Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico: Marcos, Celebrity, and Charismatic Authority 9781626371538

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POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN ZAPATISTA MEXICO

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN ZAPATISTA MEXICO Marcos, Celebrity, and Charismatic Authority

Daniela di Piramo

Published in the United States of America in 2010 by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.firstforumpress.com and in the United Kingdom by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2010 by FirstForumPress. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-1-935049-21-0 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This book was produced from digital files prepared by the author using the FirstForumComposer. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

To my adored husband, Kevin Edward Dickson, tua per sempre

Contents

Foreword, John Kane Acknowledgments List of Acronyms Glossary of Spanish Words List of Photographs

ix xi xiii xv xvii

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Charismatic Authority in Latin America

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The Chiapas Story

39

3

Marcos and the Zapatistas: Storming the World Stage

77

4

Zapatista Politics and Other Tales

105

5

‘Being Marcos’: The Celebrity, the Caudillo and the Revolutionary Vanguard

137

Revolutionizing Charismatic Authority

169

6

Appendix A: Responses of Mexican Civil Society to the Zapatista Movement Appendix B: Mexican Civil Society and Subcomandante Marcos Bibliography Index

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185 197 211 261

Foreword

This book provides a uniquely enlightening interpretation of one of the most puzzling, and for many people fascinating, characters to appear on the world political scene in recent times. The fact that the man’s immediate stage was an obscure region of Mexico, and his political aim the support of an apparently minor rebellion of local Indian peoples, makes his achievement in gaining global visibility for the Mayan cause all the more remarkable. Under the nom de guerre Subcomandante Marcos, this man declared himself ‘spokesperson’ for the Zapatista Movement of Chiapas and used modern communications technology to project a tantalizing, rather romantic persona that aroused interest and curiosity everywhere. As the author of this book notes, he came to be variously described as a “masked hero, philosopher, revolutionary, poet, shaman, intellectual, guerrilla, erotic symbol and professional of hope”. A great many words, both hostile and admiring, have been written on the mystery of Marcos, on his relationship to the Indigenous people for whom he speaks, and on his ultimate political aims. Yet he remains for many a political enigma. He is undoubtedly a ‘charismatic’, yet a charismatic of a very curious kind. He is very clearly a leader, yet onewho-would-be-not-a-leader. Daniela di Piramo’s insight is that it is precisely in the problematic nature of charismatic leadership—with its great power and great dangers—that we find the key to unlocking the Marcos enigma. Marcos confronts a legacy of Latin American caudillismo on the one hand and Marxist theories of vanguardist politics on the other, but cherishes Zapatismo ideals that stress instead an empowered civil society, antiauthoritarianism and a rejection of predetermined political doctrines. Clearly the kind of charismatic authority that Marcos can command, and which in South America has so often degenerated into personalistic, autocratic rule, exists in severe tension with such ideals. Yet Marcos also understands the value of charisma for promoting a cause, focusing a movement’s energies and forwarding a political agenda. Through subtle analysis and deconstruction of the elusive Marcos persona, Daniela di Piramo reveals how the masked crusader attempts simultaneously to deploy the power of charismatic leadership while ix

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avoiding the pitfalls and temptations that would destroy the very goals at which the Zapatista Movement aims. She reveals a strategy of ‘disengaged engagement’ that consciously distances Marcos from his political persona even as he uses it, that allows him simultaneously to exercise political authority while subtly undermining it. She also provides a sober assessment of the success and limits of such a strategy, and gives a considered judgment on the realism of Marcos’ hope to be merely a social and political catalyst who galvanizes people, not in order to lead them, but to create the conditions that will allow them to speak and act on their own behalf. Daniela has been my student and, latterly, a friend and professional colleague, so I know well the passionate interest that she brings to this topic. In clear and accessible prose, she presents a subtle and convincing portrait that will reward the attention of anyone curious about Marcos and his cause or the dilemmas of revolutionary politics more generally. I therefore warmly recommend the book to its potential readership. —John Kane

Acknowledgments

Charismatic leaders and revolutionaries have always fascinated me; indeed, any individual who dares to challenge convention or the status quo in politics is a source of interest, particularly as much political change is due to the boldness and courage of protesters, activists, writers and people like Marcos. I admire the fact that he ‘walked the walk’ whilst so many people limit themselves to the ideas rather than the practice. He rejected the role of ‘armchair revolutionary’, seeking to do more than most of us academics, who spend time reflecting on revolutions from the safety of our university offices. Writing this book does not close the door on these issues; on the contrary, many more doors have appeared that need to be opened. As Socrates reminded us, the more we know, the more we realize that there is yet much to be discovered. I am extremely grateful to Professor John Kane, to whom I owe a lot, not just for all the support, kindness and advice throughout the years at Griffith University, but also for being my intellectual inspiration. My debt of gratitude extends to Dr. Jacques Bierling, who many years ago ‘set the ball rolling’, and to Professor Haig Patapan, who has encouraged me all along and made me aware (in my moments of despair) that a state of confusion is sometimes beneficial in academic endeavor—what the Greek philosophers referred to as aporia. There are many other colleagues in the Department of Politics and Public Policy I would like to thank for their support and encouragement given so generously: in particular the ‘girls’, Dr. Liz Van Acker, Dr. Robyn Hollander, Dr. Giorel Curran and Dr. Paula Curran. I am also grateful to Julie Howe, who has assisted me in many administrative matters throughout the years with unfailing kindness. I would also like to warmly thank my research assistants, Adriana Diaz and Damian Gerber, who have worked hard to help me in this endeavor. I also thank Alduncin and Reforma for their kind gift of several surveys and Dr. Curran and Professor Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez for their gift of photos that adorn this book.

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I extend a particular thank you to Professor Patrick Weller and the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University for supporting this book. I have been well assisted by the library staff at Griffith University, particularly those who work in the Document Delivery section. I would also like to thank my editor, Jessica Gribble, who has been most patient and extremely approachable throughout this process; she is someone I never met but with whom I have established a very good working rapport. Of course the research for this book would not have been possible without numerous academics, journalists, library staff and local people who took the time to assist me in so many ways, people from various universities, communities, villages and towns of Argentina, Cuba, New Mexico and Mexico. Not only were they most generous with their time, but also with gifts of several books and photos. A very special thank you to the people of San Cristóbal and the Zapatista communities I visited in Chiapas for allowing me to experience something unique and quite magical that I will not even try to explain. Finally, it is time to say thank you to all my family, particularly my wonderful Mum and my father. He unfortunately did not live long enough to see the completion of this achievement. My dearest friends have been there for me, encouraging me all the way; my warmest thanks to Rosemary Gibson, Louise Curtis, Pauline Legge, Kathy Sims and Leslie Podevin. I am especially moved by the support and the love shown by my husband, Kevin Edward Dickson, who never complained once about my many nights spent at the computer working on this book. Thank you for your endless love.

Acronyms

ANCIEZ ARIC CCI CCRI CCRI-CG CIEPAC CIOAC CNC CND CNI CNOP CNPA CNPI COCOPA CONAI CTM EGP EPR EZLN FEP FLN FMLN FPDT FSLN FZLN IFE INI INMECAFÉ MAUS MLN

National Alliance of Independent Peasants Emiliano Zapata Rural Association of Collective Interests Independent Peasants Union Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committee Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committee —General Command Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria Independent Centre of Rural Workers and Farmers National Peasants’ Confederation National Democratic Convention National Indigenous Congress National Confederation of Popular Organizations Plan of Ayala National Coordinator National Council of Indigenous People Commission of Concordance and Pacification National Intermediation Commission Mexican Workers’ Confederation Guerrilla Army of the Poor Popular Revolutionary Army Zapatista Army of National Liberation Electoral People’s Front Forces of National Liberation Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (El Salvador) People’s Front for the Defense of the Land Sandinista National Liberation Front (Nicaragua) Zapatista National Liberation Front Federal Electoral Institute Indigenous National Institute Mexican Coffee Institute Movement of Socialist Action and Unity National Liberation Movement xiii

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OCEZ OPSDDIC PAN PCM PDM PDPR PGR PMT PNR PPM PPS PRD PRI PRM PRONASOL PRT PSR PST UAM UGOCM UIC UNAM UU

Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights National Action Party Mexican Communist Party Mexican Democratic Party Partido Democratico Popular Revolucionario Federal Department of Justice Mexican Workers’ Party National Revolutionary Party Mexican People’s Party Popular Socialist Party Democratic Revolution Party Institutional Revolutionary Party Party of the Mexican Revolution National Solidarity Program Revolutionary Workers’ Party Revolutionary Socialist Party Socialist Workers’ Party Autonomous Metropolitan University General Union of Mexican Workers and Peasants Union of Communist Left Autonomous Mexican National University Union of Ejidos Unions

Glossary of Spanish Words

Aguascalientes Alianza Barbudo Cacique Calpulli Campesino Cañadas Caracoles Caudillismo Caudillo Charrismo Compañero Concordancia Conducción Consulta Criollo Descamisado Ejidos Encuentro Finca Ganadero Gaucho Golpe de Estado Grenaderos Guardias blancas Gusanos

Hot waters Alliance/pact/agreement Heavily bearded man Local political boss or strongman/Indian chief Land division of pre-colonial Mexico Peasant/country dweller/farmer Canyons/gullies Snails/spirals System of rule headed by a caudillo, often dictatorial in nature Political leader/chief/strongman (regional/national) System of corrupt trade unionists (slang) Comrade/colleague/companion Agreement/concordance Guidance/political leadership (Argentina) Village meeting based on a consensus decisionmaking process Creole/person of Spanish ancestry, born in Spanish American colony/native or Indigenous person (Peru/Venezuela) Shirtless/ragged System of communal land tenure/farming cooperative (Mexico) Meeting Commercial farm/ranch/small rural holding (Mexico) Cattle rancher/cattleman Horseman/South American cowboy Coup d’état/sudden take-over of state power by force Special riot police White Guards/paramilitaries Worm/contemptible person/political traitor in selfimposed exile (Cuba) xv

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Hacienda Jefe Ladino Latifundio Libertad Líder máximo Llanero Llanos Lucha Mascaras Rojas Mestizo Miliciano Nagualismo Paliacate Partido Pasamontaña Pistolero Populismo Presidencialismo Pueblo Selva Sierra Tierra Trabajador Zócalo

Large cattle ranch/estate (Latin America) Boss/leader/manager Word for ‘mestizo’ in Chiapas/Spanish-speaking person of mixed race (Mexico) Large agricultural or stock-rearing estate owned by one landlord/system of land divided in large estates Freedom/liberty Supreme leader Plainsman-woman/cattle herder/cowboy of the plains Plains Struggle/fight/conflict Red Masks A person of mixed Indian and European racial and cultural heritage Military person Temporary transformation of humans into animals or other spirits in Mayan culture (Mexico) Handkerchief/brightly colored scarf (Mexico) Political party Balaclava/ski mask Gunman/gangster Political system that institutionalizes personalistic leadership Presidential government/excess of presidential power People of the country, nation or village/the people/the masses/village Tropical rainforest/jungle Mountain range Land Worker Central plaza/main square of a village, town or city (Mexico)

Photographs

Following page 75

Photo 1 Street in Mexico City, 2005 Photo 2 EZLN Members, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994 Photo 3 People of Chiapas Photo 4 Women and Children of Chiapas Photo 5 The Zapatistas Will Never Surrender, Aguascalientes II Following page 104

Photo 6 Mural of Emiliano Zapata, Municipio Autonomo Aguascalientes II Photo 7 Zapatista Hospital, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994 Photo 8 Military Presence in Chiapas Photo 9 Municipio Autonomo Aguascalientes II Photo 10 Marcos Speaks, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994

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Photo 11 Marcos and the Zapatistas at the Table, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 Following page 135

Photo 12 Marcos Fronts the Media, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 Photo 13 Marcos at Work, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 Photo 14 Banner of Comandante Ramona, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 Photo 15 March for Indigenous Justice, Chiapas Photo 16 A Pensive Marcos Smokes a Pipe, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996

1 Charismatic Authority in Latin America

Sometimes academic inquiry arises from the sensation that there is something puzzling, something about a person, place or event that has not been explained adequately. The inspiration behind this book falls in that category. First, let me tell you a story. In Mexico, for the past decade, we have observed a movement that may substantially challenge some of the normative ideas about the nature of charismatic authority and political transformation in Latin America and elsewhere. In a matter of days after the 1994 Zapatista Rebellion, Mexico’s memory was jolted and the rest of the world alerted to the existence of a place called Chiapas, an Indian-based movement whose members called themselves Zapatistas and a masked man who claimed he was not the leader, but nevertheless very conspicuously voiced the plight of thousands of oppressed Maya peoples. The Chiapas Rebellion (as it came to be known) was successful in at least one respect: it captured global imagination. Intellectuals, academics and journalists debated various issues that seemingly arose from this event in this previously unknown part of the world. What is the Zapatista Movement about? Why are the Zapatistas wearing masks? What exactly do they want from the Mexican government? Is this a post-modern movement? Why are they not attempting to seize power? Marcos and the World: A Strange Encounter

Much of the attention was centered on the frequently described as charismatic ‘spokesperson’ of the Zapatista Movement, Subcomandante Marcos, who at various stages of the unfolding drama caught the attention of the national and the international media. In academic circles, as well as in the press, Marcos has been given many labels: masked hero, philosopher, revolutionary, poet, shaman, intellectual, guerrilla, erotic symbol and ‘professional of hope’. He has been hailed a ‘Jesuslike icon’; the Los Angeles Times describes him as “the overnight

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messiah of Mexico’s hard-core political left” and Stavans speaks of “a tragic hero, a Moses without a Promised Land”. Marcos has been characterized as a pseudo-guerrilla pop star in cyberspace and for many scholars and observers alike he possesses star-quality.1 Cueli speaks of Marcos’ personal magnetism as instinctive and magic, allowing him to elect the moments and adequate spaces for his actions, with a touch of personal seduction. For others, he rates as “perhaps the most famous Mexican in history” or, as García de León argues, as the personification of a type of popular hero who has no precedents in the history of the country. At the same time, Marcos is often identified as belonging to a long tradition of Latin American guerrilla heroes from Enriquillo in 1518 to Che Guevara in the 1960s. He has also been considered the latest popular hero in a tradition of activists that includes Superbarrio and El Santo, Mexican ‘social wrestlers’ who “utilized performance and media strategies to enter in the political ‘wrestling arena’ of contemporary Mexico”.2 There is no doubt that Subcomandante Marcos is a controversial and enigmatic political figure who has sparked debate on a number of points: the purpose of the mask, the puzzle of whether he is ‘a leader’ or ‘the leader’ of the Zapatista Movement and whether he should join the official political system. Questions have been asked as to whether he is central or marginal to the movement and what his role really encompasses. At the heart of all these issues the common theme remains the nature of his authority. Is Marcos only a spokesperson for the Zapatista Movement, is he really only a delegate and a humble servant of the Indians of Chiapas and of all oppressed peoples? Or is he a new hero, the only hope left at the ‘end of history’? This is what he might epitomize to a number of activists from various anti-globalization and social justice movements, to several European intellectuals, to Italian anarchists, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and to portions of the Mexican civil society. Others have taken the completely opposite view, arguing that Marcos is the typical Latin American caudillo, nothing more, nothing less, just as authoritarian and personalistic. Marcos, they tell us, is solely motivated by personal political ambition. Romero states the following: Marcos is the caudillo-although he denies it-of an armed uprising in the country of surrealism: within one hour of having declared the warand at less than 10 kilometres from the enemy post-Marcos takes possession of a ‘public dialogue’ with dozens of tourists and curiosity seekers; then he answers the downpour of ‘rockets’ … with a bombardment much more intense than that of weapons: dozens of

Charismatic Authority in Latin America

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communiqués through which … he won more battles than the Federal government.3

Marcos is accused of masterfully seducing a legion of national and international scholars and the media with his copious and eloquent writings, with his carefully crafted image and his political theatrics. He is also accused of manipulating the Maya peoples of Chiapas, who arguably need a ‘representative’ able to mediate between them and the government. In real life, according to the Mexican government, Marcos is the fifty something middle-class mestizo Rafael Sebastián Guillén, former Marxist activist and UNAM (Autonomous Mexican National University) academic. So far, nothing is out of the ordinary. This is another charismatic revolutionary, another Latin American guerrilla or at worse, another caudillo. But is he? Calling Marcos another charismatic Latin American revolutionary leader is controversial in more ways than one. The Indigenous people might object to the use of the word ‘leader’ (this is how we have come to be saddled with the somewhat inadequate media term ‘spokesperson’) while the traditional left cringes at the term ‘revolutionary’ being used so loosely. To compound the situation, those who have tried to classify Marcos as a post-modernist leader (presumably to explain the peculiarities of the situation) have been spurned by a large section of the academic world unwilling to abandon their long-held modernist ideals. A mysterious man, a pipe-smoking insomniac who loves the night, literature and talking about death, Marcos tells various interviewers in his softly spoken manner that he is not the leader or even one of the leaders of the Zapatista Movement. For a few years, until the start of the Other Campaign in January 2006, he was out of the public eye, presumably hiding in the Lacandona Jungle (some say in Europe). From January 2006 to the end of the elections in July Marcos was campaigning openly, but remained steadfast in his refusal to join the institutional political system. Never having attempted to ‘seize power’, his revolutionary credentials are in serious doubt. His writing skills are not. His criticisms of the Mexican government, of the neo-liberal project, of the traditional vanguard method of revolution and of human greed are nothing if not cutting. Although he offers no answers to political riddles, his ideas on why there is a need to reformulate the political process (but with no prescription of method or outcome) are articulated in his writings in an appealing and original manner that has earned him the admiration of thousands of people. But Marcos’ ambiguous self-conceived role as ‘spokesperson’ to the Zapatista Movement, his meteoric rise to celebrity status befitting a

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post-modern revolutionary icon, not to mention his middle-class Marxist background, seem at odds with his anti-authoritarian and antipersonalistic political discourse. They also seem at odds with the sort of progressive politics the Zapatista Movement has been busy promoting: an empowered civil society, a non-hierarchical concept of power and the rejection of predetermined political doctrines. To make matters more confusing, Marcos sends out what can only be interpreted as mixed messages. On the one hand, he signs most of the communiqués, admits that the EZLN (the Zapatista Army of National Liberation) is a vertical hierarchy, confesses that power is something he has to watch continuously and that he has a significant amount of influence in the Zapatista Movement. On the other hand, his general rhetoric downplays his personal importance and emphasizes that the real leaders of the movement are the Mayan communities of Chiapas. He continuously reminds us that his role is but temporary and that he is merely creating political space for the people to take charge of their lives. Indeed, it seems that the nature of his authority has raised even more debate than his political ideas. By default, if nothing else, Marcos’ authority is charismatic, yet it would be grossly inaccurate to position him as the typical Latin American charismatic leader. All the same, it still may not be wise to dismiss the personalistic element and romanticize Marcos as the ultimate bearer of political integrity. The approach that I take in this book was prompted by curiosity as to what the ambiguities we observe in Marcos’ role signify and, furthermore, what they reveal about the concept of charismatic authority. An analysis of Marcos through the lenses of charisma is admittedly somewhat unusual, given that he appears to be the antithesis of personalism. Moreover, he is often analyzed in a theoretical vacuum, his ‘unique’ position accepted unquestioningly. Yet this simplistic reading of the situation is inadequate, that is, placing Marcos outside the Latin American political tradition or outside the Marxist tradition and holding him up as the quintessential post-modern hero is just as inadequate as positioning him in these contexts without substantial qualification.4 It is imperative to refine our understanding of the situation and do justice to its complexity; this can only be done by confronting the ambiguities that are obviously there and by making an objective assessment of the tensions and contradictions that still surround this fascinating political figure. There are obvious benefits in studying Marcos through the lenses of charismatic authority. For a start, by doing so we can obtain a much richer picture without missing out on interesting nuances; this, in turn, allows a more balanced assessment of his political actions and ideas.

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Furthermore, this approach allows us a better insight into what is, at the best of times, an opaque concept: charismatic authority. The theoretical premise of this study is that there is a tension at the heart of charismatic authority, between its transformative potential and its personalistic dimension. Therefore, through a specific interpretation of Marcos’ actions, this book contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature of charisma and charismatic authority. I contend that the ambiguities we can observe in Subcomandante Marcos’ role and the strategies he employs to deal with them illustrate this tension extremely well. Moreover, it seems to me that these ambiguities reflect not just his own consciousness of the contradictory dynamics of charismatic authority when employed in service of an egalitarian socio-political cause, but also his wish to move beyond any form of personalism. Marcos knows that his own charismatic authority has been useful for building moral capital and for achieving a number of immediate and pragmatic political short-term goals, such as the mobilization of the Indigenous people of Chiapas and global recognition of their plight. Moreover, with his innovative use of modern communications technology he was able to project his charisma globally, achieving cult status on the international stage and gaining certain broad political advantage thereby. At the same time, Marcos has been striving to resist the ‘negative’ personalistic consequences of charisma that threaten to undermine his central political values, corrupt his own character, and destroy the Zapatistas’ long-term goals. What emerges very clearly are serious limits to the effectiveness of charismatic authority as an agent of ‘political transformation’, particularly if by this term we mean progressive, sustained social and political change characterized by projects based on social justice and egalitarian notions rather than on political opportunism. Personalism is also inevitably at odds with the transformative and progressive vision of an awakened and politically conscious civil society able to listen to a message rather than one captured by fantasies about the personality conveying it. This is exactly the sort of damage Marcos wishes to avoid, but in his attempt to tread a path between ‘controlled’ personalism and anti-authoritarianism he inevitably runs up against these limits. While the ambiguities inherent in this situation are not new, what is different about Marcos is that he confronts and attempts to transcend the problem of personalism and self-glorification in a way that no other leader or political figure has done before. His resistance to the trap of charismatic authority is evident not only in his actions and discourse, but also in many of his strategies, particularly his creation of a masked alter-ego

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that is meant to function as a blank space upon which each person may read their own meaning. Certainly his use of personal power and charisma to achieve a number of limited or short-term political goals confirms what Weber had suspected, that is, the transient importance of the individual in the transformative political process. At the same time Marcos’ attempt to control his own personal political power is an indictment of its— charismatic authority’s—potential to hinder certain political outcomes, for instance, a vibrant civil society. His deep mistrust of personal authority is partly fuelled by what he perceives as the generally problematic set of relations between charismatic or cult figures and the rest of society, where the emphasis on personalities, inflated by the media, can and all too often does obscure political messages. Moreover, while cultural determinism should be avoided, one cannot fail to note that Marcos comes from a specific cultural context where, without a doubt, the personalistic authoritarian element has flourished in all its different flavors. As a matter of fact, the Subcomandante is the perfect example of a political charismatic figure who aims to resist what he sees as the political (and perhaps the moral) fate of Latin American charismatic leaders. Most dangerous of all to Marcos is the self-defeating model of revolution historically adopted by the traditional left. From his perspective, given that he is himself a product of a Marxist tradition that tends to exalt revolutionary vanguards, there is much to be learnt from history, particularly Castro’s case, as it highlights perfectly well the potentially corruptive effects of charismatic authority on the postrevolutionary process. There could not have been a better lesson for Marcos than the Cuban Revolution, or one that could have better illustrated the failure of left-wing revolutionary movements to create a political system that addresses the injustices of liberal democracies and capitalism on the basis of a truly egalitarian political process. The Cuban Revolution was an amazing historical event masterminded from above. It began with some truly progressive and innovative ideas that were outlined in one of the most remarkable political statements in the history of revolutionary discourse, History Will Absolve Me, written in 1953 by Castro during his imprisonment. 5 Apart from the offerings of social justice and political representation, the economic and social achievements of the initial phases of the revolution served to improve the living conditions of the majority of workers, peasants, women and black people.6 Indeed, only months after seizing power, Castro introduced the Agrarian Reforms that benefited a large section of the population, as well as a number of other socially

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advantageous reforms (particularly in health and education) that are outlined in the 1960 First Declaration of Havana.7 Nevertheless, in this process of political transformation eventually charismatic authority and coercive force coalesced to become the means to an end (the protection of the revolution), whilst dissenting voices were silenced and both liberal and democratic ideals were seriously compromised. The historical lesson is that the use of charismatic authority to establish a progressive political program can, ironically, be a selfdefeating exercise producing a system based on very similar relations of power to the one it was meant to replace. It should be noted that this particular appraisal of the traditional left is part of a broader criticism of political systems in general (including Western democracies) by the Zapatistas for failing to create the conditions for an autonomous civil society and for, ultimately, depriving individuals of their dignity. Marcos learns from history and attempts to avoid cult status, caudillismo and vanguardism with a strategy of ‘disengaged engagement’, in which he consciously distances himself from his own political persona even while employing it. In this way he hopes to become a mere social and political catalyst or a temporary facilitator, assisting the creation of the conditions that will galvanize people into organizing themselves politically so that they are able to speak and act on their own behalf. Yet his reliance on charismatic authority, even thus limited, constantly threatens to extol his own role and simultaneously undermine his attempt to radically ‘democratize’ politics at both local and global level, while his reluctance to fully deploy that authority might invite political impotence in the long run. In a nutshell, the attempt to utilize the mobilizing power of charismatic authority, while evading its corruptive effects, is a clear acknowledgment that such authority is both a tempting asset and a dangerous trap. Revisiting Max Weber

At this point, it is useful to provide a brief overview of the genesis and evolution of the terminology that is central to various discussions in this book. The New Testament defines ‘charisma’ as a theological term, a gratuitous and transitory gift of God’s grace that enables human beings to perform exceptional tasks.8 Alternatively, the term ‘charismatic’ is frequently used to describe spiritual revival movements or communities whose members claim to possess charismatic powers.9 Much more damagingly, in contemporary secular popular Western culture many celebrities have been called ‘charismatic’, from Princess Diana to Madonna, from Xanana Gusmão to Barack Obama. This label, more or

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less loosely, is used to accommodate virtually anyone from leaders of mass movements to people in every walk of life, any individual who either has extraordinary impact on others or has a very smart public relations manager on their payroll. In the academic world the picture is much the same, as the term has been adopted by a vast number of disciplines that span from the sociological to the political, from the psychological to the historical and down the intricate alleys of organizational theory. In many cases interpretations confuse preconditions with manifestations; often charismatic leaders become virtually indistinguishable from transformational leaders and analysis levels tend to slip and slide from the macro or sublime to the micro or mundane.10 Almost inevitably, despite the differences, academic work dealing with this concept looks back to Max Weber, the German philosopher credited with the transposition of charisma from the religious to the political realm.11 In fact, Weber made an important distinction between the sociological concept of charisma in The Sociology of Religion [1922] and that of charismatic authority as part of his well known political typology in Economy and Society [1922, 1968]. In the former Weber analyzed charisma as a transformative social force within the broad context of the history of religion and magic. Following anthropological debates in Europe led by Marett, Mauss, Wundt and Preuss,12 and aligning magic and religion as essentially the same phenomenon, Weber identified charisma within contexts such as pre-animism and shamanism.13 By contrast, the concept of charismatic authority is presented in his political writings as an ‘ideal-type’ or as a specific instantiation of charisma.14 Here charisma refers to: A certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional qualities or powers. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a ‘leader’.15

The problem that arises is that, as Riesebrodt points out, “Weber developed the concept of charisma in two different contexts but never sufficiently clarified their different meanings, implications and levels of abstraction”.16 Other scholars confirm that this distinction was not sufficiently clarified by Weber and the resulting conceptual obfuscation continues to haunt much of the literature on the subject.17 These theoretical ambiguities are partly due to complexities inherent in

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Weber’s methodology as it aimed to address the conceptual gaps between historical specificity and sociological generalization, attempting to bring order to disordered realities by clarifying the relationship between ideas and subsequent events.18 Hence, we understand Weber’s typology of the legitimate modes of authority as a sociological device and his secular theory of charisma as part of the causal explanation of the history of Western rationalization. Although the focus of this study is on charismatic authority rather than charisma, it should be emphasized that this transposition from the sociological to the political realm is far more significant than has been previously acknowledged. Central to this transposition was the idea that the power unleashed by religion in the social realm might be replicated in the political sphere by extraordinary leaders who have the gift of being able to mobilize the masses by creating an emotive bond with them. These leaders are thereby able to transform the political and social system with the force of their personal power, legitimized by their followers’ faith. Weber judged charismatic authority to be truly revolutionary and was concerned at what he perceived as restrictions on the spirit of human creativity and imagination imposed by rationalism and bureaucracy. Still, he did not delve into the internal dynamics of charismatic authority or on the possibility that its contradictory dimensions might have a limiting and potentially corruptive effect on socio-political transformation. A closer look at Weber’s notion of charismatic authority is necessary at this point. In his political writings, Weber proceeded to define power (macht) as the imposition of an individual’s will upon another person (despite possible resistance from the latter) and domination (herrschaft) as the manifestation of that power. By contrast, authority is a specific form of power that is sustained by a belief system that legitimates it in the social sense; hence it does not rely solely on coercion, but includes an element of voluntary obedience from the subject. Each form of authority system, as described by Weber, is legitimated by a different set of beliefs in the legality of normative rules and the right of those in authority to issue commands. The first ideal type of legitimate authority in Weber’s typology is traditional authority, which rests on the established belief in the sanctity of tradition. The second ideal type, bureaucratic or rational authority, is legitimated by formalistic belief in the supremacy of the law.19 The third ideal type is charismatic authority, a system that rests on direct devotion to the leader, who is obeyed by virtue of his or her personal attributes. Weber specified that this form of authority acts as a revolutionary force in response to a crisis, challenges the established order, disdains routine

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mundane tasks and calls for a new concept of human relationships.20 The charismatic individual is portrayed as a creative actor in a mechanical and disenchanted world, whose role is essential to social and political transformation, but whose capacities are endangered by the historical drift towards bureaucratization (the iron cage) and rationalization.21 It would be, however, far too simplistic to interpret Weber’s work on charisma as wholly antagonistic to rationality and order, and charisma itself as merely an irrational and disruptive force. For example, in ‘Politics as a Vocation’ (written in 1918 and strangely neglected by academics debating these issues), Weber recognizes the dangers of passionate morality and the benefits of an ethic based on rationalism. 22 What exactly Weber meant by ‘rationalism’ needs to be qualified. The distinction provided by Eisenstadt between substantive and organizational rationalism enables a rather sophisticated interpretation of Weber’s ideas. Substantive (or pertaining-to-values) rationalism is understood to be the drive towards the constant regeneration of what could be termed the ‘inspired organization of ideas’. While charismatic authority exists in a state of constant tension with organizational rationalism (for the latter is often a constraint), it is ultimately the means to a substantive rational end—that is, a quest for change in social order and organization when the system itself has become irrational.23 Weber’s charismatic individual who aspires to change or revolutionize the existing system has been aligned by some scholars to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, given that they both act outside conventional boundaries and set new values for themselves and their followers in their heroic attempt to elevate mankind to a higher level.24 But although Weber might be somehow indebted to Nietzsche, this identification of the charismatic leader to the Übermensch is, to a point, misleading. Weber’s notion of charismatic authority is more complex than the glorification or the isolated struggle of the individual, because it attempts to link human thought and ideas to changes and continuities in the social order. Weber, as a sociologist more than as a philosopher, invests the charismatic individual with social and political purpose. 25 Charismatic rule entails commitment to an ethic or to an exemplary way of life, initially through the formation of an emotional consociation with the followers rather than through the institutional route. The prophet was Weber’s central charismatic figure, although he recognized that shamans, political demagogues, revolutionary leaders and military heroes can also be charismatic leaders. These figures project inspiration from divine or supernatural powers and are the embodiment of an ideal rather than of a law or regulation; in the political context, they might

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head innovative social movements and convey a strong message that is meaningful to or resonates with their followers. Charismatic authority is precarious and, as Weber admits, “charisma is fated to decline as permanent institutional structures increasingly develop”.26 It is the personal significance of the leader that makes charismatic structures inherently unstable, eventually causing the shift from the very temporary exercise of pure charisma to its routinization, the process through which charisma is gradually diluted and transformed into either traditional or legal/rational authority.27 This process is the result of both practical and structural constraints that in a sense ‘force’ these leaders to engage with the institutional system as a way to keep the charismatic relationship alive as long as possible, albeit in diluted form, and also as a way to preserve socio-political transformations made during their regime. The problem of succession is particularly acute in charismatic rule, as it is apparent, for instance, in Castro’s case. According to Weber, this problem might be resolved through charismatic forms that are either hereditary (personal) or of office (as an impersonal quality inherent in bureaucratic structures or movements). An example of the latter is the way several contemporary political parties in Argentina identify themselves as part of the Peronist Movement and an example of the former would be Indira Gandhi (in relation to her father Jawaharlal Nehru). Weber also made it plain that in its pure form the charismatic claim depends solely on the acceptance of followers; it is faith that cannot be coerced and that will break down if the leader’s mission is not recognized by the followers or if it fails to benefit them.28 Similarly, as Weber stipulated, it is the duty of those to whom leaders address their mission to recognize them as charismatically qualified.29 The importance of the followers in situations of charismatic authority can be traced to Pauline theology, which defined the charismatic group as simultaneously governed and governing. Paul not only defined charisma as a unique personal gift and as the highest source of holiness in order to legitimize his role as apostle, but he also extended that gift (in diluted form) to his disciples. By stressing the interdependence between leader and follower, Paul’s charismatic theory was charged with all-inclusive egalitarian overtones, while mindful of the disequilibrium induced by charismatic individualism.30 This proposal was rather radical at the time, for it challenged the orthodox belief that the Holy Spirit dwelling actively in the Church makes this institution impersonally charismatic. 31 Paul’s objections to the spiritual aristocracy of the church turn our attention to the dynamics between the congregation and the unique, selfcontained charismatic leader. This is a significant point, first because it

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highlights the issue of institution vis-à-vis the individual and second, because it brings into prominence the question of interdependency between the individual and the group, and therefore the crucial relationship between the recognition of charisma (by the followers) and its validity or legitimacy. There is no evidence that Weber was directly influenced by Paul, but as much of the literature accounts or implies,32 Weber ‘borrowed’ the term ‘charisma’ from Rudolph Sohm’s Kirchenrecht (1892). When introducing the concept of charisma in his typology of legitimate authority, Weber acknowledges that: The concept of ‘charisma’ (‘the gift of grace’) is taken from the vocabulary of early Christianity. For the Christian hierocracy Rudolph Sohn, in his Kirchenrecht, was the first to clarify the substance of the concept, even though he did not use the same terminology.33

Sohm’s theological interpretation of the concept had in turn borrowed from Pauline theology, asserting that only certain individuals (apostles, prophets and teachers) have a calling (beruf) to teach as a task (aufgabe) instigated by God. This call is the gift of charisma, and individuals who possess this gift have the moral authority to lead the community. In Kirchenrecht, Sohm establishes the authority of charisma as a form of divine organization in opposition to the authority of human ecclesiastic law. This was illustrated by his study of the transformation of the early Christian ecclesia into the bureaucratic organization of Catholicism.34 For Sohm the Christian ecclesia is therefore not based on legal-human but on charismatic-divine organization. Every true membership, as every office, is based on charisma carried by individuals and not resulting from the power of the institution or of the congregation. But Sohm was no democrat and, unlike Paul, he was not concerned with universal inclusion. As Smith contends, law and bureaucracy were rejected “not because they limit popular sovereignty, but as fruits of popular sovereignty”.35 Subsequently, in Sohm the gift of grace was unevenly distributed and there is no sense of the importance of the recognition of the followers in the act of validation of charismatic authority. Moreover, as Riesebrodt clarifies, Sohm’s emphasis on the divine (where authority is not socially constructed but divinely given) was informed by his agenda of strong commitment to the Protestant faith, as well as by his belief in the unquestionable nature of this type of authority.36

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Weber followed Sohm closely in some respects, particularly with regard to the interpretation of charisma as a form of authority, the emphasis on the individual and the contrast between charisma and bureaucracy, although Sohm had denied the possibility that the ‘gift of grace’ could become embedded in institutionalized office. Weber substantially revolutionized Sohm’s ideas in other ways, as several authors have argued.37 For instance, while Sohm believed the charismatic gift to be truly divine and hence independent of the followers, in Weber the charisma of a person is functional only because the followers voluntarily perceive it as such. Another departure from Sohm’s ideas was Weber’s extension of charismatic authority to a variety of figures such as revolutionaries, madmen, warriors and magicians. Charisma was virtually transformed into a political, secular and revolutionary value-free notion, whereas for Sohm the notion remained pedagogic and specific to Christianity.38 In 1961 Friedrich questioned Weber’s value-free treatment of the concept of charismatic authority and its undifferentiated treatment of political and religious leaders, concluding that “Weber’s typology is basically unsound and should be discarded”. More recently, in a book published in 2007 entitled Charisma: The Gift of Grace, and How it has Been Taken Away from Us, Philip Rieff did much the same. Other scholars have modified the typology, some adding another category.39 There is still considerable debate about Weber’s work in this area and on the usefulness of the concept of charismatic authority as a device to explain or understand various political and social phenomena. 40 Weber’s emphasis on political agency is, to be sure, another contentious issue. A section of the scholarship comments on his treatment of the role played by individuals as agents of social meaning and transformation and on his positioning of the charismatic individual outside and against the institutional order. Excessive focus on the individual is oftentimes a source of apprehension, partly because it has very undemocratic connotations. Along similar lines in an interesting paper that critiques Weber’s methodological individualism, Hutt reminds us of Bourdieu’s distaste for the way in which Weber removes his charismatic individual from the surrounding material conditions.41 Although Weber did identify some broad character traits that he deemed essential to a skilled politician, such as passion and a sense of responsibility in ‘Politics as a Vocation’, his work is by no means a psychological appraisal in the Freudian sense. Weber was not a social psychologist, but a political sociologist who never attempted to systemize a set of personality traits that would distinguish a charismatic leader from other leaders. While it is true that he always brought

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questions of relations underlying systems of domination back to the motivations of individuals, he did not offer a systematic conceptualization of the structural conditions that might give rise to these motivations and he did not propose a theory of society that makes its stability dependent upon the sharing of common values.42 Similarly, it is important not to misunderstand Weber’s ideas on legitimacy as fixed or in terms of a single motivation that would explain, alone, why the people follow a charismatic leader. Parkin raises the point that Weber makes no iron-clad distinction between obedience that derives from conscious commitment and that which is more subconsciously based on self-preservation or even self-interest.43 In the case of charismatic regimes history shows that obedience is always more freely given at the beginning of the regime, when the leader inspires the most awe and faith in his followers. With regard to the possibility of a coercive element, it can be argued that this possibility is never completely absent from any political system. It could well coexist with charismatic authority and perhaps even eventually overtake elements of voluntarism and faith, particularly when the enchantment of the followers and the legitimacy that the charismatic leader derives from it fade over time—a case well demonstrated by Castro’s political trajectory in Cuba. Perspectives on Charisma and Charismatic Authority

From Weber’s work we can travel along many roads. The literature on charismatic leadership can be divided in five broad disciplines: political psychology, political science, organizational theory, cultural studies and religious studies. But long before the term ‘charismatic’ was in vogue, the idea that ‘great men’ or great individuals shape world history had been present in Western culture for centuries. Carlyle, in On Heroes and Hero-Worship, published in 1872, introduced one of the earliest typologies of hero-types. Of course the concept of ‘ideal leadership’ can be identified before Carlyle’s time in the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Leadership was considered an ethical or moral pursuit until Machiavelli challenged this view when he wrote The Prince in 1513, a book on how to seize and maintain political power. The novelty of these ideas was the squarely-placed emphasis on the role of the individual leader, particularly in terms of mastering the inevitably unpredictable world of politics. Machiavelli asserted that rigidity of character is the reason for the ability of flighty fortuna (fortune) to get the better of mankind. Since capricious fortuna favors the bold, the virtú (virtue) of a Prince is redefined as the ability to respond to changeable circumstances in a

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manner that will achieve the desired ends with little or no regard for the intrinsic nature of the response.44 Clearly, Machiavelli was offering a formula for political strategy that could be understood to include an element of charisma (although he did not call it so), a vitality that—once freed from conventional morality—is instrumental in overcoming obstacles. Nevertheless, for all his insights on human nature, Machiavelli’s work did not attribute any extraordinary powers to the Prince, who remains a strangely impersonal character able to learn the art of pragmatic politics dispassionately. Similarly, while acknowledging their importance in political terms as a source of vital energy for republics, Machiavelli did not analyze the masses or the ‘common people’ in great detail. In The Prince they remain an impersonal entity, whereas in The Discourses he treats them largely as political actors subject to forces that leaders manipulate. The concept of ‘the masses’ or ‘the crowd’ was not systematically analyzed by scholars until the late nineteenth century, when the emergence of psychology and psychoanalysis as proper disciplines enabled not only detailed empirical studies of leaders, but also of the masses or crowds as phenomena of their own by theorists like Freud and Le Bon.45 In his famous 1897 book The Crowd Le Bon argued that crowds are social phenomena that display three symptoms: lowering of faculties, intensification of emotional reactions and disregard for personal profit. In a mass or crowd, not only are individual differences lost, but the crowd “demands a God before anything else”.46 For Le Bon, excessive admiration for leaders paralyzes the use of critical faculties: We know to-day that by various processes an individual may be brought into such a condition that, having entirely lost his conscious personality, he obeys all the suggestions of the operator who has deprived him of it, and commits acts in utter contradiction with his character and habits.47

This analysis goes a long way in elucidating how charismatic leaders can impose their will and be obeyed blindly. In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, written in 1921, Freud elaborated on the central concept of a split ego or the division between ego and super-ego, along with mechanisms of identification or transference to explain the nature of group cohesion in terms of libidinal ties. These themes were taken up by his disciple Erikson and applied to a number of leaders’ identity crisis and transference. His work on Gandhi and Luther is renowned for its psychological insights; the author also correlates attempts to create positive identity with submission and

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devotion to strong leadership in the case of the followers.48 Fromm, in Escape from Freedom, written in 1961, established the connection between social conditions and individual psychology that was the beginning of a useful bridge between psychoanalysis and sociology. 49 Other studies on leadership that examine authoritarian or totalitarian leaders were heavily influenced by Freud’s work, often portraying leaders who ignite fear in society and cause individuals to relive the experience of paternal domination, for instance Hannah Arendt’s groundbreaking The Origins of Totalitarianism, written in 1967.50 A large portion of the scholarship continues to take into account psychoanalytical factors to explain the presence, motivations and behavior of charismatic leaders. One theme that seems to arise regularly in this sort of literature relates to the circumstances surrounding the birth of charismatic leaders, particularly claims of illegitimacy and subsequent lifelong predisposition to feelings of inferiority and social marginalization. The fact that both Juan and Evita Perón and Castro were illegitimate children has been noted by scholars.51 Complex psychoanalytical issues have often given way to the ‘trait approach’, a search for more superficial personal characteristics of the charismatic leader, such as physical attributes, behavioral patterns and personality traits.52 Broadly speaking, the stereotypical charismatic has strong physical presence, boundless energy, deep intuition, a sense of timing, uncanny foresight and irresistibly persuasive powers. This search for a set of specific personality traits and attributes has proved to be highly speculative and removed from reality, as there are leaders who have enthralled the masses whilst displaying different and sometimes diametrically opposite characteristics to the ones listed above.53 The psychological approach basically tells us that what transforms charisma into charismatic authority is either the psychological disposition of the crowd or that of the leader, and certainly the relationship between them. There is some agreement in the literature that leaders endowed with extraordinary qualities but unable to develop strong emotional bonds with followers could not be termed ‘charismatic’.54 Also, undoubtedly some of the research in psychology and psychoanalysis has produced interesting outcomes. All the same, charisma cannot be related to a specific set of personality traits, physical attributes or skills, given that throughout history there have been many allegedly charismatic leaders who have totally different personalities, capabilities and styles. For what do Perón, Mussolini, Gandhi, Sukarno, Hitler, de Gaulle, Castro, Kenyatta and Kennedy have in common in terms of personality traits, other than the fact that they have all been called ‘charismatic’ leaders? It is true that there are traits that might be

