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The Zapatistas
EZLN: Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (The Zapatista Army of National Liberation)
• emerged in Chiapas, Mexico on 1 January 1994
• anti-globalization (esp. NAFTA), pro-Indian rights; fight reform of Article 27 of the constitution (ejido rights)
• led by Subcomandante Marcos, who has become a Mexican pop icon
• called the first postmodern social movement

Patriotism, Revolution, and Zapata
from a Marcos communique
        Problems and other communiques by Marcos

Who is Marcos? His refusal to be categorized
    -Rafael Guillén Vicente
    -b. 1957, son of upper middle class furniture store owner in Tampico
    -studied philosophy at UNAM in late 1970s
    -then taught at the Metropolitan University fo Mexico (UAM)
    -now a pop icon, a poet, a philosopher, a revolutionary
    -blends indigenous, Mexican, and Western cultures

Marcos is gay in San Francisco, a black in South Africa, Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Isidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, an indigenous person in the streets of San Cristóbal, a gang member in Neza, a rocker on campus, a Jew in Germany, an ombudsman in the Department of Defense, a feminist in a political party, a communist in the post-Cold War period, a prisoner in Cintalapa, a pacifist in Bosnia, a Mapuche in the Andes, a teacher in the National Confederation of Educational Workers, an artist without a gallery or a portfolio, a housewife in any neighborhood in any city in any part of Mexico on a Saturday night, a guerrilla in Mexico at the end of the twentieth century, a striker in the CTM, a sexist in the feminist movement, a woman alone in a Metro station at 10 p.m., a retired person standing around in the Zocalo, a peasant without land, an underground editor, an unemployed worker, a doctor with no office, a non-conformist student, a dissident against neoliberalism, a writer without books or readers, and a Zapatista in the Mexican southeast. In other words, Marcos is a human being in this world. Marcos is every untolerated, oppressed, exploited minority that is resisting and saying 'Enough!'


The Zapatour to Mexico City      
the official website:  http://www.ezlnaldf.org/index.php  
began 24 Feb 2001 (the Saturday that Carnival began)
arrived in Mexico City on 11 March        
The Zapatistas Arrive in Mexico City


28 March: Address the Mexican Congress, lobbying for an Indian rights bill

zapatistas.htm

More info:
http://www.fzln.org.mx/ 
http://www.ezln.org/