By the time we arrived in Mexico City, most of us internationalists had no more qualms about being part of this spectacle. The last discussions about clenched fists and shouts of "Viva Zapata!" and "Duro, duro, duro!" had met their end on the way into Xochimilco when the few doubtful remarks by some image-concerned die-hards had finally been laughed off by the more spirited in our midst. They had never understood why some of us were so intent about differentiating between earthen coloured caravan members and the ones with white skins. According to them this differentiation was all part of the reactionary discourse of Nationalist Critics attacking the March from their press offices or the roadside. After all, the motto of the "Monos Blancos" which in many ways played the role of the avant-garde in our solidarity-parade, had been "We are all Indios in this World".
In the bus I boarded half way through the Zapatour there were no indigenous people. There had been. Up until the fourth day, when they had left without informing anyone of their reasons, they had been on display on the window side of the bus, ski masks and all, with the internationalists occupying the seats along the aisle. Apparently they had kept pretty much to themselves, not even participating in the daily reunions taking place during the long rides between the gigs. Throughout the animated discussions they had gazed out of the window in apparent ignorance of the ordeal. Someone mentioned that their style of decision making starkly differentiated from ours and that they might have been scared off by the clashes between bigheaded individuals which presented a common feature of caravan reunions. I believe no one really cared or dared to ask them.
In spite of the firm sentiment prevalent amongst the internationalists of being an integral part of the Zapatista Caravan (after all there were two thirds of us who were Non-Mexicans) we kept meeting with scepticism be it from the media or from the streets. There was this one evening in Xochimilco, where the lot of us had been put up in some sports centre. While we were being fed by members of the local FZLN committee within the compound, there were crowds of people gathering outside the fence, all wanting to take a peek at the Comandantes or at least at the "Monos Blancos" our oft-featured white-suited Italian security force. No one really talked to them, for we were all busy catching up with friends and comrades from the other buses, many of whom we had not seen for days (usually the 1000strong force of foreigners was broken up into groups for accommodation). I, too was chatting in a circle when some Mexican youth came along asking if any of us wanted to be interviewed by people on the other side of the fence. We had been strictly forbidden to give any interviews to the mainstream media and I was curious to see who dared to anyway. Prepared to tell any ignorants about our rules, I showed up at the fence realising I had been the only one to follow the call. There was no one from the media either, only a couple of English students wanting to talk to some gringos for their homework. Due to the curious crowd and my utter disinterest in talking about my taste of music or my hobbies, the conversation quickly turned to the Caravan. Had I met Marcos and did he have his gun with him? Why did the Comandantes not take off their masks and where were the Indigenous? Was I Italian and one of the "Monos Blancos"? And why was I in the Caravan anyway?
I answered to the best of my knowledge, making things up when I wasn't sure. I told them that hardly any of us had met the Comandantes. That they had left their guns in the jungle and wore the masks because that that was the only way that people would notice them.
That there were almost only foreigners camped out on the concrete basketball courts because the indigenous slept in the few beds that were available (this is where I wasn't sure). That I was neither one of the "Monos Blancos" nor Italian and that I had joined the Caravan following an invitation by the Comandantes to do so and because I believed the struggle for liberation was international. That many of us had spent some time in Chiapas in the past as peace observers in indigenous communities or similar. That we had come to learn and take back the knowledge to Europe or the US where there was a great interest in the Zapatistas and their struggle. And finally, that we believed that there was some protection in our presence for the Zapatista delegation. Most of the people on the other side of the fence had come with suspicions about a foreign conspiracy, nourished by the mainstream media. There were some harsh remarks about Marcos being the puppet of some evil interest group wanting to cause trouble for Mexican National Unity. Others about us foreigners not having a clue about what was going on and about "The Indigenous" being used as pawns in a game they didn't control.
By playing the exotic monkey behind the fence who was being fed cigarettes for peanuts I won over some of the sceptics where words had failed to do the job. Not all of them of course. Mexico City remains a bastion of doubt in spite of the 250 000 who have come to listen to the Comandantes on Sunday the 11th of March. While the caravan had taken many of the smaller towns with a high indigenous presence in storm with cheering crowds spurring us on to new horizons, the capital has drowned us out in its daily routine. There are specks of creative gatherings in resistance like the "Aguascalientes Espejo de Agua" in front of the Library of the UNAM but four days after the arrival of the Zapatistas and who knows how many years away from a peace in Chiapas, many of the internationalists have returned to San Cristóbal, the Beach, or wherever else they may have come from.
But why have all these foreigners really come to take part in this colourful bevy of PR and Politics?
Of course there is a variety of motivations among the individuals making up the Caravan, a lot of them being historical in the sense of earlier involvement in Zapatista solidarity in their respective home countries. To elucidate this I will give a brief account of my own involvement with the events that have changed Chiapas, Mexico and indeed the World over the past seven years.
