“El Sup,” Freeing Media
“El Sup,” Freeing Media and the “Original” Electronic Declarations of Armed Insurgency
“[In the mainstream media] common people only appear when they kill someone or when they die. For the communication giants and the neoliberal power, the others, the excluded, only exist when they are dead or when they are in jail…” (YouTube video, 37’45”)
On December 31, 1993, the Zapatista insurgents propelled themselves out of the Eastern Chiapas jungle regions into the highland areas of Southern Mexico. Within two days they, they had occupied the jungle border towns of Las Margaritas and Ocosingo in the canyon regions, and advanced as far as the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas. Within a few hours of occupation, loud speakers and audio equipment were set up in town centers for Indigenous militant leaders to recite the first of what was to be many Declarations “From the Jungle.” These Declarations strategically evolved from a call for armed action from the Mexican citizenry, and the pleas of a people outlining the conditions of their indigenous peonage, to statements outlining indigenous rights couched in the language of communitarianism. “We have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food nor education. Nor are we able to freely and democratically elect our political representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor is there peace, nor justice for ourselves and our children” (First Declaration, Womack 1999:247). In their thirst for information and clarity, Mexican newspapers like Prensa and La Jornada were quick to publish the declarations in their entirety, opening the door to a National conversation and to an international media phenomenon of the first order.
Central America had been racked by Marxist social insurrections during the 1970s and 1980s; the emergence of another armed insurgency wasn’t an extraordinary happenstance. What was different about the Zapatistas was the symbolic imagery of a group of Mayan men and women covering their faces with handkerchiefs, poor men and women carrying wooden rifles, but also the context of the narrative in the declarations that announced to the world the coming out of a new significant insurgent philosophy of anti-‐neoliberalism couched in the terminology of Mayan campesino concerns. The “First Declaration from the Jungle” was announced from the balconies of a few town centers of Chiapas. As the Zapatistas were chased back into their jungle strongholds, the subsequent declarations (two through six) would emanate from “the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,” from emails fed directly to receptive mainstream media outlets (6th Declaration from the Jungle, June, 2005).
Basta! (Enough!) was the emblematic word echoed within the transcripts of all of the declarations, it became emblematic of this new social uprising, indexed in scholarly journals to signify the beginning of a protest against neoliberalism. The First Declaration did not mention indigenous peoples, this “omission” followed from the thoughts of the Mayans, according to Marcos, on the drafting committee who thought that the struggle for human rights and economic sovereignty was a National
concern (Womack 1999:246). The First Declaration also heralded the utopian, far reaching goals of the rebel movement in advancing “to the capital of the country” and conquering the Mexican federal army” (ibid). Living within a radical community had emboldened their vision beyond was realistic, far ahead of the inertial responses of a settled populace. These initial statements followed death and violence in combat, albeit short lived (12 days), and tensions were very high. What maintained resonance in these declarations were the arguments against governmental abuses, the critique of a corporate political party system, corrupted and intractable. That a small mostly indigenous group had armed itself, rallied to action, and somehow survived the storm of state retribution so common in Central American uprisings was in and of itself captivating.
The second two Declarations of June 1994 and January 1995 followed shortly, “from the Mountains of the Mexican Southeast.” The Zapatistas appealed to the “Civil Society that our sovereignty resides” (2nd Declaration From the Lancandon Jungle). The Zapatista grievances were very real against the “eternal party,” calling for the “suicide” or “death” “of the present political system,” -‐ radical. One of the grand ideas that was to bear fruit in their own “intergalactic” way in the Zapatista call to have a National conference to discuss ideas for a Mexican political future. The Zapatistas inevitably would be greatly responsible for a global internet public discourse on the implications of neoliberalism.
By the Fourth Declaration, the Zapatistas, and their proclamation drafting committee had seized upon the idea of defining who they were as a source of ethnic capital, finding sincere and significant lines of argument in their own indigeneity. In the Fourth Declaration the argument alters from “what we cannot abide with or what we reject” to “this is what our struggle is about.” Mayan phrases are used, the “flower of the word” (“poetry” in Tzotzil Maya) is invoked to connect the message with its Mayan creators; Maya messages deriving from a place deep within their own cosmovision, reviling arrogance, the abuses of power and the “concentration of wealth in the hands of a few” (4th Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle). In was a successful moment for the Zapatistas, they brought the Mexican government to the conference table to agree to the San Andres Accords for indigenous rights, signed by officials of the Zedillo presidential administration. The late 1990s also saw the ouster of the governor of Chiapas and other government representatives of the corporate one-‐party system (PRI) from dozens of municipalities in Mexico. The San Andres Accords, however, were never ratified by the Mexican congress; a momentary but illusory victory for indigenous rights in Mexico.
The Sixth and so far final Declaration, June, 2005, is essentially a Zapatista historical treatise on their own struggle and a maturing recognizance of the ramifications of their struggle against neoliberalism, in Latin American in particular, claiming a “globalization of resistance” has followed from the course of world economic order.
The Declarations kept the movement alive when the Mexican government clearly wanted the movement to simply slowly subside. In the first few minutes of theuprising the ubiquitous questions from all quarters of the media world was “why”? When the answers came, there followed a collective empathy from international journals, and divided sympathies within Mexico between establishment and campesino populaces. Most Mexicans, however, could easily identify with broken promises and the abuses of corporate politics; International cultural advocates could understand the struggle of a marginalized people fighting for economic and cultural survival. The Zapatista movement and ideology drew in more and more cultural advocates diverse sets of media tools, hypermedia skills to further the Zapatista cause. Zapatista Declarations in time, and out of media focus, became the subtext in a gathering discourse against neoliberalism in geographies far beyond the backwaters of Mexico’s autonomous villages.
Though all of these original declarations were processed through the Juntas (leadership committees) of the Zapatistas, Subcommandante Marcos “El Sup” was certainly (and stylistically) one of the contributing authors, and most likely the narrative voice of Declarations 2-‐6. Internet media and communiqués from the beginning of the Zapatista movement kept the movement alive, establishing network capital with a story-‐hungry journalism world. El Sup’s communiqués have now become legendary in the world of electronic revolutionary media, establishing Internet media as a vital component for maintaining vitality in political resistance. So it is appropriate that “El Sup” would deliver a message to the Freeing the Media Teach-‐In in New York and eloquently defend the power of independent media and the representational failings of mainstream corporate media. Even as the narrative of insurgency has morphed into the apocalyptic ramblings of destructive thinkers, the electronic media of armed insurgents (exemplified by the Zapatistas) was first concerned with social justice, equal rights of the sexes, and a global/utopian vision of inclusiveness—causes worthy of Free Media expression.
by Carlos D. Torres December 2014
Work Cited:
Womack, John
1999 Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader. The New Press. 347 pages.
Statement of Subcomandante Marcos to the Freeing the Media Teach-‐In. http://www.prometheusradio.org/marcos_on_media
Caminantes | Documental del Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos 2001. Uploaded 8/16/2013. https://youtu.be/j-‐BcpRIOJXM