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more common among charismatic leaders: most of them are powerful speakers, emerge from the middle classes, are psychologically complex people, educated and so on. But there are always exceptions. It is obvious that ultimately there is no fixed set of traits that make up a charismatic leader. Moreover, two leaders might have similar psychological patterns or character traits, but one might either not be charismatic or fail to develop his or her charisma into charismatic authority (the external conditions might not be there), while the other might succeed. We can consider the psychological approach useful in terms of a more nuanced approach to the study of charismatic authority, but this approach cannot be relied upon exclusively to define the phenomenon or to explain why and when charismatic authority arises. Political and social situational factors need to be taken into account. This book takes the view that charisma is a personal attribute of the individual unrelated to the rest of his or her character traits and that the possession of this attribute in itself is not a sufficient condition for the charismatic individual to become a charismatic leader. Charisma may be a gift of nature, but those who become charismatic leaders are made so through circumstances and timely presence. These circumstances will be partly determined by structural factors. Echoing Weber, a widely held view is that charismatic leaders usually emerge in times of crisis, when basic social values and the legitimacy of both the government and of the existing institutions are brought into question. Often personal rule is equated with the weakness of political institutions and, as we shall see, this is a widely accepted assessment of the Latin American political scene, although it is understood that institutionalization is, eventually, a necessity.55 In these circumstances, a charismatic leader and his or her message are often relevant and meaningful to the people, particularly when they offer a solution to perceived socio-political malaises. As Friedland suggests, “if genuine charisma is to be understood, analysis must be directed towards the social situation within which the charismatic figure operates, and the character of his message”.56 People believe that a charismatic leader is able to resolve the crisis, being endowed with extraordinary power and correspondingly her or his message must appear as the only viable solution, even salvation from disaster and reinstatement of ‘meaningful’ values like the community and the family. This is what Kane in The Politics of Moral Capital refers to as ‘moral capital’, or the accumulation of moral prestige and credibility that assist a leader in the attainment of specific political goals, including legitimacy and rational justification of political actions. Moral capital, Kane states, “will accrue to leaders who effectively

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articulate, defend and symbolize these values”.57 These transcendental offerings are normally articulated in an official doctrine or ideology, but not necessarily in a dogmatic fashion, so that the leader is conveniently able to control ideological positions and alter the criteria of success with regard to his or her actions. Furthermore, these leaders often define the political situation by creating or reinforcing the idea of an ‘enemy’ to national security and survival, in order to emphasize the politically strategic ‘us and them’ predicament.58 It should be noted that these strategies are commonly but not exclusively used by charismatic leaders. One area that has been particularly successful in its application of the situational approach to charismatic authority is that of post-colonial integration studies. By 1958 Edward Shils had drawn an interesting connection between nationalism and charisma, arguing that the processes of modernization and post-colonial nation-building require charismatic authority for the important transition from traditional to rational-legal authority. The role of political charisma in post-colonial integration as the fusion of faith and nationalism has been analyzed in relation to several charismatic leaders, for instance Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia, Nehru in India and Prince Nkrumah in Ghana.59 It should be noted that while it becomes essential to incorporate features of charismatic leadership to systemic changes such as new forms of political integration, to do so can be problematic for these leaders, for the creation of a secular, legal institution such as the nation-state is not easily reconciled with continuing charismatic leadership. The general problem becomes one of either reduction of the charismatic basis of post-traditional legitimacy or the fulfillment of transference of loyalties, in order to give the new political system an independent normative base and stability.60 Both psychological and situational factors are important in either locating the sources of charisma or in explaining its transformation to charismatic authority in particular political situations, yet neither of these approaches provide a complete picture. As history has shown, resolutions to crises do not necessarily include charismatic leadership. In a well-known work entitled The Spellbinders—Charismatic Political Leadership Willner confirms this verdict: crises and psychic stress are not always the preconditions accompanying or causing charismatic leadership and mission/ideology factors are conducive but not sufficient (or even necessary) to catalyze charismatic rule.61 A symbolicmythological approach to charismatic authority had been proposed by Willner and Willner in 1965. This approach preserves the primary importance of the individual charismatic leader but anchors it to the relevant cultural and historical context, by connecting the leader to

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meaningful myths, sacred figures, symbols and national heroes that shape the political culture of the relevant society. The authors identify several manifestations of charismatic leadership, including the utilization of ritual and ceremony, the mode of handling crises, the assimilation to one or more of the national dominant myths, the performance of heroic feat, the explicit projection of personal qualities and outstanding rhetorical ability. But, amongst this mélange, they argue that what is particularly relevant for the validation of charismatic leadership is the role of myth. In other words, charismatic leaders arise when other means of legitimizing authority fail and when they are able to evoke and associate themselves to sacred symbols of the country’s culture.62 The use of cultural and historical paradigms by charismatic leaders may seem to contradict Weber’s idea of charisma as innovative, but the process needs to be understood as a two-way experience: the leader is constituted by the political culture and simultaneously plays a part in reshaping it. Such leaders not only identify themselves with established mythologies and symbolisms, but will typically attempt to create new ones in order to individualize themselves, prolong their power and claim their ‘rightful’ place in national history. Overall, the symbolicmythological approach is appealing because it connects the individual to the existing social order, hence managing to relate the two different levels of analysis quite effectively. The weakness of this approach is that it cannot conclusively guarantee that these connections between the leader and the cultural symbolic order may not occur with a noncharismatic leader. Another approach to the study of charisma and charismatic authority interprets the phenomenon as reflective of the diffusion of the sacred into the secular, placing emphasis on its messianic quality. Although religion has traditionally been regarded as a stabilizing integrative force in society, Hunt uses the French Revolution as a model to argue that religious ideas and practices can promote social regeneration or change rather than integration or stability through the establishment of new rituals and symbolic representations.63 More specifically, an interpretation of charisma as a religious agent of change is provided by Norton, where the Christian mythology of the Trinity is representative of the union and the inseparableness of authority (the Father), representation (the Son) and charisma (the Holy Spirit).64 In practical terms liberation theology is a good illustration of religion as a transformative agent. Finally, a totally different view held by some scholars is that charisma and the ensuing authority are prefabricated or deliberately

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constructed through the manipulation of techniques of mass persuasion. Ratnam includes propaganda and skilful management as factors that explain the existence of charismatic leadership, while Loewenstein states that mass propaganda and technology-enhanced media have the power to either confer charisma or intensify it. One should note that this view of charisma is still very much in vogue; as late as 2008 Gundle argues that in the contemporary context charisma becomes ‘showmanship’.65 Modern charisma, in other words, is seen as a set of techniques and devices used by ‘rational’ leaders and their respective propaganda machines to transcend and veil the use of rationality in politics in what can be summed up as the ‘exploitation of irrationality’.66 It is true that modern media enable psychological, geographical and cultural distance to be overcome, thereby giving the illusion of immediacy and intimacy to the relations between leader and follower. Perhaps as a reaction to the possibility of charismatic politics being little more than a play choreographed and acted out without an ‘authentic’ star, some of the scholarship has reservations about the authenticity of the concept in contemporary politics. The obvious counter-argument is that the use of modern technology and the fact that charisma is manifested differently do not necessarily imply that the star of the play is not ‘authentic’. What I most emphatically disagree with is the view (held by some of my distinguished colleagues) that all charismatic leaders are ‘constructions’ and therefore that charisma per se may not exist. This view is flawed for a number of reasons. The first is that the media has only played a relatively important role in politics the last seventy or so years while charismatic leaders have been around for much longer; moreover, spin doctors and the like can really only work with what must be already there. In other words, the media machine cannot create charisma from nothing; it can only enhance. The second reason is that if charisma was something that could be borrowed, stolen, bought or manufactured, then surely most leaders on earth would borrow, buy or steal it, as to do so is politically strategic and rational. Some Important Definitions

An important point that arises from our brief journey throughout the various interpretations is that the distinction between charisma and charismatic authority remains unclear or at least unexplored by the scholarship. The failure to identify these two concepts as separate obscures the fact that while charismatic authority retains the transformative or revolutionary impetus that Weber had identified from charisma in the religious context, it is also a personalistic form of

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political power, often authoritarian. The tension between these two dimensions is what concerns us. In order to address this issue, definitions of ‘charisma’ and ‘charismatic authority’ will be advanced then the problem posed by charismatic authority will be discussed. As both terms are rather ‘slippery’, definitions are no easy feat and far from being conclusive. Moreover, there are no clear criteria for determining in absolute terms who should be labeled ‘charismatic’ or who actually is endowed with charisma. This predicament is not unusual in political science and other disciplines such as sociology, where many concepts are ambiguous and dependent on the context to which they are applied for an accurate definition. However, what is particularly difficult in this case is that any analysis of political charismatic authority hinges directly on the qualification of the link between micro (agency) and macro (structure) levels, a problem that other complex concepts in politics (for instance, democracy or liberalism) arguably do not have to confront to this degree. I will not attempt to categorically define charisma or charismatic authority. Instead, I will limit myself to the formulation of working definitions of these concepts for the purposes of this book. Following Weber, charisma will be considered a personal attribute of any individual who is able to fascinate, allure or influence other people in an intense and rapid manner. It is not an attribute of a group or an institution, but a personal attribute that is unrelated to any other specific personality or behavioral trait or to the individual’s psychological and social circumstances. In other words, individuals of any description, psychological makeup, culture or social status can potentially be described as charismatic. An individual who possesses the initial personal attribute of charisma might be able (and willing) to convert it into political charismatic authority. Just what is charismatic authority? It is often said that politics is about power. Charismatic authority is just that, a form of personal political power—that is, the power to influence others effectively and intensely in the way they view the world. It is the power to command deference, obedience, devotion, compliance or cooperation (or a combination of these) mainly on the basis of personal appeal. As Kane reminds us in The Politics of Moral Capital, it is also important to keep in mind the distinction between moral and charismatic authority, in the sense that a leader might have moral authority and not be charismatic. 67 It should be noted that although most charismatic leaders do rely on a moral element as part of the ‘package’ (usually evident in their discourse), their authority is largely based on their personal appeal and that it is this appeal that elicits intense emotive responses from their

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followers. To put it bluntly, the charismatic leader fascinates, mystifies and excites. But how does a personal attribute develop into a form of political authority? The first point that needs to be asserted here is that it does so only under certain conditions. Essentially, as Eisenstadt puts it, the individual needs more than the charismatic gift or a set of extraordinary qualities; he or she needs “the ability, through these qualities, to reorder and reorganize both the symbolic and the cognitive order”.68 The second point is that four specific conditions need to be present. Of these four conditions, two are essential to the uniqueness of this form of authority. The first is that initially (at least) the person must rely predominantly on their personal appeal rather than on traditional political institutions, legal-rational mechanisms or ideology. Second, they must be capable of forming an intense public rapport or bond with an audience or a following. The other two related conditions are not exclusive to charismatic leaders. The third condition is that the leader must have the ability to represent and articulate a vision or a set of transcendental values that are relevant to the people of that society at a time when the established values and social norms appear (and probably are) contradictory, dissatisfactory, ineffective or inadequate. The fourth condition is that the leader must be revolutionary, innovative or anti-establishment in some fashion. This does not mean that the political vision or objective needs to necessarily be left-leaning; a leader could be ideologically conservative in terms of long-term socio-political goals, yet revolutionary in leadership style and relatively progressive in the way he or she shapes the institutional system to achieve these objectives or goals. These conditions, I believe, distinguish charismatic authority (a form of political power) from charisma (a personal attribute). Of course, the charismatic individual must operate in the public sphere to be able to fulfill these conditions. In addition, the development of charismatic authority will be facilitated by a number of external general preconditions, although they will not be sufficient in their own right. A precondition can be defined as a long-term feature of the political system. It should be noted that this is quite different to a crisis, which implies a more immediate state of affairs—usually a collusion of elements that, if serious enough, induces or requires rapid change. Favorable preconditions might include specific features of the political culture of a country (like weak institutions), a particular collective psychological predisposition, a political vacuum, absence or

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insufficiency of political representation for a specific sector of society, or an intense crisis.69 Furthermore, in this book the expression ‘charismatic authority’ will be used in preference to ‘charismatic leadership’, for although in practice these expressions are interchangeable, strictly speaking their meaning is quite different. The term ‘leadership’ usually denotes a position, either formal or informal, while the term ‘authority’ implies a power relation between two parties, as it emphasizes authority over something or someone. Of course, a political figure may possess charismatic authority without being the official leader of an organization, an institution or a country. A charismatic figure outside the political system may not lead formally, but might be able to exert political influence at perhaps an even deeper level than a member of an official institution. Hence, the effect that these charismatic figures have on those they lead or influence does not directly depend on their inclusion in the formal political system. Also, history shows that most charismatic leaders have authority over their followers (effectively lead) before they enter the official political system and that some never enter it at all. I might add that stereotypes are not useful when attempting to define a difficult concept. A charismatic individual or leader does not necessarily have to be flamboyant, extroverted or a good orator, nor does his or her childhood necessarily need to have been traumatic or difficult. Similarly, it is not useful to rely on overly facile expressions such as, for example, the qualification of charismatic leaders as ‘opportunistic’ or as ‘everything to everyone’, given that both these behavioral traits in politics are not exclusive to charismatic or other types of personalistic leaders. The phenomenon referred to as ‘ideological convergence’ that has produced what are known as catch-all parties has, in practice, made party leaders more prone than ever to be ‘everything to everyone’—this is why we see conservatives claiming to be ‘greenies’ and labor party leaders claiming to be conservative.70 As Machiavelli argued, all political leadership is about using opportunities cleverly. Furthermore, charisma can exist in a form that is almost completely beyond the explanatory powers of the human mind (for instance, shamanism), but the mystical dimension is also present in the more secular contexts (to varying degrees), given that the phenomenon is fundamentally based on the personal faith of the followers in the leader and his or her attributes. Ultimately, in a philosophical sense, this is what secular charisma is—faith in the human spirit—and this is certainly what Weber was postulating.

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As noted above, one obvious difficulty in attempting to clarify the terminology is the need to distinguish between charisma and different levels of popularity, celebrity, personal appeal or magnetism that a leader may possess. Despite the blurred line that too often exists between charisma and mere popularity or personal appeal this book does not endorse the use of the term ‘charisma’ as appropriate to describe the deliberate construction of a political personality or celebrity. It stays faithful to a Weberian definition of the concepts and consciously avoids the rather loose usage of the term ‘charismatic’ that is commonly employed by the media and by some scholars. Having said this, it is obvious that being charismatic does not preclude being a celebrity. The issue remains very contentious: political figures might possess personal appeal enhanced by the media and successfully constructed into effective political spectacle but may not fulfill any of the four conditions listed above. In this case, I would argue that what they have is popular appeal and celebrity status, but not necessarily charismatic authority or charisma. Their authority might be rational-legal, combined with appealing presence, as in the case of Clinton or even Blair.71 It may also be that a famous political figure is personalistic rather than charismatic—for instance, Saddam Hussein or Augusto Pinochet, who relied on the military to ensure obedience and never struck an emotive bond with their people. The Problem of Charismatic Authority

Now we need to go back to the perceived problems raised by charismatic authority, that is, the tension between its transformative and its personalistic dimension. It is easy to see that these dimensions are not going to necessarily coexist in harmony: as the personalistic/authoritarian dimension flourishes, the transformative counterpart might be undermined. At the theoretical level the issue central to this book is whether there are serious limits to the effectiveness of charismatic authority as an agent of transformation. Earlier I noted that Weber considers charismatic authority a secular political concept, albeit one that incorporates a number of characteristics from the realm of religion and magic. Under certain conditions that arguably reduce the rationality or functionality of an existing social and political order, the charismatic leader becomes a possible (some would argue even necessary) element for the viability of processes of social and political regeneration. But Weber, concerned as he was with the external restraints of bureaucracy and organizational rationalism, did not dwell on the possibility of internal practical difficulties and limitations

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to this process of regeneration caused by the personalistic and potentially corruptive dimension of charismatic authority. The question therefore becomes whether charismatic authority as a form of personal power can fulfill its transformative potential, or whether it inevitably becomes limiting or corruptive of this potential. In other words, the issue is whether the search for validation, legitimization and prolongation of power at the personal level limits or overtakes the original impetus towards social and political transformation of a system. We know that charismatic rule often offers a way out of political crisis or stalemate conditions in political systems that face great difficulties in achieving political stability. Leaders begin as inspired agents of change, with visions and goals that are responsive to the conditions of society at that particular time. This is when their authority is rapidly and intensely transformative, capable of many accomplishments: building moral capital, inspiring the people, shaping socio-political institutions and redefining ‘universal’ values, social meanings and collective identities. Juan Domingo Perón is a clear example of the power of charisma. He was able to challenge the status quo and establish a bond with the unrepresented descamisados, the Argentine working class. This was achieved through populist symbolic and discursive practices, including the rituals that were generated by the events of October 17, 1945, when he was jailed (due to opposition within the military) and subsequently freed to appease the masses whose emotions gave rise to a unique political spectacle on that fateful day. He was then able to establish himself in the Argentine political imaginary by making a connection between his own person and national collective consciousness within the continuum of history.72 The bond with the people legitimized the basis of his political power and enabled him to carry out a number of innovative institutional reforms, many of which were beneficial to the working classes materially as well as in terms of political and social identity. But although revolutionary in style, Perón was far from radical as his political goal was preventative in nature: a social order and a corporatist state that would resolve what he perceived as the ‘social problem’ of Argentina, with the ultimate aim of preventing class struggle, social chaos and radical revolutionary activity. In other words, he was seeking reform in order to avoid revolution. Nevertheless, he was still too radical for that section of the army and the oligarchy that he never captivated and by 1955 he was ousted. It should be noted that his popularity was already on the wane when that happened—historians like to trace this decline back to Evita’s death in 1952—and he had become increasingly authoritarian in the political decisions he made. We can see

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here that the transformative element is subdued by excessive personalism and, as a consequence, a leader might no longer be responsive to social conditions or to the needs of the people. Their once innovative visions of a brave new system of government dissipate, becoming instead timeless personal projects. As this process unfolds, charismatic leaders often fall prey to the building of personality cults whilst struggling to keep their grip on political power; inevitably, their charismatic hold fades and they begin to stifle dissent and eliminate opposition, often indiscriminately. Essentially, instead of charisma being used as a means (a temporary one) to catalyze a process of political transformation, the authority it generates or preserves becomes the end in itself. The problem is particularly acute in the case of leaders who head movements that claim to be progressive, egalitarian or antiauthoritarian, and supposedly inclusive of civil society in the political process they promote. In this case, as mentioned above in relation to Castro, the personalistic element of charismatic authority is not only limiting, but also at odds with (or corruptive of) ambitious political goals that aim to, somewhat idealistically, prove Hobbes and Machiavelli wrong and build a political system on the basis of an improved version of human nature. To understand the origins of the problem of charismatic authority adequately, we must go back to Weber’s notion of interdependence between the individual and the group. He tells us that “what is alone important is how the individual is actually regarded by those subject to charismatic authority, by his ‘followers’ or ‘disciples’”. Elsewhere he states that “it is recognition on the part of those subject to authority which is decisive for the validity of charisma”.73 As mentioned at the start of this chapter, there are similarities between Pauline theology and Weber’s adaptation of the concept. It should be noted, however, that an important aspect of Paul’s ideas does not feature in Weber’s notion of charismatic authority, namely the possibility that the followers might become endowed with some of the charisma of the leader and, consequently, able to lead. Paul states that “all these [spiritual gifts] are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills …. For the body does not consist of one member but of many”.74 Moreover, this is what Falco accredits to Paul: The distribution of the gifts of grace pretends to anatomize the very concept of the leader in whom all extraordinary powers are concentrated. Although a particular gift might distinguish one recipient from another in the congregation, the implication is that everyone will receive the gift in some form and that everyone bears a responsibility

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at some time to lead the others …. Pauline charismatic theory might be defined as … resulting not in pure egalitarianism but in a dialectic between graceful leadership and leaderless grace.75

This type of interaction between the leader and the group is absent in Weber’s political conception of charismatic authority. To be fair, Weber did speak of charisma as a change in the followers’ attitudes from within, telling us that “charismatic belief revolutionizes men ‘from within’ and shapes material and social conditions according to its revolutionary will … from a central metanoia [change] of the followers’ attitudes”. However, the impetus and direction for political change remains the prerogative of the leader. Moreover, Weber specified that not everybody can access the spiritual gifts with which a charismatic leader is endowed.76 In politics, Paul’s brand of egalitarianism could (ideally) be applied to the idea of a self-determining civil society, whose members are all potentially capable of leading as well as following. A charismatic individual can most successfully trigger this process, but as discussed above, in practice and over a prolonged period of time this sort of leadership becomes increasingly hierarchical, posing some serious limitations to the possibility of socio-political transformation. Essentially this means that usually these leaders are only revolutionary or transformative from above, not quite in line with Paul’s dialectic of ‘graceful leadership and leaderless grace’. That is, until Subcomandante Marcos, whose words and actions show us that although charismatic authority is never completely tamed this sequence of events can certainly be challenged and perhaps even revolutionized. Structure of the Book

To conduct a worthwhile and historically meaningful study of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Movement it is necessary to first take our minds to Latin America. This is the task of Chapter 2, where it will be argued that notwithstanding national cultural differences, in this part of the world personalistic rulers are a historical well-entrenched feature of the political culture. We will also see that charismatic authority, as a type of personalistic rule, takes a number of specific forms. The most traditional of these is the caudillo, the local boss or chief, a figure that arose as a result of decentralized political systems and one that historically precedes the populist leader and the revolutionary guerrilla. The other common type in modern history is the populist leader, who portrays himself as the embodiment of the people

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against the establishment. Mexico itself has had its fair share of caudillos and populist charismatic leaders. One example is Antonio López de Santa Anna (who ruled from 1833 periodically through to 1855), an eccentric old style caudillo who buried the leg he lost in battle then had it disinterred and buried again in grandiose style. Another example is Porfirio Díaz (1877–1910), a more modern caudillo who achieved economic and political stability through co-optation, clientelism, constitutional manipulation and by encouraging foreign investment. We must not forget, of course, the famous progressive populist president Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940) and Emiliano Zapata, the hero of the Mexican Revolution. Apart from leadership, it is also essential to understand other political institutions as well as the political culture of the country and to this end the Mexican political system will be characterized as authoritarian corporatism and as extremely effective at neutralizing opposition through cooptation tactics, repressive means and patronage driven networks of caciques and caudillos. These dynamics are evident in Chiapas, in addition to a number of other short and longer term political and economic factors that coalesced to produce fertile conditions for the rise of the Zapatista Movement. The picture that emerges from the political and economic context is useful as it reveals what can be interpreted as motivating factors behind Marcos’ political thoughts and actions. Accordingly, his political trajectory will be interpreted in terms of both his recognition of the institutional and cultural context and his attempts to circumvent the features of this political system that he views as potentially damaging. It will become apparent that much of what is normally perceived as ‘post-modern’ politics is in fact his resistance to the Latin American brand of personalism and his wish to avoid the mistakes of the traditional revolutionary vanguard. In Chapter 3, after introducing the Subcomandante, I argue that he deliberately used his personal charismatic appeal to construct and project an image that gained him moral standing and political credibility within and beyond national boundaries and that gave him the ability to mediate between diverse political spaces. Marcos successfully alerted the Mexican nation and the rest of the world to the suffering in Chiapas. Furthermore, he was successful in achieving a number of practical political objectives that benefited and legitimized the Zapatista Movement. These included the gathering of necessary support to protect it from obliteration by the Mexican government, the projection of it as nationally relevant, the establishment of a dialogue with the intelligentsia and networks of political activists, and a rapport of sorts

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with some of the more left leaning media. The Zapatista Movement itself is understood to operate at three levels. Locally, it attempts to resolve the injustices suffered by the Maya peoples of Chiapas through a set of Indigenous rights-based demands. Nationally, it attempts to reform the political system in order to achieve government accountability and a more participatory form of democracy. Globally, it critiques and challenges the neo-liberal project by encouraging global networks of resistance. Chapter 4 offers an overview of some of the political ideas of the movement and argues that all these levels seem to come together in what Marcos presents as the long-term Zapatista project: the creation of political space or conditions for the formation of a politically empowered, culturally diverse and egalitarian civil society. The Zapatistas seem certain that this vision or social condition can be achieved without seizure of formal political power, without a specific political program and, most importantly, without hierarchical structures or authoritarian leadership. This is the message that transpires from Marcos’ writings, particularly by way of his Mayan-inspired tales, where he draws on picturesque allegories to illustrate the connections between political behavior and human traits. The discordance between these anti-authoritarian progressive ideas and the personalism implied in Marcos’ charismatic authority is analyzed in Chapter 5. While he realizes that personal authority is politically effective—and even essential to build a foundation for sociopolitical change or at least to inspire such change—he is also acutely conscious of the dangers involved in being a cult figure, a caudillo or the political vanguard. It is contended that Marcos was (and still is) faced with a fundamental dilemma: how to use his charismatic authority to catalyze a truly progressive political process and at the same time avoid its ‘negative’ or overly personalistic and potentially authoritarian consequences. I suggest that these negative consequences need to be understood as arising from three different contexts that impact on Marcos’ role intellectually, politically and culturally, given that his thoughts and actions were not shaped in a vacuum. The first context is the global and national political stage, where he emerged (however briefly) as a cult figure. The danger here is the possibility that idolization and excessive focus on personality will deflect attention from the purposes of the movement. The second context is the Mexican political culture where Marcos is, by default, located and one that has traditionally been characterized by relations of power based on personalism and patronage. He therefore has to ensure that he is not behaving like a caudillo or that he is not being perceived as

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one; surprisingly, we note that in Mexico more than anywhere else this perception of the Subcomandante is not uncommon. The third and last context is the revolutionary Marxist tradition and its associated vanguard politics that shaped Marcos’ early intellectual formation. This is the most serious legacy that Marcos has to confront, for nothing less than blatant ambiguity (visible to the rest of the world) is created by the continuing vehement presence of Marxist ideas in his discourse and the simultaneous attempts he makes to distance himself from this legacy. Marcos attempts to defuse or neutralize the negative implications of his authority in a number of ways that are discussed in Chapter 6. The most interesting device he uses to avoid the quagmires described above is the creation of a masked alter-ego. Obviously numerous symbolic meanings can be attributed to the use of the mask, including equality and Indigenous historical invisibility. Nevertheless, I contend that the most befitting interpretation of the mask is one that sees it as an attempt to avoid the pitfalls of personalism and of Western representation since it separates the personal self from the person seen and heard by the public. ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ is meant to function as what Laclau refers to as an ‘empty signifier’, a blank figure upon which people can carve their own meaning, hence (in theory) their response to it should differ from their ‘normal’ response to a public personality. Overall, there is much evidence that Marcos deliberately attempts to neutralize the personalistic or authoritarian element of his own personal power. His actions could even be interpreted as a democratizing act reminiscent of Paul the apostle, an effort to ‘hand over’ his charismatic power to members of the community so that they can utilize it as they see fit. The second interpretation is probably a bold extension of the first, but either way this book concludes that Marcos is only partially successful in his quest to break the traditional cycle in Latin American politics, in avoiding the traps of personalism and in ‘democratizing charisma’.

Notes 1 Appleton (2001); Los Angeles Times quoted in Knudson (1998: 507); Stavans (2002: 387); Ronfeldt and Martinez (1997: 369); Rochlin (2003: 205). 2 Cueli (1994: 30); Krauze (2001: 27); García de León quoted in Gámez (1995); Stavans (2002: 387); Gómez Peña (1995: 90). 3 Romero (1994: 21). 4 Chapter 5 will offer an in-depth discussion of these positions. 5 History Will Absolve Me [1953] was written and spoken to denounce the brutality of Batista’s regime, to justify armed struggle and to explain the Cuban

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rebels’ program of action. As Castro has stated, this was not a socialist program, but one of nationalist liberation that was to set the foundations for the subsequent development of a socialist revolution (Castro in Minà 1991: 117– 118). 6 See Castro in Elliot and Dymally (1986: 203–209). 7 See Castro (1960). For a list of what the revolution delivered in its early years see Del Aguila (1984: 46) and Mankiewicz and Jones (1975, 59–61). See also Huberman and Sweezy’s Socialism in Cuba, (1969: 33–34, 47–48) for educational achievements in Cuba between 1957 and 1962. 8 See Tapia (1974: 460, 462) and Paul in the New Testament, 1389–1392. Paul refers to ‘speaking in tongues’ as one of the gifts of the spirit. See also Smith (1998). 9 There is wide-ranging literature on charismatic renewalist movements, for instance Pentacostalism in Christianity. For charisma and Christianity see McGuire (1982); Neitz (1987); Robbins (1988); Anderson (2004); Gordon and Hancock (2005); Lankauskas (2008). Nietz’s work is particularly interesting as it describes the direct and individual experience of ‘speaking in tongues’ as a challenge to institutions. For charisma and the Islamic faith see Takim (2006) and for charisma and Sufism see Werbner and Basu (1998). For the religious meaning of charisma in general see Parrinder (1987). 10 See for instance Burns’ Leadership, 1978, where the author makes a distinction between transactional and transformational leadership. For the debate on the use of the term ‘charisma’ at the micro level of analysis see Bass (1999); Beyer (1999); Yukl (1999). Even educational studies have adopted the term charisma in search of leadership traits for the creation of ideal educational settings, see Brubaker (2006). 11 Weber’s work has been edited and translated by a number of notable academics. See The Methodology of the Social Sciences (1949), edited and translated by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch, with a foreword by Edward Shils; Basic Concepts in Sociology (1962), introduced and translated by H.P. Secher; The Sociology of Religion (1963), introduced by Talcott Parsons and translated by Ephraim Fischoff; The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1964), translation of volume 1 of Economy and Society by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons and edited with an introduction by Talcott Parsons; Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers (1968), edited and with an introduction by S. N. Eisenstadt; Max Weber: The Interpretation of Social Reality (1971), edited and with an introductory essay by J.E.T. Eldridge; Max Weber: Selections in Translation (1978a), edited by W. G. Runciman and translated by E. Matthews; Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (1978b), volumes 1 and 2, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, translated by Ephraim Fischoff; Max Weber on Capitalism, Bureaucracy, and Religion: A Selection of Texts (1983), edited and partly translated by Stanislav Andreski; From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1991), edited, translated and with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills; Weber: Political Writings (1994), edited by Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs. 12 Most specifically, Marett’s theory of pre-animism links charisma to concepts like mana (a term coined by Marett himself), maga and orenda (Riesebrodt 1999: 8–9). Tambiah (1984: 338) defines mana as a “contagious

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and transmissible force possessed by both objects and spirit beings”. It is worth noting that the latter author argues that Weber concentrated mainly on the objectification of charisma in social institutions rather than on the objectification of charisma in objects such as talismans (1984: 335). See also Coleman (2004). 13 See (Riesebrodt 1999: 9). Also, Poewe (1992: 165–166) notes the importance of the religious dimension in the secular political context in terms of culture formation and social transformation. The role of religion in society is also discussed in relation to liberation theology by Rosado (1992) in the same volume, Twentieth-Century World Religious Movements in Neo-Weberian Perspective, 195–209. 14 Weber (1978b). 15 Weber (1978b: 241). 16 Riesebrodt (1999: 2). 17 See Draper (1998: 557); Riesebrodt (1999: 2); Turner (2003). 18 See Blau (1963: 305) and Roth (1979: 124). Weber’s historical and comparative sociological method consists of the use of trans-epochal and transcultural heuristic sociological devices called ‘ideal types’ that organize knowledge in categories. Selected features of the ideal types are extracted from specific historical situations, systemized and applied comparatively to diverse historical configurations in order to analyze distinctive comparable features of historical phenomena. The ‘ideal type’ has been the object of criticism in the literature as an inadequate tool for the portrayal of concrete realities (San Juan Jr 1967: 270), although Weber did specify that such ‘ideal types’ do not occur in pure form in the real world. The important point about the use of ‘ideal types’ is that they are not restricted to any specific historical era or context, thus making it possible to assign a potentially central role to charismatic authority and charisma. 19 Weber (1978b: 212–213, 217–241). 20 Weber (1978b: 241–254). 21 See Mommsen (1965: 44–45) and Downton (1973: 273). Mommsen (1974: 81), in another work, defines rationalization as “the universal advance of purely instrumentally-oriented social institutions, to the detriment of all valueoriented forms of social conduct”. See also Lassman (2000: 95) on Weber’s preoccupation with the effects of rationalization and disenchantment on the free human spirit. 22 ‘Politics as a vocation’ was originally a speech by Max Weber given at Munich University in 1918. See Weber (1991: 115–120). Villa argues that passion in Weber should be understood not as a form of power, but as devotion to a cause. The author states that Weber “wants to question the overly simple relationship that Western rationalism and the grandiose moral fervor of Christian ethics have posited between politics and ethics” (1999: 547). Weber clearly struggles between idealism (passion) and realism (rationality) in politics, with the scales slightly tipped in favour of ‘consequential realism’. See also Dow (1978); Gane (1997); Davis (1999); Starr (1999). Dow’s paper is particularly interesting with regard to Weber’s philosophy of history, where he qualifies charisma as a vehicle of release that needs to be guided or restrained by an ethic of responsibility. 23 Eisenstadt (1995: 198–201). See also di Piramo (2004).

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See Mommsen (1974: 79) and Schroeder (1987: 216–217). Lindholm (1990: 25). 26 Weber (1978b: 248). 27 See Weber (1978b: 246). Greenfield (1985) argues that there are two types of charisma in Weber’s analysis, one based on a personal quality (pure charisma) and the other based on the internalization of symbolic structures (routinized and transformed charisma). This division is seen by the author as essential to a resolution of Weber’s seemingly contradictory use of the concept as existent both inside and outside institutional boundaries. 28 Parkin (1982: 85). 29 Weber (1968: 49–50). 30 See Falco (1999: 74-75) and Smith (1998: 36-37). 31 Falco argues that Paul invented his charismatic theory to question the aristocratic hierarchical authority of the Corinthians, as his letters in the New Testament indicate (Paul in May and Metzger 1965: 1378–1407). These letters were written “to censure the ‘spiritual aristocracy’ of the church at Corinth” (Falco 1999: 73). Furthermore, Falco (1999: 75) states that Paul “uses a rhetoric of equality to quash the spiritual rebellion of the Corinthians, emphasizing the revolutionary egalitarianism of Christianity”. 32 Haley (1980: 185); Smith (1998: 34); Riesebrodt (1999: 5). 33 Weber (1978b: 216). 34 Haley (1980: 192–197). 35 Smith (1998: 43). 36 Riesebrodt (1999: 5–6). 37 See Smith (1998: 34, 46–51) and Riesebrodt (1999: 7–8). 38 See Smith (1998: 34) and Haley (1999: 196). 39 See Friedrich (1961: 16) and Rieff (2007). Friedrich betrays distaste at the idea of fluid boundaries between the religious and the political realm. However, his assumption that religious leaders are not preoccupied with power is highly questionable (1961: 15–20). See also Piovanelli (2005: 423) who defends the value-free Weberian qualification on the grounds that the charismatic is “nothing but a heuristic tool in the service of the historical reconstruction” and Baehr (2008) who comments on the effect of this qualification on Caesarism. Costa Pinto and Larsen (2007: 135–136), somewhat unconvincingly, add another category to Weber’s typology, that of ‘ideological authority’. 40 For challenging debates and critiques of Weber’s work see Blau (1963); Ratnam (1964); Mitzman (1985); Matheson (1987); Whimster and Lash (1987); Hennis (1988); Albrow (1990); Eisenstadt (1995); Turner (1996). Some scholars put forward a number of conditions upon which the usefulness of charisma as an analytical tool depends, see Eatwell (2006b: 144). 41 See Berger (1963: 950); Hindess (1987); Poewe (1992: 167); Turner (1996: 5); Rey (1998: 346–348); Hutt (2007). Bourdieu, as Hutt states, believes that the message and activities of a charismatic leader are generated by the society or by the social group in close proximity (or are latent in these loci) rather than by the individual leader. Other general critiques are that Weber was much more concerned with the effects rather than with the sources or origins of charisma. Weber seemed to concentrate on the struggle between charisma and bureaucracy and in doing so neglected to elaborate on the historical conditions 25

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and social processes that give rise to charismatic movements. As noted by some scholars, he did not specify how or why followers develop commitments within revolutionary movements and exactly which mechanisms legitimate authority. See Blau (1963); Downton (1973: 210–211); Merquior (1980: 137); Szakolczai (2001: 378). Moreover, since Weber was mainly concerned with the analysis of the historical processes involved in the transformation from charismatic movements to increasing rationalization, he offered no theory of revolution. See Blau (1963: 316) and Parkin (1982: 87). 42 See Albrow (1990: 162–165). Note that some scholars have identified the theme of personality in Weber’s work. Hennis (1988: 71), for instance, considers the tension between the external order and the demands of inner personality. 43 Parkin (1982: 76–77). 44 Skinner (1981: 40). In The Prince, Machiavelli (1979 [1513]: 135) states that it is necessary for a leader to “have a mind ready to turn itself to the way the winds of Fortune and the changeability of affairs require him”. 45 A couple of exceptions, for example, see Sieyès (1964 [1789]) and Burke (2003 [1790]). It is interesting to note the endurance of the concept of the ‘mindless crowd’. As late as 1985 Moscovici (1985: 38-39) argued quite convincingly that the masses submit to a leader because they “do not spontaneously tend towards democracy, but towards despotism”. This author describes charismatic leaders as totally committed, obsessed and convinced that what they believe is the will of God or absolute historical necessity; such leaders appeal to crowds because they endeavour to answer their questions and because they promise a better life. 46 Le Bon quoted in Moscovici (1985: 135). See also Moscovici (1986) and Camic (1980: 6). 47 Le Bon (1897: 10–11). 48 See Erikson (1958; 1970). 49 Fromm’s general thesis is that individuals in modern society find themselves helpless and bewildered by constant pressures; this general insecurity and lack of existential orientation are negative by-products of the condition of ‘freedom’ that often instigate a desire to escape life. See also Wilhelm Reich’s 1970 book called The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Franz Neumann’s The Democratic and the Authoritarian State, 1957. These ideas are taken a step further in Irvine Schiffer’s Charisma: A Psychoanalytic Look at Mass Society, 1973, where the author interprets the ‘charismatic image’ as one created by the psyche of the people and projected upon a chosen individual. His argument is that all leaders are to a substantial degree creations of the people, rather than the capacity for greatness emanating entirely from the leader himself or herself. 50 The other main work that comes to mind is Theodor Adorno et al. in a book called The Authoritarian Personality published in 1950. See also Fromm (1964); Mitscherlich (1976); Lasswell (1977); Kohut (1978); De Vries Kets (1997); Oakes (1997). 51 See Matthews (1969: 17) and Aizcorbe (1975: 134). Similarly, a number of Castro’s behavioral traits, including violence-prone rebelliousness, deceitfulness, and strategic opportunism, are traced back to his childhood by

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Gonzalez and Ronfeldt (1986) and in Perón: Una Biografía, 1999, Joseph A. Page argues that Perón was convinced that he was born to lead. 52 For instance, Lindholm (1990: 129) mentions the effect of a leader’s eyes in regard to Jim Jones and Willner (1984: 150) similarly refers to a comment that was made about Mussolini’s eyes. Kirkpatrick (1971: 31) labels Perón as attractive, articulate and handsome and Horowitz (1999: 29) describes him as tall and commanding; even his hands were viewed as part of his charm (Aizcorbe 1975: 133). Szulc (1986: 70–71), who has written one of the best biographies of Castro, describes him as an “immensely attractive and contagiously energetic man”, as well as endowed with prodigious memory and erudition. The literature on Marcos abounds with allusions to his erotic appeal (Gómez Peña 1995: 92) and his gifted story-writing (Gregory 2000: 6; Huntington 2000: 75). 53 See Marcus (1961: 239–240); Willner and Willner (1965: 78–79); Dow (1969: 315); Beyer (1999: 308). Furthermore, typologies that attempt to categorize traits and behavioral patterns of charismatic personalities in subgroups have not been all that successful, except for Burns’ book Leadership published in 1978, where the author makes a distinction between transactional and transformational leadership. 54 See Hughes (2002: 402, 410). 55 See Slater (2001: 3). For theorists such as Huntington, personalism and charismatic rule appear to be phenomena that conflict with political institutionbuilding. Charismatic leaders are caught in the dilemma of needing personal power to build institutions (and needing to build institutions to retain personal power), but to do so usually means relinquishing it (power), as the party and other organizations do not remain the embodiment of the leader indefinitely. See Huntington (1965: 423–424; 1970: 29). 56 Friedland (1964: 21). For quantitative studies on the correlation between charismatic authority and crisis see Bligh, Kohles and Pillai (2005) and Merolla, Ramos and Zechmeister (2007). Note that Costa Pinto and Larsen (2007: 132) seem to imply that crisis is ‘located’ or ‘invented’ by these leaders. See also Wolpe (1968); Cavalli (1986: 71); Lepsius (1986). Madsen and Snow’s 1991 book The Charismatic Bond is an excellent study of Juan Perón and Peronism that emphasizes the political and sociological context in preference to personal attributes. 57 Kane (2001: 31). 58 Lepsius (1986: 58, 62). See also Ratnam (1964: 348); Tucker (1970: 6994); Cavalli (1987: 324-325). 59 See Kahin, Pauker and Pye (1955: 1024–1025); Wallerstein (1964: 156); Willner and Willner (1965: 81); Bendix (1968: 617); Dow (1968: 332-336); Apter (1972: 304). Regarding post-charisma transitions that involve a change from a charismatic to a non-charismatic leader see Jarbawi and Pearlman (2007). Note that other instances of charismatic leadership occurred in postcommunist nations of Eastern Europe; again, we are talking about nationalist movements that perceive democracy as unable to resolve the problems created by the demise of the old order. The obvious example is Milošević in former Yugoslavia. See Pfaff (2002: 96–101). 60 Apter (1972: 233). 61 Willner (1984: 52).

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62 Willner and Willner (1965: 83–84). In his famous book Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 1983, Geertz argues that leaders and cults are social constructions and that political symbolism is an essential element of the charismatic strategy. The author illustrates this principle with a few examples of historical figures imbued with authoritative power that emanates largely from this symbolism and that is continuously played out in rituals and ceremonies. The symbolic dimensions of a society are not only a cultural phenomenon, they are also historical. In Reflections on Political Identity, 1988, Norton emphasizes the importance of historical paradigms for the public and phenomenal validation of charismatic authority, despite the fact that charisma itself (she notes) is a personal attribute. 63 Hunt (1988: 39). See also James (1936: 172); Stark and Bainbridge (1985: 173–174); Lindholm (2002). Lindholm’s work is a study of the religious cult Shree Rajneeshee, led by the Bhagwan. Charismatic leaders have thrived on these new forms of religion that may even be largely the projection of their own personalities (Jim Jones and Charles Manson are also examples). Following a different line, Tambiah’s The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets, 1984, paves the way to an interpretation of the source of charisma as originating in transcendental non-Western religions. 64 Norton (1988: 123, 141). For a discussion of Jesus as a charismatic figure see Sanders (2000) and Smith (2000); similarly for a discussion of Muhammad as a charismatic figure see Takim (2006). 65 Ratnam (1964: 347–349); Loewenstein (1966: 86); Gundle (2008). See also Wolpert (1965: 681); Bensmann and Givant (1975: 603-612); Glassman (1975: 635); Andina-Díaz (2006) (my view is that the author overstates the role of the media); Vokes (2007); Sheafer (2008). 66 Bensmann and Givant (1975: 609–611). The authors argue that the concept of pseudo-charisma obscures three features of the original concept: its personal nature, its revolutionary dimension and its irrationality. They further state that central to the political processes of the modern world is the contradiction between the impersonality of social relations and the use of images of personality (1975: 600, 611). 67 Kane (2001: 31–32). 68 Eisenstadt quoted in Falco (1999: 82). 69 Pappas (2005) makes a useful distinction between endemic and total crisis. 70 This is illustrated by examples in Australian politics at federal level with conservative Opposition Leader Tony Abbot claiming to be a ‘greenie’ while Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the election campaign of 2007 argued that he was an ‘economic conservative’. 71 Many authors, however, regard Clinton as charismatic. See for instance Phillips (2007). 72 On this topic see the excellent book by Mariano Plotkin entitled Mañana es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s Argentina, (2003: 39–82) as well as Plotkin (1993, 1995, 1998). See also Flores (1968); Reyes (1973); Crassweller (1987: 168–169); James (1988: 32–33); De Ipola (1995: 147); Torre (1995b); Chávez (1996). 73 Weber (1968: 48); Weber (1978b: 242). 74 Paul quoted in May and Metzger (1965: 1389).

