They looked like a traditional guerrilla-insurgent band, wearing balaclava masks over their faces, rebel bandanas tied around their necks, military style clothing and black boots....They acted like insurgents, addressing the mesmerised crowds with rabble-rousing speeches and trenchant demands; they were all called 'Comandante' ( except the 'military commander', whom they called 'Sub-Comandante'); the people greeted them like conquering heroes, waving flags, fists raised, chanting revolutionary slogans, the streets and plazas filled with joy and celebration. 'Aqui Estamos!' 'Here we are!" they announced before 250,000 ecstatic people representing their support base in the Zocalo.
It could have been Cuba in 1959 when Fidel and Che entered Havana, or Nicaragua in 1979 when the Sandinistas rolled into Managua. These very same streets welcomed Zapata and Villa's revolutionary armies less than a century ago. Except, today, year 2001, here they are, the rebels, the National Liberation Army has arrived triumphantly into the Capital, and there is not a gun or a bullet in sight. Not one re-appropriated tank, not a tractor converted into an armored vehical, no sea of kalashnikovs waving in the air. Most significantly, the arrival of the truimphant rebels does not come in a wake of blood, of piles of corpses, of a country in ruins. What's going on?
The Zapatistas transform the idea of revolutionary struggle for the new era. The notion of violently seizing the state and imposing a proletarian dictorate in its place is redundant, a relic of old struggles of the 20th century. That strategy didn't work.
The Zapatistas took up arms to make a point- that Mexican's indigenous were excluded and marginalised from society, and that it was intolerable. They then proceeded to become the first non-violent guerrilla army in history. The guns were there to be seen, but were only used as a threat. 'If you don't listen to us, if you don't address our demands, then we will use them.. '
Even in the worst days of the 7 years of low-intensity warfare in the remote mountains of Chiapas, when state-armed paramilitaries murdered 45 villagers in a church in Acteal, 1997, the Zapatistas still stood firm to their strategy of non-violence. They answered bullets with words of truth, and pleaded, not for revenge, but justice. The army and military went into their communities, killed unarmed citizens, tortured and raped, burned houses, uprooted villages, encarcerated hundreds, but still the Zapatistas fought with the best weapons they had, righteousness, dignity, the word, and popular support.
The Zapatista Caravan arrived in Mexico City on March 3, led by 23 indigenous Comandantes and accompanied by charismatic spokesperson and PR extrodinaire Sub-Commander Marcos. The caravan snaked up through southern Mexico for 2 weeks, bringing out local people in their multitudes at every village, town and city. It was an extraordinary expedition for masked rebels, and the popular response was overwhelming. The unarmed insurgents, the non-violent guerrillas brought home their message in a spectacular way. The Mexican Army was nowhere to be seen, the political parties were absent, the state was not represented in any manner. It was a carnival of resistence, a reclaim the streets on a massive scale.
They demand autonomy, self-determination, a society that does not exclude anybody. They demonstrate their ideas in their practice, in the grass-roots democracy of their movement, in the traditions and customs of the indigenous communities. They do not want to remake society in their own vision, but want to create a world where each and every vision has a space and a place. They don't want to take power, but they fight for the redistribution of power.
They have no revolutionary programme. We are rebels, they say, not revolutionaries. They change strategy, tactics; they mutate with circumstances. They are at once flexible and hardcore. They are armed reformists and realistic utopians. They demand the impossible and negotiate what is achievable.
Comandante Esther and 3 other Comandantes addressed the Mexican Congress in a special session about Indigenous Rights. This was the intended purpose of the Zapatista caravan .To break out of Chiapas, out of the military encirclement they suffered there, and mobilize the masses in their support, then address the National Congress in an attempt to pass legislation to comply with demands for Indigenous autonomy and self-determination. It may not be a revolutionary road to take, to lobby Congress, but the implementation of such legislation would revolutionize the lives of Mexico's 10 million indigenous. And, say the Zapatistas, this is just the first demand.
Is it all a ruse? Is it a sive-fisted triumph? Are the Zapatistas being rendered harmless by co-option? Who can trust the conservative, neo-liberal goverrnment of President Fox? Will the powerful military allow any of this 'nonesense'? When will the USA announce a Plan Colombia for Mexico? Are the powers that be tolerating all this because they see the Zapatistas as no threat, merely an irritant, bad for business, bad for their international public image?
And what next then? Will the Zapatistas emerge from clandestinity? Remove their masks? In Congress they assured the nation that they would do so and become, if not a political party, a social and political movement .Will they symbolically hand in their guns? Will their 'Military Chief', Sub-Commander Marcos do the right thing, disappear and appear a few years later somewhere else like Sub-Saharan Africa in a new role? Will the Zapatistas return to Chiapas, to till the land they have fought for and won, to defend the gains and enjoy the fruit of their long sacrifice?
Maybe. But the Zapatistas rermain a great inspiration for those who struggle, where ever they are in the world, whatever the conditions. They teach revolutionaries how to revolutionize their own thought; they demonstrate how imagination and daring can be used to effect unprecedented situations. Their voice resonates globally, and the spirit of their struggle is manifested in the new resistance movement from Seattle to Port Alegre. They have been both a bridge between old struggles and new, and a catalyst for a whole regeneration of resistance. The Zapatistas span the space/time geography between the old armed, insurrectory anti-imperealist struggle to the new unarmed mass movements resisting neo-liberal globalization .
There is no doubt this story is not over yet. But if the Zapatistas were silenced and rendered impotent, their legacy as it stands today remains historically enormous. The achievements of this gaggle of ragged rebel communities resonates on multiple levels. Locally - a sustainable autonomy and self-determination for the rebel territories of Chiapas. Nationally - to have been most instrumental in the downfall of the PRI- dictatorship and the democratic transformation of the Mexican political system. Globally - to renovate ideas of revolt and inspire an effective international solidarity network. These achievements are all tangible and ongoing realities.
Commandante Esther, a Tseltal mother in her late 30's, who lives in a dirt-floor house in a rural village without even a paved road leading to it, spoke before Congress masked and dignified in her address. Before outlining the demands for Indigenous autonomy, she thanked the Zapatista Army for bringing the struggle this far.
"They, our men and women fighters, have accomplished their mission, thanks to the support of the populat mobilization in Mexico and around the world. Now it is our hour."
Now is our hour, too.