Subcomandante Marcos

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Subcomandante Marcos riding and smoking a pipe

Subcomandante Marcos was created as a political figure and "saw" the light of day with the Zapatista uprising in San Cristobal de las Casas (Chiapas / Mexico). He described himself as the spokesman for the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation).

Marcos in the EZLN

At the same time as the Free Trade Agreement between the USA , Mexico and Canada ( NAFTA ) came into force on January 1, 1994, indigenous guerrillas of the EZLN took five district capitals in the Mexican state of Chiapas by force of arms . During an interview in the town hall square in the tourist town of San Cristóbal de las Casas , which is occupied by hundreds of armed Maya , the masked subcomandante Insurgente Marcos went public for the first time with a catalog of demands for elementary basic rights for the indigenous population. His masking with the black woolen ski cap, the tobacco pipe , and the secret of his bourgeois biography shaped the image of the Zapatistas for the next twenty years . After ten days of bloody clashes with the Mexican army , which were ended with the mediation of civil society and the church, the insurgents withdrew to mountain and jungle regions in the east of Chiapas, where they subsequently established de facto autonomy .

Part of the external representation of the Zapatistas was the statement that they are not concerned with political power in Mexico. In fact, the Zapatistas became a catalyst for social movements around the world. A quote from Marcos sums it up in a subtle way: “It is not necessary to conquer the world. It is enough to recreate it. "

Subcomandante Marcos (left) with Comandante Tacho in Chiapas (1999)

Until his public farewell in May 2014, the subcomandante reported at irregular intervals with communiqués , articles and letters. In it he referred not only to works of world literature , but also used - with a lot of humor and occasionally irony - even literary instruments to bring the mostly political content closer to his international readership. In the texts, often interspersed with poetry, Marcos combined the demands of the indigenous peoples for their ancestral land and their cultural independence with the radical criticism of neoliberal globalization . Since their 1994 uprising, the Zapatistas have organized regular meetings with civil society in the areas they control, including the Summer 1996 Intergalactic Meeting Against Neoliberalism.

Marcos repeatedly expressed his solidarity with other protest movements around the world. For example, when he received $ 500 for a lecture , he is said to have donated it to factory workers in Italy who were on strike at the same time to underline the phrase "Your struggle is also our struggle".

He derives his designation sub comandante from the fact that he receives his “orders” from the General Command (“CCRI-CG - Secret Revolutionary Indigenous Committee”), which consists of elected representatives of the village communities.

When the bourgeois-conservative Party of National Action ( PAN ) broke the 71-year rule of the Party of Institutionalized Revolution ( PRI ) in the 2000 presidential elections , Marcos responded to the new President Vicente Fox's offer of talks not with a face-to-face meeting with him, but with a broad-based campaign for the inclusion of rights for the indigenous population in the Mexican constitution, which had previously been decided in multi-year negotiations. Followed by a bus convoy made up of delegations from the indigenous peoples of Mexico and international civil society, Marcos drove from Chiapas to Mexico City with 20 members of the CCRI-CG in spring 2001 . The convoy followed the route of Emiliano Zapata's campaign during the Mexican Revolution in the second decade of the 20th century.

In May 2014, Subcomandante Marcos resigned his leadership role of the EZLN: "I declare that the one known as Subcomandante Marcos no longer exists." He rejected rumors that this was related to his health.

Marcos' identity

According to Mexican intelligence, Subcomandante Marcos is Rafael Sebastián Guillén, born in 1957, a mestizo from a middle-class family from Tampico (state of Tamaulipas ). Before going into hiding in the 1970s, he was a lecturer at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Influenced by the ideas of Mao Zedong , Louis Althusser , Fidel Castro and Che Guevaras , he joined the Mexico City- based guerrilla movement FLN.

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán relies on the Cuban intelligence agent Manuel Piñeiro with his suspicion that Marcos received guerrilla training in Cuba .