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75 Falco (1999: 74). On Paul and the idea of charisma as a collective rather than individual experience see Blasi (1991: 147). The author observes that a construction of a charisma for Paul after he had been executed was motivated by the cultivation of a founding figure, thus “the charisma served as a motivating principle that allowed individuals to transcend their own individuality and to elaborate their sense of collective selfhood”. 76 Weber (1978b: 1116–1117; 1978b: 1112).

2 The Chiapas Story

History is illegal and subversive not just because it questions today, but also because it makes one believe (and struggle for) that another today is possible. And to conceal this silence, another mask … —Marcos ‘Above and Below: Masks and Silences’, 1998

To appreciate why charismatic authority is a problem for Marcos it is necessary to develop an understanding of the political culture and the historical circumstances that have shaped the Latin American context from which he has emerged, particularly in terms of leadership traditions and patterns. It is also useful to examine some of the key features of the Mexican political system. Patronage and co-optation, for instance, operated in conjunction with a number of economic and political factors to produce the conditions that led to the rise of the Zapatista Movement and the Chiapas Rebellion of 1994. The location of the movement in the Lacandona Jungle and its distinctiveness, particularly in terms of its military wing, the EZLN, are argued to be the outcome of some very specific circumstances. While in some ways a product of the past, in other ways this movement represented the start of something new—not only in Mexico but also beyond. Politics and Leadership in Latin America

The Latin American political scene is often perceived to be (with some justification) dramatic and volatile, rich in revolutions, golpes de estado,1 charismatic leaders, flamboyant politicians, omnipotent militaries, versatile parties, ambiguous ideologies and unstable governments. Although this is not an inaccurate description, it is merely a description of the symptoms rather than a substantial diagnosis of the political dynamics occurring in this part of the world. Military coups, for instance the one that took place in Honduras in June 2009, are usually the outcome of the inability of these countries to shift political power within legal and constitutional means.

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Modern Latin American politics can be traced to the nineteenth century independence movements at the end of the colonization period. The criollo class, whose economic and social influence was growing, began to feel the impact of the ideas from the French Enlightenment and the American Revolution, and consequently started to resent the control imposed by the Spanish Crown governors. The criollos finally gained political power, aided by the mestizos.2 The resulting process of state formation was rendered complex by the absence of ‘nations’, defined as coherent units in a cultural, ethnic and political sense, while the temporary alliance between criollos and mestizos was doomed to end, as the latter began to challenge the former in a bid for more political power.3 Latin American politics scholars have often remarked that independence movements were not based on radical thinking or concerned with progressive social change and neither were a large number of revolutions, revolts, insurgencies and other forms of conflict—in other words, these were not projects that necessarily aimed at fundamental changes in the political system.4 As Chasteen points out, they became “an integral part of the political process”, although occasionally strategies of co-optation and repression by the ruling groups did not succeed with a particular insurgent or revolutionary group, and a genuine revolution would occur, as in the case of Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico and Nicaragua.5 Returning to the independence movements, it is clear that most political and civil gains were limited to the ruling classes. Nevertheless, after independence was won new actors began to enter the political scene, such as the middle to lower classes, peasants, unions, students and intellectuals, while various Indigenous populations became active in the political life of some of these countries. Also, with the rise of literacy and secularism, alternate discourses and new concepts such as socialism, human rights and economic equality began to circulate more widely, although any challenges to the traditional political system were diluted by the resilience of personalism, patronage and clientelism. These phenomena rested on values shaped by the Hispanic feudal system, the Roman Catholic Church and conservative Western political theories like the ‘divine rights of kings’, all of which were influential in colonial Latin America. Practices of patronage, co-optation and repression continued, co-existing with some liberal notions; they still survive today, albeit interwoven with more modern and progressive ideas. As Wiarda and Kline state, such values became “deeply embedded in the customs and political process”.6 The struggle for power in the aftermath of independence was usually played out between liberals (who wished for regional autonomy)

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and conservatives (who wanted a centralized military-bureaucratic state); institutional politics, representative mechanisms and pluralism were very minimal features of the existing political systems. The political process itself was paternalistic (that is, exclusive of genuine popular participation and based on the idea that the masses need to be led) and hierarchical; as a result, political change tended to occur from the top down. The main political actors were the church, the military, the landowners and the business interests. The military saw itself as a natural political arbiter. It maintained institutional privileges and a sizeable portion of the budget at its disposal, its authority often above or on par with its civilian counterparts. As a matter of fact, since independence the military has played a key role in the political fate of most Latin American countries, initially to maintain order amongst regional warring factions and later as a provider of national security in the wake of the relatively successful guerrilla left-wing movements of the 1950s and 1960s. This led to ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’ or extensive military and civilian technocratic involvement in politics, a phenomenon extensively explored by a number of renowned scholars.7 Generally speaking, power in Latin America has been concentrated on the executive rather than the legislative or the judiciary, with minimal application of the concept of checks and balances. The judiciary has a particularly unhappy record in the history of this continent, as largely ineffective and corrupted. Even today, the persistence of difficulties in the processes of resolution of human rights issues is clearly the result of the inability of the present judicial systems to deal with the past. This is the case, for instance, in Argentina and Chile.8 Another consequence of the excessive power of the executive is (without overstating this classic argument) the weakness of institutions such as political parties, which often tend to be the creation of prominent leaders and therefore do not function in quite the same way as parties in Western liberal democratic systems. The power of the executive is also evident in a number of Latin American constitutions that, although quite advanced in terms of socioeconomic rights, often contain provisos for the purpose of easy suspension of civil and human rights guarantees.9 The fact that these constitutions leave little room for judicial reinterpretation and can easily be modified, suspended or simply ignored is part of the strategy adopted by many authoritarian regimes to mask repressive measures with a façade of legitimacy. Most importantly, the emphasis on the executive in the Latin American political system reflects the importance of personalismo,10 defined in politics as the situation where the people prefer to follow the leadership of an individual rather than the guidance of an institution or

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ideology. It is worth noting that the idea of the individual did not die with Carlyle, it is just the opposite, the ‘heroic’ individual who dies a noble death seems to be back in vogue in today’s academic discourse. 11 Bourne defines personalism in the political context as “a state of politics in which an individual appeals for public support or wins power primarily on his own merits, and only secondarily on the basis of party or military support, or on the basis of a particular philosophy or programme”.12 Populism, caudillismo and dictatorships are generally speaking systems based on personalistic rule that may or may not feature charismatic leadership. It follows that a charismatic leader is personalistic, but a personalistic leader is not necessarily charismatic (Pinochet is an obvious example). Most crucial for the purposes of this book is the observation that charismatic authority is not possible without elements of personalism. The prototype of the personalistic leader in Latin America is the caudillo, a figure that emerged as a consequence of the collapse of centralized governments in the wake of the independence movements, becoming institutionalized in the aftermath to such an extent that we now speak of caudillismo as a political system and one of the many concepts in politics that are amenable to a number of definitions. For example, it has been described as a “system of rule by a strong man who exercises dictatorial powers”13 and as a “means for the selection and establishment of political leadership in the absence of a social structure and political groupings adequate to the functioning of representative government”.14 Furthermore, Gilmore states that: Caudillismo as a system of political leadership for the state was an inherently unstable hierarchical arrangement, a structure composed of a network of personal alliances cemented together by community of interest, by force of personality, by ties of friendship and even of family … Caudillos were the natural leaders of a society whose colonial order was destroyed before the bases for an independent society had taken firm shape.15

Caudillismo in its contemporary meaning often refers—sometimes in a derogatory fashion—to a leadership style rather than to a political system, one that usually describes strong and authoritarian figures, leaders who revel in the exertion of personal power or those who wish to relive the past glory of such mythical figures.16 In any case, as a system of local and regional informal leaders it was a widespread phenomenon in Latin America for a number of reasons. The collapse of centralized governments had left these countries in a state of political, social and

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economic turmoil, which meant that power was easily concentrated into the hands of individuals. Many civil wars erupted, while anti-liberal and anti-democratic conditions, according to Pendle, were further reinforced by Europe’s wave of Romantic nationalism.17 This, combined with weak political institutions, seemed to provide the perfect recipe from which caudillismo was able to develop as a successful political system, although it should be remembered that caciques had existed prior to the Wars of Independence.18 As Pendle states, there were a number of other elements that facilitated this system of leadership. Amongst these we can count poverty and illiteracy, cultural heterogeneity, the longstanding tradition of authoritarianism, the geography of the continent and the hacienda system.19 There are several interpretations of the phenomenon of caudillismo in the literature. Chasteen, in his 1995 book Heroes on Horseback draws on popular culture, characterizing the caudillo as a ‘culture hero’ and as a symbol of collective identity, thereby placing the leader-follower relationship at the forefront of his analysis.20 Other academics have opted for more ambiguous definitions. Cuevillas, for instance, calls caudillismo a ‘specific form of monarchy’. Writing in the 1950s, he justifies this system on the premise that all associations are hierarchical and interdependent, but most importantly, he draws a connection between caudillos and charisma: I would use ‘caudillaje’ to apply to that regime which consists of the personification or incarnation of authority, where he who governs acts with an extraordinary charismatic moral ascendancy over his people, advising them, guiding them, leading them paternally. The power of the caudillo is inspired authority before it is juridical authority.21

The author almost glorifies caudillismo, strenuously arguing that such leaders are not dictators, tyrants or despots and that they govern with virtue, love and everlasting commitment.22 Perhaps, like Weber, Cuevillas was also preoccupied with the depersonalization of power associated with liberal rationalism. A rather different but nevertheless popular interpretation of caudillismo is that it is a successful way of providing much-needed order to counteract the precariousness and potential anarchy of Latin American political systems.23 What is certain is that the history of Latin American political and social institutions cannot be understood without some appreciation of the importance of this widespread phenomenon. Caudillos are often described as outlaws, horsemen, military chieftains or dictators who were ready to employ violence or force for

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their own ends, either supported by the national armed forces or by informal armies of gauchos or llaneros.24 Some were eccentric, and accordingly devised bizarre and dramatic political ceremonies and symbolic rituals. Argentina’s Juan Manuel de Rosas (who ruled formally and informally from 1829 to 1852), for instance, forced the people of Buenos Aires to wear red ribbons as a sign of loyalty. They were often (but definitely not always) mestizos from the lower classes of rural areas and uneducated; some have become celebrities, if not globally, at least in Latin America. In the nineteenth century famous caudillos included Venezuela’s José Antonio Páez, Guatemala’s Manuel Estrada Cabrera, Peru’s José Rufino Echenique, Argentina’s Juan Manuel de Rosas, Mexico’s Antonio López de Santa Anna, Paraguay’s Francisco Solano López and Bolivia’s Andrés Santa Cruz. The most famous caudillos of the twentieth century (although here the term is used more loosely) were Venezuela’s Juan Vicente Gómez, Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista, Mexico’s Porfirio Díaz, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Haiti’s Francois Duvalier and Panama’s Manuel Antonio Noriega. There are many more, as attested by the spate of relatively recent books on the subject.25 One point of interest is that they were all men, something that was probably due to the influence of the Hispanic Catholic patriarchy and the well-known Latin America cultural phenomenon of sexual and physical male pride known as machismo. The political motivations of caudillos differed. They might have been in pursuit of wealth and power26 or they might have been corrupt and ruthless. Mexico’s Antonio López de Santa Anna is often portrayed this way, although Fowler’s book presents a totally different picture. 27 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an Argentine president, ridiculed the personalistic power implications of caudillismo in his book Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism [1844]: How does one teach the idea of personalist government to a republic which has never had a king? The red ribbon is a token of the terror which goes with you everywhere, in the street, in the bosom of the family; you must think of it when dressing and undressing.28

Doubtlessly, caudillos evoke images of romantic wildness and revolutionary ruthlessness. In reality they were not revolutionary in the traditional sense of the word; on the contrary, they were often the guardians of the existent social structure and operated through wellestablished networks of patronage. This is not to say that they all lacked ideological or ethical motivation; as Lynch points out, “the caudillos

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were creatures of conditions and agents of elites, but they also had their own scale of values, and chose their own modes of social control”. 29 Some went even further. For instance, José Rafael Carrera in Guatemala (1839–1865) and Manuel Isidoro Belzu in Bolivia (1848–1855) are examples of outstanding traditional folk caudillos in Latin American history, whose vision was a society where exploitation was kept to a minimum and where Indian values and traditions were respected and validated. Belzu, just like Perón, spoke from the balcony of his presidential palace to the people, although his discourse was much more revolutionary.30 It is important to elaborate briefly on the basis of a caudillo’s authority, namely on the degree of power that derived from their personal appeal, largely independent of any institutional leadership role. As Sabsay suggests in Ideas y Caudillos, the obedience, loyalty and respect they commanded were the foundations of their leadership.31 In general, these ‘heroes on horseback’, as Chasteen refers to them, appealed to the imagination of their followers and elicited strong devotion. They were generally accepted in Latin America (and so were their sometimes questionable methods) for the simple reason that they were seen as unifiers and bearers of order and stability. Argentina’s de Rosas, who enjoyed wide support from the gauchos due to his propastoral policies, successfully unified a country (although it seems that this was not actually his aim) bitterly divided between Buenos Aires, where the porteños wanted centralized government, and the internal provinces that wanted autonomy from Buenos Aires.32 Although various forms of clientelism or patronage reinforced this base of authority, such base was not dependent on a substantive value (such as legality or tradition) and therefore tended to remain precarious. Often caudillos would seek to stabilize their power and had to devise their own ways to achieve legitimacy (or the affirmation of the right to rule) in political systems that did not offer it automatically. In the process of legitimation we can see the importance of ceremony and symbolism, as de Rosas’ red ribbons suggest, and the necessity to look the ‘part’ of the grand dramatic character, whether on horseback or on a balcony. Once and if a caudillo achieved a formal position authority was confirmed rather than conferred.33 Often described in the literature as charismatic, caudillos bear many similarities to populist leaders. As Lynch argues, “Some of the primitive caudillos, Rosas for example, evoke vague premonitions of populism: dynamic leadership, economic protection, the appeal to the populace as well as to proprietors”.34 One difference between the caudillo and the populist leader is that the latter operates mostly (although not always) within the constitutional system:

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most populist leaders are elected. Another difference is that the populist leader operates in the context of mass politics. Populist leaders are normally described as forceful and usually charismatic demagogues who forge an intense, almost mystical bond with their following and who offer an anti-establishment discourse that usually includes a transformative (but not necessarily progressive) vision for a new social order.35 These leaders are able to mobilize their followers and in doing so they are known for their minimal reliance on institutionalized forms of mediation (unless they are their own creations), although it is not wise to overstate the case. Knight, for instance, deflates the notion of ‘unmediated mobilization’ that so often arises in relation to populism, arguing that in practice the rather simplistic leader-led dichotomy is always transcended, as the instances of Perón’s labour leaders and Cárdenas’ caciques show.36 Similarly, Raanan Rein in The Shadow of Perón: Juan Atilio Bramuglia and the Second Line of Argentina's Populist Movement argues in favour of the importance of ‘secondary’ leadership.37 What we can surmise in light of these objections is that the notion of an ‘unmediated’ relationship between leaders and followers is a relative one. Populism is perhaps the most interesting phenomenon in Latin American politics, not least because it tends to reinvent itself and adapt to different circumstances. It is generally considered to have occurred in three fairly distinct waves: classical (1930s–1960s), neo-liberal (1980s– 1990s) and the contemporary version that blends various left and centreleft ideologies. Populist leaders have dominated Latin American politics, with three classic figures emerging above the others: Argentina’s Juan Domingo Perón (1946–1955, 1973–1974), Mexico’s Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940) and Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945, 1951–1954).38 There are countless definitions of populism, of course. It can be considered a movement, an ideology, a strategy or a leadership style, but the essence of this phenomenon is well captured by Laclau who argues that populism arises as an alternative discourse in response to the crisis of the dominant ideological discourse. This response features the inclusion of the people in the discourse of a class “which seeks to confront the power bloc as a whole, in order to assert its hegemony”.39 The political features of populism are complemented by a specific economic project which in its classic form was based on corporatist economic nationalism and extensive state intervention with widespread redistributive methods that were meant to create a material foundation for popular sector support. The rationale of the classic populist economic model can be found in the now discredited dependency theory that features ISI (import substitution industrialization) as its centerpiece,

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essentially a reaction to the exploitative practices of imperialism and to the export-oriented development model that was (and still is) at the heart of liberal economics. In later versions of populism, specifically in the neo-liberal case (neo-populism), the corporatist state-led model was abandoned in favour of market-oriented reform.40 In this model various government programs—ostensibly enacted to alleviate poverty— function as the economic idiosyncratic factor that successfully blends neo-liberal macro economic policies with redistributive populist practices. The obvious examples are Salinas’ PRONASOL (National Solidarity Program) in Mexico and Fujimori’s poverty relief programs. Despite qualms from the scholarship about the neo-liberal label, this particular brand of populism goes a long way to show that the style of leadership involved is an effective political weapon, capable of selling the neo-liberal economic project to a gullible public.41 An important dimension of populist leadership is the authoritarianism that most populist leaders either possess from the beginning or acquire in time. As a consequence, the recurring resurgence of populism in Latin America causes concerns that democratic transition and consolidation processes are being continuously crippled by the success of personalistic forms of leadership over and above institutions.42 The trouble is that populist leaders do not place much importance on negotiation or compromise with opposing parties or groups, appealing instead to notions of the ‘common good’ and ‘national interest’ to legitimize their actions. Their self-defense is that they are more democratic than their non-populist counterparts, because they do not let procedures and institutions get in the way of their rapport with the people and therefore they are in a position to address the popular will; in fact they argue that they embody (rather than represent) the popular will. Indeed, the debate on whether populism debases or enhances democracy is ongoing.43 Although one would be justified in suspecting that in populism there is an element of contempt towards democracy and its pretensions, in practice the story is much more complex.44 And in the end, the position of a populist leader is almost always precarious given the (sometimes more apparent than real) antiestablishment nature of their discourse. The fact that populist regimes were often overthrown or succeeded by national security military regimes also proves this point. It was the rhetoric, the excessive personalism and the institutional restructuring these leaders undertook that threatened the security of conservative ruling elites, no matter how non-revolutionary all these changes might have been in substance. Whilst populism might be perceived as a problem it remains part of the

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solution in Latin American politics, due to its ability to mobilize (or appease?) the people. Its transformative or progressive potential is as intense as ever at the start, yet often limited by political circumstances, demarcated by reformist agendas or/and overshadowed by the everpresent spectres of personalism and authoritarianism. To many critics and observers of Latin American politics personal power is one of several legacies that Latin America has been unable to outgrow. The Mexican Political System

The Mexican political system, the basic principles of which are enshrined in the 1917 Constitution, is best described as one of authoritarian corporatism.45 Four of its dominant features are worth noting: the predominance of the executive, limited pluralism, one-party hegemony for many decades and time-restrained presidentialism. The latter is unusual in the Latin American context, where presidential reelection is the norm; in Mexico a president is elected for six years but cannot be constitutionally re-elected. The Mexican system is also characterized by complete centralization of power and authority (the judicial and legislative branches) in the hands of the executive, namely the president and the party in power that for over 70 years—until 2000—was the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Most political groups and interests are represented by corporatist organizations under the control of the state. In general, this system has been sustained by a patronage-driven network of personal allegiances and loyalties, where power relations have been articulated in a personalistic and informal manner and where caciques and caudillos have traditionally mediated between the state and the people. Since these features are not specifically temporal, institutional or ideological but of political culture, opposition parties and non-government organizations have tended to reproduce them.46 The PRI has been called “not a party in the American sense but more of a family firm and social insurance scheme that has co-opted hundreds of thousands if not millions of supporters by handouts”.47 Emerging from the PNR (National Revolutionary Party) of 1928 founded by Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–1928), it was then reorganized by Cárdenas (1934–1940) in its present sectors under the name of PRM (Party of the Mexican Revolution). More specifically, this reorganization consisted of the agrarian sector (CNC, National Peasants’ Confederation), the labour sector (CTM, Mexican Workers’ Confederation) and the middle-class sector (CNOP, National Confederation of Popular Organizations). In 1942 its name was changed

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to Institutional Revolutionary Party and from that point it was increasingly molded to provide a political instrument for the modernization and nationalization of the polity by the oligarchy, as well as the centralization of a country that had traditionally been run by the system of caudillos and caciques mentioned above. This party has always been ideologically amorphous and known to adopt reformist strategies that have made political adaptation to changing circumstances possible in times of crisis.48 To do this, it has relied on a strategy of co-optation that attempted to absorb most of the opposition, in conjunction with repressive measures and tactical retreat from untenable positions when co-optation did not deliver the intended results. For instance, the PRI successfully co-opted labor chiefs by distributing favors in exchange for their vote and support of its policies.49 The PRI also never allowed any strong autonomous centers of power to develop—for instance, the FEP (Electoral People’s Front) was not allowed to register as a political party. Put more subtly, the success of the PRI had derived from its ability to respond rapidly and consistently to political conflict and thus maintain stability.50 Modern Mexican politics have largely been shaped by what is known as ‘the interrupted revolution’ that began in 1910 as a challenge to the rule of dictator Porfirio Díaz and its shortcomings. Before then, Mexico had fought against Spanish colonial rule with a massive nationalist revolution, subsequently losing almost half of its territory to America in 1847. In the 1860s the Mexican conservatives (backed by French armed forces) fought the Mexican liberals (supported by the US). The US faction won in 1867, leading the way to domestic capitalism, inclusion in global capitalism and the secular state. Under the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911) inequity and exploitation predominated, particularly in the countryside with the hacienda system (large estates). By 1910 the fact that 97 percent of the land was owned by 1 percent of the population paved the way for the Mexican Revolution. After the overthrow of the Díaz regime, Mexico went through more than a decade of insurrections, civil wars and fragmentation of the political system, with national heroes Francisco Pancho Villa leading the fight in the northern states and Emiliano Zapata in the south. Although the revolution has been subject to various interpretations by a number of scholars, there seems to be general agreement that the PRI official government regarded itself as its legitimate heir, that power relations were left unchanged and that authoritarian traditions continued to prevail in Mexico.51 As Pansters notes:

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The ideology of the revolution has effectively marked the boundaries of public debate, thereby limiting the emergence of alternative political discourses. This ideology acted as a unifying force and it formed the basis of an exclusive claim to political power, thereby hampering the development of ideological pluralism.52

Moreover, according to Foweraker, many popular movements in Mexico over the last few decades have not challenged the institutional system, but rather have attempted to secure its recognition.53 Until the 1970s, the PRI-led political system functioned relatively well, due to its organization of electoral support in exchange for the distribution of goods and services to the masses and its overall corporatist arrangement, which ensured that the changes caused by rapid industrialization did not impair economic and social stability. But urbanization and industrialization were moving too fast and the point was reached when corporatist organizations were no longer representative of all interest groups; by the end of the 1980s it was clear that these institutions were failing to fulfill their mission. The regime began to respond to pressure as early as 1977 with a series of electoral and welfare reforms. 54 Existing corporatist organizations were revamped and programs like PRONASOL were enacted, ostensibly to address social problems such as unemployment, malnutrition and housing shortages. In practice, however, this sort of program aimed to retain government support amongst the poor and did not challenge traditional structures thus “[PRONASOL] has done little to break away from the traditional PRI practices of clientism, arbitrariness and the lack of the clear rule of law”.55 For example, some funds from Salinas’ 1991 National Solidarity Campaign were appropriated by corrupt officials and political bosses and distributed to loyal PRI voters only, never to reach the neediest Indian communities, such as the ones in the eastern rainforest of Chiapas.56 Another way the government attempted to ‘weather the storm’ was by continuing to create organizations that were meant to ‘neutralize’ those that were oppositional or non-compliant.57 That these strategies did not succeed in halting the downhill slide of the PRI was evident even before the Chiapas Rebellion: a drop in the vote of 25 percent between 1962 and 1987 was registered while the PAN (National Action Party) kept gaining electoral strength.58 The presence of internal rival factions in the PRI resulted in the assassination of their own presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in March 1994 and of General Secretary José Francisco Ruíz Massieu in September of the same year. In the 1997 elections, the PRI lost its majority control in the Chamber of Deputies and its control of Mexico City’s local

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government, when PRD (Democratic Revolution Party) candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas became the mayor.59 Finally, in the last two national elections, candidates from the PAN have won: Vicente Fox Quesada in 2000 and more recently, in July 2006, Felipe de Jesús Calderón. Chiapas: Economic Preconditions for Rebellion

Geographically, Chiapas is divided into a number of different regions: the highlands (Los Altos) in the centre, the Cañadas (the canyons) in the east, the Central Valley in the south-west and the Lacandona Jungle or the rain forest in the north-east, recognized as one of the world’s most bio-diverse areas (see Map 6.1). In Chiapas we find one of Mexico’s highest proportions of Indigenous inhabitants, from 27 percent in some areas up to 80 percent in the Lacandona Jungle and in the highlands. The collective broad ethnic group is that of the Maya peoples and within this group there are several large subgroups: Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Mam, Chol and Zoque. Chiapas is also the richest region in Mexico in terms of resources. It is a producer of lumber, corn and beef as well as bananas, honey, melons, avocados and cocoa. According to literature from the late 1990s and early 2000s it possessed one of the world’s largest untapped oil fields and was responsible for the production of nearly 50 percent of Mexico’s natural gas and 60 percent of its hydroelectric power, as well as much of its coffee and oil. Paradoxically, Chiapas was (and still is) one the poorest states in Mexico in terms of standard of living. In some areas, at the turn of the century, 70 percent of Indigenous homes did not have electricity, only 10 percent had running water and only half had access to clean drinking water. Over 70 percent of the population lived below the poverty line and the state had the highest illiteracy rate in Mexico, that is, 56 percent. In Chiapas we also find the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rate in the country.60 This mirrors the situation described by Marcos in ‘Chiapas: the Southeast in two Winds, a Storm and a Prophecy’, a piece full of symbolisms (to which I will return to in a later chapter) but also a critique of the actions of the Mexican government that have done nothing to ameliorate the situation.61

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MAP 2.1: CHIAPAS Source: Courtesy of Bill Weinberg and Verso Publishers, from Homage to Chiapas. London: Verso, 2002, xxiv.

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We have seen that in Mexico national stability was achieved by an ideology that was relatively inclusive (by means of co-optation) and reformist, but that coexisted with repressive measures.62 In Chiapas, these dynamics were (and still are) most evident, but with less emphasis on the inclusive and more on the repressive features. Corrupt sheriffs and the perpetuation of traditional networks of caciques provided the PRI with their largest electoral percentage in Chiapas for decades. For instance, in 1991, 50 villages turned out one hundred percent of the vote.63 The caciques of Chiapas are often landowners as well as the principal local representatives of the PRI, supported by local elites of politicians and businessmen who enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the population. Repression is perpetrated on behalf of these powerful social actors by pistoleros (hired gunmen) and guardias blancas, paramilitary groups that were originally formed in the 1920s and employed by landowners or cattle ranchers.64 There is little doubt that this state of affairs galvanized Chiapas for the events of 1994, but why Chiapas rather than a number of other areas of Mexico, where poverty and repression were also present? The answer is complex and it is therefore necessary to identify a number of both immediate and long-term economic and political factors, originating at various levels (global, national and local) and understood in relation to the cultural and social context of Chiapas. The first and most important economic factor to consider is the struggle for land, a problem of historical proportions since the days of the Mexican Revolution.65 Much of the scholarship interprets the land issue partially as the failure of the revolution to break away from the capitalist system and to reach Chiapas.66 Others argue that the revolution did improve the standards of living of the peasants and that land redistribution did in fact eventually take place in Chiapas in the late 1930s. In general, however, it seems that the ejido-based land reform that followed the Mexican Revolution—where portions of land owned by the state that cannot be sold, rented or used as collateral are administered communally by campesinos—was slower and more uneven in this region than anywhere else in Mexico.67 The old problem of land was aggravated by the effects of global capitalism on Mexican economic policy and subsequently on the economy of Chiapas. A set of novel circumstances related to the increasing integration of Mexico in the global economy meant increased vulnerability of the nation to changes and fluctuations in world markets. This pattern began with the oil boom in the 1970s, its collapse and the paralysis that followed in 1982, when oil prices dropped and the debt crisis set in. This, in turn, meant US-led restructuring of the Mexican

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economy by the IMF and the World Bank. The structural adjustment policies that were implemented to address the problem of foreign debt repayment challenged Mexico’s sovereignty. In practical terms, they meant cuts in social expenditure, privatization of state corporations and national industries as well as the abandonment of protectionist laws to limit foreign ownership and competition as stipulated by the 1917 Constitution; currency had to be devalued and austerity programs imposed.68 In terms of agriculture, this meant the end of agrarian reform, the privatization of rural resources and the disbandment of infrastructural supports. The struggle to promote private investment, to modernize the rural sector and to encourage the NAFTA agreement so that Mexico could join the constellation of powerful capitalist countries eventually led to the amendment of Article 27 by Salinas in 1991. The original Article 27 that was the basis for the creation of ejidos was amended to authorize the buying, mortgaging, renting and selling of any parcel of land, including ejido land, thus allowing the reestablishment of large estates. It should be noted that although Article 27 is often hailed as progressive, it was believed by some to have been more of a hindrance than a benefit to the Maya peoples, because in these circumstances they had no rights as ‘tribes’ over their historical domains.69 One immediate economic factor that accelerated the events of 1994 was the NAFTA Agreement. It is certainly symbolic that the Zapatistas chose January 1 as the date for the rebellion (the day the agreement was signed), but it should be remembered that NAFTA is a symptom of preexisting longer-term global and national economic conditions, rather than a cause or the cause of the events of January 1994.70 Another economic decision that impacted adversely on the Indigenous communities was the collapse of the 1989 International Coffee Agreement, which meant that the price of coffee was allowed to float and drop by half as it was deregulated. What happened next is that the government cut coffee subsidies and dissolved the only agency that provided assistance to coffee growers, the Instituto Mexicano Del Café or INMECAFÉ.71 A similar situation occurred with regard to maize production. Overall, between 1970 and 1990 the percentage of the population in Chiapas employed in the agricultural sector decreased from 73 to 58 percent.72 Of course, there are those who argue that during the last few decades of its regime the PRI implemented an economic program that yielded positive overall results in Mexico. To a degree, this may have been true of Chiapas as well,73 but by the same token, commercialization may have led to an increase in wealth discrepancies amongst different socio-ethnic groups within the highlands. It almost

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certainly meant disparities between the highlands and the rest of the state, particularly the Lacandona Jungle and the Montes Azules Reserve, areas particularly known for their poverty. Moreover, according to Ouweneel, another consequence of commercialization was the decline of traditional community practices.74 Although the implementation of neo-liberal reforms was initially facilitated by the existing corporatist political structures, the neo-liberal project put strain on the traditional structures of patronage channeled through the PRI-controlled peasants and labor organizations in Chiapas, as it did everywhere else in Mexico. The PRI found it progressively hard to legitimize itself as the true heir to the revolution. Intertwined with these dynamics were allegations of narcotics trafficking by the government and of general corruption in the Mexican political system, made blatantly obvious by the allegedly fraudulent election of Salinas in 1988. Overall, it seemed that the one-party system had become obsolete, but that it was not being replaced by a new system. A contradiction was thus created by the existence of a patronage-driven network on one hand and an increasingly mature civil society on the other, as Hernández Navarro—the assistant editor of the left-leaning La Jornada newspaper and a clever political commentator—points out. This state of affairs also reflected the failure of the Mexican left to promote change. 75 Aggravating these economic factors was the historical context that acts as a backdrop to the political landscape of Chiapas, characterized by long-standing racism and discrimination against Indigenous populations. This is evident in the social history of Chiapas as one marred by the exploitation of Indigenous labor, first by the Spanish and then by the mestizos. To this we can add the fact that Chiapas historically is, as Gall notes, the state in Mexico with the largest number of rebellions over land, religious freedom, political rights and exploitation.76 This tradition of struggle intensified the impact of a number of major political factors: the Student Movement of 1968, the tradition of peasant and Indigenous activism, liberation theology, the impact of various guerrilla and leftwing groups as well as the presence of Guatemalan refugees. Chiapas: Political Preconditions for Rebellion

The Mexican Student Movement is a turning point in national history. It began in the late 1950s and continued in the late 1960s, with the famous strike and the tragic massacre at Tlatelolco Square in October 1968, when the army opened fire on thirty thousand UNAM students. If it were possible to pinpoint the exact time of decline of the legitimacy of the Mexican government it would be in 1968, for by then it was clear

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that the standard techniques of co-optation and repression were no longer fully effective. This particular student movement advocated direct democracy and rejected the bureaucratized mode of student organizations of the past. In August 1969 a strike was called and a National Strike Council was formed, with loose coordinating powers over the operations of a number of autonomous committees. The rejection of rigid hierarchical forms of organization was extended to its leadership: the council was headed by a rotating directorate of representatives from the one hundred and twenty eight participating schools. The point was to “move away from ‘personalities’ and the identification of the struggle with specific leaders towards more democratic forms emphasizing shared responsibilities and power”.77 This strategy made it difficult for the Mexican government to co-opt, control or eliminate the movement. It is certainly interesting to note that this antipathy towards centralized, personalistic and authoritarian rule was to be echoed in the later ideas and organization of the EZLN. The Student Movement spread to the provinces and gained support amongst the wider population, including some unions and some peasant organizations. There was anger at the greed of the government, its corruption and its repressive measures, but because there were so many different groups involved in the movement, the demands formulated were not revolutionary but rather fluid, reformist and moderate, calling for the recognition of constitutional rights and for the protection of civil liberties. More specifically, there were calls for an end to flagrant human rights abuses, for the release of all political prisoners and for the repeal of those articles of the Penal Code that allowed this abuse to occur. 78 The Mexican government dealt with the overall situation in a harsh fashion, with the use of brutal force that turned out to be fatal for the protesters after all. Rival factions began to emerge in the student council and it gradually disintegrated. Nevertheless, the 1968 Student Movement provided the foundation for a resilient form of political activism, as many of those students made their way from Mexico City to the provinces and became part of a multitude of national clandestine left-wing movements. This trend was reinforced by the fact that a number of government-sponsored groups continued to fail to adequately represent the interests of their members at both the state and local levels. Another form of political activism in Mexico is evident in its long history of peasant organizations, ideologically influenced by the ideas of revolutionary icon Emiliano Zapata, the central figure of the Mexican Revolution. An advocate of agrarian reform, Zapata created agrarian commissions to distribute land, established a rural loan bank and tried to organize the sugar industry in cooperatives. Associated with him is the

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slogan ‘land and liberty’, the 1911 Plan de Ayala and the 1915 Zapatista Ley Agraria (Zapatista Agrarian Law).79 Peasant organizations started to form in the 1940s and proliferated in the 1970s and 1980s. Although they promoted various benefits for their members rather than engaging in open confrontation with the state, several were large and powerful enough to virtually be political movements, for instance CIOAC, UU and OCEZ.80 Peasant organizations were generally marginalized by the political system through legal and other repressive means, but the government was largely unable to co-opt them.81 The official left or the PCM (the Mexican Communist Party) also played an important grassroots leadership role in the formation of many of the peasant movements in the 1960s and in the first half of the 1970s; in 1963 the PCM founded the CCI (Independent Peasants Union).82 Support for peasant organizations also came from other workers’ groups such as influential trade unions and a democratic teachers’ movement that embraced their cause in 1979.83 According to Harvey, these peasant groups also challenged the hierarchical type of corporatist control through the development of horizontal forms of organization and leadership, thus attempting to avoid the emergence of caudillo-style politics and the related personalistic practices. The author claims that “the critique of clientism by organizations … went to the root of political control and political culture in Chiapas”.84 These struggles were therefore extremely relevant to the evolution of a new political culture critical of authoritarian hierarchies and to the formation of subjects who possessed a more progressive understanding of the concept of citizenship as one inclusive of demands for land and human rights. Overall, with regard to their demands, peasant organizations only achieved limited success but they were crucial in paving the way for the EZLN. From 1983 some of them ‘grew’ into the Zapatista Movement. Two were particularly relevant in this respect: OCEZ (Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization) and the EZLN-associated mass organization that called itself ANCIEZ (National Alliance of Independent Peasants Emiliano Zapata), a radical civilian peasant association founded in late 1989 to push for agrarian reforms and democracy. These two groupings virtually won control of the Zapatista Movement.85 Another political factor crucial to the formation of the EZLN and the Zapatista Movement was liberation theology, practiced by Dominican, Marist and Jesuit priests, particularly in the Diocese of San Cristóbal. It is interesting to note the alleged link between this theology and socialist ideas in the late 1970s, when a group of Catholic priests and radical leftists called Grupo Torreon began to be politically active in

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northern Mexico.86 The central idea of liberation theology is that the practices of Christianity should involve challenging and addressing social injustice with active struggle in the present rather than in the next world. Essentially, it is a critique of the Catholic Church for tacitly allowing oppressive political structures to operate unabated. It is debatable whether ‘active struggle’ meant ‘armed struggle’,87 but either way, this movement was defiant of the mainstream traditional politics of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, it helped to politicize the Indigenous people of Chiapas and encouraged them to confront the causes of their marginalization and exploitation. Religion therefore served as a mobilizing ideology, challenging the established system of power relations in the process. Many of the ‘indoctrinated’ church members went on to lead or join peasant and Indigenous rights movements in the last quarter of the twentieth century.88 The central character in Chiapas who led the process described above was Samuel Ruiz García, or the ‘Red Bishop’. Ruiz welcomed political activists from left-wing Maoist groups such as Política Popular and its splinter group, Línea Proletaria, who arrived in the region between the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The approach of groups like Política Popular was one of mass politics based on direct democracy through mass meetings, rather than the Stalinist political party or the armed guerrilla groups.89 In 1980, Ruiz created an organization called SLOP (meaning ‘root’ in Tzeltal language) for the purpose of armed self-defense of the Indian villagers. This organization would eventually come into contact with some members of the left-wing Marxist-Maoist group FLN (Forces of National Liberation) who had returned to Chiapas in the early 1980s to resume their political activities. Given that the Church created the ideological conditions to get people up in arms but had limited means to make the transition from theory to practice, the FLN—to which we will return a little later—was to provide the crucial missing link. Also in the early 1980s a number of interesting guests made their way to San Cristóbal, namely a group of economists and engineers from the University of Chapingo, who were part of a Maoist organization called La Unión del Pueblo.90 Finally, Ruiz set up a Human Rights Commission to defend Indigenous people. As Landau comments, “the three decade-long work of Bishop Samuel Ruíz of San Cristóbal de Las Casas laid the intellectual groundwork for the revolutionary discourse of Marcos and his comrades”.91 Indigenous organizations began to impact successfully on local politics in October 1974, when the Catholic Church assisted the Indigenous Congress that took place in San Cristóbal to commemorate the birth of Father Bartolomé de las Casas.92 On this occasion, around

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one thousand two hundred and fifty Maya delegates representing over three hundred communities attended the Congress. Their demands were very similar to those the EZLN was to formulate 20 years later: land, a minimum wage, improved medical services, better market access, education in Indian languages and the preservation of Indian cultures. The Congress was extremely important in laying the groundwork for Indigenous grassroots organizational activities and for its recognition of the importance of the history and customs of Mayan Indians in the creation of a new Indigenous identity (both Mayan and Mexican, and grounded in local Indigenous history). The objective was for Indian people to cease being the objects of someone else’s history and become the subjects of their own.93 There were several attempts by the Mexican government to divide and conquer the emerging Indigenous movement. For instance, in 1975 the CNC formed the CNPI (National Council of Indigenous People) and organized a Congress to co-opt rising local insurrectionism, ‘integrate’ Indian people and build up the official version of citizenship. Ethnic groups were created through the CNPI on the basis of language, although the spaces where they had historically created their identities were the municipios and these were not based on either language or ethnicity. Nevertheless, the process of striving for Indigenous autonomy continued with the first Inter-Ethnic Cultural Encounter held in Chiapas in 1984 at San Pedro Chenalhó, essentially an effort to overcome divisions of language and traditional practices in order to continue the pursuit of a common political agenda.94 In October 1992, ten thousand Indians marched in San Cristóbal to honour 500 years of Indian resistance. In this occasion, the statue of Diego de Mazariegos was toppled and smashed to pieces with a sledge-hammer, a symbolically meaningful act.95 Many of those marching were members of ANCIEZ and either already were, or soon would be, Zapatistas. Among them was a mestizo man who called himself Marcos. Another political factor relevant to the formation of the EZLN was the impact of a number of guerrilla movements that began to emerge in Mexico from the 1960s, such as the above-mentioned FLN (Monterrey), the National Revolutionary Civic Association (Guerrero), the 23 of September League (Oaxaca), the Mexican Insurgent Army (Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz and Chiapas) and the Party of the Poor (Guerrero). The wider Latin American revolutionary scene also played a part. For instance, a high number of Guatemalan refugees flooded Chiapas in the 1980s, many bringing along their revolutionary ideas. Moreover, there are some similarities between the EZLN and the Shining Path Movement of Peru, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in

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Nicaragua, the M-19 in Colombia, the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) in El Salvador and the EGP (Guerilla Army of the Poor) in Guatemala.96 The Cuban Revolution itself was an important statement and the image of Che Guevara was and still is an inspiration for revolution today, in Latin America and in the rest of the world. Overall it is clear that history and a number of features of the Mexican political system contributed to the genesis of the EZLN and the chain of events that ultimately led to the Zapatista Rebellion of 1994. These preconditions worked in conjunction with short-term and longerterm economic factors—for example, the problem of land that, incidentally, is ongoing in this century as the issue of farmland expropriation in San Salvador Atenco to build an airport demonstrates. 97 Some of the economic circumstances originated outside Chiapas (read global capitalism and its new form of imperialism) but had immense repercussions on the life of the people in the region. Most importantly, a variety of political/ideological factors and phenomena such as liberation theology, left-wing activism, peasant organizations and Indigenous politics coalesced to form the intellectual and the organizational foundations of the Zapatista Movement and resulted in the eclectic mélange of ideas that contours (but does not strictly define) it. For example, the movement’s rejection of hierarchical and authoritarian modes of organization is reminiscent of some of the practices of the Student Movement and of some Indigenous and peasant organizations. These political stances have been adopted by the Zapatistas not only in organizational terms, but also as a fundamental component of their political discourse, although as we shall see later, this does not necessarily equate to political success. Similarly, the qualification of the Mexican political system as fundamentally authoritarian-corporatist and extremely adept at the practices of co-optation and patronage is significant if one is seeking to understand some of the political strategies adopted by Marcos and the Zapatistas. One of their objectives has been to avoid being ‘white-washed’ by the neutralizing effects of the policies of the Mexican government. The question of poverty needs further comment. A number of academics argue that poverty in itself does not cause revolts. For instance, Trejo notes that it was not the poorest or the most repressed municipalities that responded to Zapatismo.98 A study seeking to explain the different levels of support for the Zapatista Movement in 55 municipalities in Chiapas concluded that Zapatista bases flourished in zones with the lowest levels of electoral competency, the highest levels of organization and independent social protest, the highest levels of

