| ricardo dominguez on Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:09:50 +0100 (MET) |
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| <nettime> Re: Zapatistas/Part 1 |
Run for the Border: The Taco Bell War
"General Diaz's ideal was the petrification of the State... a
death's head had taken the place of the living man..."
- Francisco Bulnes, The Truth about Mexico
Jan. 1, 1994. Ejercito Zapatista de Liberation
National, the EZLN, take over San Cristobal de las
Casas, Ocosingo, Las Margaritas and Altarmirano
without firing a single shot in order to defend the
rights of the indigenous communities of Chiapas.
The temporal fractalization of dead capital
has allowed a spasm of micro-invention to
emerge and flicker in the liminal-space of the
Lacandona jungle; occurring somewhere between
the imaginary borders of the American hologram
and the real Taco Bell power of
neo-liberalism's NAFTA: the Zapatistas. In the
Lacandona, a jungle in delirium, floats a
temporary construction of plant, flesh, and
circuits that is attempting to play out a
rhizomatic disturbance, an "ante-chamber" of a
"revolution that will make revolution
possible..." The Zapatistas are not the first
postmodern revolution, but the last; they are
a vanishing mediation between the breaking
mirror of production (dead capital) and the
shattering of the crystal of
(de)materialization (virtual capital).
Jan. 3-10, 1994. The Mexican army counter-attacks
aggressively and kills about 159 people, 427 people
disappear, and close to 30,000 civilians are
displaced.
The Zapatistas (re)historize the site of
indigenous singularities within the
hyper-deformations of the Mexican party-state,
the PRI (The Revolutionary Institutional Party
that has ruled Mexico for over 60 years) and
the so called defenders of the "civil society"
sector, PROCOMPO and the National Solidarity
Program. Both of these elements dream of
balancing the rupture that is Mexico with a
neo-liberal free-zone of supply and demand, a
dream that can never be realized under the
signs of virtual capital.
Jan. 8-12, 1994. Civilian demonstrations demand "Stop
the massacre!" President Salinas orders a unilateral
cease fire.
"We believe that revolutionary change in
Mexico will not be the product of action in a
sole arena. In other words, it will not be, in
a strict sense, an armed revolution or a
peaceful revolution. It will be primarily a
revolution which results in the struggle of
different social fronts, with many methods
within different social forms, with different
degrees of commitment and participation. And
its results will be, not a party organization
or alliance of victorious organizations with
its specific social proposals."
Mar. 23, 1994. Luis Donaldo Collsio, PRI candidate for
the presidency, is assassinated in Tijuana during a
political rally. Jun. 11. Salinas picks Zedillo to
head the PRI presidency. Aug. 8-9. The Zapatistas, in
conjunction with the National Democratic Convention
leaders convene at Aguascalientes in the jungle of
Chiapas. Over 6,000 representatives arrive.
The Zapatistas are an inappropriate/d gesture
that moves outside of the modernist narratives
of "REVOLUTION" and towards a zig-zagging
process that is inclusive of many methods. It
seeks to hinder the type of coagulation that
vanguard and collective political action has
historically called for: the imposition by
violent or peaceful means of a new social
system by a single social entity. What has
been fashioned is a decentralized force
against the rule of the Party-State.
Dec. 12-19, 1994. As the peso falls the EZLN breaks
out of the encirclement by the Army and moves "into
freezones," effectively occupying 28 villages &
municipalities.
Chiapas is a counter-effect, an armed aporia,
that has come from below and accelerated the
multiplication of contestational gestures,
that have now moved away from questions of
reform and liberation to questions of direct
action as survival and resistance. Here in the
Lacandona surplus flesh gnaws at the dreams of
virtual capitalism, exemplifying that,
"mirrors are for cutting," and "crystals are
for shattering... and crossing to the other
side."
The Zapatistas run between walls of Third
World starvation and the high-speed backbone
of digital culture. From the Lacandona jungle
they hail us daily, using a PowerBook, a
modem, and a small satellite dish. Using these
three elements the EZLN have moved to the
forefront of what David F. Ronfeldt, a Rand
Corporation security expert, has called
"netwar". This dangerous "destabilizing" force
enables marginalized groups to enter into the
nomadological arena by utilizing e-mail. The
Rand Corporation feels this kind of power
could make Mexico ungovernable, claiming that
"the risk for Mexico is not an old fashioned
civil war or another social revolution,"
Ronfeldt notes. "The risk is social netwar."
(Joel Simon, Pacific News Service, Mar. 20,
1995.) The Zapatistas are hybrid real/net
warriors who are developing methods of
electronic disturbance as sites of invention
and action.
Jan. 31, 1995. The Clinton Administration's call for
the rescue of the Mexican economy via a $40 billion
bail-out rejected by the U.S. Congress; forced Clinton
to turn to the special fund of 20 billion in the
Federal Reserve of with other funds made available by
the IMF and the G-7 nations for a $50 billion bail-out
package.
