La Realidad finally has electricity. It took longer than expected, but the turbine from Italy is now running, almost from hand to hand.
The national and international solidarity effort, which was born out of other experiences of civil resistance, is still handcrafted, and the lack of resources has been replaced with kilos of good will, which is always effective, but sometimes slow.
And there was light, thanks to the joint efforts of numerous councils from the Republic of Italy (where everything does not yet bear the stamp of Berlusconi) and a group of workers from the Mexican Electricians Union, spurred on by Ya Basta! Committees and other Italian groups in solidarity with the zapatista movement. And the continuous participation of the men and young people from La Realidad.
The project of electrifying this remote Tojolabal community was born in 1996, during the first Intercontinental, or "intergalactic", Congress, convened by the EZLN in order to resist neoliberalism. Since then, and even in the worst times of immigration repression launched by the Zedillo government, the Italian "turbineros" have maintained a presence in this community's civil peace camp.
After various tentative dates for its inauguration (New Years Day 2000, for example), and tropical mishaps with the transformers which set the work back by months, the SME electricians managed to fit Italian technology together with Tojolabal ingenuity. The community premiered the electricity just in time to find out about the attacks in the United States and the announcements by the Washington government of a world war.
One by one, the cement and rod poles were molded by local boys and technicians from the Federal District and various Italian cities (Rome, Naples, Venice, Milan). The torrent of the river, one kilometer from town, was diverted in order to generate the force needed by the turbine. The posts were then "sown" in the streets of La Realidad, in order to hang two kilometers of cable and reach each house. Metaphor upon metaphor, the literally autonomous illumination allowed the night to be inhabited by dozens of lights in kitchens, on corners and in the Aguascalientes, and to have the radios on all day long as well.
"What's going to happen with the war?" is the question they all ask people who arrive from the outside. They do not miss the few radio news stories whose frequencies reach this canada. Like the rest of the world, but there are many things they do not understand. Along with the shock of the plane crashes and the civilian victims in New York, they add a certainty, the daughter of common sense. Like Rube'n said: "Of course we're preparing to continue in resistance." It is not that they are just now "the contemporaries of all men" (as Octavio Paz wanted for the Mexico of the '50s). They already were. Almost eight years of rebellion and resistance have brought them a military occupation, as well as the solidarity and accompaniment of persons from all over the world.
"In that country, Afghanistan, many people are going to suffer, right?" added Rube'n, who already even knows the name of Afghanistan. "Like those from the towers that fell down suffered," he added, with a gesture heavy with comprehension. "We never knew that planes could be bombs," he said, recalling recent years, when the indigenous knew helicopters and military planes above their heads, a presence which inhabits the nightmares of the children.
"And for us, how much harm is this war going to do?" Rube'n wondered. He proudly pointed out the lit lamps in the cloudy lunar night. Electricity is an accomplished fact, and here they would prefer to think about the future. It's what the zapatistas have learned, and it's what all these years have taught.
The turbine has allowed La Realidad access to something as elemental, and already common in so many rural communities in this area, as electricity. The efforts of Italian mayors, technicians and activists, joined with those of Mexican electricians and the residents themselves, culminated just in time to tune into - no longer with the need for batteries - the new events of globalization, which, for the zapatistas, has always had a component of war. And the encouragement of solidarity and awareness of their resistance.
Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada _____________________ Translated by irlandesa La Jornada Saturday, October 6, 2001.