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religious activity and where the highest number of violations of human rights were committed.99 This still does not explain satisfactorily why it was the inhabitants of the rainforest and of the canyons who took up arms and not those from the highlands of Chiapas. The Revolutionaries of the Lacandona Jungle and of Las Cañadas

It is widely believed that the EZLN originated from the FLN, in conjunction with Maoist organizations Union del Pueblo and Línea Proletaria of Política Popular. The FLN was founded in Monterrey in 1969, as a response to the student massacres of 1968. It was an antiimperialist political-military organization that aimed to seize political power through the actions of workers in order to install a socialist system. Typically, the FLN saw itself as the vanguard of the MarxistLeninist revolution and was based on worker and peasant classes rather than on ethnic divisions. At its inception, it followed the Guevarist ‘foco’ strategy under which a single guerrilla column was to send out revolutionary waves nationally. It then diverted to a Maoist approach of low profile and long gestation, a prolonged people’s war where simultaneous rebellions would ‘liberate’ rural areas and gradually wear down the government. A group of activists from the late 1960s, including the Yáñez brothers and Gloria Benavidez, established a cell in Chiapas in the early 1970s called Guerrillero Emiliano Zapata. In 1974 this movement was dealt a severe blow by the Mexican army, with the destruction of various centers of operations (including the cell of the organization that was training in the Chiapan jungle) and the assassination of its leader César Yáñez. However, some cells survived, particularly in Monterrey and in Torreón, in northern Mexico, where they came into contact with liberation theology. By the late 1970s the movement was well and truly resurrected in various parts of Mexico, led by César Yáñez’s brother Gérman.100 In 1980, after having formed 6 active cells in 6 states including Chiapas, the FLN leadership wrote a number of statutes to coordinate and organized them into the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.101 The details of the formation of the EZLN are unclear and the literature is quite inconsistent.102 It seems that 12 activists from the FLN returned to Chiapas in the early 1980s, including Gérman and Elisa. This number went down to 3 (Elisa, Rodolfo and Germán) and formed the EZLN one day which we believe to be November 17, 1983 with 3 other Indigenous members; in May 1984 Marcos joined them.103 The EZLN was meant to be the key foco linked to a national directorate under the

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command of the FLN, but the Chiapas rebels had no supply line from the urban to the rural areas, something typical of many other Latin American guerrilla movements. In other words, there was no organized network such as the one that existed in Castro’s Sierra, and the weapon arsenal was acquired ad hoc from various sources. After four years, the revolutionary army numbered only 60, although by the late 1980s the number had risen to an estimated one thousand and three hundred. 104 Three distinct groups made up the rebel army: the first was the insurgents, who lived away from the communities in military camps where they trained. The second group was the milicianos or militia members, who were mobile reservists living in the communities receiving training and taking part in armed actions. The last group was (and still is) the base of the Zapatista Army, the civilians who made up the movement and provided material support, of which just under a third was composed of women. Where did these people come from? It was the Mexican government in the 1940s who set the stage for the rise of the Zapatista Movement, when it encouraged colonization of uncultivated land in the Lacandona Jungle and in the canyons in order to resolve the problem created by the expulsion of landless peasants from fincas and ranches owned by mestizo landowners in the highlands.105 Moreover, the highlands were overpopulated, run by despotic caciques and plagued by internal religious disputes.106 Unfortunately, neither the Lacandona nor Las Cañadas turned out to be a slice of paradise for the pioneer settlers. First, many were unable to secure good farming land, as most of it had been seized by cattle ranchers. To make matters worse, a government decree was issued in 1971 to protect the rainforest as a bio-reserve, which intensified the struggle for land.107 The new settlers continued to be left out of government welfare programs and lived in extreme poverty; by the 1980s there were several strikes by plantation workers and land invasions. The government redistributed some land and compensated landowners, but many land claims remained unresolved and when they were settled, the usual dynamics took place—that is, PRI-aligned organizations and individuals were favored. In the meantime, repression against the Zapatistas by state police and various alleged paramilitary groups persisted throughout the 1990s. Social isolation, economic hardship and political exclusion in the ‘newly colonized’ areas of Chiapas are factors that explain the development of the Zapatista Movement in those locations and the promotion of innovative solutions.108 Essentially, the processes of separation from the communities of origin and migration implied the reconstruction of a new world of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual

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communities, with the reconfiguration of a broader ethnic identity grounded in communalistic norms that were developed to deal with these circumstances. The composition of the EZLN reflects this ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.109 Naturally enough, these migrant communities became extremely politicized, in due time developing “greater capacity for coordinated political activity” that required highly democratic practices. As Benjamin states, “images of Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevara, and Karl Marx began to replace those of saints in some ejidos offices and community halls”.110 Hence the Zapatista army was principally made up of marginal ‘modern’ young people who were multilingual experienced wage laborers and who had very little in common with the ‘isolated Indian’ that is imagined in Mexico City and elsewhere.111 According to Guillermoprieto, the members of the EZLN were adventurous and resourceful men and women starting a new life and a new world; these people began to identify themselves as ‘poor campesinos’ or ‘Maya’ or ‘Indigenous’ people rather than by community or village name.112 The formation of the Zapatista Army coincided with the increase in regional expansion of cattle ranching and repressive state administration that enabled the landowners to invade villages and seize ejido lands, assisted by the paramilitary groups mentioned above, then called guardias blancas. The Indians initially turned to the Zapatista army for protection; the elements of liberation and revolution in the relationship between the EZLN and the communities became predominant later. The Zapatista army taught the Maya peoples about Mexican history, conducted vaccinations, helped young Indian women with their own empowerment and banned alcohol.113 Despite these well-intentioned practices, there is no doubt that in the years preceding the rebellion the mestizo members of the EZLN saw themselves as the vanguard, “leading an Indigenous army to the overthrow of the Mexican state-party system”.114 Similarly, Pitarch argues that the “the EZLN’s internal documents and propaganda immediately before 1994 leave no doubts about its Marxist orthodoxy”.115 Indeed the EZLN was a hierarchical centralized command structure modeled on the Mexican army and, according to some scholars, it was and continues to be an authoritarian organization.116 Marcos himself admits that the Zapatista army was not born democratic, but that “form and organization of the indigenous communities permeated and dominated our movement and we had to democratize the Indian way”.117 In other words, the blatant vertical model of authority typical of revolutionary guerrilla movements was not going to succeed in Chiapas. As Kampwirth notes, the EZLN could not afford to be dogmatic in this

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pluralistic context and had to adapt to the local values and customs, soon realizing that achieving the wholehearted support of the population would require leaving the final decision with them.118 On the acceptance of the Indigenous communities, Marcos states that first they were tolerated, then accepted, then considered part of them.119 The Zapatista Movement (as opposed to the EZLN) eventually adopted some of the characteristics of Indigenous organizations, namely decentralized nonhierarchical organizational structures that emphasize consultation and decision-making at the community level.120 This means that while the internal structure of the EZLN may not be democratic, the overall command (possibly) is. The transition towards a less hierarchical structure and process is acknowledged by Marcos as not having been easy: We did not propose it …. Our square conception of the world and of revolution was badly dented in the confrontation with the Indigenous realities of Chiapas. Out of those blows, something new (which does not necessarily mean ‘good’) emerged, that which today is known as ‘neo-Zapatismo’.121

When the EZLN accepted community control, the task of recruiting was facilitated but power tended to be more dispersed.122 To overcome this problem, the CCRIs (Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committees) were created in 1993 to serve as an overall command structure. Communal assemblies from several Indian groups, mostly from the Indigenous communities of Eastern Chiapas, delegate to the CCRIs, each of which has 16 to 40 members, depending on the regional population. The CCRIs issue communiqués and make decisions, including those of a military strategic nature at regional level. The highest collective decision-making authority, the CCRI-CG (General Command of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee) was formally constituted in 1993 and has jurisdiction over the EZLN. Twelve delegates are chosen to sit on the ruling CCRI-GC under which Marcos serves, while Marcos himself functions as one of the leaders of the EZLN’s military wing.123 This broad outline of the organization of the Zapatista Movement is sufficient to rattle the commonly held belief that there are no vertical hierarchical structures involved. There are some, but they are counteracted (to a degree) by other elements present in Zapatista politics, such as communal participation, extensive community consultation and various post-ideological notions that are part of their discourse. We also know that in its first decade the EZLN was rife with

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internal leadership rivalries, as is the case with most political organizations. Furthermore, not all was always well in the relations between the EZLN and the Church. Although the Church had, as noted above, traditionally sponsored and promoted the development of Indian organizations,124 there was considerable friction between the EZLN and SLOP from the late 1980s. Marcos himself confirms this fact, wittily stating “we want liberation without the theology”.125 One of the most controversial issues, that of whether to take up arms, came to a head in 1992 when the Indian communities of the Lacandona who supported the EZLN began to discuss the possibility of armed rebellion and gave the Zapatista military wing one more year to prepare for war. The actual decision to declare war was made during a secret meeting in September 1992 in San Cristóbal, where Marcos criticized the national leadership of the FLN and proposed a change in structure with Germán as commander. Not everyone at the meeting agreed that the time was right for war and there is in fact a great deal of debate in the literature about whether it was Marcos or the communities who made the decision in favor of the offensive.126 And war it was: just as dawn was breaking into the new year of 1994, an army of hooded men and women occupied several towns in Chiapas,127 including San Cristóbal, Altamirano, Las Margaritas, Comitán and Ocosingo, and surrounded Rancho Nuevo, a military installation. The Indigenous rebels, led by their tall mestizo subcommander, ransacked townhalls, burnt land ownership documents and declared war against the Mexican army and the ‘political police’ in what is now known as the First Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle. In this document, they demanded that the Mexican government step down and be replaced by a transitional government that subsequently would call free and democratic elections.128 The rebels also presented a list of Indigenous and human rights-based demands on behalf of the Mayan campesinos of Chiapas. On this first day of the uprising, the Zapatistas published their own newspaper, El Despertador Mexicano (The Mexican Awakener), and the radio station in San Cristóbal was seized to broadcast their message. The mysterious and masked figure of Marcos emerged, immediately sarcastic when he turned to the media and delivered his first public statement: “We have taken Ocosingo. We apologize for any inconvenience, but this is a revolution”.129 By 7.30 p.m. that night he was giving an interview to La Jornada, the first of many to come. As we will see shortly, Marcos’ response to the actions of the Mexican government following the events of January 1994 can be partly understood as a safeguard against historical patterns of co-optation,

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patronage and repression. It is clear that in many ways some of the basic ingredients of Zapatismo were already present within the Mexican oppositional discourse before the Chiapas Rebellion, and did not originate with the movement itself. In other ways, the Zapatista Movement is the product of a unique set of circumstances and factors that have led to some ingenious political responses. Marcos himself is one of these unique factors and, as the next chapter reveals, his role in the movement was (and still is) crucial to its originality and relative success.

Notes 1 A golpe de estado is the Spanish term for military coup, which refers to “a seizure of government power with a swift, decisive action by a military or political group from within the existing system” (The Latin American Political Dictionary 1980: 130–131). 2 The term ‘criollos’ refers to persons of Spanish ancestry born in the New World; mestizos are persons of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry. 3 Harris and Alba (1974: 103–104). 4 Wiarda and Kline (2000: 23). 5 Chasteen (1994: 40). 6 Wiarda and Kline (2000: 14). 7 See O’Donnell (1973); Malloy (1977); Collier (1979). 8 I am referring to the Argentine movement known as ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’ that has been calling for justice since 1977 and that has split in two factions since 1986. I am also referring to the Pinochet case in Chile. 9 Pendle (1973: 127–128). 10 In philosophy, personalism is the belief that the person is supreme and irreducible in reality (substance) and value (dignity). In theology, personalism refers to the idea of the worth of a person. 11 See, for instance, Samuel Brunck and Ben Fallaws’ Heroes & Hero Cults in Latin America, 2006, an interesting book that has nevertheless been criticized for its broad and ahistorical definition of ‘heroic’. A similarly interesting volume that brings together hero worship, death and the symbolism of the body is Lyman L. Johnson’s Death, Dismemberment and Politics, 2004. 12 Bourne (1969: 271). 13 The Latin American Political Dictionary (1980: 128). Etymologically, the word ‘caudillo’ comes from the Latin capdelus or head. In Latin America it originally referred to one who governs and guides in times of war; in the Middle Ages the term was extended to mean a governor of a political community. 14 The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Latin America and the Caribbean (1992: 325). 15 Gilmore (1964) quoted in Clayton and Conniff (1999: 84). 16 See, for instance, Close and Deonandan (2004) who use the term ‘electoral caudillismo’ to signal the presence of caudillos in democratic electoral politics.

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Pendle (1973: 126). Cacique is an Indian word that signifies local Indian ruler, chief or political boss. Later usage of the term was extended to include any local rural strongman regardless of race, as opposed to the regional or national caudillo. The cacique’s function as part of the Indian oligarchy is to mediate between government bureaucracy and Indigenous communities. They usually control access to land, transport, credit, commerce and liquor; they also administer state programs and collaborate with the ruling party in terms of political and electoral support. Essentially, a cacique is another variant of personalistic autocratic rule (The Latin American Political Dictionary 1980: 143). 19 Pendle (1973: 126). The hacienda is a large cattle estate, a Latin American profit-making semi-feudal institution presided by a landowner. 20 Chasteen (1995: 4). See also Chasteen (1994). 21 Cuevillas (1992: 288, 286–287). 22 Cuevillas (1992: 288). 23 See for instance Lynch (1992: 411). The author comments that caudillismo in political theory came to be understood as a transition from Hobbesian anarchy to order. This is an interesting observation about Latin American politics, again indicative of the precarious balance between anarchy and authority. 24 Gauchos or llaneros are cowboys, cattle herders or rural plebeian horsemen. 25 See, for instance, Ebel (1998) on General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes in Guatemala; Lynch (2001) on Juan Manuel De Rosas; Castro (2005) on Mexican early twentieth century caudillo General Francisco R. Serrano; Debenedetti (2005) on Argentine caudillo Marcelino Ugarte; Delgado (2006) on Sarmiento; López Sarabia (2007) on Juan Manuel De Rosas. 26 See Chevalier (1992: 31, 34, 38). Another interpretation of caudillos as wealth-seekers comes from Wolf and Hansen (1967: 169). 27 See Will Fowler’s Santa Anna of Mexico, 2007. 28 Sarmiento [1844] quoted in Chasteen (1994: 63). 29 Lynch (1992: 235). 30 Amazingly, Belzu voluntarily stipulated in his 1851 Constitution that the presidential term was to be limited and with no possibility of re-election. This is a rare occurrence in Latin American politics! See Burns (1994: 124–125). 31 Sabsay (1998: 219). 32 The porteños are locals of the city of Buenos Aires. With regards to the role of the pro-federalism gauchos in a divided Argentina see Ariel de la Fuente’s Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency during the Argentine State-Formation Process, 2000. On Juan Manuel de Rosas see Lynch (2001) and Lopez Sarabia (2007). 33 Lynch (1992: 411). 34 Lynch (1992: 431). See also Cuevillas (1992: 287) and Burns (1994: 115). 35 See Roberts (1996). See also Conniff (1994); Knight (1998); Roberts (2000). Carlos De la Torre, in Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience, 2000, argues that in Latin America the pattern of political inclusion is not primarily based on citizenship rights as it is in the 18

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West, but on populist rhetoric and style of political mobilization (2000 : 117, 141). 36 Knight (1998: 228). 37 See also Becker (2005) in relation to the role played by army colonel Domingo A. Mercante, who assisted Perón in his quest to conquer the labor movement. 38 Others include Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in Peru (1931 to 1979, but never a president); Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Colombia (1933–1948); José María Velasco Ibarra in Ecuador (1934–35, 1944–47, 1952–56, 1960–61, 1968–72); Arnulfo Arias in Panama (1940–41, 1949–51, October 1968); Rómulo Betancourt in Venezuela (1945–48, 1959–64); Victor Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia (1952–56, 1960–64, 1985–89). Although populism is widely credited to have started in this continent in the 1930s, Clayton and Conniff argue that there was an earlier form of populism prior to the Great Depression, the strategy of which was to reform society in order to protect it from the radicals. See Clayton and Conniff (1999: 250). 39 Laclau (1977: 196). See also Laclau (2005). 40 See Demmers, Fernandez Jilberto and Hogenboom (2001). Note that Knight (1998: 238–239) wishes to qualify the alignment of early populism with ISI, claiming that populism is not simply the political counterpart of ISI. 41 Roberts (2000: 4) contends that neo-populists “lack the mobilizational and democratizing impulses of historical populist figures”. Also see Weyland (1999: 379–380) in relation to populist leaders’ ambivalence towards neoliberalism. On the other hand, Ellner (2003: 160) argues in favor of the ‘appropriateness’ of the term ‘neo-populist’ with regards to Fujimori. 42 An illustration of the fragility of democracy when in coexistence with personalistic rulers is the case of Peru in the Fujimori decade that spanned from 1990 to 2000. See Mauceri (1997). 43 See Urbinati (1998); Mény and Surel (2002: 5); Akkerman (2003); Arditi (2003, 2004); Laclau (2005); Panizza (2005); Abts and Rummens (2007); March (2007). Crabtree (2001) analyzes Fujimori’s regime as an example of a hybrid mix of autocratic and democratic elements. Hawkins (2003: 1157) states that populism “is not good for democratic consolidation in Venezuela, despite the participatory democratic rhetoric of Chávez’s supporters.” 44 See di Piramo (2009). 45 The Mexican Constitution was most advanced for its time. Apart from the famous Article 27 (see note 67), Article 123 provided for the right for workers to strike, minimum wages and a host of other economic and social progressive measures. 46 See Pansters (1999: 251). 47 Rich (1997: 77). 48 Morris (1995: 4–5). 49 See Stevens (1987: 219) and (Rochlin 2003: 177). ‘Co-optation’ can be defined as a divide-and-conquer strategy that has the ultimate aim of preventing the development of genuine opposition. In this context, it is a process where the opposition is allowed small concessions in exchange for the moderation of its demands and the reduction of challenge to the centralized hegemonic system. See Adler Hellman (1983: 135). Even in the partial agrarian reform of the late 1930s under Cárdenas, the peasants who benefited were members of corporatist

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organizations that were linked to the ruling party (Pansters 1999: 238). Cárdenas, apart from the CNC, had established the INI (Indigenous National Institute) in order to organize the Indian population in the agrarian sector. 50 See Anderson and Cockcroft (1969: 379–380) and Zermeno in Foweraker (1990: 18). The PRI was in power for over 30 years. Elections results confirm its success: on several occasions PRI candidates won over 75 percent of the votes. For instance, they obtained 90.4 percent of the votes in 1958 (Adolfo López Mateos) and 89 percent in 1964 (Gustavo Díaz Ordaz). 51 See Özbudun (1970: 384). The author also argues that the Mexican Revolution was the initiative of the urban middle class, with a mass base of peasants and urban workers (1970: 385). For Ouweneel (2002: 30, 33) the roots of the Mexican Revolution lie in the Díaz dictatorship itself, with its adoption of modernization as a socio-economic goal; what occurred was mass mobilization under the control of caudillos, while the agrarian question played a much less significant role than many academics have claimed. Rochlin (2003: 176) argues that the revolution still operated in the capitalist realm (with some state-led measures to address some of the inequalities caused by the uneven distribution of wealth) and that it was nationalistic in the sense that it fostered the idea of a political center that would promote stability, political inclusion, national identity and a civilian government. The overall drift in the literature is that the revolution failed to adequately reformulate class relations. For more detail on the Mexican Revolution, see John Womack’s Zapata and the Mexican Revolution, 1972 and Frank McLynn’s Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution, 2002. 52 Pansters (1999: 238). Interestingly, there was little evidence as late as 1978 that the urban middle class and the working classes would support authentic political competition or political pluralism. A survey conducted in 1978–79 showed that only 26.2 percent of people in Mexico were willing to support critics of the political system seeking public office (Booth and Seligson in Gentleman 1987: 7). 53 See Foweraker in Pansters (1999: 242). 54 See Pansters (1999: 247, 248). In 1977 the Federal Law of Political Organizations and Electoral Processes was passed. This law ensured that the PRI retained numerical dominance, at the same time opening up new opportunities for the opposition. An array of political parties gained representation (PCM, PST and PDM) or institutional recognition (PPM, PSR, PMT, PRT, MAUS and UIC). In 1990 there was a further reform, the Federal Code of Electoral Institutions and Procedures. But, as Fuentes (1997: 95) points out, while electoral reform during Salinas’ term gave the PRI automatic majorities, it did not make electoral institutions either accountable or independent. The most significant reform was enacted in 1996 under Zedillo, involving the transferral of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) from the ministry of interior to the judicial branch, a move that made it a more independent body. 55 Craske quoted in Pansters (1999: 249). For more information on PRONASOL see Hernández Castillo (2001b: 187–205). 56 Carrigan (1995: 90). 57 For instance, the CNPI (National Council of Indigenous People). See Hernández Castillo (2001a: 102). As the author argues, the state did play an

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important role in the way many Indigenous people organized themselves. See also Benjamin (2000: 428). 58 Needler (1987: 209). 59 The PRD or the Democratic Revolution Party came together in 1989, a fusion of the former Mexican Communist Party (PCM), a nationalist faction of the PRI and other leftist parties. 60 Please note that these figures may not be applicable today. Rich (1997: 78); Cuninghame and Ballesteros (1998: 18); Gutmann (2002: 150); Krauze (2002: 397). According to Cuninghame and Ballesteros (1998: 18), 87 percent of Indigenous school children suffered second-degree malnutrition in 1997. In 2001 there was one doctor for every one thousand one hundred and thirty two inhabitants in Chiapas, one nurse for every one thousand three hundred and fifteen inhabitants and one hospital bed for every one thousand and four hundred inhabitants (Avendaño 2001: 15). Chiapas apparently also had the highest unemployment and the lowest salaries for rural workers in Mexico (Carrigan 1995: 76). Please also note that these figures are not fully comparative, due to different time frames and other methodological considerations. 61 Marcos (1994d). 62 Knight (1999: 116–117). 63 Carrigan (1995: 77). 64 See Knight (1999: 115). 65 Knight (1990: 91) argues that the Morelos land seizures prior to the 1910 Revolution, the land seizures of the early 1930s and those of the early 1970s allow the discernment of a tradition of land struggle symptomatic of secular conditions of land hunger and latifundismo. Moreover, he argues that “the old dialectic of negotiation and violence has remained a constant of rural politics” (1990: 92). We can see that these patterns still apply to recent events in Chiapas. 66 Fuentes (1997: 87); Proyect (1998). 67 Özbudun (1970: 396); Hernández Castillo (2001a: 100). Ejidos are based on Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution, with the idea of limiting private ownership and breaking up large estates. However, by 1930 ejidos accounted for only 3 percent of the land in Chiapas (Rochlin 2003: 178). Although the situation improved from the 1950s to the 1970s, particularly during the Ordaz (1964–1970) and the Echeverría (1970–1976) regimes, the highest number of land titles was granted but not actually delivered in Chiapas (Trejo 2003: 172). Nevertheless, the figures continued to improve in the following decades. According to Jung (2003: 440) two thousand ejidos and Indigenous agricultural communities, the majority of which were located in the Lacandona rain forest, by the 1990s made up 57 percent of all usable land in Chiapas. 68 See Stahler-Sholk (2001). A similar argument that the causes of the rebellion lie in the 1980s “when the world’s financial planners mandated austerity and the dismantling of Third World protected economies as a remedy for over-extended transnational petrodollar loans” is put forward by Collier and Collier (2003: 243). For some reading on the post-implementation issues of neoliberal policies in Mexico see Snyder (1999). The author argues that instead of unleashing free-market forces, neo-liberal reforms might trigger a number of reregulation processes.

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69 See Saldaña-Portillo (2001: 408). For more details on the impact of land reform in Mexico, see Dunn (2000) and Van der Haar (2005). 70 NAFTA is the free trade agreement between Mexico, the US and Canada; it includes free market initiatives, privatization schemes and the lowering of trade barriers. Products for internal trade such as corn, maize, rice and beans normally suffer in free trade agreements, as price supports are eliminated. Whitmeyer and Hopcroft (1996: 532) argue that since corn was not a main crop in the areas involved in the rebellion, the struggle for land in the Lacandona Jungle is a more relevant cause than global economic factors. Muñoz (2006) argues that despite the negative effects, NAFTA provided political opportunities. 71 Carrigan (1995: 88). 72 Jung (2003: 439). 73 Rochlin (2003) states that the top 10 percent of Mexico’s households received 49 percent of the national income in 1950, but that by 1984 this figure had dropped to 34.4 percent. Moreover, according to the figures quoted in this source, the middle 50 percent of households’ incomes increased from 47.6 percent in 1963 to 52.8 percent in 1977 and extreme poverty levels dropped from 69.5 percent in 1963 to 34 percent in 1977. See Rochlin (2003: 177). Whitmeyer and Hopcroft (1996: 530) argue that in the 1990s commercialization in the highlands (coffee, tourism and textiles) meant an increase in the general standard of living. Note that the issue of whether the Indigenous communities of the Lacandona that make up the base support of the EZLN were left out of the PRI’s developmental model is also a matter of debate in the literature. The view that they were not left out of the developmental model and its supposed benefits is held by Saldaña-Portillo (2002: 295), who argues that they were in fact the targeted beneficiaries of the Echeverría and the Portillo presidencies in the 1970s and early 1980s. 74 Ouweneel (2002: 52–53). 75 See Hernández Navarro (1998) and Day (2001). 76 See Gall (1998: 532, 536). See also Huntington (2000: 58–62). The author notes the colonial exclusion of the Indigenous from what is defined as ‘humanity’. 77 Hellman (1983: 176). 78 There were also calls for the abolition of the grenaderos (special riot police) that were regarded as an unconstitutional entity, for compensation to students who had been victimized by the state and for a public investigation into police brutality. See Hellman (1983: 180). 79 Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) was born in Morelos. His Plan of Ayala in 1911 called for radical agrarian reform through the nationalization of land controlled by haciendas and other big landowners and its redistribution to campesinos, hacienda workers and small farmers. Zapata led the Ejército Libertador del Centro y Sur at the beginning of the century, mobilizing the oppressed agricultural population in the centre and in the south of the country. In 1911 he joined Francisco Madero in the struggle against Porfirio Díaz with the slogan ‘Tierra y Libertad’ (Land and Freedom), but once Madero was in power he did not fulfill the goals of the revolution, particularly the return of the land to the Indians under old communal ejido system. Zapata eventually sided with Pancho Villa against Venustiano Carranza, the leader of the victorious

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moderate faction, in the struggle that followed Madero’s assassination in 1913 by General Victoriano Huerta. Between 1914 and 1915 Zapata won several battles against Carranza’s troops and briefly occupied Mexico City, but in 1917 Carranza defeated Pancho Villa and forced Zapata to withdraw to Morelos, where he was betrayed and killed in 1919. Zapata’s ideas are enshrined in the 1917 Mexican Constitution (particularly Article 27) and were influential in later governments, particularly that of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940). 80 Peasant organizations differed in structure and function. In 1949 the PCM joined forces with the Nationalist Popular Party to establish the UGOCM (General Union of Mexican Workers and Peasants). Its demands for land, higher wages and improved credit for peasants won such mass rural support that it threatened the CNC. CIOAC, the Independent Centre of Agricultural Workers and Farmers (also linked to the PCM) was founded in 1977 and operated regionally in wage-labor areas. The UU (Union of Ejidos Unions) was an alliance of one hundred and eighty ejidos formed in 1980 as the result of the 1974 National Indigenous Congress, where Maoists and liberation lay-deacons attempted to coordinate their socio-political struggle. It was the largest independent peasant organization of Chiapas, representing one thousand and two hundred Indigenous families mostly from one hundred and eighty communities in 11 municipalities. It extended to the highlands but internal factions arose and a splinter formed ARIC (Rural Association of Collective Interests) in 1988, which advocated change through the institutional route. The UU eventually split over the issue of armed struggle. OCEZ (Emiliano Zapata Peasant Organization) was the result of the union of various independent peasant organizations in 1982. It was, as Weinberg notes (2002: 35), the most militant peasant organization. Other organizations were the Tierra y Libertad and Lucha Campesina. See also Brass (2005), who identifies the 1920s Cristeros and 1930s Sinarquistas as precursors to the Zapatista Movement, and Washbrook (2006). 81 For instance, the government had a dual strategy of ‘certificates of nonaffectability’ to preclude expropriation and amparos, the acceptance of landowners’ injunctions against redistribution. According to Harvey (1990: 185), this strategy “was to weaken the independent peasant organizations and exert tighter control over the rural work force”. 82 See Trevizo (2002: 296). The PCM had a history of extensive repression by the Mexican government and while this succeeded in fragmenting and weakening the party, it did not manage to completely erase its organizational apparatus. 83 Wager and Schulz (1995a: 5). 84 Harvey (1990: 193–194, 196). 85 Wager and Schulz (1995b: 170). 86 The following is quoted from a webpage by Pelaez (n.d.): “Jose Luis Moreno, a guerrilla fighter during the mid-1970s, said that the Zapatista leadership emerged from the socialist-led ‘Grupo Torreon’ named after a conference of socialist revolutionaries and radical Catholic priests who met in the northern city of Torreon in 1974.” The article goes on to state that a group of these revolutionaries broke away and headed south to Chiapas.

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87 According to Daniels (1994: 63), some liberation theology is not averse to armed struggle, while Lowy (1999: 217) argues that it rejects all violence and that it has no revolutionary tendencies. 88 See Kampwirth (2003: 238). 89 As Gonzalez (2002: 442–443) notes, the shift to Maoism was the result of disillusionment with the PCM, Mexican traditional socialism and the Stalinist left. 90 Campa Mendoza (1999: 144). 91 Landau (2002: 149). 92 Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566) was a Spanish priest who protected the Indians and defended them against Spanish cruelty and abuses. See Benjamin (2000: 424–425). 93 See Russell (1995: 33) and Benjamin (2000: 450). 94 Benjamin (2000: 438). 95 Sent by the Spanish authorities, Captain Diego de Mazariegos arrived in Chiapas in 1528 in order to suppress an Indian rebellion and set order in the province, see Benjamin (2000: 429–431). 96 Daniels (1994: 63). 97 I am referring to the 2001 revelation of the Mexican government’s intention to expropriate ejido farmland to build an airport in San Salvador Atenco. This proposal was met with vigorous opposition from the local peasants. The struggle between the people of Atenco and the Mexican government is ongoing today, with allegations of violence and brutality being perpetrated by both state and federal police. See Gilly (2006). 98 See Trejo (2003). See also Arij Ouweneel’s The Psychology of the Faceless Warriors, (2002: 25). Similarly, Schulz (1998: 590) argues that social deprivation and oppression are necessary but not sufficient reasons to explain the uprising. A divergent point of view is presented by Krauze (2001: 32), who argues that Mexico has always been a racially mixed country and that “its biggest problems are decidedly not racial. They are social and economic: specifically, poverty and inequality.” 99 See an undated study in Trejo (2003: 174–175). See also Inclan (2008), who attempts to correlate levels of democracy and levels of protest activity by analyzing the Zapatista cycle of protest from 1994 to 2003. 100 See Guillermoprieto (1995: 42). See also Campa Mendoza (1999: 139). 101 See Womack (1999: 191–197) and Kampwirth (2003: 234). 102 I should point out the considerable discrepancies in the literature. For example, most sources state that the EZLN was founded on November 17, 1983 but according to Obregón (1997: 181) it was the November 16, while Russell (1995: 42) states that the year was 1982. According to Holloway (1998: 160) and Higgins (2004: 157) a group of 6 founded the EZLN, while Ross (1995: 278) states that Marcos arrived in 1983 with an original group of 12. Due to these ambiguities I have chosen to use the information from Tello Díaz’s excellent book La Rebelión de las Cañadas: Origin y Ascenso del EZLN, (1995: 110–112), apart from Marcos’ own statements. Also note that some sources describe activists from the FLN (including Marcos) as Maoists rather than Marxists (Kingsnorth 2003: 28); Tello Díaz (1995: 105) makes a distinction between the two. I refer to Marcos as a Marxist rather than as a Maoist.

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103 See Marcos in Brisac and Castillo (1995). In this interview Marcos states that by 1984 there were 6 members, but he does not provide any details. See also Tello Díaz (1995: 110–112). 104 See Gilly (2002: 339). See also John Ross’ Rebellion from the Roots, (1995: 285). The author reports that the estimate by February 1994 was twelve thousand and eight hundred; this figure included the milicianos and the civilian base. 105 See Castells (1997: 74). These settlements, according to some scholars, began as early as the 1930s and numbered one hundred thousand by 1980, more than one hundred and fifty thousand by the late 1990s and were predicted to reach over two hundred thousand by 2000. See Higgins (2000: 369). See also Alschuler (1999: 136). For more on the differences between the highlands communities and the ‘new’ communities of the Lacandona see Berger (2001: 158–159). 106 There is great religious diversity in Chiapas. Apart from the Maya religions and Catholicism, there are Protestant sects and even Jehovah’s Witnesses. This last religion, the philosophy of which rejects modernism and industrialization, is found among the Mam ethnic group. See Hernández Castillo (2001a: 99). 107 Ouweneel (2002: 56–57). 108 Kampwirth (2003: 238). See also Crowley and Eckstein (2003: 300– 301). 109 See Benjamin (2000: 435); Nash (2001: 225); Gossen (1996b: 536). 110 Berger (2001: 158); Benjamin (2000: 436). Saldaña-Portillo (2002: 296) argues that the fact that towns were not made up of a single ethnicity contributed to intensely democratic practices. The author also argues that the EZLN returned to the colonial creation of the town council and to the idea of consensus. 111 See García de León in Russell (1995: 41). 112 Guillermoprieto quoted in Russell (1995: 41). 113 See Barmeyer (2003) for an overview of the relationship between the communities and the guerrillas. See also Shannon Speed, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo and Lynn Stephen’s volume Dissident Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas, 2006, on gender issues in Chiapas. 114 Carrigan (1995: 82). 115 Pitarch (2004: 291). 116 See Baker (2003: 304); Wager and Schulz (1995b: 171); Pitarch (2004: 296). 117 Marcos quoted in Ross (1995: 287). 118 Kampwirth (2003: 234); Russell (1995: 42). 119 See Marcos in an interview with Jaime Avilés and Gianni Minà reproduced in Marcos y la Insurrección Zapatista: La ‘Revolución Virtual’ de un Pueblo Oprimido, (1998 :159–160). 120 Ronfeldt et al. (1998: 32–33). 121 Marcos quoted in Holloway (1998: 161). 122 Russell (1995: 42). 123 See Molina (2000: 211). 124 Carrigan (1995: 82).

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125 Marcos quoted in Ross (2000: 50). See also Marcos in Leñero et al. (1994: 209) and Legorreta Díaz’s Religión, Política y Guerilla en las Cañadas de la Selva Lacandona, (1998: 211–225). Legorreta Díaz tells of how SLOP attempted (rather unsuccessfully) to curb the rising influence of the EZLN and also tried to curtail Marcos’ personal authority. These issues are discussed in a later chapter. For a more sympathetic account of the internal dynamics of the EZLN see Obregón (1997). 126 Ronfeldt et al. (1998: 34) strongly suggest that Marcos had a fair amount of impact on the decision to go to war as soon as possible to avoid being coopted by the government and to take advantage of the upcoming 1994 elections. On the other hand, Holloway (1998: 164–165) insists that the decision came from the communities and so do Campa Mendoza (1999: 145), Baker (2003: 304) and Kingsnorth (2003: 27). Marcos himself insists that he was told to start the war in 1993 (in Benjamin 1995: 65). This version of events is supported by Gilly (2000: 337–340), who in his article gives several reasons why this is likely to be the ‘true’ version of the facts. In a video interview Marcos states that the communities voted for war, but that it was his idea to attack the towns in order to counteract the accusation that the Zapatistas were drug traffickers. See Marcos in Brisac and Castillo (1995). 127 The literature varies on this point, seven towns according to Higgins (2000: 369) and Kampwirth (2003: 227), but only five according to Henck (2002: 3). 128 See CCRI-CG (2002a). 129 Marcos quoted in Tello Díaz (2005: 16).

Photo 1 Street in Mexico City, 2005 (Photo by Giorel Curran)

Photo 2 EZLN Members, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994 (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 3 People of Chiapas

(Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 4 Women and Children of Chiapas (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 5 The Zapatistas Will Never Surrender, Aguascalientes II (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

3 Marcos and the Zapatistas: Storming the World Stage

You have fifteen minutes to ask questions. We have no foreigners, we have no weapons, we have no money. I am a brilliant myth. —Marcos, San Cristóbal, 1994

There is very little doubt that Marcos’ role was essential to the relative success of the Zapatista Movement. In terms of practical political goals, his overall strategy is best summed up as ‘gaining the moral upper hand’. The practical goals to which I am referring are interrelated, and they included the protection of the movement from retaliation by the Mexican government, its legitimization at national level and the building of political credibility in the eyes of the nation and of the world. These goals were achieved through a number of specific strategies: nonaggressive resistance to the Mexican government’s low-intensity warfare tactics and the use of symbolism and of national revolutionary history. Perhaps the most important strategy was Marcos’ construction of an appealing charismatic image that was projected nationally and internationally through conventional media and newer technologies. The purpose of this image was to broadcast (effectively and rapidly) the existence of the Zapatistas and the reasons for their struggles. With a combination of these strategies Marcos was able to resist the traditional co-optation and repression techniques of the Mexican government and succeeded in legitimizing the movement in the eyes of the nation by framing it in the context of national revolutionary history. He successfully established a dialogue with a significant number of intellectuals in Mexico and beyond, and made enough of an impression on international organizations to gather substantial support—and thereby protection—for the movement. Furthermore, he was (and still is) able to capture the imagination of civil societies outside Chiapas and hence not only bring attention to the plight of the Indian people, but also inspire many other groups and individuals who identify with the issues of

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marginalization and social injustice. With remarkable agility, he successfully mediated between different cultures and different political spaces: Mayan, Mexican and global. Who is Subcomandante Marcos?