Back in 1995 I attended a congress on autonomy in Berlin, that had been organised by the remnants of the German "Autonomous Movement", an alliance between sectors of the undogmatic radical left that had been forged in the early 1980s in the old West of the country, the "Federal Republic of Germany". Inspired by the "Autonomia Operaia" in Italy and combining a spectrum of ideologies encompassing communist ideas as well as anarchism, the movement had grown out of an effort to resist the deployment of Nuclear Weapons by NATO, the further development of atomic energy and its infrastructure as well as the experiences of collective living and politics in the squatted buildings which were a common sight in Europe at the time. The congress sought to present the leftovers of leftwing undogmatic radical politics and featured a vast array of panels ranging from gender politics, communal living and "The Fortress Europe" to antifascist youth groups, political prisoners and international solidarity. One of the panels was on the Zapatista movement in Chiapas and had been organised by two solidarity groups, one made up mainly of squatters and situated in East Berlin, the other one with a more mixed membership in the Western part of the city. They showed a film made by a Swiss team during the first 14 months of the uprising when large parts of the Cañadas and the Selva Lacandona had been liberated territory and gave the interested audience a captivating account of the 1995 February offensive by the Mexican Federal Army and its dreadful consequences for the local population.
I ended up joining one of the groups, thus coming in contact with more detailed information on the issue like the communiqués of the Revolutionary Indigenous Clandestine Committee &endash; General Command of the EZLN and the letters to National and International Civil Society written by Marcos, which at that time already were available in German translations. They read like poems to me but with the urgency of the actual, with the immediacy of the present. I perceived them as a kind of call to action, as if I was to miss out on something magnificent but fleeting if I was to ignore them.
The group I took part in was not very efficient in raising money and awareness and served more as an image generator within a scene where everybody was expected to engage in some type of political activity and as a platform for squabbles between individuals who hated each others guts. We managed to stage some events but I left after six hard months of weekly struggles to be accepted by a core group who all lived in the same borough of squats. I took a break from any meetings but planned a trip to Mexico. Shortly before leaving I contacted the other group and got myself some preparatorial talk as a prospective peace camper.
Ever since the attack on Zapatista base communities by the Mexican Federal Army on the 9th of February 1995 and the escape of the inhabitants into the mountains, there had been efforts by an alliance of NGOs to prevent further encroachments and Human Rights violations by the army. One of them was the setting up of so called "peace camps", simple huts staffed by camera equipped foreigners (including inhabitants of urban Mexico) situated in villages along the roads where military convoys were passing or directly adjacent to an Army Base.
The idea behind the peace camps was that the presence of people who were obviously not from the indigenous villages would deter any harassments or worse by uniformed officials. When I got to Chiapas in March 1996 there were about 60 of these camps, many of them being empty for long stretches of time, and the coordinating NGO was on the constant lookout for potential "campamentistas". At that time almost anyone was welcome who had two weeks to spare and a basic knowledge of Spanish. You did need some form of accreditation from some organisation back home but that was easily obtained and largely seen as a reassurance, someone to contact in case something happened to you. This has changed now, but back then people from all walks of life ended up in a peace camp, many of them not having had the faintest idea of what the Zapatistas were about when embarking on their trip to Mexico. They did give us an introductory workshop but the reality of a Chiapanec indigenous community hit me hard on first impact. There was utter incommunicado, suspicion, absolute lack of privacy, parasites, disease and the constant confrontation with myself as a privileged alien who had only the vaguest notion what all of this was about. After 11 days of being woken up at 5.30 in the morning, having been fed with tortillas only, constantly explaining the life I knew in rudimentary Spanish to men with unending curiosity crowding my hut and after having been put to use as a surrogate teacher for the 50 or so children in the village, I was ready for a break. My plane was scheduled to leave back to Germany and I made my way northwards to Mexico City. Once I got there, however, I realised that the past two weeks had been the best thing that had happened to me in a very long time. For once, on this journey I had not been appreciated for my money or my status or what people thought they might get off me but simply for my presence. That felt good. I decided against a continuation of my life as I knew it and three days later I was back in that village.
I eventually did return to Berlin and the life I had there a few months later, but my agenda had changed. I was inspired by the way these humble peasants who had shared their lives with me were working their world. The way they organised as collectives, the manner decisions were made in the Zapatista base communities I regarded as important to share with others, in need of being spread. Accordingly I got involved once more organising events ranging from the European Encuentro in 1996 which took place in Berlin, information evenings in Cafés and the University, Solidarity Fund raising parties blockades in front of the Mexican Embassy up unto the a Consulta support gig in 1999. Since that first time I have returned to Chiapas twice and stayed for many months. I happened to be there when the march to Mexico City was announced and it for me it was a matter of course to take part in it.
I do not know how many of the other foreigners in the march share similar background, but there should have been a good few of them. From what I gathered, maybe half of the people had joined because of a spontaneous impulse, the whish to enrich their travel experience with an event of historic significance, with only a vague notion of what the Zapatistas were on about. The other half had previously been active in Zapatista solidarity, been a peace camper or worked as a NGO volunteer on some project in a base community. No matter what the background was in each individual case, however, I feel we've all learned something in the process and I believe there'll be a hell of a lot of teaching going on when people go back to he countries they came from.