"The government will need to eliminate the
Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective
control of the national territory and security
policy... While Chiapas, in our opinion, does
not pose a fundamental threat to Mexico's
political stability, it is perceived to be so
by many in the investment community," states
Chase Manhattan Bank in the Jan. 13th
"Political Update on Mexico," which was passed
on to "CounterPunch" by a banking insider.
With this update, the neo-liberal agenda
(de)masked not only the "face?" of
sub-commandante Marcos, but the fundamental
purpose of the NAFTA agreement. Chase, of
course, was under no illusions that the
December crash of the peso was prompted by the
Zapatistas. It was fully aware that the
implosion of the Mexican economy was the
product of an overvaluation of the peso,
orchestrated to enable U.S. investors to
convert their killings on Mexican Bonds into
dollars - the always/already of neo-liberal
economy.
Feb. 9, 1995. Zedillo orders the Army to launch an
offensive in Chiapas aimed at taking over all the
indigenous territory, as well as communities occupied
by the Zapatistas, and apprehend the leaders of the
EZLN. This offensive includes the detention of people
in Mexico City, Chiapas, and Veracruz accused of being
Zapatistas; almost all of whom were not.
"The EZLN does not want war, but it will not
turn over its weapons... We are prepared to
respond, but for now, in the near future, the
order is to resist (combat), so it is clear
that the one who wants war is the government
and not the Zapatistas. We want dialogue, but
not like this, surrounded." Suddenly
Zapatistas are everywhere and nowhere, they
are everyone and nobody, the PRI follows its
orders from Wall St. and begins the hunt.
In the jungle almost ten thousand people hide
and consider the proper method of drinking
one's piss, or is it "better to drink someone
else's?" As the days pass and starvation
grows, an abundance of liquid shit flows out
of the Zapatistas: they are surprised that the
PRI army with its U.S. donated equipment (for
the Drug War) can't smell them as they pass by
in the jungle.
The Zapatistas are an excremental force that
criss-cross the wired world as base matter. A
kernel of the real that cannot be eliminated
or flushed out. They remain unmoved in the gut
of Mexico, in NAFTA, and in the neo-liberal
databody. Here the flesh still struggles
against the recombinant speed of the virtual
will by becoming something else: Blockage. A
hyper-blockage that does not seek the
elimination of dead capital, the utopian crash
that neo-luddites desire, or the netopian
apocalypse of extropian implosion (the
complete downloading of humanity into the
datascape).
Instead, the Zapatistas, play within the
fractures and fissures of these models,
forcing the spew to backup until these
organs-without-bodies begin to taste their own
waste. Even the virtual tongue must think
twice before eating its own sacrifices from
the digital toilet bowl, and in that moment of
reflection, a voice calling for dialogue to
invent something unnamed maybe briefly heard.
A call to an impossible possibility.
Mar. 22, 1995. Communiques from Subcommandante Marcos
reappear, calling on the PRI army to leave the Indian
villages as a preamble to moving from an "epistolary"
dialogue to face-to-face talks with the government,
and calling for such talks to be held in Mexico City.
Zedillo rejects the proposal, but appears to be open
to some type of talks being held.
"Bankrupt factory owners are finding
themselves marching arm-in-arm with bankrupt
peasants. And in between is a large chunk of
the middle-class..." (John Rice, Associated
Press, Mar. 20, 1995). The bail-out forced
Zedillo to order astronomical increases on the
interest rates for loans, mortgages and the
time-payments of goods such as cars and TVs:
key sites of desire for the Mexican
middle-class. Former interest rates of 20% and
30% rose to 70% to 80% in a matter of hours.
To the already poor, about 41 million in
number, this meant little; they never expected
anything from NAFTA. But to the middle-class,
it meant an end to the carnival of the Salinas
miracle bubble, an addicts dream, and the
start of a class scrabbling for a little
Prozac to control the spasms of this
Zedilloshock economy.
The neo-liberal will to virtualize Mexico has
dismantled the "productive apparatus;" labor
has come to an end in a society where there
was no labor to begin with. It has intensified
inequalities, diminished savings, as well as
decreased the number of multimillionaires from
24 to 12. The virtual economy does not need
millionaires to function, it does not need a
middle-class; the only thing it needs now from
late-capital is a tactical model of rapid
speculation, hyper-transactions, and digital
acceleration. Only a few bodies are really
needed for this new social contract: perhaps
just Newt and a few of his boys.
Apr. 24, 1995. Peace talks between the Mexican
government and the Zapatistas were reactivated on Apr.
23, and then recessed the next day. The Zedillo
government says it will not withdraw its troops from
Indian communities, while the Zapatistas say there can
be no peace until they do. Talks are to resume on May
12, after the indigenous leaders have consulted with
their communities.
"Having now a collective name, we discovered
that death shrinks, and ends up small on us.