Born in the mid-1950s, Marcos is a middle-class mestizo from the provincial city of Tampico in the state of Tamaulipas, in northeast Mexico.1 One of eight children, he often describes his childhood as ‘normal’ and has told the press that his parents, both rural teachers once upon a time, inculcated in him love for modern humanism and the written word.2 Marcos’ primary studies were completed between 1963 and 1969 at the Jesuit Colegio Félix de Jesús Rougier; he later attended secondary and preparatory school at the Jesuit Cultural Institute of Tampico between 1970 and 1976. Remembered as a sociable classmate, a good speaker and basketball player, but also as independent and solitary, Marcos is reported to have been an avid reader and a keen writer, at one point the publisher of a literary magazine called the Hidden Root. He also had a taste for the theatre and was talented at various forms of design. This, in combination with his literary skills, led to the creation of posters, bulletins and pamphlets seen by some as the “embryonic beginnings of revolutionary practice based on cultural criticism and artistic creation”.3 In 1977 Marcos enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at UNAM (Autonomous Mexican National University) and by 1979 he was teaching graphic design at UAM (Autonomous Metropolitan University), in the Department of Theory and Analysis. He graduated in philosophy and literature in 1980, greatly influenced by the work of French philosopher Louis Althusser, particularly his ideas on ideology, communication and dominant discourse. In 1979 Marcos left Mexico to teach at a Nicaraguan University and came in contact with the extremely revolutionary FSLN. No doubt the trip inspired him, so much so that he continued his left-wing activism alongside his academic career and eventually joined the FLN (Forces of National Liberation), invited by Silvia Fernández, one of the leaders of the movement.4 In 1981 a second trip to Nicaragua was undertaken with Elisa, Daniel and some of the other members of the FLN in order to receive military training.5 Some sources state that he visited Cuba and that he spent some time in Paris. In reality, little is known of Marcos’ activities between 1980 and 1983. He reportedly was an early career academic who, according to Oppenheimer, “worked briefly as a bus driver and labor organizer at what would be later known as the Route 100 Union. In both places,

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Rafael [Marcos] met many of his future guerrilla comrades and financial supporters”.6 At some stage in the early 1980s, possibly in 1984, Marcos ‘disappeared’. The question that comes to mind is this: why would an educated middle-class young Marxist abandon urban comfort to be the Quixote of our times, particularly to disappear into the unforgiving jungle of Southern Mexico? Well, we will never know for sure, but my guess is that he did not wish to be just another ‘armchair’ revolutionary. He is flippant about his change of life, stating: “I was happy for a while, until I got drunk, got on the wrong bus and dropped into the Lacandona Jungle.” 7 Marcos, whose original nom de guerre was Zacarías (later changed to honor a dead guerrilla compañero), describes guerrilla life as extremely tough, particularly for someone from the city, and has told reporters that the only thing that allowed survival was the hope that something worthwhile would come out of everything they were doing. Guerrilla life was dominated by the mountains and it meant hunger, thirst, coldness and all the aggression of nature and its creatures: “Believe me, the only way to survive here in the Lacandon Jungle is to laugh. You have to have a well-developed sense of humor or be completely nuts. Or maybe in our case, both of those things”.8 Marcos graduated to Lieutenant in October 1984, to Subcomandante in 1986 and became the head of the EZLN’s Southeast Combat Front in 1988. By 1993 he was in charge of the overall military command of the EZLN, after the CCRI-CG confirmed the decision to go to war. The above are ‘facts’ that Marcos has divulged to the press or that academic research has uncovered. The dramatic ‘unmasking’ by the Mexican government in February 1995 revealed Marcos to be Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente from Tampico, Tamaulipas, the son of Alfonso Guillén and Socorro Vicente, owners of a chain of furniture stores. This identity is generally accepted in academic and journalistic circles for a number of reasons, including the academic nature of some of Marcos’ writings, the fact that his accent has been recognized as being from north of Chiapas and the general time frame.9 Although his family claims that they have not seen him for 11 years, Don Alfonso is certainly a supportive father, allegedly remarking that if Rafael was Marcos he would be full of pride, for he is the Quixote of our times, the social fighter, the leader Mexico and the world need.10

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Charismatic Authority and the ‘Moral Upper Hand’ in Chiapas: Resistance, Legitimacy and Symbolic Meanings

Marcos wasted no time in captivating the media on that first day of January 1994. The Zapatista Movement was catapulted into the spotlight of the world’s revolutionary stage and its white enigmatic spokesperson became an overnight hero, speaking and writing of the misery and oppression of the Maya Indian population in a previously unknown part of Mexico. Marcos used his charismatic personality to attract immediate and intense attention to the plight of the Indian peoples in Chiapas, simultaneously exposing the political inadequacies of the Mexican government. From these premises, he built moral and political capital in the eyes of the nation and of the world, thereby gaining the Zapatista Movement a substantial degree of credibility. This strategy is understood to include two other concurrent elements, that operate in conjunction with his personal appeal and skills. The first was a politics of non-violent resistance to the ‘low-intensity’ offensive from the government and the second was the use of symbolism and the reappropriation and reconstruction of the official national discourse for the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in the nation and for the inclusion of the nation in the movement. There is plenty of evidence in the literature that both the US and the Mexican governments knew of the Zapatista Movement before 1994. In March 1993, Salinas was personally told by leaders of the Cattlemen Association that there were guerrillas training in the mountains of Chiapas and two months later the Mexican army accidentally stumbled upon a Zapatista training camp.11 The Mexican government chose to downplay its reaction to this information for a number of reasons, including the fact that it had to appear politically stable for the sake of foreign investment, it had to maintain a positive international image, it was in the midst of negotiating the NAFTA Agreement and the 1994 elections were looming.12 The government also underestimated the influence of the EZLN and tried hard to sell the rebellion as a foreign or as a local event but, as Hernández Navarro argues, it was a national problem that became an international issue.13 It was in fact international pressure and national criticism of the perceived brutality of the Mexican army in dealing with the rebels that forced Salinas to call a unilateral ceasefire 12 days after that fateful first day in January 1994. Surprisingly, Salinas’s actions were applauded by Carlos Fuentes, who writes that, “Salinas acted with common sense and democratic vision when he renounced bloody repression in Chiapas and chose instead the

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path of negotiation …. The peace process … has given Mexican democracy its broadest definition: for all and from below”.14 The second time the Mexican government backed down was on February 12, 1995, when Zedillo recalled the hunt for the rebel leaders and supposedly diminished the military presence in the Zapatista zone. The main event that led to the hunt was the ‘unmasking’ of Subcomandante Marcos, the claim by the Mexican government on February 10, 1995 that they had finally identified the main culprit behind the rebellion, after a number of false leads and amusing blunders.15 Zedillo had then promptly ordered the arrest of Subcomandante Marcos and other EZLN leaders. Massive demonstrations in support of the Zapatistas were held on February 11, 1995 in the zócalo of Mexico City, followed by intense international criticism of what was perceived as the government breaking the original truce. The upshot was that Zedillo was forced to call a halt to military action and issued an amnesty regarding the warrants three days later. According to some, the unmasking of Marcos did not have the effect the government wished.16 Guillermoprieto notes that “the plan to disillusion Marcos’ admirers with the revelation that the daring guerrilla is a sappylooking academic full of old-line Marxist dogma worked for about 72 hours”.17 Some interpret the ‘undressing’ of Marcos as an attempt by the government to reduce the movement to a paternalistic mestizo act or to curtail the powerful effect of the mask. Others argue that the unmasking did serve its purpose.18 In any case, Marcos responded with a communiqué a few days later that made fun of the government and, metaphorically speaking, ‘snatched the mask back’.19 The impasse that has existed between the Mexican government and the Zapatistas since 1994 is due to the fact that the former can neither co-opt nor use open warfare against them. Instead, it has opted for a strategy commonly known as ‘low-intensity warfare’ that combines coercive practices by paramilitary groups and selective aid in Chiapas, aimed at deepening the rift within the communities in order to diminish the political impact of the Zapatista Movement.20 As the country reeled under the devaluation of the peso in 1994, inflation, unemployment and the virtual collapse of the economy, the attempted peace process turned out to be long and drawn out, mediated by a number of individuals and organizations such as CONAI (National Intermediation Commission) and COCOPA (Commission of Concordance and Pacification). The talks between the government and the Zapatistas were called off and resumed several times until the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture were finally signed in February 1996, but were never implemented by the government in their original version. Amongst other

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things, the Accords called for the recognition of Indigenous rights (including free determination and autonomy), the division of Indigenous regions in municipalities and the promotion and protection of Indigenous cultures and customs.21 From 1995 to 1998 several communiqués were issued by Marcos and the EZLN in response to the Mexican government, or to inform the public of the actions of the military at various times when they broke the ceasefires. One of the most tragic episodes was, of course, the Acteal massacre of 1997, when a group of 45 Tzozil Maya people, including a number of women and children from a non-violent pro-Zapatista group called Las Avejas (The Bees) were murdered in cold blood while praying. The Acteal massacre was the result of an internal struggle in the PRI, the subsequent investigation demonstrating direct links between the paramilitaries, the PRI municipal government and state security forces. 22 The government opened fire on civilians once more in 1998 in Ocosingo, and that same year launched military offensives against 3 Zapatista communities. In 1999, some sixty thousand troops were stationed in 66 of Chiapas’s one hundred and eleven municipalities. The violence allegedly continues today with relatively recently formed paramilitary groups, including the incongruously named Paz y Justicia (Peace and Justice), Mascaras Rojas (Red Masks) and the OPDDIC (Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights).23 In response to the Mexican government’s sabotage of the peace process and its traditional mix of co-optation and repression, another strategy adopted by Marcos and the Zapatistas in December 1994 was the establishment of over 30 autonomous communities. In July 2003, to replace the former political centers called Aguascalientes, 5 new sites of resistance called the Caracoles were established. The Caracoles headed 29 autonomous municipalities in corresponding regional organizational units called ‘Juntas de Buen Gobierno’ or committees of good government, separate from the EZLN. In July 2005 the Zapatistas announced the closure of the Caracoles, due to the intensification of military presence.24 The caracoles are snails, animals that move slowly but steadily—an obvious analogy to the idea of patient and tranquil trajectory to socio-political change. In Mayan culture, they are symbolic of gathering the community together and of spirals connecting the Indigenous struggle to the rest of the world.25 This is an example of the way in which the Zapatista Movement has relied on symbolism, just as it has relied on a modified re-appropriation of national revolutionary history and mythology for the previously mentioned purposes, that is, to gain legitimacy and national presence.

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Attempts to recover history for political purposes usually signify both continuity and rupture, a concept expressed in an interesting article by Rajchenberg and Héau-Lambert. These authors argue that “tradition is never the mere repetition of the past in the present: it selectively reconstructs and it updates the past according to the requirements of the present”. They also argue that part of the purpose of reconstructing and updating the past was, in this case, to assist the location or relocation of Indigenous people in Mexican national history and tradition.26 The first obvious illustration of the Zapatistas’ appeal to Mexican revolutionary history is the use of the name ‘Aguascalientes’ for the 1994 Congress and for their initial organizational structures, meant to evoke the Constitutional Convention held in the town of that same name in 1914. The purpose of this evocation was to link Indigenous Indians to the ‘recognized’ nation’s history, thus celebrating their inclusion in popular participation and national citizenship. Aguascalientes (the word means ‘hot waters’ in Spanish) were also the names for the Zapatistas’ meeting spaces, shaped like plazas in ancient Mayan tradition. According to Gossen, their location outside the existing municipal centers was symbolic of the separation from both the colonial and the modern sites of cacique rule.27 There are also instances of the Zapatistas contesting established political space from which they had previously been excluded. One such contestation occurred in the San Cristóbal Plaza in June 1998, when they marched to protest the death of ten campesinos. The same site was chosen the following year for the Zapatista National Consultation in March. Similarly, the zócalo in Mexico City was the space where the Zapatistas made a political statement for the same event. This particular zócalo has been the traditional focal point for protest groups since the debt crisis of 1982, therefore the incorporation of the Zapatistas in this meaningful national site can be considered symbolic of their incorporation in the nation.28 As was stated earlier in this book, charismatic leaders often rely on past figures and discourses to legitimize their personal authority. Marcos beat the Mexican state at its own game and legitimized the movement by creating a competing nationalistic discourse in which he appealed to timeless aspects and events of Mexican revolutionary history, thus appropriating or re-appropriating the most meaningful heroes and symbols of the nation. Speaking to Le Bot in a well-known interview, he frankly states that: Reclaiming these concepts of nation, patria, freedom, democracy and justice, the EZLN connects itself to a tradition of struggle, with a

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cultural tradition and produces this language that obtains the permeation of many symbols to many layers of society.29

This sense of historical continuity and legitimacy is created in his writings by nationalistic references to various historical events and figures: the Independence Movement, the Diaz dictatorship, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. For instance, the First Declaration of the Lacandona shows how heavily the movement drew on Mexican history to portray themselves as the genuine heirs of the revolution, as opposed to the ‘impostor’, the Mexican government.30 The Declaration mentions the national flag and the Constitution, both national political symbols. The Zapatista comandantes are insurgents, just like Hidalgo and Morelos, the founding fathers of the country.31 Marcos has claimed various leaders of the revolution as his own personal role models, particularly Pancho Villa and Zapata, the latter a potent symbol of revolutionary integrity in Mexico.32 Krauze has argued that “Marcos regularly situates himself in the Mexican tradition of revolution, as if to borrow legitimacy from the very country with which he is at war”.33 This is, however, not quite accurate, for Marcos has never been at war with Mexico, but rather with its government and the classes that he perceives are exploiting the rest of the Mexican people. The writing and rewriting of history relies on the idea of linear time, a concept that the West values. Following this path, another symbolic strategy used by the movement is to promote political events on meaningful dates, such as Zapata’s anniversary of death (April 10, 1919) to advance the cause of land rights. In the Lacandona Jungle on that particular day in 1994, Zapatista troops marched offering homage, while Marcos read a statement released by the EZLN that featured the story of Zapata’s assassination by the Mexican government. The ceremony was covered by the national and international press. On the same day, fifty thousand peasants and Indians in Mexico City marched to the zócalo, reclaiming Zapata’s ideals for both Indigenous and peasant movements. Similar celebrations were held throughout Mexico. In the same fashion, October 2, 1994 was the chosen date to rally against military brutality in remembrance of the 1968 students’ massacre while the date of the Intercontinental Indigenous Encounter of October 2007 marks five hundred and fifteen years of invasion of Indigenous lands.34 A point that deserves further attention is the association of Emiliano Zapata to the Zapatista Movement. Given that part of his political strategy was to develop the movement at national level, Marcos reappropriated Zapata’s figure for its resonance in national consciousness.35 Furthermore, there were ideological reasons that made

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an association with Zapata’s name politically commendable. Strictly speaking, Zapata was not a socialist, however he stood for ideals that spun from social justice to freedom and racial equality, showing that elements of both democracy and socialism can be derived from one fundamental tenet: land redistribution. In other words, the Zapatistas’ association to Zapata enabled the use of Western political language in their discourse necessary for them to be heard, at the same time detaching them sufficiently from the traditional left. A related strategy is the merging of Western political ideals present in Mexican discourse to Mayan mythology, through the fusion of Zapata’s figure to Mayan Gods Ik’al and Votán as told in a tale by Old Antonio.36 As this extract from a communiqué released by the CCRI-CG on April 10, 1995 states: Even though he has blood, Votán-Zapata does not struggle just for the Indigenous. He struggles also for those who are not Indigenous but who live in the same misery, without rights, without justice in their jobs, without democracy for their decisions and without freedom for their thoughts and words.…. Votán-Zapata has all the colors and all the languages …. Brothers and sisters, we are all Votán-Zapata, we are all the Guardian and Heart of the People …37

Votán-Zapata became a unifying agent providing the movement with moral and religious focus, as argued by Stephen in Zapata Lives!: Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico.38 It should be noted that the association of the movement with Zapata is not uncontested— indeed, far from it. Collier has argued that Zapata was hardly known in Chiapas before the formation of the new Zapatista Movement, while Stephen notes that the use of Zapata’s name is tied to the symbolism of the Mexican left in the 1970s and 1980s. Similarly, Ouweneel has remarked that Zapata was introduced by the white EZLN leadership to disqualify the Mexican government.39 Finally, it seems that the identification of the movement with Zapata “did not, in the end, fare well with public opinion and ended up being diluted and then abandoned, as much by the press as by the Zapatistas themselves”.40 As mentioned above, the Zapatista Movement and Marcos have relied heavily on visual symbols. This is a politically effective strategy. Visual symbols are even more pervasive than their written counterpart, in the sense that they reach more of the population since—due to their intuitive component—formal literacy is not necessary for a subjective interpretation. They are also easier to remember than written material, therefore more likely to entrench themselves in national collective consciousness. Arguably, the most significant visual symbol of the

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Zapatista Movement and Marcos’ trademark is the pasamontaña or the ski-mask that will be discussed in a later chapter.41 Another example of the use of visual symbolism by the Zapatista Movement is the parading of the Mexican flag, unfolded and displayed by Marcos in the 1994 debate that took place in the San Cristóbal cathedral and at the CND (National Democratic Convention) in August of the same year. This was done to convey to Mexican society that the fight was not against the Mexican nation but for a new form of nationhood inclusive of diverse cultures. There are Zapatista murals on the walls of public buildings that tell their own stories and thus contribute to the regeneration of collective consciousness.42 Another symbolic image that jolts popular memory is Marcos’ appearance on a horse at various events wearing cartridge belts crossed on his chest, conjuring Zapata’s image and at the same time obscuring his own personal identity. This is an effective image even for those who do not know who Zapata is because it brings to mind the well-known cliché of the Latin American guerrilla on horseback. Although introduced by the enemy, the Spanish conquerors, the horse is an important part of Mexican folklore and generally a firmly entrenched symbol of victory and strength at the service of heroes and gauchos in Latin American popular culture.43 Unsurprisingly, the heroes of the Mexican Revolution are typically represented by pictures of Zapata and Pancho Villa riding their horses. The use of symbolism from the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara and the associated Marxist ideology by the EZLN is more controversial. According to Le Bot, this association is evident by the choice of colors (red and black), the name (National Liberation Army) as well as the general language of socialism and class struggle that was present in the early Zapatista discourse.44 Marcos, on the other hand, argues that the red and black colors are closer to Mexican national liberation movements than to the Castro–Guevara revolutionary tradition. He explains the meaning of the red five-pointed star in the EZLN flag (also present in the FLN and the EPR, the Popular Revolutionary Army) in terms of Indigenous culture, as a man and his 5 parts: the head, arms and feet.45 The Zapatistas’ emphasis on symbolism often features nature. Mountains, for example, have symbolic meaning as hiding places or even spaces outside legal boundaries that harbor the impetus for revolutionary transformation. The Sierra Maestra in the Cuban Revolution is a perfect example as is the Lacandona Jungle. Marcos once again superimposes symbolic meaning from Mayan culture to its Western counterpart, whereby the mountain is the source of all life as

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well as a place where the living acknowledges the dead.46 Similarly, another symbolic feature of the landscape that is meaningful in Mayan culture is the sun, representing justice: every hundred years a new sun rises. On January 1, 1994 the sixth sun rose.47 Marcos’ own personal adornments also have symbolic significance. He wears a watch on each wrist, one with Mexican time (the one he arrived in the jungle with) and the other from when the ceasefire began (Zapatista time). In an interview called ‘The Punch Card and the Hour Glass’ Marcos states that “When the two times coincide it will mean that Zapatismo is finished as an army and that another stage, another watch and another time has started”.48 Moreover, he uses the metaphor of the punch card (the neo-liberal factory clock) and the hourglass (the slipping of the sand in Zapatista time) as symbolic of the movement’s struggle with the Mexican government. Mirrors, as we will see later in this book, figure most prominently in Marcos’ discourse as mediums of social and individual self-consciousness, necessary for any transformational process to occur: The Subcomandante states: Indigenous brothers and sisters, we are mirrors. We are here to see and show ourselves, so that you can see us, so that you can see yourself, so that the other can see himself in our glance. We are here and we are a mirror. Not reality, but just its reflection. Not the light, just a twinkle. Not the walk, just the first steps. Not the guide, but just one of the many directions that lead to tomorrow.49

Finally, the use of symbolism is apparent in the Zapatista’s almost theatrical staging of events that assume special meaning, for instance the CND in August 1994, the Consultas of August 1995, the Encounters for Humanity in 1996 and, more recently, the Intercontinental Indigenous Encounter of October 2007 and the Third Encuentro of the Zapatistas People with the People of the World at the end of December 2007. In an interview Marcos states that the March of 1,111 Zapatistas in September 1997 to Mexico City reiterates the nationalistic character of the struggle, as it retraced the path of Zapata’s Army in December 1914.50 From all of these examples we can agree with the verdict of several scholars that the strength of the Zapatista Movement is not military or political, but symbolic. As Gall states, “the EZLN has managed to fill, with convincing explanations and stories, the void left on the symbolic ground by national leadership”.51 Clearly, Marcos was clever in masterminding symbolisms and metaphors both traditional and new, with the intention of creating effective political spectacle and communicating political values in a way that captured the popular

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imagination. He also realized the importance of an appealing image, without which none of the other strategies would have achieved the desired effect. Marcosmania: The Making and Marketing of a ‘Brilliant Myth’

The image Marcos created eventually led to his transmutation into a global political icon. As most scholars of the Zapatista Movement know, Marcos and the EZLN were fully aware of the importance of the media, civil society and the international solidarity network of organizations in drawing and keeping world attention focused on the conflict. At the end of January 1994, the Zapatistas invited some people from the press, including a reporter from La Jornada, to the Lacandona Jungle to conduct a number of interviews. As Ross points out, the strategic importance of these interviews is comparable to Matthew’s Sierra interview with Castro in 1959.52 What happened in that particular occasion is that ten weeks after taking refuge in the Sierra, amidst rumours that he was dead, Castro organized an excellent publicity stunt. He invited Herbert Matthews, a sympathetic reporter from the New York Times, to visit rebel headquarters. The resulting interview—published on February 24, 1957 in the US and later in the Cuban press—caused a sensation, mostly because it cast Batista (Castro’s nemesis at the time) in the role of the villain, while Castro, portrayed as the invincible symbol of resistance, became an overnight hero. Matthews, charmed by the barbudos, painted a flattering picture of Castro as passionate, courageous and devoted to the cause of national liberation, but not to communism! The publicity was politically and morally beneficial to the revolution.53 Back to the Zapatistas—they were not only interested in containing the government’s aggression; they also needed to make up for their lack of military strength. With exceptionally clever use of traditional and new media, Marcos was able to achieve a number of objectives: 1) the establishment of solidarity networks to gather international support, 2) a political dialogue with intellectuals in Mexico and abroad (most particularly Europe), and 3) the creation of a rapport with national and global civil society. He was brilliant at constructing his own image and taking full advantage of the extensive and intensive coverage that was sparked by the 1994 rebellion. He became a familiar figure, his ascent to celebrity status described as meteoric, a phenomenon known in the literature as ‘Marcosmania’.54 Marcos, says De La Colina, “has presented himself with a quality of visual fetishism, selling himself as an

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icon destined to nourish the new revolutionary imagination in all its novelty and velocity”.55 In many ways the image of Marcos is that of a traditional revolutionary, clad in rebel clothing, cartridge belts crossed over his chest, a red handkerchief tied around his neck and a gun slung over his shoulder. Yet he is somewhat different to the traditional revolutionary, speaking in a soft, almost detached tone of voice and not exuding the energy of Castro, the solemnity of Perón or the openness of Che Guevara. Guillermoprieto has commented that Marcos is like his postscripts, elusive and intimate at once,56 a combination of attributes that proved irresistible to both media and audiences, in a sense the essence of celebrity. Almost overnight the Subcomandante became a household name and achieved sex-symbol status, as the embodiment of a Robin Hood of the Indians, a masked horse-riding outlaw that stimulated the erotic fantasies of many women in and beyond Mexico. Not only politically, but financially (potentially) the image succeeded: Benetton, the Italian fashion label, repeatedly offered Marcos lucrative contracts to pose in promotional campaigns (which, of course, he turned down). His image has been reproduced on calendars, t-shirts, pens and other merchandise. There are Marcos dolls, key-rings and condoms; there are even Marcos clones, people who dress like him. It is certainly not surprising that he has been called a marketer’s dream.57 Although Marcos’ image is, to a degree, more contrived than Castro’s or Perón’s, one should not assume that his charismatic appeal is any less ‘authentic’: the consensus in the literature speaks for itself.58 Words replaced bullets extremely fast after the Chiapas Rebellion. In a relatively short period of time, hundreds of communiqués were sent to the press, signed by either the EZLN or Marcos himself and published in Mexico by newspapers like La Jornada, Proceso, El Financiero and El Tiempo. Numerous interviews were granted to well-known journalists like Blanche Petrich and Hermann Bellinghausen (La Jornada), Vicente Leñero (Proceso), Tim Golden (New York Times) and Óscar Hinojosa (El Financiero). The news from Chiapas crowded out the Mexican presidential campaign stories in early 1994.59 According to Trejo Delarbre, La Jornada (a left-wing publication) was particularly active in this respect: never before had it dedicated as much space to a single individual.60 The international media also fell in love with Marcos, fascinated by the exotic connotations of an Indigenous rebellion led by a white man.61 Several major international media organizations have interviewed or written about Marcos, including Time and Newsweek, 60 Minutes, Le Figaro, Chronicle and Vanity Fair. The alternate media in particular was (is) incredibly involved in this cause, including

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Indymedia, Revista Rebeldía and Narco News to name just a few. There are also several websites directly concerned with the Zapatistas and hundreds of others that support them. On one hand, it did seem as though all the clichés and ideas about Latin style political soap-operas that appeal to Europeans and North Americans had just become reality. Perverse governors, revolutionary bishops, heroic guerrillas and defenseless Indians came to life in a spectacle whose willing audience was, perhaps, either a bored or a guilty society. On the other hand, the rebellion was of genuine interest to many people, from either a humanitarian or an intellectual or a political point of view. The EZLN’s strategy with the media was justified by Marcos in a communiqué written on February 11, 1994 called ‘Reasons and NonReasons why Some Media Were Chosen’. In another communiqué, he sarcastically states: We apologize if in our clumsy media policy we insulted or mistrusted your sense of professionalism. We hope you understand that we had never run a revolution before and that we are still learning. We reiterate that, thanks to the press, it was possible to stop the military phase of the war. We sincerely hope you will understand the difficult conditions we are working under, and will excuse the unfair selection process we used to determine which news agencies would have access to our territories. We hope you continue on your path of truth.62

But, as much as Marcos may have provided the official rationale behind his handling of the media, it is clear that he was in control of the situation like a talented scenographer, his attitude oscillating between amused ironical flirtation and annoyance at just the right times. Levario Turcott identifies him as the principal strategist of the Zapatista ‘media spectacle’, as the one who captivated the press and the intellectuals.63 In general terms, an extremely critical (and less than credible) article by Rico argues that at the beginning there were two types of media response to the events in Chiapas: one that tried to minimize the conflict or ignore it and the other that accepted everything the rebels said as gospel.64 Rico argues that the overall result was a totally distorted picture of the rebellion, where falsities were put forward as truths by the Zapatistas: all Indigenous people in Chiapas are Zapatistas, Marcos is only their interpreter and the EZLN had created a democratic heaven that the genocide-bent Mexican government wanted to destroy. In the meantime, unlawful acts and infringements of human rights by the EZLN went unreported. Marcos’ logic, Rico states (in what sounds like a classic indictment of authoritarian revolutionaries), was that if you were not with them you were against them. Rico is also critical of the

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media itself, arguing that many reporters converted themselves into propagandists instead of information-bearers: The rules were clear: you cannot ever question the charismatic leader, nor get near abominable people like the small ranchers or the nonZapatista Indigenous, nor doubt the information dished out by the dioceses in San Cristóbal.65

Marcos is therefore not the only one responsible for this situation: the press entered the game fully and voluntarily and accepted a series of ‘abuses’ from Marcos—who incidentally banned the television network Televisa from reporting Zapatista events and interviews—that would not have been tolerated from the government. The Subcomandante, Rico continues to argue, was excused on grounds of inexperience, instead of being condemned for his ‘authoritarian’ attitude.66 In any case, the accused absolves himself from charges of overly inspired myth-making: If a mystical, mocking or satirical image is what I am, let us honor who deserves the credit, this has been your responsibility, you are the ones who gave me this image and this responsibility is yours.67

The conservative and the left-wing media, in Mexico as well as anywhere else, were probably both guilty of bias in reporting the events of 1994, just as the Western press has been criticized for its distorted reporting of the Iraq war. What might appear to be contradictory interpretations of the same ‘facts’ are in reality reflections of profound divisions. In Mexico, these divisions are not only about the Zapatista Movement and Marcos’ role, but about fundamental issues of exploitation and social justice that are not new. This schism between the deep Mexico and the imaginary Mexico, portrayed by Guillermo Bonfil Batalla in Mexico Profundo, is present not only in academic circles, but also in every corner of Chiapas. It was palpable in San Cristóbal and in some of the Zapatista communities and tiny villages in the mountains that I visited. In any case, the Zapatistas were successful in conveying the message to the rest of the world that Chiapas was a casualty of neoliberalism as much as of its own national history. Part of the reason for this success, as I mentioned above, is that they were able to avail themselves of (then) innovative communication technology, namely the internet, to exchange information, opinions and ideas, to organize global encounters and join solidarity networks. They were also able to maintain an informal rapport with a number of organizations, support groups and NGOs like, for instance, CIEPAC (Centro de Investigaciones

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Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria).68 In this way, the Zapatista Movement has managed to gain unprecedented and continuous transnational presence. It should be noted that it was the creation of La Neta in the early 1990s, a Mexican computer communication network that was used by women’s groups in Chiapas to link regional NGOs to global and national women’s movements, that helped in turning the internet into an effective tool for the Zapatistas.69 Solidarity networks are described as amorphous, decentralized and non-hierarchical forms of organization and action that have replaced those traditional institutions that once upon a time had organized citizens into structured groups such as unions or parties. Some of these networks are part of what can be defined as a ‘loose’ anti-globalization movement.70 The element of convergence between these (often quite diverse) organizations is the call for a shift away from supranational institutions like the IMF and the WTO towards more democratic and more accountable state formations, although there might be little agreement on the means that should be employed to achieve these ends. In networks of this kind power tends to be dispersed rather than concentrated, but the advantage is precisely that the network structure is difficult to control as there is no focal command point or leadership hierarchy which in turn makes it difficult to pinpoint who needs to be targeted. On the other hand, as Klein points out, a disadvantage of these types of networks is the lack of synthesis that sometimes results in futile or self-defeating actions. Also, if there needs to be more structure, what kind of structure should it be? How should decisions be made?71 Despite the shortcomings of these formations, there is a perception that the Zapatista solidarity network as a circuit of information is more dependable than mainstream media, often constrained by financial or political interests, although the use of the internet that is required by solidarity networks is not without its critics. Nugent, for instance, critiques online communication as yet another form of Western domination. Others argue that these new technologies are responsible for creating an illusory sense of connection between the Western world, the Indigenous communities and the solidarity activists; even if such connection was real, the argument is that it should not replace direct personal interaction.72 These criticisms are undoubtedly sound, but there is also truth in the assertion by Castells that “all realities are communicated through symbols …. In a sense all reality is virtually perceived”.73 Moreover, while technology may not be morally or politically neutral, it can and should be used to fight exploitative hegemonies.

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Finally, Ronfeldt, Arquilla, and Fuller and Fuller argue that it was transnational NGO activism attuned to the information age and not the EZLN itself that made the insurgency novel.74 There is no doubt that NGO activism did alter the dynamics of the confrontation in Chiapas by drawing international actors sympathetic to the Zapatistas into the conflict, which in turn put pressure on the Mexican authorities to deal with the rebels in a less aggressive manner and created a sense of justified global resistance to the evils of neo-liberalism. But this does not explain why it was the Zapatistas who received so much attention and not any other anti-globalization movement that also avails itself of these technologies. Moreover, one could argue that it is the Zapatista Movement that has promoted transnational activism, or at least made it fashionable, rather than the other way around. We can conclude that the Zapatistas’ brand of internationalism and their struggle against the globalization project have, at the collective socio-political level, bolstered the formation of solidarity networks based on the same broad struggle for human dignity, at the same time reaching a multitude of ‘isolated’ individuals around the globe.75 This illustrates the advantages offered by the new technologies to movements like the Zapatista Movement, in that these technologies have enabled a form of direct interaction between the local and the global level, at the expense of the national sphere. They have also made possible the construction of an alternate public sphere that permits a unique form of communication.76 This, in turn, has strengthened the ideals of cultural pluralism and exposed the ‘parochialism of the Global Project’. Esteva and Prakash use the term ‘parochial globalism’. This might seem a paradox, but it is true that the universal proposals of globalization express the specific visions and interests of only a small group of powerful people. The Zapatista Movement and similar-minded movements share a rejection of the global project and its imposition of universal values (what the authors refers to as mono-culturalism dressed up as multiculturalism), wishing to retain their cultural pluralism without falling into cultural relativism. The way they fight is through modest local action rather than attempting to compete on a global level—for then you become a minor player and doomed to lose the battle—or attempting the fight through corrupted political structures. The authors argue that the political strategy is about disengagement from the power game and destabilization of the dependency of the rulers upon the ruled to stay powerful; the central idea is that the power game ends the moment the colonized or the oppressed ceases to participate or believe

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in it.77 This sums up well the reasoning behind the strategy adopted by Marcos. Zapatista Audiences: The Resonance of Charismatic Authority

It has been aptly remarked that the Zapatistas lost the military war but won the media battle.78 Marcos knows that words—in a world where information is a most valuable commodity—are a powerful weapon. We have just seen how successful he was at constructing his own image and, as a spokesperson mediating between entirely different worlds, how he was able to use that image, the available technology and a range of global institutions in a way that was politically effective. As a result, the Zapatista message has resonated (and is still resonating) with a multitude of audiences locally, nationally and globally. My use of the word ‘audience’ rather than ‘following’ is not accidental. A ‘following’ literally means to ‘come after’ someone or something. In politics, is signifies a group of people who adhere to a particular cause or a course of action; followers are supporters of a leader or an association such as a political party who believe that their interests and values are being represented by those they follow. This is particularly true in the case of charismatic leaders, because there is an added reason for adherence to the values these leaders represent or claim to represent—that is, the force of their personality and the emotional response that this force elicits from the people. As noted earlier, these leaders are likely to articulate a problem that affects society in dramatic terms. Often, the cause they advocate will carry undertones of sacredness or morality; they will propose a most fitting solution, while presenting themselves as the only ones able to implement it uncompromisingly. The solution or prescription is often presented to the followers by way of a paternalistically conveyed political discourse and as the only viable course of action, to the exclusion or belittlement of diverging or opposing views. An ‘audience’, on the other hand, refers to a group of listeners, readers, spectators or observers. An audience does not necessarily have to agree or even identify with the person to whom they are listening or with whom they are communicating. There are no ‘available masses’ as in the case of Peronism, no formalized leader-led relationship, although in a political context if someone engages an audience, he or she must inevitably (albeit indirectly) have some influence or authority.79 Marcos expresses this idea clearly in his interview with Vázquez Montalbán:

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We are not looking for followers, but interlocutors because we know that what we would like to build we cannot do on our own. Besides it is necessary to continuously bruise the image of the caudillo or leader. If we do not question ourselves we are going to create a cult that could be broad or could be very restricted, depends, but that will not resolve our problems.80

Marcos definitely has an audience outside the Mayan world. As Poniatowska claims, “after January 1 Marcos became the most charismatic man in Mexico: nobody can match his ability to convoke an audience for an event”.81 The Zapatistas can boast this audience to be an eclectic one. Marcos engages with non-Mayan civil society to awaken it, first morally then politically through his writings, just as he engages in direct dialogues with various academics, scholars, activists and journalists. In addition, the global audience that was targeted includes a number of international organizations, groups and movements. Specific groups such as Argentina’s ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’ have identified common threads between their struggles and those of the Zapatistas. One might note that Marcos’ figure is singled out and addressed separately from the rest of the comandantes or members of the EZLN in this comment from one of the founders of the Argentine mothers, Hebe de Bonafini: The young people do not have hope, do not have vision and they see in ‘Marcos’ their project; but they are projects to see yourself in, we must listen to them very much, to ‘Marcos’ and to his compañeros comandantes, because they are wise.82

In other words, Marcos aims to give his audience political awareness or debate, rather than political representation or political identity. Unsurprisingly, he does not engage with the Zapatista mass base in the way Castro or Perón engaged with their followers. He might have planned to do so in 1983, but today he is understood as a mediator more than as a demagogue, because whilst he has the ability to move between different cultural spaces, he has not designed or demarcated any of them himself. Stepping into a political vacuum of sorts, as all charismatic leaders do, Marcos has struck a chord with those who have established or wish to acquire credentials in humanitarianism and with those disillusioned with the political system they have been unable to change. There are also the thousands of people who are not sure of where they fit into the world and find the fluidity of the Zapatista Movement appealing. Within Chiapas, the EZLN was supported at the outset by a large number of

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Indigenous communities (but not all, as it is widely believed outside of Mexico), the radical sector of the Catholic Church and a number of leftwing radicals. In the rest of Mexico, the political vision and message of the Zapatistas resonated with sections of the working and middle classes, portions of the Mexican intelligentsia and the organized left, students and Indigenous groups, as well as a number of civil and human rights movements.83 According to Montfort Guillén, the most significant support for the Zapatista has come from the Mexican middle class rather than from the intellectuals or the marginalized classes. The author argues that this support was the result of frustration, anger, dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the political system and the empty promises of modernity rather than the result of an intellectual flirtation, guilt or love of violence. This view is corroborated by other scholars in the literature and supported by available survey data.84 Marcos’ interaction or dialogue with various intellectuals, academics and celebrities inside and outside Mexico—particularly in Europe—is a relatively unusual feature of the Zapatista Movement. Of course most leaders, particularly charismatic ones, have attracted such interactions at times, for instance, Jean Paul Sartre and Oliver Stone both visited Castro and Gabriel García Márquez is a close friend. In this case, however, it is the fact that Marcos is not an official leader or politician that makes these interactions remarkable, as well as the frequency and the degree of intensity involved (often the outcome of diverse rather than similar political or intellectual positions), not to mention the rapidity with which these interactions occurred after the rebellion. Marcos’ correspondence list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of the academic world’s heavyweights. It includes Regis Debray, John Berger, Eduardo Galeano, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, José Saramago, Yvon le Bot, Manuel Vásquez Montalbán, Carlos Monsivaís, Gabriel García Márquez and Adolfo Gilly. Letters of support have been sent to the Zapatistas by Umberto Eco, Noam Chomsky, Rigoberta Menchú, Elena Poniatowska and Adolfo Esquival Pérez. Alain Touraine is an ardent admirer and Danielle Mitterand has been to Chiapas twice and accepted a rose from a gallant Marcos. Some celebrities who support the Zapatista Movement come from the world of celluloid, names like Oliver Stone and Robert Redford. The interest of European intellectuals in Marcos has been the subject of some criticism: They [the European intellectuals] marvel at his wise words; thrill to his masked Zorro get-up, his Sherlock Holmes pipe; gasp at the savage nobility of his native followers; put on T-shirts that read ‘I am an

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Indian too’; and return home with the proselytizing zeal of an army of Saint Pauls …. Turning the enemies’ weapons brilliantly on themselves, he has identified his consumers, tailored his message to their needs and, with minimum investment, sold his product around the globe.85

There is little doubt that this type of audience established the importance and the political credibility of the Zapatista Movement as well as Marcos’ own charismatic and moral authority. Whether Marcos was as successful in eliciting more than a fleeting response from the Mexican civil society is a more controversial matter. At the outset, it is possible to state that the Zapatista Movement cannot be called a national mass movement by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps within Chiapas it could be called a mass movement (unfortunately, there are no figures available to make a precise judgment of this matter), but as I have already pointed out, one should bear in mind that not all the Maya peoples of Chiapas are Zapatistas.86 There is also the problem of the distinction between the response of the people to the movement and their response to Marcos. Any assessment one might make should not assume that the two phenomena, Marcos and the movement, can be easily separated. Quantitative data can arguably separate them more easily than its qualitative counterpart, but even if this is the case, its usefulness is—as always—severely limited in terms of sample size, representation and time span. Overall, survey figures from the excellent research company Alduncin and newspaper Reforma indicate a fairly positive and balanced response from Mexican civil society to the political events involving the Zapatista Movement between 1994 and 2001.87 They also indicate (amongst other things) that Marcos’ popularity increased between 1994 and 2001, and that the main source of support shifted from non-educated, low-income to educated and higher-income groups.88 On the other hand, an intuitive judgment based on qualitative data can be made that his charisma captivated thousands of people in Mexico, even if some of them only briefly. Shortly after the rebellion, on January 12, 1994 one hundred thousand people marched in the zócalo of Mexico City in support of the Zapatistas and demanded an end to the government’s violent repression in Chiapas.89 It is unclear how much influence Marcos himself had gained by that stage; however, 12 days in national spotlight is a long time, long enough for an individual to make a lasting impression. An example of crowds reacting to Marcos’ public appearance is described by De la Grange and Rico during the National

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Democratic Convention press conference that was held in August 1994 as being nothing short of a: Deifying act of adhesion to the Sub, supplemented by incessant screams of his female followers: ‘Handsome!’, ‘We would love to have your children!’ …. The multitudes applauded spiritedly at each answer and booed the questions that they considered irrelevant. At a certain moment the Zapatista leader offered to take off his mask. The ignited masses said no. Marcos was euphoric. Almost on the verge ‘of orgasm’, he specified.90

One can be more certain of Marcos’ effect on the Mexican people the following year, on February 11, 1995 after the Mexican government exposed the ‘real’ Marcos. Again, massive demonstrations in support of the Zapatistas were held in the Mexico City zócalo, where crowds of all ages and social status chanted ‘We are all Marcos!’ 91 These words were echoed in other parts of Mexico. According to figures from La Jornada, one thousand three hundred and twenty eight recorded demonstrations took place in the first 6 months of 1995 in Mexico.92 Similarly, on March 11, 2001 Marcos and 23 other EZLN commanders entered the zócalo in Mexico City to be welcomed by a crowd of more than two hundred thousand supporters, the biggest number drawn in the itinerary of the successful March for Indigenous Dignity. This demonstration was repeated two more times between March 12 and March 18.93 Once again, the Zapatistas were supported by thousands of people in various other towns throughout the march from San Cristóbal to Mexico City.94 One could argue that events like these have been relatively infrequent, but what needs to be taken into consideration is that Marcos is not part of the formal political system and that from 2001 to early 2006 he was virtually in hiding. Since January 2006, however, he has been in the public eye as the main spokesperson of the Otra Campaña (The Other Campaign) tour that has received substantial support nationally and globally. Therefore, it is difficult to assess whether the enthusiasm generated would have been more consistent had he been in the public eye all this time, or more intense had he been part of the official political system. Similarly, it is difficult to evaluate the precise effect he has on the Mayan Zapatista mass base, due to lack of information in this regard. According to Higgins, some Maya people do see Marcos as guided by ancient mystical Mayan forces; his twin animal spirit is considered by some Indians in Chiapas to be a cobra that keeps the Mexican army away.95 There is, however, no published material on

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whether the Maya peoples perceive Marcos as charismatic. There is no reason to assume they do, at least not in the Western sense of the word. All of these observations lead to the conclusion that Marcos’ role in the rise of the Zapatista Movement was crucial, at least in the beginning. Had it not been for the level of international interest and support Marcos raised, it is safe to say that the Mexican government would have wiped out the Zapatistas, as it did with the FLN 20 years earlier. The way Marcos has used his charismatic authority to build moral capital for a number of practical political gains is comparable to most other charismatic leaders. For example, Hugo Chávez has used his charisma to construct his political discourse as a continuation of what the legendary Simón Bolívar had started. Similarly, in this case Mexican revolutionary national history was reconstructed for reasons of political legitimacy and to include the Indian people as well as the movement within the nation’s (redefined) boundaries. The use of symbolism and political theatrics is typical of charismatic leadership, in that it serves not only to further legitimize the cause that is being pursued and those who are pursuing it, but also to give it a meaning that is recognizable in terms of popular culture. Finally, Marcos and the Zapatistas responded to the Mexican government’s low-intensity warfare with a strategy of non-violent resistance at the local level rather than continuing in the path of armed struggle, which is something that won them the respect of civil society. At the global level, Marcos’ originality is undeniable. His charisma was crystallized in a deliberately appealing image that was cleverly projected to the world. Although Marcos dresses like a traditional revolutionary, his unique style and the mystical romanticism of the situation did not escape notice: he is the masked white leader of an Indigenous movement. Moreover, his manner and words are different to those of the typical guerrilla. These differences have captured the attention of audiences at both the national and the global level: solidarity networks, activists, intellectuals and, most importantly, civil societies. These differences also allowed skilful mediation between different cultures and geographical spaces that in turn resulted in effective communication of the predicament of the Indians of Chiapas to the nation and to the rest of the world. The images that this predicament conjured up in the minds of various audiences not only significantly limited the course of action open to the Mexican government, but also gave the movement the moral upper hand and an intelligible voice in a number of important global political debates. There is little doubt in my mind that these gains could not have been achieved without Marcos’ charismatic appeal and his communication skills, thereby once again confirming the presence and the effectiveness

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of charismatic authority. But the story does not end here: Marcos and the Zapatistas are aiming at more than survival, acceptance or credibility. Their political ambitions at the time were (and still are) more profound and more complex. As we shall see in the next chapter, their long-term vision and the ideas that it involves are essentially a challenge to the way humanity has been approaching the political process. At the same time, it is these ideas that justify and intensify Marcos’ reservations about where the boundaries of his authority should lie.

Notes 1 Dates vary. Marcos was born in 1956 according to Campa Mendoza (1999: 138) and in 1957 according to Knudson (1998: 513) and Levario Turcott (1999: 157). 2 See Marcos in García Márquez and Pombo (2001). 3 Krauze (2001: 30). 4 See Tello Díaz (1995: 113). 5 See Campa Mendoza (1999: 140–141). 6 Oppenheimer (1996a: 253). 7 Marcos quoted in Duràn De Huerta’s Yo Marcos, (1994:13), my translation. 8 Marcos quoted in Landau (1996a: 29). See also Marcos in Aguilera et al. (1994: 290–291). 9 See Reforma February 10, 1995, front page and La Jornada February 10, 1995, front page. See also Russell (2001c: 204–209). 10 See Acuña (1995) and Campa Mendoza (1999: 137). 11 See Carrigan (1995: 87) and Schulz (1998: 593). 12 See Carrigan (1995: 87–88); Russell (1995: 36–37); Campa Mendoza (1999: 145); Stavenhagen (2003: 113). Wager and Schulz (1995a) claim that the Chiapas Rebellion has altered the relations between the military and the government in Mexico; these entities are presented in this article as having conflicting agendas and concerns. 13 See Hernández Navarro (1999: 7). A survey Hernández Navarro refers to by Rosenblueth (no year given) shows that 73 percent of the Mexican population thought that the rebellion had national repercussions, while only 13 percent thought it was local. 14 Carlos Fuentes in A New Time for Mexico, (1997: 102). 15 Ross (1995: 296). 16 Jörgensen (2004: 98–99). 17 Guillermoprieto (1995: 44). 18 Huntington (2000: 74); Jörgensen (2004: 98); Stavans (2002: 395). 19 Guillermoprieto (1995: 44). See Marcos (1995b). 20 Gilbreth and Otero (2001: 16). 21 The Accords also called for the promotion of bilingual and culturally aware education, the creation of autonomous Indigenous mass media, the rights

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of Indigenous women to equality and direct control of the use of Indigenous land and resources by Indigenous communities. For good reading on the peace process, see Luis Hernández Navarro and Ramón Vera Herrera’s volume entitled Acuerdos De San Andrés, 1998 and Cynthias Arnson, Raúl Benitez Manaut and Andrew Selee’s Chiapas: Interpretaciónes sobre la Negotiación y la Paz, 2003. One of the chapters in the latter volume is by Hernández Navarro, who argues that the government had no strategy for peace and nothing to offer the rebels. See also Higgins (2001); Lopez (2005); Manaut, Selee and Arnson (2006). Lopez criticizes the Mexican government’s human rights policy. 22 See Gilbreth and Otero (2001: 17). 23 See Sixth Commission/EZLN (2007b) for recent instances. See Bill Weinberg’s report, January 2008, http://www.ww4report.com/node/4957 (accessed August 22, 2009) and the Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group, September 2009, http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/node/253 (accessed January 20, 2010). See also Wickham-Crowley and Eckstein (2003: 300–301) and Hernández Navarro (1999, 2006a). 24 See communiqué by Marcos (2005a). For details on the Caracoles, see Casanova González (2005). 25 Ross (2005: 39). 26 Rajchenberg and Héau-Lambert (1998: 30, 32). 27 Gossen (1996b: 529). 28 See Nash (2001: 242). 29 Marcos quoted in the famous interview with Yves Le Bot, El Sueño Zapatista: Entrevistas con el Subcomandante Marcos, el Mayor Moisés y el Comandante Tacho del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, (1997: 349– 350), my translation. 30 CCRI-CG (2002a [1993]: 217–220). 31 Father Miguel Hidalgo (1753–1811) is Mexico’s founding father. He conspired against Spanish rule and openly declared Mexican independence on September 16, 1810. José María Morelos was a mestizo priest who joined the rebellion against Spain and was executed by Spanish authorities in 1815. He established a Congress and a progressive Constitution that included the abolition of slavery. For another example of nationalistic discourse, see Marcos (2001a [1999]: 37–40). 32 See Marcos in Scherer García (2001). 33 Krauze (2001: 32). 34 See Rochlin (2003: 192). 35 See Jansen (2007) on political memory. 36 See Stephen (2002: 161–162). The EZLN promoted Votán (the first man sent to divide up the earth) as Tzeltzal. According to Benjamin (2000: 447), Votán is, “the Tzeltzal name of the principal deity of ancient Chiapas as well as, possibly, a historical holy man”. However, it seems that Votán has not been recognized by the contemporary Tzeltzal population as a significant part of their mythology, while Ik’al is recognized as the God of the underworld (Stephen 2002: 162, 164). 37 CCRI-CG (1995), my translation. 38 Stephen (2002: 158). 39 Collier (2000: 22); Stephen (2002: 149); Ouweneel (2002: 77).

