not aware of it, Marcos'
mutual learning with the indigenous people recalls Marx's statement that "the materialist
doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing... forgets that it is men
who change circumstances and that it is essential to educate the educator himself."n
Despite Marcos' initial reluctance to learn from the indigenous people, the result has been
a historically unique synthesis of theory and experience regarding the situation of the
exploited worker.
Once mutual learning has taken place in Chiapas, what does the synthesis of
educated social elite Marxist ideology and indigenous values and concepts of freedom
look like? In Marxist language, the goal is the dictatorship of the proletariat. In Mexico,
the Zapatistas tum to "the strength of Civil Society that so perturbs government
70 Saramago, Jose, "Foreward: Chiapas, a Name of Pain and Hope" Our Word Is Our Weapon. Ed. Juana
Ponce de Leon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001) xix-xxii, xxii.
7\ Rochlin 186
72 Marx, Karl. Theses on Feuerbach, The Marx-Engels Reader Robert C. Tucker Ed. (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 1972) 143-145, 144.
pOn
45
leaders ... gives us hope that it's possible to rebuild the country.,,73 In this letter, the
General Command of the EZLN sets Civil Society opposed to Power as the two Mexicos
in conflict with one another and compares them to life and death, construction and
destruction respectively. The EZLN has structured itself as an example of how civil
society can rule by framing traditional leadership roles as roles of service. The General
Command takes orders from the pueblo 74. Where other revolutions have sought to
impose a certain ideology on a nation, the goal of the Zapatista revolution is
"reconstruction, justice, and life, with peace everywhere for everyone, with dialogue as a
way that makes its own way and from which springs hope, with reason and heart as its
driving force.,,75 Marcos further explains this goal in an interview saying that the
difference between the guerilla movements of the fifties, sixties and seventies and the
Zapatista movement is that instead of trying to destroy a system with war in order to put a
new system in place, "war should only be to open up space in the political arena so that
the people can really have a choice ... we want to create the political space, and we want
the people to have the education and the political maturity to make good choices.,,76 This
is why the Zapatistas cannot be classified as Marxists, or Leninists, or Trotskyists, or
Guevarists, or even as post-modem revolutionaries: because it is nothing other than
Zapatista.
The quality of the Zapatista movement that inspires the most hope is that it has
avoided the revolutionary impatience that has been so characteristic of failed attempts of
73 General Command of the EZLN, "Civil Society That So Perturbs" Our Word Is Our Weapon. Ed. Juana
Ponce de Leon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001) 128-132, 129
74 Literal1y, the "town" but used here to refer to the "people"
75 General, "Civil Society" 130
76 Benjamin, Medea, "Interview: Subcomandante Marcos" First World. Ha Ha Ha! Elaine Katzenberger Ed.
(San Francisco: City Lights, 2005) 57-70, 61
46
revolutionaries to surpass capitalism and accelerate into a new and better future. In the
years immediately following the January 1, 1994 uprising, the EZLN received a lot of
press and attention on a national and international level. The Mexican Army and
government agreed to and participated in peace talks that made some progress toward the
Zapatista dream. The Zapatistas achieved surprising levels of fame and Subcomandante
Marcos in particular became an internationally recognizable figure as everything from a
second Emiliano Zapata to a sex symbol in Mexican popular culture. It would have been
easy for the Zapatistas to settle for benefits offered to them by the government but instead
they have waited, patiently and steadily. They are ready and prepared to use force but
inclined first to use words and diplomacy. The EZLN may not enjoy the same publicity
and popularity that it did in its early days, but it still continues in constant struggle to
obtain the rights that it has demanded from the beginning. In one of the children's stories
that Marcos writes, he is asked, "When is this war going to be over?" and Marcos
responds, "Not soon."?? This dedication, perhaps from an indigenous tradition of
viewing time as cyclical, to their purpose inspires hope for the future of the EZLN, the
impoverished throughout Mexico, and even all the disenfranchised peoples of the world.
77 Ross, John. "Who Are They, What Do They Want?" First World, Ha Ha Ha! Elain Katzenberger Ed.
(San Francisco: City Lights, 1995) 81-88, 86.
47
Looking Forward or Backward?
An interesting similarity between the novel Don Quixote and the EZLN
movement is that they have both been called "firsts" by critics. Don Quixote is
commonly viewed as the first modern novel while the EZLN often receives the title of
the first postmodern revolution. Both of these labels imply that as the firsts they have
fresh ideas, are doing something new and different, and are looking forward as opposed
to copying what has already been done. However, as we have seen, both Don Quixote
and the Zapatistas look back to the past for guidance and direction. Don Quixote wishes
to return to the Golden Age where there was "no 'mine' or 'yours' ... all was peace,
friendship, and concordance." While this is undoubtedly an idealized version of a past
age in which injustice certainly still existed, Don Quixote's eyes are firmly set on the
past. At the same time, the Zapatistas are very clear about their desire to create a new
political space in which the people of Mexico can democratically decide and shape their
future which is a very forward thinking concept. Yet this vision for the future is largely
based on looking backward to Western thought such as Don Quixote and Liberation
Theology as well as to indigenous traditions that emphasize cyclical time. To what
extent does the past augment or hinder visions of the future?
Conclusion
Regardless of the past's influence on the hopeful vision of the future, the vision is
still vulnerable to criticism. The theory that people are the masters of their own destinies
and that they have a certain power to construct a better life for themselves at first seems
empowering. However, it can also be viewed similarly to how Marx describes religion as
the opium of the people. Marx's famous quote,"Religious suffering is ... the expression
......
48
of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium
of the people," could feasibly be rewritten by replacing the word "religion" with the
"hope" and "religious" with "hopeful" and retain the same meaning. 78 The idea is to give
the oppressed hope or religion and it will divert their energy and give them a sense of
purpose without actually changing their situation. This idea, however, is based upon the
assumption that hope pacifies and immobilizes rather than stimulating and encouraging
dynamic action.
Ultimately, idealistic hope is essential to realizing real change in the world. Hope
is not synonymous with passivity or acceptance. Hope can be a catalyst to change, a
motivator, and a source of strength when the task seems too daunting. Don Quixote and
the Zapatistas certainly illuminate many of the horrendous and embarrassing traits of
human societies, but they also provide a call to action and a whisper of encouragement.
The power of hope is often unappreciated and is in danger of being forgotten in light of
all of the oppression, pain and suffering in the world. For this reason it is important to
continue on in the spirit of Don Quixote and the Zapatistas by using words as weapons
and promulgating the hope in the ability of individuals to construct their world.
78 Marx, Karl,"Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy ofRight: Introduction," The Marx-
Engels Reader, Robert C. Tucker Ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978:53-65).54
49
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---
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I
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