The worst death, that of oblivion, flees so
that the memory of our dead will never be
buried together with their bones. We have now
a collective name and our pain has shelter.
Now we are larger than death..." So reads the
memo from the indigenous communities of
Chiapas on Mar. 12, 1995. It calls for an end
to a society that has always stood before a
"mirror of pain," and for a sovereignty that
will represent this 40% of the Mexican
population. As for many indigenous peoples,
sovereignty over land is a contradiction in
terms, since the whole earth belongs to no
one, and is to be shared by all. But there is
a strong sense of primordial right to the land
based on tenure and working it. Indeed, this
was the definition of Mexican land within the
ejido (communal land) philosophy as stated in
the Mexican Constitution - NAFTA did away with
the ejido under Salinas. With the end of what
little constitutional rights were promised,
there was only one choice possible - armed
resistance. It was not the first time this had
to be done, it will not be the last.
Over 230 different languages have gathered
together to speak as a singularity (Mexico has
the largest population of Indigenous people in
the Western hemisphere), and call for a hybrid
autonomy for themselves and the landless
campesinos. Here in this liminal-land a new
viral revolution has arisen, an electronic
cell, that is willing to confront virtual
capital at its own game: netwar. The people of
Chiapas will use any media-system to speak for
dialogue, and to push the PRI party out of the
loop. "Dialogue by any means necessary!"
Jun. 1, 1995. Summer is wet and hot, dialogue opens
and closes, opens and closes, it becomes a long ride
on a merry-go-round. Nothing seems to work. Pan
(National Action Party) wins some elections. They are
a fundamentalist right-wing party, a Jurassic party.
For the Zapatistas, this means things are going from
bad to worse.
The Zapatistas decide to call for an
international consultation concerning 5
questions:
"Do you agree with the principal demands for:
land, housing, jobs, health, education,
culture, information, independence, democracy,
liberty, justice and peace?"
The Zapatistas consider these demands basic
human needs and the question "refers to the
need for a new social pact." The EZLN argues
that if these demands reflect the will of the
majority of the Mexican people, "then the
economic direction of the country should be
redefined such that a fundamental objective is
the satisfaction of these needs.
"Should the different democratizing forces
unite in a broad-based opposition front to
struggle for the 13 principal demands?")
Collaboration has always been part of the
process that the Zapatistas have worked with.
The question is really about putting a face on
a civil movement, a movement "that has no
defined face or clear political project yet
has a capacity for indignation and imaginative
responses that surpass the great personages of
politics."
"Should a profound political reform be made in
terms which guarantee: equity, citizenship
participation (including the non-partisan and
non-governmental), respect for the vote,
reliable voter registration of all the
national political, regional, and local
forces?"
According to the Zapatistas, this question is
about the necessary pre-conditions for
peaceful political struggle. The lack of these
conditions obliges citizens to take up the
clandestine and illegal struggle, or adopt
skepticism and apathy.
"Should the EZLN be converted into a new
independent political force?"
"Should the EZLN unite with other forces and
organizations to form a new political
organization?"
According to the Zapatistas, "The fourth and
fifth questions are mutually exclusive. To say
'no' to both means that one is saying 'no' to
the question of whether the EZLN should make
itself a political force... To say 'yes,' then
one still has to ask whether it should be done
alone... or should it unite with other forces
in Mexico... We are not asking if we should
incorporate ourselves into one of the existing
political forces... because we do not feel
represented by any of the existing ones."
Further, "we are not asking if we should
disarm or not... Nor are we asking if we
should become a political party, as this is
only one of the many forms that a political
force can take. Until now the EZLN has only
called for organizing and struggle for
democracy, liberty, and justice. But as it is
clandestine and armed, the EZLN has not
organized. We are not a political force. We
are a moral force or a catalyst of new
organizing forms... Our opinion is listened to
by many people, and perhaps, followed.
But it is not translated into an organization.
Perhaps our role is only to point out the
scarcities and open space for discussion and
new participation. Perhaps that is our
historic role. Or perhaps, the time has
arrived for the Zapatista word not only to
move people or create consciousness: perhaps,
the time has arrived for the 'organizing' to
be Zapatista as well. This is what we are
asking."
The Zapatistas are a virtual dialogue about a
specific form of flesh: the indigenous
communities. These communities have become a
mutating site for a world that has no single
form, with a will to become something the
world has not yet dreamed of. They call for
the end of Man and the beginning of a people
who are no longer bound by the mirror of
production or the revenge of the crystal.
Aug. 27, 1995. On this Sunday the
people voted, the slips were in glass
boxes all over Mexico. Some were in
"plain sight" of government police.
Voting was heavier in "indigenous"
areas. On the 28th, 41% of the votes
had been counted: 95% said "yes" to
the 16 demands of the Zapatistas, 56%
thought that the EZLN ought to form a
separate political party, "and by a
small majority, voters rejected
sharing control of the party with
others."
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