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40 Pitarch (2004: 294). See also Hiller (2009) on the association of the Zapatista movement with Emiliano Zapata. 41 The original symbol of the movement was the paliacate or the handkerchief (Marcos in Le Bot 1997: 353–354), but it was changed to the skimask. 42 Rajchenberg and Héau-Lambert (1998: 21). 43 Ibid. 44 Le Bot (1997: 128). 45 See Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 128). 46 See Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1994: 31). See also Brian Gollnick’s Reinventing the Lacandon: Subaltern Representations in the Rain Forest of Chiapas, 2008, a book about cultural representations of the Lacandón jungle. 47 The same significance is present in the title of Saul Landau’s documentary The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas, 1996. 48 Marcos quoted in García Márquez and Pombo (2001). 49 Marcos quoted in Ramirez Cuevas and Vera Herrera (2001b), my translation. 50 See Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 263–264). 51 Mancillas (2002: 164); Le Bot (1999: 247); Gall (1998: 541). 52 Ross (1995: 206). 53 Matthews (1969: 107). See also Matthews in Careaga (2003: 158). Herbert Matthews was to later suffer the consequences of this infamous interview. See Anthony DePalma’s The Man who Invented Fidel: Cuba, Castro, and Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times, 2006. On the other hand, Castro was incredibly astute in dealing with the media, see Ratliff (1987). 54 Weinberg (2002: 118); Russell (1995: 56). 55 De la Colina (2002: 365). 56 Guillermoprieto (1995: 42). 57 See Knudson (1998: 511) and César Carrillo (2001). 58 The following authors call Marcos ‘charismatic’: Cueli (1994: 30); Duhalde and Dratman (1994: 213); Hernández Campos (1994: 249); Romero (1994: 50, 82); Ross (1995: 301); Schulz (1995: 201); Wager and Schulz (1995a: 28); Gossen (1996a: 107); Gossen (1996b: 528); Oppenheimer (1996a: 249); Le Bot (1997: 17); Rich (1997: 75); De la Grange and Rico (1998b: 95); Bruhn (1999); Gillis (1999: 116); Levario Turcott (1999: 170); Rico (1999: 43); Cuevas and Herrera (2001b: 14); Durán de Huerta (2001: 223); Michel (2001: 24); Scherer García (2001); Gallaher and Froehling (2002: 84); Henck (2002: 9); Monsivaís (2002: 132); Olguín (2002: 149); Poniatowska (2002: 376); Ross (2002: 190); Weinberg (2002: 111, 197); Álvarez (2003: 80); Wagner and Moreira (2003: 186, 202); Jörgensen (2004: 85); Kistner (2005: 293). 59 On January 10, 1994 the coverage of the Zapatista Rebellion outnumbered the coverage of the presidential campaign 70 to 1 (in terms of front pages material). Between January and March of that year, 1994, the coverage of the rebellion ranged from 24 to 70, while coverage of the presidential campaign ranged between 0 and 8 on different days. See Russell (1995: 55). 60 For a detailed account of the media releases just after the rebellion, see Raúl Trejo Delarbre’s Chiapas la Comunicación Enmascarada: Los Medios y el Pasamontañas, (1994b: 335–370). The reference is from p. 354.

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61 For the number and frequency of international articles dealing with the Zapatistas and Chiapas between 1994-2000 see Nicholas Henck’s Broadening the Struggle and Winning the Media War: ‘Marcos Mystique’, ‘Guerilla Chic’ and Zapatista PR, (2002: 38). 62 Marcos (1995a: 125–133); Marcos ‘We Hope you Understand that We Had Never Run a Revolution Before….’, (1995a: 217). 63 See Levario Turcott’s Chiapas: La Guerra en el Papel, (1999:155). See also Bertrand De la Grange and Maite Rico’s Subcomandante Marcos: La Genial Impostura, (1998a : 341–361); Peralta (1994); Rico (1999). 64 Rico (1999: 43). 65 Ibid., emphasis mine. 66 Rico (1999: 42). For a book on Marcos’ seduction of the media see Genoveva Flores’ La Seducción de Marcos a la Prensa: Versiones Sobre el Levantamiento Zapatista, 2004. 67 Marcos quoted in Iván Molina’s El Pensamiento del EZLN, (2000: 205), my translation. 68 For a list of organizations that support the Zapatista Movement see Radio Zapatista, http://www.radiozapatista.org/colectMundo.html (accessed January 23, 2010). 69 See Manuel Castells’ The Power of Identity, (1997: 80). On the Zapatista Movement and new media see also Martinez-Torres (2001); Russell (2001c); Atton (2003); Clifford (2005). It should be kept in mind that most of the Indigenous population of Chiapas had (and still has) no direct access to the web, and that their connections were then mediated by solidarity networks like Enlace Civil and various NGOs. See Olesen (2004a: 91–93); Olesen (2005: 193–196); Barmeyer (2009). 70 See Ronfeldt and Arquilla (2001: 181) and Olesen (2004a: 101) for these definitions and the latter in particular for the difference between ‘social movements’ and ‘solidarity networks’. See also Routledge (2003); Langman (2005); Olesen (2005: 102–126); Russell (2005). 71 See Ronfeldt et al. quoted in Klein (2002a: 8) and Klein (2002a: 7–9). 72 See Olesen (2004a: 96) and Nugent in Russell (2001a: 358). See also references to Hellman and Stephen in Olesen (2004a: 95). For a sophisticated Freudian-based account of the difficulties of identification and identities in virtual communities see Kistner (2005). 73 Castells quoted in Russell (2001a: 362). 74 See David F. Ronfeldt, John Arquilla, Graham E. Fuller and Melissa Fuller’s The Zapatista Social Netwar in Mexico, (1998: 23). See also John Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt’s In Athena’s Camp, 1997 and John Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt’s Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, (2001: 178–180). 75 See Duràn de Huerta (2001: 201–226) and Brand and Hirsch (2004). 76 For a discussion of what the author calls the ‘transgressive’ public sphere see Richard Gilman-Opalsky’s Unbounded Publics: Transgressive Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory, 2008. 77 See Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash’s Grassroots PostModernism, (1998: 27–32). 78 Collier and Collier (2003: 246).

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79 Gino Germani put forward the much disputed ‘available masses’ thesis in relation to Argentina, arguing that in contrast to the older working classes, the ‘new’ masses of Argentina were traditional and uneducated, lacked class consciousness and avoided revolutionary positions. These masses, used to paternalistic authoritarianism, became ‘available’ for Peronist indoctrination. See Germani (1968: 110–126; 1980: 258–260). 80 Marcos quoted in Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Marcos: El Señor de los Espejos, (1999: 147–148), my translation. 81 Poniatowska (2002: 376). 82 Hebe de Bonafini quoted in Cerrillo (2001: A14), my translation and my emphasis. 83 Stephen (2002: 148). 84 See Montfort Guillén (1995: 128–131). Castells (1997: 78) argues that the call from the Zapatistas evoked a remarkable response from the urban middle class of Mexican society “craving freedom, and tired of systemic corruption”. See also Appendix B, Table B5d. 85 Carlin (2001: 16). 86 The EZLN, according to Russell (1995: 43), relies on a “mass base resulting from decades of organizing in the area”. The author compares the Zapatista Movement to the Cuban 26 of July Movement and quotes Stavenhagen as (curiously) depicting the latter as a movement of ‘handful of visionaries’ and the Zapatista Movement as a mass-based movement by comparison (Stavenhagen in Russell 1995: 43). This is a statement that needs to be qualified: as I have noted, the EZLN might be considered a mass movement at local level, but it can hardly be considered a mass movement at national level. On the other hand, the 26JM had mass following at the national level. After all, the ‘handful of visionaries’ did succeed in seizing power and they are still in power today! 87 See Appendix A, Tables A1-A9 for a range of surveys on Mexican civil society’s response to the Zapatista Movement. 88 See Appendix B, Tables B1-B8 for a range of surveys on Mexican civil society’s response to Subcomandante Marcos. 89 See Trejo Delarbre (1994b: 216–223) and Weinberg (2002: 109). 90 De la Grange and Rico (1998a: 350–351), my translation. 91 See La Jornada ‘“Todos Somos Marcos” Corean 100 Mil en el Zocalo’, February 12, 1995. 92 Veltmeyer (2000: 102). 93 Ross (2000: 109). 94 See La Jornada ‘Aquí Estamos!’, March 12, 2001b. See also La Prensa ‘Peligra! Se Acercan Zapatistas al DF; Reunen a Miles en el Edomex’, March 6, 2001 and Lara Klahr ‘En el Zócalo, Apoyo y Emoción’, El Universal, March 12, 2001. The march took place from San Cristóbal on February 24; the Zapatistas arrived in Mexico City on March 11, passing through more than 30 localities on the way. See La Jornada ‘Masivas Recepciones-Tehuacan, Puebla, Orizaba’, February 28, 2001c. 95 See Higgins (2004: 189, 226).

Photo 6 Mural of Emiliano Zapata, Municipio Autonomo Aguascalientes II (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 7 Zapatista Hospital, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994 (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 8 Military Presence in Chiapas (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 9 Municipio Autonomo Aguascaientes II (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 10 Marcos Speaks, Guadalupe de Tepeyac, 1994 (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 11 Marcos and Zapatistas at the Table, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

4 Zapatista Politics and Other Tales

Zapatismo is not, it does not exist. It only serves, as bridges do, to cross from one side to the other. —Victor Campa Mendoza, 1999

The ultimate objective of the Zapatista Movement is to inspire the development of a politically conscious civil society able to determine its own destiny on the basis of a radically different attitude and approach to the political process. The idea of an empowered civil society needs to be understood in relation to the way the Zapatistas have revisited and redefined a number of political concepts in order to establish new conceptual foundations that would ideally underpin the type of political change they seek. For instance, the notion of democracy is radicalized so that the democratic process that derives from it is flexible enough to accommodate more than one doctrine or set of moral values. Similarly, the nation-state is redefined as a fragmented multi-ethnic entity rather than in universal terms. These concepts not only shape the political thought and the long-term political goal of the movement, but also become tools that may assist civil society in the practice of selfdetermination. The Zapatista vision or this new way of understanding politics has been successfully conveyed through the ironical and imaginative discourse of Subcomandante Marcos. Alongside his personal charisma, his literary skills are a contributing factor to his success. Clever allegories and metaphors in his writings convey most effectively the desirability as well as the necessity to build a strong autonomous civil society, most pointedly in his Mayan-inspired tales (perhaps we should call them parables) that link human traits to political motivation and behavior. What is required, Marcos seems to be saying, is a different attitude toward politics, one that in turn requires a different attitude towards the self, the community and the natural world.

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Civil Society, Democracy and Identity in Zapatista Politics

Whilst challenging traditional politics and attempting to avoid its pitfalls, the Zapatistas borrow from many established intellectual sources. The result is an extraordinarily complex and eclectic movement, the centerpiece of which is the paradoxical notion of changing society without taking power and without self-definition. Consequently, in Zapatismo there is less of that sense of the inevitability of history that has characterized past revolutionary movements.1 What we do find instead is a degree of vagueness and uncertainty connected with the movement that makes it amenable to a variety of interpretations. Four main approaches are prevalent in the literature. The first is the Indigenous-roots approach that interprets the movement as the result of the long history of Indigenous resistance and revolt in Mesoamerica and the Andes, as well as an attempt to recover Indigenous ideas, practices and culture. Scholars like Gossen, for instance, approach the Zapatista Movement as ‘pan-Indian’.2 While it is true that Zapatismo has become a quest for Mayan cultural acknowledgment as well as social and economic justice, it is quite misleading to view the movement as pan-Mayan or pan-Indian. As previously noted, there are Indigenous people in Chiapas who are not Zapatistas, and there are also substantial cultural, political and religious differences amongst the various Mayan groups. Furthermore, the movement is inclusive of any marginalized group and has never claimed to represent the Mayan or Indian people exclusively.3 The second interpretation dominates the literature and is more Eurocentric: the movement is seen as a mixture of Indigenous ideas and practices, liberation theology and Marxism or Maoism. In this scenario, class struggle is deemed to still be one of its central concepts.4 The third interpretation locates Zapatismo in the ‘third wave revolutions’ of Latin America that are thought to be a response to the impact of uneven capitalist development, social injustice and neo-liberal economic policies,5 while the last approach considers the Zapatista Movement as a prototype of post-modern politics. According to Roger Burbach, the reasons for calling the movement ‘post-modern’ are that it represents a break from the dominant revolutionary paradigms (not seeking to seize power), it rejects centralizing tendencies in favor of grassroots democracy and it is committed to a break with the romantic revolutionary tradition that places heroic guerrilla leaders in the frontlines. Other scholars, however, have rejected the ‘post-modern’ label.6

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Moreover, the movement operates at three levels: local, national and global. At the local level, it articulates a critique of Mexico’s political system. This is evident in the First Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle of 1994 (actually issued at the end of 1993), which called for a resolution to the unjust situation in Chiapas with a set of demands that included food, land, housing, jobs, health, independence, freedom, peace, democracy and justice. At the national level, the First Declaration calls for Salinas’ overthrow and the replacement of the PRI government with a government of national reconciliation. It also demands fundamental reform of the political system (electoral and constitutional) to establish fair representation for all Mexicans and to make the government more accountable to the people.7 The movement is, amongst other things, a quest for a more radical understanding of citizenship, collective rights and democracy. At the global level Zapatismo challenges the neo-liberal project, attempting to come to terms with the “failure of democracies to guarantee economic development and, above all, to attend to economic justice” and offers a new model for transformative forms of resistance, political organization and discourse.8 Other than the intellectual influences discussed earlier in this book, it is possible to identify two further intellectual strands the Zapatistas draw from that are embedded in the political culture of Mexico. One comes from the anarchism of Ricardo Flores Magón, the founder of the Mexican Liberal Party.9 The connection between anarchism and Zapatista political thought is unavoidable, given the common emphasis on decentralization and autonomy, although whether the Zapatista Movement can be identified as an anarchist movement in the strict sense of the word is debatable. The other source of intellectual inspiration, possibly more directly related to what the Zapatistas are attempting to achieve, can be found in Gramsci’s work. Its emphasis on the importance of ideas and of a ‘war of position’ as a means to the contestation of hegemonic structures by civil society is particularly relevant to this movement.10 Therefore, the concept of a ‘war of position’ functions as a challenge to the traditional concept of a ‘war of movements’ that aims at the seizure of state power. Moreover, Gramsci’s critique of economic reductionism appeals to those (many) Latin Americans who are developing a political discourse based on identity rather than class. It should be noted that although the EZLN has followed Gramsci’s innovative idea of the revolutionary potential of civil society, it does not insist on the importance of the revolutionary party as part of the transformative political process. The Zapatistas define civil society as an autonomously and loosely organized sphere, a collection of diverse grassroots movements, groups

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and organizations coming together—whilst preserving their individual autonomy—for a number of purposes; they do not constitute an alternative vanguard for historical change. In the Second Declaration of the Lacandona in June 1994 the Zapatistas state that they are not proposing a new world, but something preceding that would free some democratic space for political struggle. The Zapatistas and Marcos have often spoken of a revolution that will make a revolution possible.11 In theory, the creation of political space is something of a pre-condition meant to encourage civil society to become the protagonist of its political struggles and to do so by being inclusive of differences in a common quest for a better world. As Marcos points out: It is not about overthrowing a government and replacing it with another, finishing with a social system and substituting another without people being able to have a say about this social system. We are saying that, instead of overthrowing or destroying a system, or overthrowing or destroying a government and placing another, what we need to do is to open a space of political struggle where the citizens, or the majority of people can participate politically, debate and decide which social system, which political system and which government they would like.12

In many ways, the process becomes, as De Angelis puts it, a “question of communal self-empowerment rather than a pre-established answer in the hand of a few enlightened people”.13 It should be noted that Marcos is generally optimistic about the possibility of civil society taking up the struggle (he makes the point that humans are not violent by nature in a very recent communiqué entitled ‘Gaza Will Survive’), although there are times when he acknowledges the difficulties that could or will arise if civil society becomes ‘exhausted’.14 The emphasis on the role of civil society has implications with regard to the role of the state. In Zapatista terms the idea of the nation is counter-imposed to that of the state, the latter generally regarded as the betrayer of the former.15 Baker considers the Zapatista Movement antistatist, in that it identifies “democracy with self-determining practice in the sphere of civil society rather than representation in the state”. Yet the author argues that it seems doubtful that the Zapatistas aim to do away with the state altogether: the theory of civil society was developed exactly because the state is not on the way out, so that the Zapatistas are understood to be aspiring to the creation of alternative counter-publics.16 Furthermore, the appeal to civil society is intertwined with the issue of violence. The initial strategy of armed revolutionary struggle in the Zapatista case served the purpose of being heard and informing the

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public, a strategy that Johnston calls “pedagogical military”.17 The use of arms was also justified by a strong lack of faith in the existing political system and its institutions (a classic revolutionary argument). Initially the EZLN may have sought to subvert the Mexican state, particularly as it invoked the ‘right to rebel’ in Article 39 of the Mexican Constitution in the First Declaration.18 The use of violence did provoke some adverse reactions from intellectuals. For one Fuentes, in a polite letter to Marcos written in 1994, insisted that other paths could have been taken and that legal channels should be pursued until exhausted to justify the use of armed struggle.19 The change of strategy from armed to peaceful struggle was decided by the National Democratic Convention of 1994, where it was also declared that the EZLN would henceforth be separate from and subservient to the CND, and that it would eventually outlive its purpose and dissolve. Ironically, the dissolution of the EZLN has not eventuated; instead, the FZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Front, the civil arm of the movement that was created in 1996) was dissolved in November 2005. The view of the EZLN as merely a transient tool is now highly questionable, particularly given the prominent role it played in the Otra Campaña.20 In any case, the Zapatistas’ subsequent pursuit of political goals without the use of arms has enabled the movement to develop a closer relationship with Mexican civil society, but more importantly, it has added to their ability to “maintain the morally higher ground in their conflict with the state, and legitimize their overarching demand for greater democracy in Mexico”.21 Nevertheless, the overall attitude of the movement towards violence is still ambiguous. Marcos, as usual, does not shy away from paradoxes, stating that they are an armed movement that nevertheless chooses peaceful means. He does not apologise for the use of weapons, stating that they have not given up armed struggle and that the use of arms is an important strategy that is necessary to follow at certain times.22 The Zapatista conception of democracy is one that attempts to move beyond the essentially individualist, representative, procedural or minimalist electoral brand to one that is direct, collective, inclusive and non-hierarchical.23 In the latter conception democracy becomes radicalized to the extent that it is a locus of fair public contestation where different groups compete to assert themselves and achieve their objectives.24 Ideally, these different groups are all equally able to participate in the public debate with relative autonomy and all have an input in the determination of conditions for moral, economic and social development. The Western concept of liberal representative democracy may be problematic and admirers of the Zapatista Movement might

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celebrate democracy as an expression of people’s power in direct and continuous terms but, by the same token, the Zapatista ideal of democracy is not without its own problems hence one must be careful not to idealize this conception of democracy as perfect or problem-free. Le Bot, in his renowned interview with Marcos, points out that in the Zapatista communities there are many non-democratic forms and structures. He is unconvinced that even consensus is a democratic expression, for it implies the authority of the group over the individual. Is it possible to have democracy without individualism and without individual rights? Huntington also notes that traditionalist Indigenous communities are dominated by elders and specific (male) personalities. Finally, Marcos himself admits that the Zapatista brand of democracy does not solve all problems.25 Matters are further complicated by the attempt to reconcile this model of radical participatory democracy to identity politics and by the crucial shift from the concept of equality in democracy understood as ‘sameness’ to an understanding of it as ‘equality in diversity’.26 In discourses of identity that, according to Jung, have been stimulated by the neo-liberal project (and the demise of communism), we see the eclipse of a class-based language of revolution and the replacement of ‘peasant’ and ‘worker’ as the relevant categories of political organization with ‘Indigenous’.27 But cultural pluralism and identity politics are themselves controversial concepts. Many scholars view selfdetermined Indigenous identities as a critique of and a challenge to mestizaje, the much contested dominant paradigm for Indian citizenship imposed by the state,28 while others view Indigenous identity rather differently. Courtney Jung, for instance, argues that Indigenous demands for autonomy and collective rights are not the result of the need for cultural recognition nor are they a reaction to the homogenizing effects of globalization that places emphasis on cultural identity, practices and values. Rather, the author argues, Indigenous identity is a prerequisite for participation in a global public discourse (political agency) that challenges established hegemonies on the basis of structural injustice rather than cultural difference.29 Furthermore, the degree of ‘Indian-ness’ of the movement is a much debated topic in the scholarship. Saldaña-Portillo argues that the Zapatista Movement is not an Indianist movement, although its military command, rank, file and base of support are 99 percent Indigenous. She supports her argument by stating that its project is national in scope and that both the First and the Second Declarations did not single out Indigenous autonomy or rights, although the Second Declaration is generally seen as the ‘less Marxist’ document of the two.30 Most

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importantly, the identity discourse has raised controversy, first with regard to its implied link to Western conceptions of individual and human rights and second with regard to the political agenda that might underpin it, particularly while the language of class struggle is still lingering.31 A cynical viewpoint is that Marcos and the Zapatistas have managed to survive militarily and politically because they “narrowed their image and goals to become the expression of a segment of the population whose attraction to the general public became irresistible”.32 Even more cynically, Pitarch calls this phenomenon ‘ventriloquism’ and argues that “Subcomandante Marcos projected his own interests and political strategies, making them appear, through some simple stylistic tricks and common place themes, as if they came from the Indigenous population of Chiapas”.33 It is quite possible that these views oversimplify matters and ignore the role played by Indigenous rights activists, whose agenda does not necessarily always coincide with that of the Zapatistas. The political motives behind the use of the ethnic and cultural discourse by the movement have been debated by a number of scholars. De la Grange and Rico, for instance, argue that the Indian cause was never Marcos’ priority or that of the rest of the mestizo leaders of the EZLN. The authors also argue that Marcos has made a “revolutionary capital and a political trampoline” of the Indians, reducing them to ‘guinea pigs’ and instruments at the service of certain political and religious organizations.34 It should be emphasized at this point that all possibilities need to be taken into account, including the one that suggests that identity discourse and the cultural pluralism approaches were indeed adopted by Marcos and the Zapatistas because they have more appeal than the tired old Marxist rhetoric. Any ambiguities at the conceptual level are important to consider because they are reflected in the way Marcos’ role and authority are perceived, and therefore cannot be overlooked for the sake of political correctness. Moreover, identity politics can be problematic from a practical point of view, because the connection between Indigenous issues and broader national or global issues is not necessarily politically expedient. Finally, the notion of ‘identity’ might be problematic in a philosophical sense, because since it is a fixed category it implies pre-definition and predefinition is something that the Zapatista Movement wishes to avoid. A related question is whether the Zapatistas are making a call from the position of Indigenous people or from the position of citizens of Mexico. If we take the latter view, we should understand the concept of nationhood as inclusive and “based on a network of autonomous communities rather than on the historically centralized, hierarchical,

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nation-state”.35 The Zapatista nationalistic discourse redefines the nation so that it becomes a plural space built on the recognition of difference, given that the only way for the Indigenous people to become a part of it is for them to function autonomously within it.36 These invocations of nationalism should not be taken as a wish to return to the past, nor should democratic multiculturalism from the perspective of ‘difference’ necessarily be reduced to tolerance, limited particularism or cultural relativism. Finally, there is little doubt that the exclusion and marginalization that have led to the search for self-determination and the preservation of Indian identities are linked to the struggle against globalization. In this political space, the Zapatistas have become symbols of resistance to the universalizing project of global capitalism, through the construction of a new Indian identity inclusive of any marginalized group fighting for a broader cause.37 This is the essence of what Le Bot romantically refers to as the ‘Zapatista dream’ that can be restated as a declaration of hope for radical and continuous political and social transformation, beyond Chiapas and beyond Mexico, a quest for one world of many autonomous and self-defining worlds. The Zapatistas were successful at placing issues of land, economic redistribution and Indigenous autonomy on the political agenda, and helped to bring these issues to the public table. The movement has also encouraged gender equality in the communities. At all levels, local, national and at the global, it challenged (and is still challenging) neoliberal capitalism and its institutions as well as representative democracies and proposing alternative forms of political organization, for instance the Caracoles. There has been a degree of creativity in terms of plebiscites, conventions, consultas, encounters and other forms of interaction with civil societies that have contributed to the construction of national and global spaces of coordination, discussion and organization. Finally, as Weinberg points out, the Zapatistas have disproved Castañeda’s assertion that the Latin American revolutionary left is dead; by extension, the idea that revolutions are also dead is refuted, although they might be revolutions of a different kind.38 It is true that there is a relatively substantial body of literature critical of the Zapatista Movement, particularly in relation to its perceived lack of radicalism, its somewhat vague political program, the near-invisibility of Mayan leadership and negative effects from aggressive actions by antiZapatista forces.39 Despite this, the inclusiveness and humanism of the Zapatista political message have reverberated within and beyond Mexican borders, this success due in no small measure to Marcos and the way his ideas have been presented.

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From the Mountains of the Mexican Southeast: The Charismatic Appeal of Marcos’ Discourse

The Zapatista vision conveyed by Marcos’ words is nothing if not radical: it invites the whole of humanity to become actively political, and in doing so it challenges the political process to move beyond ‘coffee-table Marxism’ and the mirror image of what it opposes. The Subcomandante emerges as a highly educated warrior of cyberspace who most clearly and appealingly signals the need for a different disposition towards politics as essential in the struggle to break free of the bondages of modernism, individualism, neo-liberalism and all those ‘isms’ that are based upon self-interest and greed. The fact that his writings can be divided in three broad genres betrays the versatility of his work. The first genre consists of serious and relatively conventional Western-style political essays, communiqués (relatively short reports used to inform the public and debate ideas) and manifestos. The other two genres are both part of what I term his ‘unconventional’ writings. One consists of satirical vignettes and dialogues featuring Durito, the aim of which is to ridicule the Mexican political system and neoliberalism. The other genre offers the readership a range of Mayaninspired tales and other picturesque writings that involve fantasy and imagination, written to show the way forward.40 The originality and the appeal of Marcos’ narratives, deceptively easy to read, lies partially in the way he deliberately uses a range of rhetorical devices and textual techniques. In particular, the less conventional pieces betray the postideological (or post-modern) inclinations of the Zapatista Movement and therefore offer something quite different from the established practices of traditional political discourse, whether we locate such discourse at the right or at the left of the political spectrum, as incumbent or as oppositional. Marcos, in his thesis entitled ‘Philosophy and Education’ had argued that discourse is not only a medium for translation or reproduction of the hegemonic system but also a medium of struggle, while ideology (a system of ideas and practices) conforms to practices that support the dominant system.41 Clearly inspired by Althusser and his work on ideology, Marcos sees discourse as a weapon against ideologies through which, as Althusser has argued, subjects interpret their relation to the real conditions of existence: It is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that ‘men’ ‘represent to themselves’ in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there. It is this relation which is at the centre of every ideological, i.e.

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imaginary, representation of the real world. It is this relation that contains the ‘cause’ which has to explain the imaginary distortion of the ideological representation of the real world. Or rather, to leave aside the language of casuality it is necessary to advance the thesis that it is the imaginary nature of this relation which underlies all the imaginary distortion that can observe (if we do not live in its truth) in all ideology.42

The originality of Marcos’ political outlook is partially related to his resistance to becoming the ‘new vanguard’, something further reflected in the way he actively avoids excessive reliance on the traditional Marxist-Leninist discourse. This resistance is meant to ensure that dogma and rigidity do not sabotage the objective of the movement, that is, the autonomy of civil society. Therefore we understand ‘struggle’ not in the traditional or material sense, but in a moral sense, that is, struggle for moral autonomy. This in itself is meant to ensure adequate distance from the rhetoric of the traditional left and from the literary/political tradition of Tom Paine and Ricardo Flores Magón to which Marcos (strangely enough in the case of the former) has been aligned. 43 Furthermore, as Olguín notes, this anti-vanguard approach challenges the conventional hierarchical revolutionary model, disempowers the image of the traditional guerrilla, rejects caudillo politics and invites audiences to develop their own particularistic centers of resistance, partly to counteract the way the discourses of colonialism overtly or covertly undermine the the existence and dignity of marginalized groups.44 Marcos’ prose is profound and at the same time (indeed this is part of the uniqueness) intellectually accessible to audiences beyond the highly erudite or even the adequately educated. The two main techniques used in his narratives have already been identified as irony and fantasy. Irony has, of course, been present in literature and rhetoric since the times of Socrates, however it is most often identified as a post-modern technique. In post-modernity, as Alfino points out, irony is “directed towards the basic linguistic practices of intellectual discourse rather than just the content of a particular thinker’s thought.” 45 Marcos uses irony in both the content and the linguistic practice of his discourse to expose the dominant neoliberal order as irrational, to ridicule those who thrive on power and those who have a vested interest in ensuring the uninterrupted continuation of the ‘long and lazy dream’ that—he believes— characterizes the human condition in the context of modernity.46 Fantasy and poetic symbolism are communicated to the audiences through a number of linguistic devices that include metaphors and allegories, for

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instance in tales that relate political motivation and behavior to human character traits with the idea of inspiring a transformation towards a new kind of ‘radical’ politics. But not everyone agrees that Marcos’ writings are original, humorous or captivating in any way. Unsurprisingly, they often fail to impress the conservatives and the neo-liberals and, surprisingly, they especially fail to impress some sections of the ‘traditional’ left. For instance, Appleton has criticized Marcos’ writings as ‘incoherent ramblings’ while literary critic Emmanuel Carballo considers that the texts and the rhetoric lack literary value, although he recognizes in them the ability to establish contact with the reader. Blanco calls him a mediocre poet, who confuses his own emotion with protest against injustice and Aguilar Rivera argues that Marcos’ discourse has continuity with the Mexican authoritarian tradition and that it is “flexible, opportunistic and not respectful of ideas”.47 Levario Turcott argues that Marcos’ ‘messianic’ verses deliberately follow Indian religions and leftist utopian visions, but are also the product of the mystique Marcos has managed to create around himself. Labastida comments on Marcos’ words as the words of an evangelist that challenge the legitimacy of the present political system, while Pérez Gay argues that Marcos’ discourse offers little more than the rhetorical ramblings of the old left, with some of its slogans and its sentimental blackmail.48 These critiques do not diminish the novelty and effectiveness of his prose, particularly with regard to those tales that emphasize the human element in politics. As Octavio Paz has stated, “thanks to his rhetoric and undeniable theatrical talent, Subcomandante Marcos has won the opinion battle”.49 It is true that rather than through military strength, the EZLN gained influence through their intellectual and public relation offerings. Indeed, it seems that the Zapatistas may have fully ‘exploited’ Marcos’ literary talent to build a support base that extends far beyond Chiapas. Nevertheless, it is necessary to evaluate Marcos’ political discourse in perspective, that is, we need to ask ourselves whether the substance of his prose—as seductive and original as it might be in form—succeeds in sufficiently distancing itself from the long-beaten paths of modernity and the long-lived reliance on pre-definitions, generalizations and representations. We also wonder if there has been a successful shift away from the mindset that continues to rely in its thinking processes—without meaning to—on the hallmarks of the prosaic track of Western philosophy: unapologetic individualism and all-too-familiar master narratives, at least the obvious ones, neoliberalism and the ‘official’ version of Mexican national history. Can

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Marcos ‘escape’ modernity and effectively translate a post-modern critique to a set of meaningful political practices? Even he, as we shall see, cannot completely escape those boundaries, his discourse still haunted by vestiges of modernity. To gain perspective we need to turn to the nature of conventional political discourse that in general takes two main rhetorical forms: one is polemic, where the adversary’s affirmations are presented as the opposing discourse and refuted while the other is didactic, where the speaker instructs the audience and might present his or her argument as a universal truth.50 Marcos’ discourse retains the didactic and polemic forms and, although it avoids universal truths, it does not—as we shall see—manage to completely avoid traditional political language, dichotomies or the oppositional position, the futility of which is adamantly communicated by Marcos in a letter to Carlos Monsivaís. 51 The first similarity is the use of terminology from the Enlightenment that is neither new nor original. Terms like democracy, nationalism, liberty and justice feature prominently in many of the writings, although they may possess a different purpose or meaning in the Zapatista context. For instance, the theme of nationalism is discussed by Vanden Berghe and Maddens, who argue that the Mexican nation was discursively constructed and that this necessitated a deconstruction of the official Mexican nationalistic discourse by the Zapatistas.52 A term like ‘democracy’ might serve to question the referential system itself rather than just being the dominant paradigm, redefined to offer a alternate understanding of democracy, unfettered by the dictates of any dominant elites and mindful of the (negative) implications of an understanding of equality as “sameness” that potentially inhibits diversity.53 Simultaneously, this particular definition of democracy serves to critique liberal representative democracy seen as a system dominated by decision-making processes that exclude the people. The second similarity is the presence of perhaps the most important element of populist discourse, the use of Manichean language to convey who the enemy is and why. First, for comparative purposes we need to make a lengthy excursion in the world of populist discourse. In a famous work called Perón o Muerte published in 1988, Sigal and Verón argue that political action like every other form of social behavior can only be understood within the symbolic order and the imaginary universe that generate the action itself, that is, within a defined field of social relations. This field, they argue, is largely determined by discursive practices that have the power to influence the formation of collective consciousness. Discursive practices must possess an appeal that suits the moment and deliver a message that resonates with the masses by

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addressing relevant social, economic or cultural issues. Assuming that the people are predisposed to listen, it is probably no exaggeration to say that populist leaders can, through their words, create identities and social groups, enemies and allies. Therefore populist leaders can shape the field of social relations that underpins political action. They can, in other words, reorder reality. Their discourse is very distinctive, the means through which they claim to embody not just the people but also the nation, thereby becoming the bearers of national identity. Speaking ‘for the people’ and ‘being of the people’ (the pueblo) bestows a degree of legitimacy upon a leader, even if temporary.54 Here ‘the people’ (who have recently taken over from the working class as the preferred analytical category) are constructed as a collective homogenous entity in Manichean opposition to the ‘establishment’. This is a dichotomy that, of course, paints the former as long-suffering and virtuous, in contrast to the oligarchy that is typically portrayed as selfindulgent and incompetent. The leader is therefore the embodiment of popular aspirations (hence also a creation of the people) as well as a storyteller who eventually becomes the hero of his or her own story, narrated with emotive words and phrases that are more meaningful to the people than concrete political programs or abstract concepts. The dichotomy of ‘pueblo versus oligarchy’ also translates extremely well to ‘good versus evil’, the political message often becoming a moral crusade with strong religious overtones, with promises of moral regeneration, an end to political corruption and ‘real’ justice. The messianic tendencies of some populist leaders are well described by Tamarin in reference to Yrigoyen and by De la Torre with regard to Ecuador’s Velasco Ibarra in the 1940s. De La Torre uses discourse analysis to explain the success of this leader, noting that Ibarra made use of three discursive strategies. The first is the divisive Manichean (good/evil, moral/immoral) presentation of reality. The second is subjectivization, or the ability to personalize political problems, where the leader rather than a political program or doctrine becomes the principal object of discourse. The third is transmutation or the transformation of political struggle into struggle for higher moral values. De la Torre concludes that “populist discourse and rhetoric radicalize the emotional element common to all political discourses”.55 The Peronist Movement illustrates extremely well how a political discourse can be constituted through metaphorical connections between the movement and the nation, between the Peronists and the working class descamisados, and between Perón and the patria. Perón presented himself as the savior of a country united against hostile forces and enemies, such as the oligarchy, international imperialists and

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communists. He was a mediator through whom fundamental relations were reconstructed and within the rhetoric of indivisible community, the working class was given an implicitly superior role as a repository of national values; the people, the nation and the workers became interchangeable concepts.56 Manichean discourse highlights an interesting paradox of populism: the fact that, despite its use of dichotomies (good versus evil) and its seemingly radical and divisive rhetoric, one of its ultimate objectives is often to limit class conflict and promote national unity. Similarly, once Castro had declared Cuba to be a socialist state in 1961, the Cuban Revolution was presented as part of a greater historical movement against tyranny and oppression and as the only moral endeavor towards which every citizen was obliged to contribute. Struggle, or lucha, was at the heart of the revolutionary rhetoric, melodramatically presented as the Manichean life-and-death struggle between good and evil. Evil in the language of the Cuban Revolution was embodied by a long list of enemies: imperialists, Americans, illiteracy, gusanos (traitors), low productivity, bureaucracy, sectarianism, colonialism, capitalists, profiteers and counterrevolutionaries.57 It is clear that the moral dimension was automatically created by the struggle with the evil enemy, and the promise that every participant in the struggle was to be rewarded with membership in the creation of a new superior social order. Thus every Cuban could aspire to become a revolutionary and every revolutionary could become a hero.58 Castro went a step further in his endeavor to protect the revolution, when he delineated the boundaries within which intellectuals and artists could operate. By doing this, he automatically established the hegemony of revolutionary culture and legitimized a language of revolution that was to govern the consciousness of the people on daily basis.59 The use of Manichean discourse, central to a populist’s strategy, has been recently over-practiced by Hugo Chávez—although not as effectively since Obama’s ascent or Bush’s demise. Populist leaders tend to be the most effective and the most convincingly dramatic in the construction and delivery of the Manichean message. Nevertheless, this sort of language is common to most political rhetoric, for even the blandest of politicians is known to have resorted to these populist methods, even if not as effectively as a (true) populist leader. In a sense the Manichean strategy is an unavoidable feature of any political discourse. Marcos is no exception. He is certainly aware of the ‘Manichean trap’, as Herlinghaus notes, however he does not escape it completely.60 In a broadcast released in support of the anti-WTO

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demonstrations in September 2003 called ‘The Slaves of Money and our Rebellion’, neo-liberalism is portrayed as a war against humanity. Marcos states: The difference between them and all of us is not in the pockets of one or the other, although their pockets overflow with money while ours overflow with hope …. We have hope. They have death. We have liberty. They want to enslave us …. That is what this is all about. A war against humanity. The globalization of those who are above us is nothing more than a global machine that feeds on blood and defecates in dollars.61

Similarly, in a 1998 communiqué entitled “Above and Below: Masks and Silences” he clearly singles out the existence of a business elite (them): Ah, the macroeconomic achievements! But, where are they? In the fortunes of the richest men in Mexico who are on the Fortune 500 list? In wages? In prices? In employment? In social security? Look for them, look and you will find that, behind the macroeconomic mask, is hidden an economic model which has been imposed on this country since the beginning of the 1980s, 16 years of economic policy, enough to evaluate it.62

But there are also substantial deviations from mainstream political discourse to be found in Marcos’ writings. The first substantial deviation is that Marcos, as Hernández Martínez notes, conveys that certainty itself is irrational and uncertain and therefore there is no place for universal truths, dogmas or formal doctrines.63 The apparent ‘truth’ of the hegemonic discourse is challenged to show that not all that seems ‘is’ and not all that ‘is’ is real. The Zapatistas are open to uncertainty and shun rigid categories, as Marcos points out: There is an oppressor power which decides on behalf of society from above, and a groups of visionaries which decides to lead the country on the correct path and ousts the other group from power, seizes power and then also decided on behalf of society. For us that is a struggle between hegemonies…. The EZLN in renouncing any claim to be a vanguard, is recognizing its real horizon. To believe that we can speak on behalf of those beyond ourselves is political masturbation.64

The second substantial deviation is the way rhetorical devices such as metaphor, metonymy, antithesis, synecdoche, alliteration and paradox are effectively employed tools to confront what Giménez refers to as the

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‘wooden language’ of authoritarianism.65 As Lakoff and Johnson remark, the appeal of metaphors in political discourse, in a very similar fashion to symbolism in general, is based on a process of cognitive identification or recognition with which to capture the empathy of the audience. The use of metaphors or allegories is not unusual in itself but what is unusual is the extent and the intensity with which Marcos employs these devices, not to mention the objectives: to discredit grand narratives and to give a voice to those who have been silenced for too long. As Higgins notes, “His [Marcos’s] texts seek to reveal everything that has been excluded from the realm of official discourse”.66 The third deviation is that whereas in traditional political discourse the speaker is all-powerful and all-knowing, Marcos presents himself as someone who is not presuming to offer a political resolution or answer.67 It is as if he wants his audience to discover for themselves what is meaningful in life and be moved to action: The solution is not to choose a man or a symbol and overload all of the aspirations, then from there what will not emerge is the desires to live and the desire to fight and finally it is going to become an excuse to get discouraged or to sit still or to be fearful …. If Marcos has any use, it is as a mirror …. They are wrong, not because I am not good or because I am worse than what they think, but the solution is not to stake everything on a person or who you think is the person, or that you project in a person what you would like to have been. This is idealization.68

The fourth and last deviation is that traditional discourse is directed to followers, supporters and militants, whereas Marcos’ discourse is aimed at publics or audiences external or not necessarily directly involved in the movement. Marcos, in his role of mediator between the Mayan and the non-Mayan worlds has the task of making Indigenous traditions and particularisms accessible to the Western imaginary, and he often does this by combining Western and Mayan discursive techniques and themes. Unsurprisingly, storytelling (a Mayan tradition) becomes one of the central strategies in the Zapatista endeavor to transform the political imaginary. It is the perfect vehicle through which a new dimension of Mexican political culture can flourish and oppose universalistic pretensions and individualistic logic, whilst contemplating a landscape of particularistic identities and local solidarities. Marcos also speaks of the construction of a new Zapatista post-modern language that paradoxically feeds off historical pre-modernity.69 The post-modern element is apparent in the way this discourse draws, often irreverently and ironically, on a cocktail of sources: the classical literary world, pop