When asked about his true identity, the subcomandante once replied:

When asked about his age, he said, referring to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America and the resistance to colonization that has existed since then : “I am 518”. In May 2014, Subcomandante Marcos declared the end of his identity as the same person:

“It is our conviction and our practice that rebellion and struggle do not need charismatic leaders or bosses, a messiah and a savior; to fight you only need a little decency, a little dignity and a lot of organization - and otherwise: either you contribute to the collective or you are no good. "

In the farewell announcement of May 24, 2014, the "birth" of Marcos was explained as follows:

“At dawn on January 1st, 1994, an army of giants - namely indigenous rebels - came down to the cities to shake the world up with their stride. After a few days, still with the fresh blood of our fallen on the streets of the cities, we thought about how we could make ourselves visible to the outside world. The others were used to looking down at the indigenous people from above, they couldn't look up to see us. They were used to seeing us as humiliated people; their hearts could not understand our dignified rebellion. Their eyes were captured by the only mestizo in a balaclava, but only because they didn't actually see him. Our leaders then said, 'You can only see those who are as small as you. Then we make someone as small as them so that they can see him and see us through him. ' So began a complex diversionary strategy, a terrible and beautiful sorcery, a biting game of hide and seek of the indigenous heart that we are. Indigenous wisdom challenges the modern world at one of its strongest pillars: the mass media. This is how the construction of the figure that was called Marcos began. "

After the fatal attack on May 3, 2014 by the group CIOAC (Central Independiente de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos) in the municipality of La Realidad, the EZLN made the decision to let the figure of Marcos die for José Luis, who was murdered in the attack To let Solís Lopez (called: Galeano) live on.

“We think it is necessary for one of us to die so that Galeano can go on living. And in order to satisfy the obtrusive death, one has to put another name in front of it in Galeano's place, so that it can live and death does not steal a life, but only a name, empty letters of meaning, without history, without life of its own. So we decided that from today Marcos will no longer be allowed to exist. "

literature

  • Niels Barmeyer: Developing Zapatista Autonomy. Conflict and NGO Involvement in Rebel Territory. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 2009, ISBN 978-0-8263-4584-4 (English).
  • Marcos, Laura Castellanos, Marcos: Cash drop . exp. by the sixth declaration of the EZLN from the Lacandon jungle, 1st edition. Ed. Nautilus, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89401-590-9 .
  • Marta Duran de Huerta: Yo Marcos. Conversations about the Zapatista movement. ISBN 3-89401-380-X .
  • Reinhard Krüger (Ed.): México insurgente. Los Zapatistas y La marcha por la dignidad indígena 24 February - 11 March 2001 (= ROMANICE. 2). Weidler-Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-89693-702-2 .
  • Reinhard Krüger (ed.): Los Zapatistas y La marcha por la dignidad indígena (vol. II). Los discursos en el Congreso y el regreso a Chiapas (= ROMANICE. 7), Weidler-Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-89693-707-3 .
  • Reinhard Krüger (Ed.): Insurgent Mexico. The Zapatistas and the March for the Dignity of the Indians. February 24 - March 11, 2001 (= ROMANICE. 12). Selected and translated by Christiane Bauer. Weidler-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-89693-712-X .
  • Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos: Messages from the Lacandon Jungle. About the Zapatista uprising in Mexico. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89401-259-5 .
  • Subcomandante Marcos: Stories from Old Antonio. Verlag Association A, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-935936-50-7 .
  • Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos: Our Word is Our Weapon. Seven Stories Press, ISBN 1-58322-472-6 .
  • Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Marcos Lord of the Mirrors. Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, ISBN 3-8031-3606-7 .
  • Subcomandante Marcos, Paco Ignacio Taibo II: Inconvenient Dead. Roman, four hands. Verlag Association A, Berlin ISBN 3-935936-39-7 .
  • Ignacio Ramonet: Marcos. La dignité rebelle. Conversations with the sous-commandant Marcos. Galilée, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-7186-0565-0 .

Web links

Wikiquote: Subcomandante Marcos  - Quotes
Commons : Subcomandante Marcos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Niels Barmeyer: Developing Zapatista Autonomy. Conflict and NGO Involvement in Rebel Territory. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 2009, ISBN 978-0-8263-4584-4 (English).
  2. ↑ Marcos: Messages from the Lacandon Jungle. 2005.
  3. ↑ bbc.com
  4. ↑ Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Marcos, Lord of the Mirrors (=  Wagenbach's pocket book . No. 422 ). Wagenbach, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8031-2422-0 , p. 67 f .
  5. ^ García Márquez, Roberto Pombo: Subcomandante Marcos. The Punch Card and the Hourglass . In: New Left Review . No. 9 (May – June), 2001 ( newleftreview.org - Interview with Subcomandante Marcos, originally published in Revista Cambio . Bogotá March 26, 2001). newleftreview.org ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.newleftreview.org
  6. ↑ a b enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx
  7. ↑ a b jornada.unam.mx
personal data
SURNAME Subcomandante Marcos
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guillén Vicente, Rafael Sebastián (presumed real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican revolutionary and author
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century