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culture, Western political theory, Indigenous oral tradition, the Latin American left and cartoons. The same eclecticism is reflected in the composition of its audiences which cuts across barriers of gender, age, ethnicity, class and sexuality, as previously discussed.70 Marcos uses the expression ‘brothers and sisters’, at times addressing anyone who sees themselves in his words, at other times specifically referring to the Indigenous peoples of Chiapas. Occasionally it gets personal as he becomes the subject of the discourse, but a subject who assumes multiple identities as he steps out of Chiapas and is located everywhere and nowhere: I lived in the bus terminal in Monterrey and sold used clothing. In the afternoon, it would rain and I went and watched pornographic movies. I travelled to San Diego. I was a taxi driver in Santa Barbara. I worked in a restaurant in San Francisco until I got fired for being gay. Then I worked in a sex shop. I gave demonstrations to the clients on plastic blow-up dolls.71

It is not however Rafael Sebastián Guillén who is ‘everyone’, it is Subcomandante Marcos, the faceless figure who functions as a mirror through which ordinary people can identify and reinvent themselves and each other, no matter what their differences are, as the slogan ‘We are all Marcos’ suggests. The Moral is Political: Subcomandante Marcos’ Tales and Other Fantasies

As noted above, many of Marcos’ communiqués could be considered relatively conventional, dealing with fairly standard themes like capitalism, nationalism, civil society, and democracy. Other themes can also be identified. For instance, Marcos brings up the idea of political obligation to urge people to political action in repayment of the moral debt we owe our ancestors. Obligation is also the underlying idea when he emphasizes the role of civil society in holding the Mexican government accountable for their actions.72 The Declarations of the Lacandona are examples of another conventional genre in the Zapatista literature, similar to traditional political manifestos, even if not written (or not signed) by Marcos. But even when he is discussing mainstream notions, Marcos can be sarcastic and flippant. For instance, he proclaims the death of the revolutionary left as a way of mocking the postideological thesis put forward by Fukuyama:

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There is nothing to struggle for. Socialism is dead. Long live resignation, reformism, modernity, capitalism and a whole list of cruel etceteras …. Radio, television and the newspapers proclaim it, and some ex-socialists, now sensibly repentant, repeat it.73

One particularly ironical communiqué was sent out on January 18, 1994 when Salinas, shortly after the rebellion, offered to pardon those Zapatista rebels who accepted the ceasefire. Called ‘Who Must Ask for Pardon and who Can Grant it?’ this document clearly illustrates the depth of Zapatista anger about not only the actions of the Mexican government but also their condescending attitude and their assumption the Zapatistas people can be bought: Why do we have to be pardoned? What are we going to be pardoned for? Of not dying of hunger? Of not being silent in our misery? … Of having picked up arms after we found all other roads closed? … Of having demonstrated to the rest of the country and the entire world that human dignity still lives, even among some of the world’s poorest peoples? … Who must ask for pardon and who can grant it?74

At other times, Marcos’ wittiness and humor give a whole new meaning to the concept of self-deprecation. For example, in a communiqué to the Mexican media issued shortly after the government’s ‘unmasking’, Marcos offers us a rather vivid glimpse into guerrilla life in the mountains: At dawn on Feb. 15, we were going to drink urine. I say ‘we were going to,’ because we did not do it. We all started vomiting after the first mouthful …. Our dehydration increased and we threw ourselves on the ground, like ninepins, stinking of urine. I do not believe we looked very military. A few hours later, before the sun came up, a sudden rain drenched us, quenched our thirst, and raised our spirits.75

In the same letter, Marcos derides the Mexican government by making fun of the warrant for his arrest. The reader is presented with a mock trial by a state prosecutor, where the Subcomandante pleads guilty to all charges. Clearly, the purpose of these anecdotes is to demystify the political system, the Zapatista Movement and his own person by appealing to the human and the contingent. We understand Marcos’ discursive strategy to be twofold: the first aim is to discredit the Mexican government and neo-liberalism and the second is to show us that the human and the contingent can be identified by bringing our attention to the traits that cause individuals to behave the way they do. Once awareness of these traits is raised, there is hope

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that a change in attitudes and behavior will lead to a different political process and thereby to a different outcome, one that (although not specified) will prioritize human dignity rather than make excuses for human greed. To pursue these objectives effectively, Marcos has created two characters that feature in many of his writings and with whom he has didactic interactions: Don Durito and Old Antonio. Durito is an affable beetle modeled on Don Quixote, a bit of a know-it-all from modern Western cosmopolitan culture who provides political satire and social ridicule. Durito is quite a spectacle: he is an insect who wears glasses, chain-smokes tobacco (symbolic of a colonial commodity) and offers unrepentantly unfavorable (but very lucid) opinions on neo-liberalism as a chaotic project lacking in rationality and coherence.76 According to Olguín, it is through this character that Marcos effectively isolates and co-opts the neo-liberal discourse, this act of disempowerment leading to the possibility of an alternative agenda being put forward.77 Often a serious political commentary will emerge from a conversation with Durito, when he is not busy pinching Marcos’ tobacco or falling under his tiny piano and desk, an allegory of the small hoisting the large.78 But Durito also serves to mock grand narratives and heroic guerrillas. He downsizes Marcos and his star status, kicking him off the cloud of sex appeal-laden stardom to bring him back down to earth. The humor serves to show that there are no supermen or heroes in the Zapatista Movement and therefore attempts to stop ardent admirers who seek them in their tracks. Marcos is attempting to convince us that they (the Zapatistas and himself) are ordinary people and that they are where they are not because they are more brilliant or courageous than the rest of us, but by accident.79 Marcos’ writings that feature Durito are often seen as part of his post-modern anthology, for in this literature the link to the Mexican Revolution is underplayed except for a few allusions to Pancho Villa and his horse that are, in any case, indicative of the irreverent deconstruction of the grand narrative of revolutionary nationalism.80 It has also been argued that Marcos is the interstitial space between Durito and Old Antonio, a space that allows the coexistence of different revolutionary styles.81 This is only partially true. Although Old Antonio does represent the pre-modern and Durito the post-modern, the latter should only be seen as a tool of deconstruction (and critique) rather than as a competing paradigm. Old Antonio is a Tzeltal Maya, a wise shaman who, in the years prior to the 1994 rebellion, functioned as the bridge between the guerrillas and the local communities. Following the Mayan tradition of oral history, he transmitted information about his people, the jungle and,

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most importantly, on being human and on how to look within rather than outside of the self for answers. According to Marcos, Antonio was not a piece of fiction but a real person he met in 1984 who died of tuberculosis in June 1994. As Old Antonio talked, Marcos was not only the diligent pupil, listening and learning wisdom and patience but also a mediator in that he had the task of passing these lessons on to the rest of the world.82 Marcos learns from Indigenous time-less and space-less wisdom; and we, as the audience, are invited to do the same. Marcos came to consider old Antonio as his teacher and mentor, their relationship at times acquiring hierarchical overtones. These overtones are also present as a deterministic relation between race and morals in a beautiful tale entitled ‘Old Antonio Tells Marcos another Story’. In this tale Old Antonio explains the creation of the world in Mayan mythology in a rewriting of the genesis myth in the Popul Vuh that tells of the conflict between the men of gold and the men of wood and how it is transcended by the men of maize. It should be noted that Marcos’ location of Indigenous people in a position of moral superiority over white people (who are portrayed as lacking in compassion) is criticized by some scholars. For instance, Vanden Berghe and Maddens charge Marcos with ethnocentrism, which they claim is at odds with the Zapatistas’ aim of transcending the racial component of the struggle and with their vision of a pluri-ethnic society.83 Furthermore, Old Antonio is acknowledged by his pupil as the symbolic founder of the EZLN and as the intellectual author of the core ideas of Zapatismo: “Old Antonio is the one who contributed the Indigenous elements to the Zapatista discourse that we present to the outside. I am a plagiarist,” Marcos admits candidly.84 In one of their first meetings, a conversation takes place between them that clearly indicates how Marcos counteracts the official narrative of the Mexican Revolution and Emiliano Zapata with an alternate version made legitimate by Old Antonio: “Tell me more about this Zapata,” he says, after more smoke and a cough. I start with Anenecuilco, then I move on to the Plan of Ayala, the military campaign, the organization of the communities, and the betrayal at Chinemeca. Old Antonio keeps looking at me while I finish up my story. “That’s not how it was,” he says. I make a gesture of surprise and only manage to stammer “No?” “No,” insists old Antonio. “I am going to tell you the real history of that Zapata ….”85

Marcos’ most effective prose taps into human emotion in a way that is totally different to traditional political literature, in the form of

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Mayan-inspired tales. These poetry-laden fantasies paint a picture of the human condition much more vividly than plain direct language ever could and appeal to the imagination of the audience, presenting serious political issues in a colorful and appealing manner that avoids the staidness of formal political rhetoric. As Nash suggests, it is evident that these tales represent a shift away from modernist discourse characterized by narratives of rational scientific socialism or material determinism; they also avoid usage of the language of nationalism, land, entitlements and rights.86 Instead, the appeal is to human dignity to reach for a transformative vision. Marcos emphasizes the moral dimension of the movement in the following passage: Suddenly the revolution transformed itself in something essentially moral. Ethical. More than the redistribution of wealth or the expropriation of the means of production, the revolution began to be the possibility for a human being to have a space for dignity …. It wasn’t our contribution, it didn’t come from the urban element; this was the contribution of the [Indian] communities.87

In this case, dignity can be defined as selfless individuality (as opposed to self-interest) that could be seen as a prerequisite for responsible membership to the community and to the human race, rather than membership to the working class in order to lead the ultimate revolution, as emphasized in Marxist politics—although in the implicit altruistic ideals one can clearly hear echoes of Che. The emotion-arousing poetic imagery of these tales often relies on the use of discursive symbolism; as Nash points out, “lacking economic and political resources to command attention, powerless people often resort to symbolic systems of communication”.88 Symbolism is drawn from analogies with the natural elements that position the human within nature and make the human condition visible. Dawn, for instance, is the image of hope because this is where the day starts. Clouds are without face, like the EZLN. Rivers are metaphors for Indigenous organization: the force of water comes from the streams that run down the side of the mountain and in times of transformation it changes color. The moon is the mirror of light and the troublemaker.89 One of the most inspirational passages is to be found at the end of ‘Chiapas: The Southeast in two Winds, a Storm and a Prophecy’: The Storm … It will be born of the clash of two winds, it arrives in its time, the kiln of history is stirred. Now the wind from above reigns, soon will come the wind from below, soon the storm will come … The Prophecy … When the storm subsides, when the rain and fire again

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leave the earth in peace, the world will no longer be the world, but something better.90

Clearly, the ‘clash of two winds’ is a metaphor for the clash between the powerful and the powerless and the storm is the symbol of struggle or revolution and of regeneration of a world that awaits the arrival of justice. Analogies are also found outside the natural world. For example, the Zapatista slogan ‘preguntando caminamos’ (figuratively ‘the road is made by walking’) is an analogy for the vicissitudes of life that is like a perilous journey, with all its mistakes that are nothing less than the practical lessons of human experience.91 Bridges and windows are metaphors for Marcos himself. A story called ‘Durito y una de Llaves y Puertas’ (Durito and one on Keys and Doors) draws an allegory of history as a room and of political struggle as a key to guard the room; being in power is depicted as having the key to the door of history. The observation is ironically made that “democracy has made much progress, now the doormen can be changed”.92 The Zapatistas, by contrast, carry a heavy key on their backs, for which there is no door, no lock and no room. An apple is used as a metaphor for life. Marcos writes: A Zapatista sows the apple tree so that one day, when he is not around, someone, anyone can cut a ripe apple and be free to decide if he will eat it in fruit salad, in puree, juiced, in cake or in one of those hateful (for Durito) apple soft drinks …. Durito says that the problem of the rest of the human beings is fighting to be free to choose to choose how they eat the apples that will come ….93

Most importantly, Marcos’ tales expose those human characteristics that motivate behavior which is in turn reflected in political action. This exposure is often achieved by way of allegories that feature animals, something that is not unusual in storytelling; in fact the whole point is to rely on the instantly recognizable association between animals and various traits of human nature. For example, a tale about a lion and a mouse suggests that moral victory comes from inner strength: the small and the humble can be bigger than their oppressors, if they look inside themselves.94 Similarly, the chicken acting like a penguin symbolizes struggle and success in difficult circumstances.95 There are lessons for those hungry for power, greedy, selfish and corrupted. For example, in ‘The History of the False Light, the Stone, and the Maize’, VucubCaquix, the keeper of the seven colors, becomes too self-important and vain until the day the Gods decided to punish him by turning him into a

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macaw. Vucub-Caquix represents gold, money and political power that reign as false gods until their deceptive light is extinguished.96 Clearly, Marcos does not follow the Hobbesian path, as the moral lesson seems to be that as humans we can all be tempted by power and greed, yet we all have the ability to look inside ourselves and distinguish real from deceptive light. Aside from his optimism, however, it is clear that his reasoning still rests upon a universal conception of human nature and its ability for moral rational choice. The strategy is simply to draw attention to those human traits (mostly flawed) that motivate political behavior as we know it, thereby inviting reflection on how, by changing attitudes on a personal basis, the script that underpins the political process can also be changed to create a better world for all. In these tales, some of Marcos’ literary devices borrow directly from Mayan culture and language. The use of the word ‘I’ features mainly in his conversations with Don Durito and Old Antonio for didactic and strategic purposes. It is clear that when Marcos speaks to Durito or Old Antonio he uses the ‘I’ as the pupil who asks questions, thus establishing submission to the wisdom of the teacher. In general, however, usage of the words ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ is predominant in his writings. This has the advantage of taking the discourse to a collective level and it also has the flexibility of being able to refer to any collective: the Indigenous people, the EZLN rebels, Mexican citizens or global civil society. Anthropologist Carlos Lenkersdorf, who has written extensively on Mayan linguistic and cultural practices, emphasizes the importance of the collective and identifies three elements of Mayan culture: intersubjectivity, animism and community. Much of this work is based on his study of the Tojolabal language, where the word ‘nosotros’ or any plural takes precedence over the singular. Essentially, individualism is expressed only within the collective and the community is the focal point, in contrast to the priority the West places on the individual, the elites or the majority. Lenkersdorf comments that Spanish language is based on the individualism of the dominant Western culture that in turn is reflected in social, juridical and political practices. The political implications of language are made crystal clear by the author, who states that: The presence of caciques, that we meet once in a while, does not reflect tojolabal customs …. In any case and particularly with the structure of the language and its vocabulary, caciquismo, caudillismo and similar phenomena do not originate in the Tojolabal culture, except for those who have an interest in manipulating them.97

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Another point is that the Mayan languages (in contrast to the European ones) do not use the syntactic category of the ‘object’, therefore the relations of subordination that exist between a subject and an object disappear in favor of a situation where subjects act in a complementary manner.98 This principle is illustrated by the muchquoted non-grammatical phrase used by Major Ana María in the welcome address at the 1996 First Intercontinental Meeting ‘detrás de nosotros estamos ustedes’, which in English translates as ‘behind us we are you’, meaning ‘we are behind all this but so are you’.99 It is evident that the political process envisaged by Marcos is nonhierarchical and fundamentally anti-authoritarian. In particular, his conversations with Durito and the fantasy writings are the vehicles through which he most effectively critiques hierarchical power structures and relations—even those which claim to be oppositional— that perpetuate or reinforce the marginalization and oppression of a number of sectors of society that have no political voice or economic advantages. They are also the vehicles through which he radicalizes the idea of authority (the relation between the led and the leader), emphasizes collective responsibility in preference to self-interest and reduces political representation to symbolic-mediatory status (hence spokesperson rather than leader). Above all, this discourse affirms the right of civil society to manage its own political process in a robust and self-determining fashion. The overall anti-ideological slant of this political narrative reflects simultaneously the strength and weakness of Marcos’ approach to politics. It suggests that the particular might, one day, be able to disempower tyrannical master narratives and that collective entities will master unbridled self-interest and isolating individualism. But the challenge it poses remains philosophically and politically dubious. As Laclau has most persuasively argued, “no particularity can become political without becoming the locus of universalizing effects”.100 Once any particularity takes this position, it cannot avoid becoming a dominating force or, at least, it is compelled to join the race for dominance against other particularities in the universal, the empty arena where power struggles are played out.101 Therefore, it is clear that particularism can only be defined in relation to universalism, that there can be no particular without universal, just as there can be no pleasure without pain. Laclau also points out that as well as philosophical hurdles there are political ones, for instance the continuous references to values as universal. An example is the case of human rights, where ‘human’ is understood as ‘universal’. In the 2002 Second Declaration of the

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Lacandona, Marcos repeatedly refers to a number of pre-defined political rights pertaining to all citizens, thereby involuntarily reinforcing the universal as a frame of reference. Another political hurdle is that, as Torfing notes, the obsession with particularism or identity inevitably leads to a self-defeating isolation that inhibits political effectiveness or at least perpetuates political isolation and therefore marginalization. This is, importantly, a point that some scholars have made when seeking to criticize the Zapatistas.102 Most disquietingly, the challenge to modernity leads to the entangled paradox that arises between lingering universalistic and somewhat deterministic elements and a message that conveys faith in the moral-political autonomy or agency of civil society and its citizens; and between a veiled individualism and a message that places the community at the heart of political life. The kind of awakening of civil society that the Zapatistas have in mind is no easy feat, at least not if one follows Althusser’s conception of ideology and Marcos understands that a new way of doing politics requires more than a new discursive approach. Nevertheless, it is a start: his narratives venture beyond the ordinary and straightforward explication of political concepts or themes. They strive to open the door and point the way out of modernity, and they do so by differentiating themselves from conventional discourse, by appealing to the imagination of the readers and by adopting both fantasy and irony as linguistic devices to unmask existing power relations and communicate new approaches and attitudes to political life and governance. These points are illustrated perfectly by one of Marcos’ short and sharp tales about a horse that once lived in the house of a very poor farmer and his wife. These farmers got so hungry that they had to eat their thin hen and then their lame piglet. Finally, “it was the bay horse’s turn but the bay horse did not wait for the end of this tale and fled and went to another tale”.103 This clever story leaves the end to the imagination of the reader: we need to construct another tale where the horse can live, so that there is a possibility of altering the reality of ‘what is’ in favor of what reality ‘could be’. This is the very essence of the Zapatistas’ ambitious political project, but the discourse, still haunted by vestiges of modernity, leaves the reader in doubt as to whether the flight from modernity and ideology is indeed a possibility and whether moral autonomy can ever become a practical reality.

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Notes 1

Couch (2001: 259). See Gary H. Gossen’s Telling Maya Tales: Tzotzil Identities in Modern Mexico, (1999: 262–263) and Gossen (1994: 553). Note that a variation of this approach is the anthropological study by Duncan Earle and Jeanne Simonelli, Uprising of Hope: Sharing the Journey to Alternative Development, 2005. See also Gloria Muñoz Ramírez’s The Fire and the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement, 2008, a personal account of the history of the movement and Jan Rus, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo and Shannan Mattiace’s Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion, 2003. 3 See Holloway (1998: 167). Note that Gutiérrez Chong (2003: 145) makes the point that most of the literature refers to the Zapatista Movement as Indigenous rather than as Mayan. 4 Wager and Schulz (1995b: 168). A variant of this would consider the Zapatista Movement a peasant movement, see, for instance, Brass (2005). 5 See Collier and Collier (2003) for the ‘third wave revolution’ approach as well as Stahler-Sholk (2007). 6 See Burbach’s Globalization and Postmodern Politics: From Zapatistas to High-Tech Robber Barons, (2001: 116–117). Carrigan (1995: 72) and Esteva and Prakash (1998: 36) are among other scholars who have also given the Zapatista Movement the ‘post-modern’ label, seconded to a degree by Higgins (2004: 171). Nugent (2002: 359–360), critiquing Burbach, argues that there has been a repudiation of the idea of seizing state power in Mexican history, evident in a number of uprisings and rebellions including those by Zapata and Villa. See also Berger (2001: 156). Moreover, as Nugent (2002: 357) states, the EZLN remains quite traditional and pre-modern in some respects (for instance, in the way it is organized) and modernist in other respects, for instance in its vocabulary. Nash (2001: 221) criticizes the post-modern attempt to go beyond the “often deterministic relations ascribed to class, gender, and ethnic categories”, thus limiting itself to politics of discourse and identity. Bardacke points to Marcos’ commitment to ‘the truth’ (a modernist notion), arguing that while it is unclear if he (Marcos) believes in ‘the truth’ he certainly seems to believe in truthfulness. Bardacke also states that post-modernism is “an idea that the left ought to avoid” (quoted in Marcos 1995a: 265). For a variant of the post-modern interpretation see Zugman (2008a) whilst another variation of this approach considers the Zapatistas extremely important for radical movements theory, as depicted in Mentinis Mihalis’ book Zapatistas: The Chiapas Revolt and What it Means for Radical Politics, 2006. 7 See CCRI-CG ([1993] 2002a). Harvey (2001: 1045–1046) argues that the Zapatistas are opposed to the earlier notion of corporatist citizenship (the authoritarian integration model) as well as the narrow version of democratic citizenship that gained prominence in the 1980s. The author illustrates the present struggle in terms of competing models of ‘market citizenship’ and ‘pluri-ethnic citizenship’. 8 Wagner and Moreira (2003: 186). 2

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9 Ricardo Flores Magón (1874–1922) was a Mexican political activist who opposed the Díaz dictatorship. He founded the Mexican Liberal Party in 1905, essentially a reformist organization. Magón became an anarchist from the days of the Mexican Revolution. 10 See Gilbreth and Otero (2001: 19). See also Bruhn (1999). 11 CCRI-CG (2002b [1994]: 226); Marcos [1995] in Popke (2004: 312). 12 Marcos quoted in Gelman (1996: 133), my translation. 13 De Angelis (2000: 31). 14 See Marcos (2009a) and Marcos in Henck (2002: 4). 15 Gallaher and Froehling (2002: 84). 16 Baker (2003: 302, 303). This idea is elaborated further in Baker (2002), where the author argues that global civil society movements must avoid reproducing statist discourses. See also Lopez (2005), on the role of local level grassroots activist groups as alternatives to the state in Mexican civil society. These groups attempt to address a range of problems. 17 Johnston (2000: 466). 18 CCRI-CG (2002a [1993]: 219). 19 Fuentes in A New Time for Mexico, (1997: 127). 20 See Baker (2003: 300–301) and Marcos (2005b). 21 Johnston (2000: 478). 22 See also Marcos quoted in Baker (2003: 300); Marcos quoted in Le Bot (1997: 263); Marcos quoted in Johnston (2000: 477). 23 Minimalist conceptions of democracy are known as ‘polyarchy’, a term famously coined by Robert Dahl; such conceptions are commonly accepted in Western political thought as purely political and not necessarily inclusive of ideals of social or economic justice. One should note that Johnston’s alignment of substantive democracy (particularly her updated version of it) with Greek tradition and versions from Rousseau and Marx is problematic, given that these versions did not take into account ethnicity and gender in their construction of citizenship (2000: 480). See also Fröhling, Gallaher and Jones III (2001). These authors contrast the element of individualism of Western democracy with the idea of commitment to the collective present in non-Western ideas of democracy. 24 See Johnston (2000: 481). 25 Huntington (2000: 74); Le Bot (1997: 283–284). 26 See Le Bot (1999: 237) and Nash (1997: 268). 27 Jung (2003: 441, 453). 28 Saldaña-Portillo (2001: 405) argues that the Zapatistas’ refusal to define themselves as strictly Indian is a “refusal of the citizenship offered by mestizaje as the central trope in Mexican revolutionary identity formation”. Mestizaje is a biological mixture of Indian and Spanish peoples, a term that was coined at the time of the Creole independence movements in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the creoles re-valued the Indian paradigm in search of a justification for their own nationalistic struggles. This concept allowed them to claim Indian ancestry, while distancing themselves from the contemporary Indian counterparts. See also Saldaña-Portillo (2002). Gutmann (2002: 143) similarly argues that mestizaje represents ‘perfect’ citizenship in Mexico, because it incorporates Indian difference as a source of cultural and historical pride, yet it subsumes it to a sum greater than its Indian and Spanish parts. The

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author argues that it is a paradox of ethnicity because it exalts past Indian culture and simultaneously marginalizes present Indians, thus functioning as a smokescreen for racism. Furthermore, as Hilbert notes (1997: 128), the celebration of Mexican Indigenous culture serves the political aim of presenting to the world a Mexico unified in its pursuit of the neo-liberal project. Similarly, Esteva (2001: 121) points out that the dominant paradigm is that Mexico is ‘united’ by a mestizo heritage, while the Mexican elite is fully embarked on the universal Enlightenment project. 29 See Jung (2003: 435–436) and also Courtney Jung’s The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics: Critical Liberalism and the Zapatistas, 2008. 30 Saldaña-Portillo (2001: 404). See also Pitarch (2004: 298). 31 See Jung (2003: 445) and Couch (2001: 250). 32 Mancillas (2002: 161). 33 Pitarch (2004: 299). The author analyses the Zapatistas’ shift from Marxist to nationalistic and subsequently to identity politics in a critical fashion. See also Jung (2003: 456, 458). 34 De la Grange and Rico (1998b: 93, 95). Appleton (2001) also comments that the marginalization of the Indians became a “badge of authenticity to use in the media war”. See also Stavenhagen (2003: 114) and Henck (2007a), the latter for the opposite view. 35 Cuninghame and Ballesteros Corona [1998] quoted in Baker (2003: 307). 36 Gallaher and Froehling (2002: 82). 37 Many scholars make this connection. See, for instance, Castells (1997: 77–78) and Holloway (1998: 167). 38 See (Johnston 2000: 493) and Betancourt (1999: 96). In Chiapas, the movement enabled 80 percent of the predominantly Indigenous municipalities to declare their autonomy from the federal government (Kampwirth 2003: 233). At the local level the Zapatistas, according to Harvey (2005b), have inspired the creation of new structures like the Caracoles. At the national level, the movement successfully challenged the legitimacy of the political system and its fabricated national identity (Carrigan 1995: 95). Alex Khasnabish’s Zapatismo Beyond Borders: New Imaginations of Political Possibility, 2008, offers a discussion of the Zapatista Movement’s transnational resonance and influence in shaping anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist struggles. See also Swords (2007) who argues that neo-Zapatista organizations are developing alternate forms of participatory democracy; Evans (2008) who contends that the Zapatista Movement has made a contribution to conflict analysis; Zibechi (2004: 392– 395) about the influence of the Zapatista Movement in Latin America and Zugman (2008a). See Weinberg (2002: 200) and Panizza (2005) for a discussion of the recent political trajectory of left-of-centre parties in Latin America. A related discussion of the question of whether peasant activism is in political decline or whether it has merely undergone transformation at various levels is put forward by Petras (1997). 39 For instance, a Tojolabal person from INI has observed that of a total of 20 negotiators who represented the EZLN in the peace dialogues, only 6 were Indigenous and none were from Chiapas. See Gutiérrez Chong (2003: 146–147). The author deplores the absence of Indigenous leadership and thought in the Zapatista Movement since the initial stages. Another volume that contains a number of articles that are very critical of the Zapatistas is Raul Trejo

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Delarbre’s Chiapas: La Guerra de las Ideas, 1994. Some critiques of the movement are concerned with its negative effect on the region, for instance Gilbreth and Otero (2001: 25); Collier and Collier (2003: 249–250); Kampwirth (2003: 233). Others are concerned with the movement’s alleged reformist nature or with its lack of political effectiveness, for instance Daniels (1994: 64–66); Gall (1998: 541); Stavenhagen (2003: 123). 40 On the use of humour and symbols by the Zapatistas see Olesen (2007). 41 Guillén (1996). For an extremely useful discussion of the intellectual influences on Marcos, particularly Althusser, see Nicholas Henck, Subcommander Marcos: The Man and the Mask, (2007b: 33-37, 44 and accompanying notes at 377, 379). See also Oppenheimer (1996: 250-252). 42 Althusser (1971: 164). 43 See Bardacke in Marcos (1995a: 255). 44 See Huntington (2000: 60). 45 Alfino (1998: 178). 46 Marcos (1994b: 58-59). 47 Appleton (2001); Carballo in Gámez (1995); Blanco (1994: 363); Aguilar Rivera (2001: 14, my translation). 48 Levario Turcott (1999: 167); Labastida (1994: 339); Pérez Gay (1994: 361). 49 Paz quoted in Knudson (1998: 512). 50 Hernández Martínez (2002: 102). 51 Marcos (2002a: 263). On the issue of Marcos ‘escaping’ modernity and the traps of ideology, see Vanden Berghe (2007). 52 Vanden Berghe and Maddens (2004). See also Kristine Vanden Berghe’s Narrativa de la Rebelion Zapatista: Los Relatos del Subcomandante Marcos, 2005. 53 Raiter and Muñoz (1996: 57); Johnston (2000: 464); Nugent (2002: 357). 54 Canovan (1999: 4). 55 De la Torre (1994: 708–709); de la Torre (1992 : 400). See also De la Torre’s Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience, 2000. This volume illustrates some of these points through his analysis of Ecuador’s Abdalá Bucaram. 56 See Sigal and Verón (1988: 34); Perón in CEL (2002 [1945]: 27) and Perón’s Conducción Política, 1971[1952], particularly (58–59, 184, 188–189, 262). 57 See Castro (1959, 1961, 1969, 1970, 2001). For his views on American imperialism see ‘Letter to Celia Sanchéz’, 1972a [1959]. 58 Fagen (1972: 218–221). 59 See Castro’s famous speech ‘Address to Intellectuals’, 2001 [1961]. 60 See Herlinghaus (2005: 70). 61 Marcos (2003a: 60). See also CCRI-CG ‘Closing Words of the EZLN at the Intercontinental Encounter: Second Declaration of La Realidad’, August 3, 1996; Marcos ‘First Declaration of La Realidad for Humanity and Against NeoLiberalism’, January 1, 1996; Marcos ‘The Fourth World War has Begun’, 2002b [1997]. Both Declarations of the Lacandona also contain dichotomies expressing the ‘humanity’ versus ‘neo-liberalism’ theme, see CCRI-CG (2002a, 2002b). For examples of where the common enemy is identified as the Mexican government see Marcos ‘Here we are, the Forever Dead ….’, (1995a [1994]:

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56–57) and Marcos ‘Here is Your Flag, Compañeros’, Speech to the National Democratic Convention, (1995a [1994]: 241–251). 62 Marcos ‘Above and Below: Masks and Silences’, July, 1998c. 63 Hernández Martínez (2002: 104). 64 Marcos cited in García Márquez and Pombo (2001). 65 Giménez (1997: 8–9). 66 See Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Higgins (2004: 157). See also a section in Raiter and Muñoz’s excellent article, (1996: 41–44). 67 Raiter and Muñoz (1996: 45). 68 Marcos cited in Calónico (2001: 12, 96-97), my translation. 69 See Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 348). 70 See, for instance, Marcos ‘Mensaje del Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos’, March 11, (2001a: 168). 71 Marcos quoted in Ross (1995: 295). 72 See Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1994: 30); Bardacke in Marcos (1995a: 254); Marcos in ‘A Letter to a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy in Baja California’, (1995a: 169); Marcos in ‘To the Mexican People: To the People and the Government of the World’, January 12, (2001a: 109–114). 73 Marcos quoted in Weinberg (2002: 199). 74 Marcos ‘Who Must Ask for Pardon and who Can Grant it?’, (1995a: 80– 82). 75 Marcos [1995] quoted in Oppenheimer (1996a: 260–262) and in Holloway (1998: 174). Originally this was a communiqué, see Marcos ‘The Retreat is Making us Almost Scratch at the Sky’, February, 1995c. 76 See, for instance, Marcos ‘Durito: Neoliberalism, the Chaotic Theory of Economic Chaos’, July, 1995g. 77 Olguín (2002: 164). 78 Marcos (2002a). 79 See Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 357). 80 See Vanden Berghe and Maddens (2004). The authors note the contradiction in Marcos’ discourse between the strong nationalist component and the post-nationalist/post-modern orientation that attempts to deconstruct the concept of the nation. Note that in an interview Marcos explains this apparent contradiction by describing the (idealized) Mexican nation as a different project (in Aguilera et al. 1994: 297). 81 Lippens (2003: 192). 82 See Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 153). See also Higgins (2004: 166). 83 See Marcos ‘Old Antonio Tells Marcos Another Story’, (1995a: 209– 215). Vanden Berghe (2002: 197–198, 201–202) argues that it is easy to see Old Antonio as the occidental stereotype of all Indigenous people; the author also argues that traits that some interpret as racially inferior are interpreted by Marcos as indicators of moral superiority, wisdom and a spirit of self-sacrifice. See also Vanden Berghe and Maddens (2004) and Marcos ‘The Story of Colours’, (2001c: 100–103) in Zapatista Stories. The Popol Vuh (Council Book) is the Maya book of Scriptures that tells the story or myth of the creation of the Mayan civilization. The Chilam Balam is a set of Mayan historical and ethnological texts from the sixteenth century. The Chilams were shamans or priests and the balam is a jaguar, a symbol of nobility. 84 Marcos quoted in Stephen (2002: 159).

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85 Marcos quoted in Stephen (2002: 160–161). See also Hiller (2009) who argues that the Zapatista Movement can be considered a new form of Mexican historiography. 86 Nash (2001: 222–223). 87 Marcos quoted in Higgins (2004: 167). 88 Nash (2001: 224). 89 Marcos (2002c: 287; 1995a: 212; 1995e; 1995f); Bruhn (1999: 53). 90 Marcos (1994d). 91 See Bruhn (1999: 49). 92 Marcos (2003c). 93 Marcos ‘Los Zapatistas y las Manzanas’, November, 2002e, my translation. 94 See Marcos ‘The Lion and the Mouse’, (1998d: 190). See also, by Marcos, ‘La Historia de la Espada, el Arbol, la Piedra y el Agua’, (1998a: 13– 16); ‘The Story of the Tiny Mouse and the Tiny Cat’, (2001b: 308–309); ‘The Tale of the Little Wisp of a Cloud’, (2001b: 347–348). 95 See Marcos (2005c). 96 Marcos ‘‘The History of the False Light, the Stone, and the Maize’, (2002c: 288–289). 97 See Lenkersdorf’s Filosofar en Clave Tojolabal, (2000: 15), my translation. See also Lenkersdorf (2000: 18). 98 See Vanden Berghe (2002: 205–206), who uses Lenkersdorf’s work to illustrate this point. 99 Vanden Berghe (2002: 205). 100 Laclau (2000: 56-57) 101 See Bech Dyrberg (2004: 252). 102 Torfing (1999: 171-173). For related critiques of the Zapatistas see for instance Gall (1998: 541) and Stavenhagen ( 2003: 123). 103 Marcos quoted in Wagner and Moreira (2003: 199–200), footnoted as Marcos (1998: 57–61), ‘The Bay Horse’ in Cuentos de Durito: Historias Zapatistas.

Photo 12 Marcos Fronts the Media, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 13 Marcos at Work, San Cristóbal de las Casas, 1996 (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 14 Banner of Comandante Ramona, San Cristóbal del las Casas, 1996 (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 15 March for Indigenous Justice, Chiapas (Photo by Alonzo Carrillo Vazquez)

Photo 16 A Pensive Marcos Smoke a Pipe, San Cristóbal del las Casas, 1996 (Photo by Alfonso Carrillo Vazquez)

5 ‘Being Marcos’: The Celebrity, the Caudillo and the Revolutionary Vanguard

It’s a matter of lucidity to always doubt heroes and Gods, as well as flee from prophets and incorruptible wise men who scream the truth from mountaintops. —Eduardo Garcia Aguilar, 2001

Understanding the Zapatista project or what Marcos is attempting to achieve in the long term is important because it brings to the fore the dilemma he faces that is at the heart of this book. That is, while his personal appeal and charisma have been of assistance in conveying his message, given the anti-authoritarian and anti-personalistic sentiments so lucidly expressed in his writing they could also be considered the proverbial thorns that come with the rose. The troublesome fact is that the vision of an awakened and empowered civil society is fundamentally an egalitarian one, and only achievable if normative ideas about political power are radically redefined. For the Zapatistas, this means that the practice has to match the theory: seizure of formal power and the imposition of any prescriptions for ‘just government and the common good’ are not options. Ideally, Marcos’ role would be one of a catalyst for political change without the exertion of personal or institutional authority. In practice, this balancing act is fraught with difficulties for a number of reasons. The first is that, given its initial political efficacy, it is tempting to continue to use charismatic authority. The second difficulty lies in the fact that the potentially corruptive traps of charismatic authority and personalism need to be avoided in all the guises that Marcos’ political public persona can assume: the celebrity cult figure, the Latin American caudillo and the traditional vanguard revolutionary. In a nutshell, charismatic authority and excessive personalism are useful in getting the political message across effectively, but Marcos’

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predicament is that if they are left to run unbridled they could become damaging to the objectives of the movement. And, as we will see shortly, judging from a number of comments he has made, Marcos himself perceives them this way. The overall danger is that the Zapatista socio-political cause will be overshadowed or even corrupted by the presence of a charismatic personality to whom civil society might look upon to provide the answers. If that were to happen, a possible outcome would be an intellectual and political ‘paralysis’ of some kind, in a sense the hallmark of societies dominated by influential authoritarian public figures. As Holloway states in Change the World without Taking Power: The idea of changing society through the conquest of power thus ends up achieving the opposite of what it sets out to achieve. Instead of the conquest of power being a step towards the abolition of power relations, the attempt to conquer power involves the extension of the field of power relations into the struggle against power.1

Marcos’ role in the movement is charged with an ambiguity that derives partially from his attempt to come to terms with the ‘sideeffects’ of charismatic authority and partially from the fact that he is a mestizo figure of an Indigenous-based movement. The following analysis will outline three different contexts in which he can be located that impact on the way his public persona is both shaped and perceived. The aim is to assess the resulting political implications—that is, the effects of the discordances between Marcos’ long-term political vision or message and the ambiguities of his position. The first context where he can be located is on the global and national political stage. Here he is often identified as an icon or a cult figure, vulnerable to the glorification of personality at the expense of the message. The second context is the traditional political culture of Latin American (of which, after all, he is a product) that has historically thrived on, sanctioned and institutionalized personalistic rule. Zapatismo is critical of all official political systems, particularly of the traditional left for failing to produce substantial change in systemic power structures and relations. Nevertheless, the third context where we can (and indeed must) locate Marcos is in the tradition of revolutionary Marxism and the associated vanguard, given that this tradition shaped his early intellectual formation. The problem with the vanguard revolutionary group is that it sees itself as the main protagonist of political transformation and as the author of the oppositional discourse. Hence, like all political ideologies, it claims to speak on behalf of the people. I believe that this ‘intellectual baggage’ is the most problematic

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of all for Marcos, and that this explains his efforts to disassociate both his own public persona and the movement from the left, as well as from vanguard politics in general. In order to disassociate effectively from all of these images (the cult figure, the caudillo and the vanguard), Zapatista politics rely on two fundamental principles that operate conjunctively: a radicalized redefinition of the normative concept of power and the principle of non-determination. Consequently, the Zapatistas did (do) not aim to seize institutional power nor did (do) they seek to impose a predefined ideology, doctrine or concept of what the ideal society should entail by virtue of their political influence on the people. Marcos, Charismatic Authority and the Problem of Being a Cult Figure

A few words about the charismatic nature of Marcos’ authority are necessary at this point. Charisma, as noted earlier in this book, is the personal attribute of a leader that, under favorable conditions, enables access to a specific type of political power. It would be hard to argue that Marcos does not possess charisma or that he is not fundamentally important to the movement, just as it would be a problem to explain why it was he who attracted so much attention and not another political figure from the myriads that constellate the political firmament of Latin America.2 Marcos’ authority is charismatic by default if nothing else, given that if we follow Weber’s scheme, it is not of the rational-legal nor of the traditional kind and, while not officially sanctioned by the political system, it can still be acknowledged as legitimate, meaning that the people respond to it willingly. This authority has symbolic, emotive, moral and political dimensions, which combine to produce an intense effect or influence on various audiences. This is the effect that could potentially eclipse the cause of the movement. This is exactly what is of concern to Marcos, who (possibly) wishes to have enough influence on the audiences so that they hear his message, but not to the extent that they will follow him blindly or rely on him for all the answers because they consider him a cult figure, a leader, a prophet or extraordinary in any way. In many ways it was inevitable for the spotlight to be on Marcos, given that he is not only the face of the movement, but also the strategist of the rebellion. Many scholars and journalists consider him the leader or a ‘leader of sorts’3 and it is safe to assume that much of the general public probably does as well, despite the fact that he has repeatedly argued that he is neither the leader of the Zapatista Movement nor one of its leaders.4 Others openly credit the

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relative success of the movement to Marcos’ personal attributes and consider him the face of the movement or, at least, the designated spokesperson between the Mayan community and the rest of the world. In general, there is recognition from the scholarship that Marcos’ personal presence and attributes were crucial to the relative success of the movement, particularly in the initial stages. For instance, Castells comments that Marcos was ‘essential’ not in the organizational or in the military sense, but for communication purposes and Michel argues that, without Marcos’s literary skills, his sense of humor and his ability to express himself in various literary styles, the movement would not be what it is. Arquilla and Ronfeldt credit Marcos with astuteness and flexibility in “adapting the EZLN’s world views to those of the Maya”, while Guillermoprieto attributes the inability of the Mexican government to deal with the rebels more aggressively to Marcos’s impact. Henck tells us that it was Marcos’ skill and not luck that sustained the Zapatista Movement’s momentum and broadened its appeal and Rubin notes that the movement would not have survived without Marcos’ ability to mediate between rural Mexico, urban Mexico, Europe and the United States.5 Clearly, Marcos’ position in relation to the EZLN should be distinguished from his position within the movement. First, his position as the military head of the EZLN is confirmed by a number of academic sources. According to Tello Díaz, Marcos was the leader of the EZLN before the rebellion, from the January 1993 Prado Reunion, where the structure of the FLN was formally decided. Informally, according to De la Grange and Rico, Marcos’ absolute leadership was already confirmed in 1988. The point could be qualified further: the support base of the movement has always been Indigenous, but not the leadership of the EZLN which was, initially, Ladino middle-class.6 By the same token, there is little doubt of the centrality of Marcos’ position in the movement, although here the situation is not so clear-cut. It is most likely that, as Vanden Berghe argues, Marcos’ overall position is neither as simple nor as subordinated as some of his communiqués would like us to believe.7 Qualifying his role as one of ‘spokesperson’ or ‘translator’ might be the politically correct thing to do, but it does not adequately explain what is involved or the amount of attention that Marcos has received. Besides, as Gutiérrez Chong argues, much can be lost in translation. According to this author, the situation in Chiapas created a political strategy that has remained in the hands of experts, mediators and representatives. Among the networks of intermediaries generated arises the figure of the ‘translator’, a new actor who in theory allows and

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facilitates communication. Translators are supposed to be able to understand, decipher and re-elaborate different code-systems, but the linguistic and cultural differences between Indigenous and nonIndigenous create a communication vacuum. This vacuum allows translators to articulate a strategic intermediation that specifies what will or will not work and rejects the rest. Moreover, these translators might be responsive to forces or political interests outside the Indigenous context. So, according to Gutiérrez Chong, the intermediary has to be diminished and the actor empowered. Moreover, the author unambiguously states that it is advisable not to depend on signals from Marcos to resume the dialogue.8 Monsiváis comments that “the focal point is Marcos. The others do not even remotely possess his eloquence or his sense of humor. In a sense, this is a one-man movement.” 9 Similarly, Levario Turcott in his ‘hostile-to-Marcos’ book Chiapas: La Guerra en el Papel argues that: Without a doubt it is hard to believe the Zapatista version: Marcos is not just any other member of the EZLN but the focal point where the main political decisions of the movement are made and carried out … he is the principal personage of the parody of the EZLN, the one who summons the dispossessed, who invokes the intellectuals and the political forces of the country, who subdues the reporters and who gives breath to the yearnings for the incarnation of the new man.10

As previously mentioned, it is also necessary to make a clear-cut distinction between the response of Western and Latin American societies and that of the Mayan communities. In one sense, Marcos has what could be termed ‘functional’ authority that the Maya leadership transfers to him as their mediator. This authority did not begin on January 1, 1994: “[it] was earned before, among the troops …. No matter what, they keep respecting Marcos for what happened before, not because of what’s going on now”.11 To the rest of the Mexican nation and to the world, Marcos has informal charismatic authority that includes a strong moral element, the foundations of which rest primarily on this acceptance by the Mayan people who are widely perceived as symbols of authenticity.12 Yet, as Duràn de Huerta in Sobre la Marcha points out, the media has made the mistake of treating the Subcomandante as if he were the supreme leader and the only figure of Zapatismo, discriminating against the rest of the commandants and the Indigenous communities.13 Marcos occasionally blames the media for the construction of his image at the expense of the movement. However, he might be adding fuel to the fire

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when he presents himself as a victim of circumstances: “they [the press] have converted me in a caudillo without face, what I would have liked to have avoided”.14 Although Marcos has scolded reporters who only want to interview him and not the other members of the EZLN, the reality is that many of those who sympathize with the EZLN do tend to identify with Marcos rather than with the Indigenous leaders.15 As admitted by the international press in a blatantly candid statement, “Nobody is interested in knowing who Comandante Moisés is…or who Comandante Ramona is…who interests them is Marcos: his voice, his eyes, his cultured word, his gestures”.16 The intensity of the response to the ‘Marcos phenomenon’ has intrigued many scholars of the movement, who have sought explanations in the existing structural conditions of the intellectual and political systems in Mexico and beyond. In the process of searching for explanations, the quality of contemporary Western intellectualism has been downsized (no doubt with good reason) by a portion of the scholarship. Daniels, who has written a harsh article on the Zapatistas (and on Marcos) remarks that: There is no doubt that he [Marcos] has played brilliantly upon the weaknesses and susceptibilities both of his own country and of the liberal intelligentsia of Europe and America … Marcos understood perfectly well the deep lack of seriousness of the Western liberal intelligentsia.17

Similarly, for some more local critics the situation is symptomatic of the lack of ‘critical distance’ and of the complacency that has contributed to the formation of a set of actors and conditions in Mexico that animate the ‘intellectual lightness’ Octavio Paz refers to in his work.18 In the same vein, Pitarch argues that the weakness of the Mexican public sphere and the political torpor of Mexican civil society explain the successful recreation of the Zapatista Movement by the media and the intellectuals.19 The enthusiasm that Marcos has generated is often attributed to the lack of substantive participation of the Mexican people in the political life of their country, making them an easy target for the power of words or the attractive image of a leader—here we can hear echoes of Germani’s ‘available masses’.20 This line of thought can be extended to assess the ‘Marcos phenomenon’ as partially the result of the inadequacies of the left, both nationally and globally. There are no prizes for guessing that, if the intelligentsia needed intrigue, a portion of the left needed an alternative to the alleged failure of Marxism, no matter how utopian this fix might be. There is also the possibility that

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the financially successful sections of the middle classes may have needed to assuage their consciences, for directly or indirectly assenting to the neo-liberal game. Finally, a portion of the younger generation may be searching for a dream that is their own, rather than one that is produced and packaged, just like any other commodity, by global capitalism. What better to subdue all these anxieties than Marcos’ claim that the uprising was led by Indians, of whom he was only a humble servant? Charismatic political figures are thought to have greater impact on societies with relatively weak institutional networks and public spheres, particularly with the advent of new technologies. In reality, the condition of political apathy is ubiquitous; it is present in all political systems, perhaps most of all in liberal representative democracies. One might go so far as to consider the whole situation a symptom of a contemporary (and not just Mexican) quest for enchantment. The unquestioning romanticism with which the Zapatista Movement has been approached by a number of North American and European scholars and activists certainly suggests that there might be a grain of truth in these reflections. Charismatic authority must also be understood in relation to the value that cultures place on the association between political power and individual public figures: most political movements or ideas that gain recognition or a degree of popularity are headed by individuals who are looked upon as public representatives of that movement or idea. Part of the authority of such individuals, as noted earlier, is based on a set of moral or ethical principles that are delivered in a personal and compelling manner, and with which members of society are able to identify at a personal level. Most charismatic leaders (in a similar fashion to their populist counterparts) justify their moral mandates with the claim that they are a reflection of what the people want. Marcos himself has fallen into the trap of qualifying the moral authority of the EZLN (and, by implication, his own authority) as deriving from the people and as being based on saying the things that the people think and feel: To the extent that someone is saying what you have inside, they have the same moral authority that you concede to your own self, it is not a value that we possess ourselves or that we have gained, but it is this circumstance or grammatical accident, that makes our words coincide with the feeling of many people, and its moral authority, the moral authority of the EZLN will exist to the extent that it continues to tell what the citizen wants to tell or say, to the extent that it functions as a mirror for this society, so that it feels identified or reflected and acknowledged in our words or our acts.21

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This sounds disturbingly similar to one of Castro’s speeches quoted in a previous chapter.22 Following Marcos’ analogy of the mirror in the above quote, the problem is exactly that the mirror might end up telling its own story, and charismatic leaders tend to do just that. Outside Chiapas, Marcos could be called a quasi-cult figure, a political icon or symbol filling a relatively preponderant space in the national and global alternative political imaginary. Cult figures are not only political but also cultural phenomena, idolized by specific groups of people as symbols or representatives of a set of values, although they might be removed from their followers or audiences in terms of time and space. Cult figures are generally charismatic, and this is why almost always the idolization they elicit is partly based on the appeal of the public image or persona they project. Most commonly, the neardeification of a cult figure will intensify after their usually premature death—Che Guevara, James Dean, Princess Diana and most recently Michael Jackson are obvious examples. The ascent to charismatic or quasi-cult figure status is slippery ground for Marcos, who has a number of ambivalent responses when faced with questions on this matter. He specifies that he has nothing to personally gain from his cult or celebrity status, neither money nor sexual benefits, but he does admit that the movement benefits from this situation in some ways, because more people end up paying attention to the issues.23 He is clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being labeled ‘charismatic’, as this extract from the excellent 2001 interview with Mexican intellectual journalist Julio Scherer García published in Proceso shows: Scherer:Marcos, you can’t deny yourself as a charismatic being Marcos:Yes, I can. Why not? Scherer:You shouldn’t, because you are. I can’t imagine you purposely displaying what is not true. You cannot avoid acknowledging yourself as what you are, someone who attracts a lot of people. Marcos:There is a void. There is a void in society. A void which tends to get filled up one way or another. The void that Fox fills, in the political area; that doesn’t mean it is what it could or should actually be. The same happens with Marcos. Scherer:Whom do you compare with, as charismatic? Who is like you in the Zapatista Army? Marcos:Within the Zapatista army?

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Scherer:Among those you know, who is like you? Marcos:Toward the interior, nobody, but that has nothing to do with… Scherer:Toward the exterior? Marcos:Toward the exterior? Nobody either. Scherer:Which means, you are charismatic…. Marcos:No, what happens is that the image of Marcos answers to a set of romantic and idealistic expectations. Namely, the white man in the Indigenous world, closer to the common reference of the collective unconscious: Robin Hood, Juan Charrasqueado…. Scherer:What makes you charismatic? Marcos:The assumed literary skill has been the origin of many misunderstandings. Such is the case, too, with the assumed capability for political timing…. One goes in as if carefully planning each step forward. Believe me, we are much more mediocre than what people think; by no means as brilliant as the political class pictures us.

The issue is complex. Marcos acknowledges the problems that accompany the myth that has emerged around him. In his interview with Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, who died in 2003, Marcos candidly admits that they (the Zapatistas) do not possess the distance or the objectivity to sanction this personality. He admits the dangers of being a cult figure, of having power so that Marcos ‘the man’ could fall in the trap of believing that all this is the truth, that he has authority, that he commands, that he is the master. Hence, he continuously risks deviation from his truest path and his political objective. He admits to his share of vanity and lack of foresight in having failed to predict the intensity of the reaction to his public persona.24 In another interview, he warns: “We are a mess. We make many errors and have many faults and we have ups and downs like everybody. We just have masks and guns and we are ready to die for our beliefs. That’s our only difference from other people. But don’t idealize the Zapatistas or you won’t understand them”.25 When asked what he thinks of the idealization that has been built around him, Marcos replies that: The solution is not to choose a man or a symbol and overload all of the aspirations, then from there what will not emerge is the desire to live and the desire to fight and finally it is going to become an excuse to

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get discouraged or to sit still or to be fearful…. If Marcos has any use, it is as a mirror…. They are wrong, not because I am not good or because I am worse than what they think, but the solution is not to stake everything on a person or who you think is the person, or that you project in a person what you would like to have been. This is idealization.26

Marcos claims that he wants people to see themselves in him and identify with a cause, rather than with him as an individual or as a personality. The main concern he holds is that if people were to ‘think or do as what Marcos says or does’ they will become or rather, continue to be politically unaware or apathetic, states which are, of course, the antithesis of autonomy. This is the reason why, when asked his opinion on religion, Marcos answers that it depends on who is asking, because “the problem is that in the case of a leader, opinions of this type can be interpreted as rules to be followed … opinions must be very prudent, because in other shapes they can be interpreted as definitions”.27 He seems aware of the power of power to corrupt and corrupt absolutely, and his concern is directed not only at the possibility of corruption of the person who holds such power, but at the consequences on those who are subject to this power, namely the corruption of human ability of thought and choice. The warning is clear: any intensity of concentration on the figure of ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ will come at the expense of the political struggle, as people will be blinded and unable to fully identify the message. Considering that the Zapatista Movement is principally about awakening social and individual consciences, this warning is a clear illustration of how power, authoritarianism and charisma seem to be inevitably intertwined, and how the use of charismatic authority to build an autonomous civil society can potentially be a self-defeating process. Marcos and the Problem of Charismatic Authority within the Latin American Tradition

We now need to confront the lingering suspicion that the Subcomandante is really the supreme Comandante of the movement, and indeed no different to any charismatic caudillo in the Latin American tradition. As previously argued, this tradition is a persistent feature of Mexican political culture in terms of the degree to which personalism is entrenched in the cultural, social and political fabric of the country:

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That Marcos has tried to project a strong image at this time in Mexico’s history confirms that Mexico still suffers from a legacy of personalismo, that the perception of one’s power and of whom one knows is more important than what one knows. Personalismo will be put ahead of the law, and from personalismo comes caudillismo (authoritarianism) …. 28

Trejo Delarbre concurs, affirming: “Caudillismo and even worse, masked caudillismo, continues to move willpower and hearts. At the end of the century, in Mexico we have not relinquished this populist fascination for mystical leadership”.29 Ross calls Marcos a caudillo “upon whose moods rest the precarious fate of his comrades” and Poniatowska calls him a ‘new caudillo’.30 One of the most scathing comments comes from Blanco, who gives a host of reasons as to why Marcos is a caudillo of recent stature: his strategies, his discourse, the effect he has had on the public and his strong sense of drama. It is not difficult, the author argues, to recognize these traits in many Latin American caudillos: As we know, a caudillo is so because of social and political circumstances, as well as his own traits and talents that combined allow a particular individual to personify and synthesize the profound sentiments of the masses. This is the case of the Subcomandante. It is astonishing the speed at which he awakened sympathy, admiration, voluptuous fantasies and indignation, both political and righteous with respect to the Indians in large sectors of urban society.31

One view of Marcos mirrors the stereotype of the old-fashioned megalomaniac caudillo of revolution, a political figure who manifests a dogmatic and personalistic type of authoritarianism. As such, he is charged with attempting to subjugate or annihilate opposition and even non-acquiescence. Some testimonials support this allegation, although ‘the truth’ of this matter can be neither confirmed nor denied in this book. Legorreta Díaz’s 1998 volume Religión, Política y Guerilla en las Cañadas de la Selva Lacandona delivers testimonials from some Indigenous people who were in the Zapatista Movement in the 1980s and 1990s. One person states that, “People are not used to such mistreatment. I was annoyed and quarreled a lot with Marcos, on several occasions, for his way of giving orders”.32 Another piece of ‘evidence’ that Marcos could be ‘a chip off the old block’ is the allegation that he began to act against Zapatista opponents in true caudillo style: reportedly, whole families were expelled from their villages or shunned if they were not pro-Zapatista.33 Other accounts of the brutality of the

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EZLN and Marcos towards those who were considered ‘traitors’ are an indictment as well: When Marcos arrived in my community, he said that those who dared to inform of the clandestine organization he would shoot himself. And he put the revolver in the mouth of the closest person to teach how it is done.34

We know that in revolutionary movements, and indeed in political movements in general, personalistic strategies and internal rivalries often precede the emergence of a single leader. As previously mentioned in this book the FLN was no exception, as evidenced by the power struggle that took place in the early 1980s between Marcos and Daniel, one of the original mestizo FLN commanders. Subcomander Daniel was allegedly demoted at Marcos’ instigation at a meeting and seemed to think that Marcos did not want to share the limelight with any other white face.35 Afterwards, “bolstered by the spectacular impact of the Zapatista Rebellion on public opinion, Marcos had begun to distance himself from his long-time comrades in Mexico City and Chiapas, and was building the all-Indian Clandestine Committee as his main source of support”.36 Another example of Marcos’ alleged authoritarianism and forcefulness is the power struggle that occurred between the EZLN and the Church in the decade preceding the 1994 rebellion. Typically of most political movements, the EZLN had always intended the struggle for liberation to be separate from the Church. In order to combat opposition from the diocese, Marcos began to struggle against the political influence of the agents of liberation theology, more specifically their organization SLOP, as noted in a previous chapter. Indeed, he has admitted that he does not believe in God.37 It is alleged that he was openly critical of the word of God, provoking major desertions; as one ex-insurgent states: “I left the EZLN in 1989 because at that time Marcos began to tell us that ‘the word of God is worth nothing’ …. Marcos began to speak badly of the word of God, saying that God does not exist and such things”.38 Ironically, the Subcomandante’s ambitious ethical-moral agenda is often perceived as messianic arrogance. This perception has led to vitriolic comments such as this: [it is] obscene that an anonymous masked person stands there, a gun in his hand, preaching to us about democracy and that he tells us, as a matter of fact, that him and his accomplices are going to fix all of us and the world … Emiliano Zapata, whose name they mess with, left us

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as part of his legacy, naked and angular, a face that he never covered…39

It does not really matter whether we call Marcos a traditional or a ‘new caudillo’ (an expression that does not serve to clarify anything, except the historical availability of the concept in Latin America), or simply a typical charismatic authoritarian. It is possible that he is capable of behaving in an authoritarian fashion, but the view that he is just another Latin American caudillo or that he is typically authoritarian is rejected by the author of this book. As noted earlier, caudillismo is a system of rule that arises under specific political conditions and that features a single personalistic leader, often charismatic. Not all those political conditions are present in the contemporary Mexican political system and they are much less present in Zapatista Chiapas. It is true that Marcos is charismatic and there is no doubt that to a degree he is influenced by the political culture of his country. Furthermore, as with all leaders or people who play important political public roles, authoritarian tendencies are almost certain to be present at specific times. However, he is not the undisputed dictatorial leader of a movement, region or political party. It is clear that, beyond the immediate impact of political tradition and culture, Marcos’ role—as mediator, spokesperson, intermediary, translator or whatever we wish to call him—is problematic for a number of related reasons. For many commentators and observers of the movement, he lacks the socio-economic and intellectual qualifications for what is commonly seen as the ‘subaltern condition’. There is also the possibility—however remote in my view—that, just like most leaders, he has his own personal political agenda to accomplish for reasons of self-empowerment. These are difficult judgments to make as selfempowerment or better still, self-aggrandizement can include altruistic elements. Finally, there is the thorny question of Marcos being white, and hence an outsider to the Indigenous communities. Nostalgic for city life, he has never pretended to have overcome the rigors of guerrilla life and has never made a secret of the fact that it has cost him to leave his comfortable bourgeois life behind.40 Many think that his white, middleclass intellectual background ‘tarnishes’ his revolutionary image; however, contrary to an assertion by a reporter quoted in Knudson, Marcos has never hidden these rather obvious facts in interviews.41 It can also be argued that there is nothing unusual in his social pedigree; after all, history is strewn with revolutionary charismatic figures from a similar type of background. History is, however, far from reassuring, for many of these charismatic figures have imposed their will on the people,

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and it could be argued that education is one tool they can use to do this all the more effectively. Numerous authors throughout relevant literature provide comments—the validity of which cannot be ascertained—about Marcos’s influence or degree of authority within the movement and on the question of the allegedly relentless pursuit of his program not necessarily for reasons of self-aggrandizement, but rather, for the movement’s political gain. In the eyes of many critics, Marcos is the one who makes all the decisions—or at least is the one who has had decisive influence, if not absolute power in matters concerning relations with the government since 1994.42 The point was made earlier regarding whose judgment it was to take up arms, or to what extent it was Marcos’ decision. It was noted that not everyone is convinced that the communities were the ones who decided.43 The perception of Marcos as authoritarian is reinforced by those who were observing the peace process with a wary eye. For instance, he is believed by some to be the one who directed this process and, according to Turrent, he had no intention of sitting at the negotiating table with the Zedillo government in 2001 (at the time of the March for Indigenous Dignity), but was hellbent on imposing his own program.44 Other instances can be cited of actions by the Subcomandante that have been interpreted in a similar light; for instance, according to a testimony, Marcos named people for the ruling council of the second CND in an undemocratic manner.45 Criticisms and concern about Marcos’ possible authoritarianism also come from the Indigenous perspective; in the words of a member of the Executive Committee of the Mapuches, “I can assure you that us, the Mapuches, in a similar situation would never have a subcomandante. Perhaps we would have a traditional form of authority but never a leader who seems a copy, an assimilation, of the existing political system”. 46 As Huntington notes, the fact that Marcos is not an Indigenous person tends to exacerbate allegations of authoritarian behavior, the implication being that Indigenous people are ‘politically helpless’ without a white person to guide and organize them.47 To Oppenheimer, who ventured into Zapatista territory to interview Marcos, the security precautions he observed demonstrated that: Far from the loyal subcommander who reported to a committee of Indian leaders he claimed to be, Marcos was the Indian’s undisputed supreme leader … Even the body language of the Indians guarding Marcos revealed their unswerving loyalty to the white, middle-class man they had adopted as their leader.48

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The author reports that, as the typical caudillo, he was well dressed and seemed well looked after. Marcos himself admits that the Mayan guerrillas treat him with near veneration. Similarly, Ouweneel refers to the Maya people as Marcos’s followers.49 Just after the rebellion, the CCRI-CG did release a statement obviously intended to reassure the rest of the world of their acceptance of Marcos, although their explanation may seem rather cryptic to a Western political theorist: “In us is him. All of us are us and him as well. His eyes are our eyes, our mouth speaks through his lips, and through his steps we take our steps. He does not exist, we exist. He does not live, we live. He does not speak, we speak …”50 An interesting Western anthropological interpretation attempts to explain this acceptance by defining Marcos’ role as part of a Mayan culture-based transformative cycle characterized by ‘order reborn out of chaos’ that gives rise to a transitory mission to be accomplished by faceless warriors. Ouweneel argues that a faceless Marcos is seen as a spiritual being that has a connection to the world behind the physical realm. He is, in a way, a ‘white non-human’ of the previous cycle who comprehends the world behind the tangible, then interprets and alters a reality that is not clear during times of chaos and transformation.51 In this sense, Marcos’ charisma is akin to shamanic power. The shaman is a healer and a deified human agent who mediates between gods and humans and between the natural and the cultural world, through the use of techniques that involve ecstatic experiences, dreams or trances. According to Lindholm, this figure is perhaps the most undiluted example of a medium possessing primal, supernatural and mysterious powers, such as the ability to read minds, heal, predict the future and travel out of the body. The shaman is also regarded as a savior of people who are oppressed and alienated. Lindholm states that “for the downtrodden, the witch-shaman now offers not only a cure of ills, but a way of asserting power outside the accepted hierarchy through the immediate experience of ecstatic trance”.52 Depending on the cultural context, a shaman is often highly regarded and endowed with political authority, his ability to mediate between different domains indicating that his power “derives in part from his ambiguity, since he does not fit into the mutually exclusive categories that organize the world”.53 There is not much that separates the shaman from the charismatic leader. Indeed, the shaman can be understood as a prototype of the charismatic figure. Some of the powers with which he is endowed are similar to those attributed to charismatic leaders by fanciful followers: both figures exude emotional intensity, reveal the ability to interact with others yet maintain a degree of detachment, show aptitude for role-playing, exhibit fluidity of identity and capacity for empathy.

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Finally, both the shaman and the charismatic leader use their authority to induce systemic transformation or regeneration. Mayan cosmology therefore becomes a way of answering a very simple, yet very pertinent question posed by Gossen: Why should a blond, European, cosmopolitan Subcomandante Marcos preside over this extraordinary forum on behalf of Indian leaders, male and female, representing at least five of the major linguistic and ethnic groups in the state? Why was there no ‘Indian leader’?54

Gossen answers his own question, stating that: “Subcomandante Marcos, I believe, is utterly plausible as a spokesperson for an Indian cause precisely because he is outside of, extrasomatic to, the Indian community”.55 In Marcos’ favor one could argue, as Le Bot does, that he never tried to ‘become’ Indigenous, and that the confidence he gained from the Indigenous communities is partly due to the respectful distance he keeps; this is why he has been able to function effectively as a bridge between the two worlds.56 Unfortunately, the fact that Marcos does not identify himself as the maximum leader, and the fact that the real (or the other) Zapatista leadership and the Mayan communities do not acknowledge him as such makes little difference if the rest of the world and the Mexican nation (outside the Mayan communities) perceive him that way. To the understanding of many people, even today, Marcos remains a caudillo or a leader of sorts. Nevertheless, the interpretations of Marcos’ role as a ‘faceless warrior’ or as a shaman have, at least, the power to disassociate Marcos from the inevitability of having to belong to the Latin American caudillo tradition. To some of the much less cynical Western spectators, Marcos is imbued with Indigenous mysticism. For instance, Klein states that “he is a compulsive communicator, constantly reaching out, drawing connections between different issues and struggles … he is consciously trying to appeal to something that exists outside the intellect, something un-cynical in us, that he found in himself in the mountains of Chiapas: wonder, a suspension of disbelief, myth and magic”.57 To others, he is nothing less than a modern prophet, the Western counterpart to a shaman, defined as the chief spokesperson of a movement or cause which supports a new system of beliefs and principles. A more traditionally religious and less mystical interpretation of Marcos’ role is revealed in a report that tells the story of Brazilian Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga’s visit to San Cristóbal when he presented an effigy of the Sub on a crucifix and made the statement that at the present time Jesus has his face covered.58

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Leaders do not usually like to identify themselves as caudillos. Perón was anxious to distance himself from the image of the caudillo and Castro denied being one outright, arguing that the capitalist state is the instrument of the ruling classes and that presidencies such as that of the US have substantially more power than him.59 One needs to be critical in the process of providing a balanced view. It seems too simplistic to interpret Marcos as just another authoritarian leader or caudillo manipulative of the Indigenous people, the press, the intellectuals and anyone else who listens. It seems equally naïve to consider him to be solely motivated by literary or political ambition. 60 To illustrate the benefits of subtlety when making difficult evaluations, one of the least cynical appraisals of Marcos’ leadership status should be noted not least because it comes, surprisingly, from Jorge Castañeda, who has never been a Zapatista supporter or a Marcos fan: It’s clear: Marcos is not the leadership of the guerrillas … the visible face-metaphorically-charismatic and eloquent of a leadership to which it does not belong and that stays invisible …. Marcos is a commander of front; he is neither a leader nor an interlocutor to conduct negotiations with. If the guerrillas send Marcos to Manuel Camacho, it is to wage a media battle, not to achieve accords.61

On the other hand, it is certain that Marcos assessed the political situation just before the time of the rebellion and saw that there was great political opportunity. He knew that the Mexican state could not afford international or even national criticism, and that the existent political vacuum would enable him to use the romanticism of his image to, as Trejo Delarbre dramatically puts it, “hold hostage a worried and surprised society”.62 It can be concluded that Marcos was one of the military leaders of the movement more than a decade ago, that today he remains the commander in the front line, the faceless face of the Zapatista Movement and that, while the boundaries of his authority are still opaque, its effects are more than vivid. Marcos and the Problem of Charismatic Authority in the Traditional Revolutionary Vanguard Model

I now want to suggest that Marcos—who was a Marxist revolutionary— is attempting to avoid following the political trajectory of previous revolutionary left-wing movements headed by a vanguard and/or by charismatic leaders who use personalism as a tool of political transformation indiscriminately, in spite of its potentially damaging and

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corruptive effects. First, it should be clarified that Marxist ideas are still present in Marcos’ political thinking; this is evident in his general discourse and in statements he has made in various interviews. The First Declaration talks of the ‘dispossessed’ and of ‘overthrowing the dictator’, while the Second Declaration mentions the impossibility of peaceful struggle.63 Furthermore, it is interesting to note that, in an interview given as recently as May 2006, Marcos identified the Otra Campaña as the only really leftist national movement, something that clearly tells us Marxist ideas still (at least partially) regulate his political barometer. Moreover some have interpreted his choice of vehicle for the tour, a motorbike, to be an act in remembrance of Che Guevara.64 However, as Berger notes, the contemporary significance of the influence of the traditional left: … lies not in a rekindling of its universal elements and a rigid deployment of class. As the Zapatista Movement demonstrates, a decentered Marxism plays an important role in progressive political projects in Mexico and elsewhere, at the same time it remains a broad intellectual tradition that continues to challenge the destructive consequences and complex permutations of global capitalist modernity.65

Besides, Zapatismo can hardly be considered a traditional left-wing movement and, while it is a critique of all political systems, it above all needs to be understood as a critique of the traditional revolutionary left with which it is often indiscriminately aligned. This critique stems from the fact that a few elements found in the traditional revolutionary model are problematic in relation to its own egalitarian rhetoric. These include the idea of representation (with no temporal or qualitative limits), the production of a top-down political discourse with its own universal prescript of the ‘ideal society’, and the reliance on hierarchical structures to ensure that such prescript becomes a reality at any cost. These elements are most pronounced when they occur in conjunction with authoritarian or charismatic leadership. Zapatista politics challenge at least four features that are often found in the revolutionary vanguard— authoritarianism, personalism, reliance on armed struggle and top-down hierarchical organizational structures—counteracting them with notions of decentralization, non-armed resistance, collective decision-making and inclusiveness. At the heart of these notions lie two fundamental propositions: the redefinition of the normative concept of power and the principle of non-determination.

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First let us consider power, something that Marcos has admitted he continuously has to watch. He states that after 1994 he tried not to interfere with community decisions because “I would like to be honest … Marcos’s weight inside the organization is larger than what is perceived …”.66 Referring to the normative idea of power as a property of relations, Marcos has commented that power “Rots the blood and obscures thought”.67 Wagner and Moreira note the pretence of rationalism that pervades the dominant model of power, where practices of oppression are often justified by the claim that they lead to more equality and freedom. The authors argue that this is a fallacy that makes the system irrational. Even within democracies, power is understood as something to exert over others, as ‘power to overpower’ and, to the Zapatista way of thinking, in this normative definition of power there can be no power without the powerless.68 The revolutionary vanguard model retains the conventional definition of power where, for example, the seizure of state power is judged to be a major measure of success, not to mention the idea of power over the people for ‘their own good’. The Zapatistas’ attitude towards power as something to do, execute or accomplish rather than in terms of domination is heresy to classic revolutionary thought.69 At the ‘Invitation to the Intercontinental Encuentro’ in 1996, Marcos proclaimed that the idea was not to seize state power, but to revolutionize its relationship to those who exercise it and those who suffer it.70 This implies a new political culture, at the heart of which resides the concept of ‘mandar obedeciendo’, or ‘leading by obeying’. As Marcos explains it, this new relationship between the people and the government is sustained by the idea that governing is a prerogative of society and that it is the right of society to practice such function. The collective is where the orders come from; they are subsequently placed in the hands of individuals who have to listen and obey directions. Collective vigilance will determine whether individuals entrusted with this responsibility are corrupted and, if this is the case, they are to be replaced.71 At the 2001 March, Marcos reiterated the idea of not aspiring to power, stating: “We are not the ones who aspire to take power and from there impose the path and the word. We will not be”.72 These principles have often been put into practice by the Zapatistas. For instance, at the National Democratic Convention of 1994 the EZLN explicitly avoided the self-appointed leadership role. The EZLN has also declared that it would not join the electoral arena or permit its members to hold positions in political parties.73 Not only are the Zapatistas making a political statement, they are also applying the strategy of

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disengagement from the power game so that the powerless will no longer be available. The second Zapatista principle that challenges the modus operandi of the vanguard is their rejection of ready-made answers, rigid categories and prefabricated ideological systems, giving priority to a principle of non-determination. There are no a priori truths, no doctrines and no ‘people’; there is no final conception of justice or democracy and no desire to fulfill inevitable historical destiny.74 In an interview, whilst acknowledging the problems that arise from the idea of nondetermination, Marcos states: “this non-definition makes us think that we have to open the door to all types of ideas, because we do not know what is happening”.75 Although this non-definition of principles leaves the movement open to a number of subjective interpretations, Marcos has obviously decided that inflexible definitions are more dangerous than definitions which might be open to misinterpretation: We are undefinable, we don’t fit in any category: it is not clear whether we are Marxists, if we are anarchists, if we are neither one nor the other, if we are indigenists or not, it is not known if we are nationalists or internationalists. The movement is that undefined that it can fit any model …. The moment that Zapatismo acquires a theoretical body or an organic level, it will disappear or it will become paralyzed and it will end up like many doctrines that we have seen vanish on the stage.76

It is clear that the principle of non-determination is partly an insurance against becoming the vanguard. Marcos is anxious to avoid the ‘vanguard’ label to the extent that he admits that the movement: Was not born from approaches that arrived from the city. But neither was it an approach deriving exclusively from the Indigenous communities. It was created out of a mixture, a (Molotov) cocktail, out of a culture shock which then went on to produce a new discourse, a mestizo movement that is critical and emancipatory.77

One important element that partly explains the tension between the egalitarian, undefined, non-hierarchical notions put forward by the Zapatistas and traditional revolutionary ideals is that, in the latter case, consciousness must be brought to the masses by the vanguard party and/or by an enlightened leader. We have seen in a previous chapter how this normally occurs through the imposition of a dogmatic discourse as the ‘one and only truth’, rationalized as being beneficial for the nation and the people, or for the common good. All forms of

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vanguardism reflect this proposition in the relationship between the people and the revolutionary group, that the revolutionaries “know better than the people what’s good for the people”.78 In the case of the Cuban Revolution, for instance, it was believed that the objective (structural) conditions for revolution must be catalyzed by the deliberate precipitation of subjective conditions (agency) in the form of immediate action; hence the task of the revolutionary vanguard is to create these subjective conditions for revolution. The task is to infuse the people with revolutionary consciousness (creating the ‘new human’) and exhort them to believe that they had a right and a duty to participate in the revolutionary project (a ‘new society’), and that in doing so they would be protagonists in the making of history. Some argue that this process inevitably leads the masses to “the realization of a project they cannot fully grasp. In the revolutionary avant-garde, power is hierarchically distributed and decisions are taken by a select group that, however well intended, is bound to reproduce sooner or later the pattern of repression it struggles against”.79 The process through which authoritarianism can be subverted then replicated is evident in Mexican history (for example, in the political manipulations of Venustiano Carranza at the time of the Mexican Revolution) and elsewhere—for instance, in the Cuban Revolution and some would say in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. If this pattern was to be continued by the Zapatistas, then everything the movement stands for would become meaningless. Marcos, aware of the danger of such an outcome, states that: “We learned that you can’t impose a form of politics on the people because sooner or later you’ll end up doing the same thing that you criticized. You criticize a totalitarian system and then offer another totalitarian system. You can’t impose a political system by force”.80 Marcos tells us that ultimately vanguard politics would lead to a dispute between two hegemonies, with the roles of the people and civil society both remaining unresolved.81 Part of the problem lies with the Western idea of representation: Every vanguard imagines itself to be representative of the majority. We not only think that is false in our case, but that even in the best cases it is little more than wishful thinking, and in the worse cases an outright usurpation. The moment social forces come into play, it becomes clear that the vanguard is not such a vanguard and that those it represents do not recognize themselves in it …82

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Furthermore, Zapatismo abstains from specifying the exact nature or shape of the alternatives, since if these were formally predetermined in full-fledged projects or programs they would constitute themselves to be just as dominant as the grand narratives they are replacing. Marcos explains: “We do not want a revolution imposed from the top: it always turns against itself. We are not a new vanguard …. Our aim: to give a voice to civil society, everywhere, under all its forms, in all its fronts. We are neither the only ones nor the best ones. We do not have the truth or the answer to everything”.83 The rationale behind the anti-vanguard stance is affirmed in no uncertain terms in Marcos’ letters to the EPR (the military wing of the PDPR, the Partido Democratico Popular Revolucionario) and to the Basque political-military organization ETA. In the letter to ETA, Marcos states that “our weapons are not used to impose ideas or ways of life, rather to defend a way of thinking and a way of seeing the world and relating to it …. We don’t take anyone seriously, not even ourselves. Because whoever takes themselves seriously has stopped with the thought that their truth should be the truth for everyone and forever.”84 These ideas of power and non-determination are reflected in another Zapatista principle, ‘preguntando caminamos’ (literally ‘we walk asking’) that redefines revolution as a question rather than an answer, as “a process of self-creative praxis rather than an already constituted ‘solution’ to be implemented regardless of context”.85 Theory is seen as the product of everyday practice rather than being derived from an external source, hence Zapatismo is much more about opening the political process than about setting goals.86 As Marcos states, “We bring the problem of power to another space, more plural, more unselfish, where positions of force do not play. And there, in that new space, we hope to build something new”.87 In sum, institutions and power relations should be changed not by replacing the dominant model with another dominant model, but by developing alternatives to the idea of any hegemonic model. Marcos is extremely clear on the fallacy of being the opposition or the alternative in the following passage: It’s a mirror which offers itself as an alternative and simplifies political relationships … into an aversion. This is the fundamental ethic of ‘revolutionary science’, that scientific knowledge produces an inverse morality to capitalism. So altruism is a response to egotism, collectivity to privatization, social context to individualism. But knowledge remains inside a mirror; like a fundamental morality, it does not contribute anything new. The image is not a new one but an inverted one. The alternative moral and political proposal is in a mirror: where the Right dominates, now the Left will do so; where the

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white dominates, now the black … and so on. And this ethic is what is recorded (or was) in all the spectrum of the Left.88

Pitarch argues that the emphasis here is not on a reactive ‘new’ moral position that is virtually a response to what is already there, but on a new type of morality based on different terms of reference. 89 Nevertheless, one should be wary of using the word ‘moral’ in relation to Marcos or the Zapatistas, because it already implies the prescriptive authoritarian higher plane that they are trying to avoid. Zapatismo does not prescribe a specific political system or morality, but suggests that a political system should be based on a collective sense of morality rather than on the pragmatism of realpolitik.90 Popke, in an interesting article, argues that discourses of modernity have “created the conditions of possibility for an abdication of our ethical responsibility”. The author uses Derrida’s idea of deconstruction as a practice that would allow a sense of responsibility to the distant ‘other’ to emerge and with that, a decision to engage in ethical behavior without the need for a pre-defined morality. This quasi-utopian concept is also illustrated in a tale from Old Antonio called ‘The Story of Dreams’ that proposes the struggle for equality and dignity be predicated on collective responsibility for the cosmic community.91 As we have seen, Marcos’ presence on the national and global political stage has elicited a remarkable level of intrigue and admiration, in practical terms translating to his transformation into an icon of alternative or non-mainstream politics. Marcos has also been located within Mexican political culture, a culture that has traditionally nurtured various forms of personalism; in this space his actions and image could (potentially) be interpreted as a continuation of the tradition of Latin American or Mexican caudillos. Finally, the Subcomandante has been located within the intellectual tradition of the revolutionary left that in theory challenges hegemonic power structures and relations, but that in practice often fails to change the basic rules of the game. Outside of Mexico this is the most dangerous association, because undeniably the political ideas of the Zapatista Movement cannot be completely removed from the Marxist tradition, yet need to be distanced from it in order to avoid its mistakes, including the possibility of becoming the leading edge of a new ‘alternate left’.92 Marcos remains critical of the traditional left, in terms of their political practice more than their political theory. He comments that, paradoxically, the left is one of the richest ideologies in history when it comes to combating power, but one of the poorest when in power.93 The conclusion he draws is that the traditional left is “…very close-minded

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…. They say ‘well, the EZLN is very good … but they lack a program, so here’s a program. They lack a party, so here’s a party. They lack a leader, so here’s a leader’…”.94 The irrational and self-defeating consequences of normative institutional politics are best illustrated in another story by Old Antonio, revealingly entitled ‘Old Antonio against Morning-After, Dead-Tired Maoism’, about a handsome fish that lived in a river. In the tale, a lion wanted to eat a fish but could not swim. The lion turned to an opossum for advice and the opossum advised it to drink the water so that the fish could be caught. The lion was very pleased with the advice and began to drink the water, but burst and died and the opossum ended up unemployed.95 The Zapatistas’ refusal or reluctance to be politically defined (and definite), to join the formal political system, to compete for power within it or to assert a vertical model of leadership is understood to be (partly) a reaction to the Mexican practices of co-optation, handout politics and token pluralism. Similarly, these sorts of politics have been interpreted as symptomatic of the tradition of collective action peculiar—but not unjustified—to Latin America that rejects political institutions as vehicles of citizen participation.96 I argue, not in contradiction to the above points but in terms of extension or qualification, that in the case of the Zapatistas the main objective of the ‘non-actions’ listed above is to ensure that the movement and Marcos’ persona are at a safe distance from vanguard-driven politics. The refusal to ‘play the game’ has raised criticism and cynicism. For example, Pitarch has remarked that: “Zapatismo’s most characteristic hallmark— particularly with regards to a politically defined program—is its calculated vagueness, its ability to appear to say a lot without really saying anything in particular”.97 But the most worrying form of criticism has been formulated in terms of political costs. While uncertainty and non-definition might be seen as democratic because they impose no single specific view and thus allow different points of view to coexist, to many people they can hardly guarantee political prowess. For instance, the struggle against poverty only makes sense if it is seen as striving to formulate specific solutions to address the problem. Consider the (much contested) elections that took place in Mexico in 2006. Marcos, much to the chagrin of the Mexican left, had rather stridently criticized López Obrador who ended up losing to the candidate from the conservative PAN.98 The questions are obvious: would the PRD have won if the Zapatistas had supported López Obrador? And would not the Zapatista Movement have gained momentum if that had been the case? Although a defensive Marcos argues that the EZLN is not to blame for the outcome and that where the

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Otra Campaña tour was most active the PRD vote was the highest, national election times seem to substantially test the wisdom of the Zapatista political stance. They were similarly criticized in 2000, when the PAN won that election.99 It seems that while the Zapatista Movement refuses to join the official electoral system and to formulate a defined political program, its ability to be politically or socially effective will remain questionable to many commentators and observers. The traditional left has in fact been the most vocal critic of the Zapatistas, accusing them of ‘dividing the left’ and even of being reactionaries. Most famously or infamously, depending on one’s point of view, Castañeda has labeled the Zapatistas ‘armed reformists’.100 Nevertheless, this labeling should not blind us to the existence of a fundamental level of political thought at which Marcos and the Zapatistas are revolutionary—that is, the way they challenge the basis of political thinking. Furthermore, there are indications that they are not oblivious to the necessity for a political path to be delineated in much bolder strokes than it has been thus far. A couple of communiqués issued in February and in May 2006 regarding this matter are particularly interesting, in that Marcos does admit that rebellion is not sufficient and that they (the Zapatistas) and civil society need to organize themselves.101 Another source of criticism can be found in the supposed transition of the EZLN from Western-based Marxism to Mayan-inspired ‘alternative’ left. The cynicism is partly about whether Marxist ideas were ever replaced or subverted by Mayan political and cultural practices; we have seen that they were, but the question is to what degree. More importantly, there is cynicism about the authenticity of the idea of horizontality in Mayan political culture; it is a highly contested proposition in the scholarship.102 Marcos’ politics—for instance, his ideas on collective participation—can become problematic when academics challenge the claim of absence of vertical hierarchy in Mayan politics: It’s funny to see how myths are made: an enlightened man takes a risk, encounters a critical period in history, ventures into action and if he doesn’t die trying he suddenly becomes an icon … the creation of such Gods is human nature, as these lands show in the steles dedicated by the Maya to their kings.103

Moreover, Ouweneel argues that it was the Maoists who organized local decision-making at grassroots level,104 and we know that the Student Movement was challenging the idea of vertical organization in

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1968. On the other hand, Huntington offers a different and interesting explanation, stating that Mayan democracy does contain elements of verticality but that “Zapatismo emerged out of a double fracture; the Zapatistas break with the authoritarianism of their own Indigenous communities and simultaneously resist the modern political system that co-opted their interests through a modern, hierarchical system of power”.105 A more pertinent point to ponder upon is this: the Zapatistas might have managed to resist the allure of vertical hierarchies, personalism and vanguardism so that they have successfully avoided the traditional traps of oppositional politics and the reproduction of the power relations. But if this is indeed the case, might not have they (inadvertently) become the new referential vanguard?106 Overall, their rejection of traditional party politics, of the traditional model of revolution and of the state as the focal point for political transformation has left the Zapatistas open to severe criticism from all political perspectives, despite Marcos’ defense of these strategies as facilitating analytical depth and a more critical position.107 Of course, part of the problem is that these critiques of the Zapatista Movement are based on conventional outcome-driven measures of political success such as election results, the degree of institutional power and the presence of a political program, rather than on the quality of the political process. On the brighter side, there are indications that the Zapatistas and their ideas have inspired a number of insurgencies in Mexico and in some sections of the contemporary Latin American left, as events in Ecuador in 2000 and in Argentina in 2001 indicate.108 And there have been recent signs that Marcos is not rejecting interactions with other progressive groups or movements, as long as they operate outside the official political system. The Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona issued in June 2005 (following the end of the Red Alert evacuations) is an attempt to transcend traditional parties and develop a collective innovative national program for political and social change in consultation with various other left-wing or anti-capitalist groups. This program was inaugurated in the Otra Campaña political tour that started in 2006 and called for the defense of Indigenous, peasant and autonomous land in Chiapas and in the world in 2007.109 However, it was not all smooth riding for the Zapatistas. There were (unreasonable) criticisms of Marcos leaving the tour to attend Comandante Ramona’s funeral which was held in January 2006. Marcos also left the campaign tour in May of the same year to protest against the brutal attack on members of the FPDT (People’s Front for the Defense of the Land) by the Atenco police.110 There were much more damaging criticisms from the Libertarian Socialist Group that included the continuation of the

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reformist state-centered agenda, a lack of democratic consultation with external groups and Marcos’ ‘cult celebrity’ role in the Other Campaign: It is an irrefutable truth that the unity of the Other Campaign is a unity made behind one figure, in other words, the only thing that unites those participating in the Other Campaign is their admiration for the mythic guerrillero, the would-be successor to Che Guevara, Subcomandante Marcos…it is much more the union of the admirers of the favorite star of the petit bourgeois anti-globalization movement….the local Assemblies of the Other Campaign have spent days and weeks in deciding who will undertake the feeding, housing, and caring of Marcos. The obvious result of this making Marcos into the focal point of the unity of the Other Campaign is that the campaign can only be a Zapatista one.111

Despite the above comments, it is believed that in general the role played by Marcos—or Delegado Zero—in the campaign was suitably low-key; this in itself suggests that he continues to be vigilant should the specters of vanguardism and personalism come to life from their latent state. As I suggest in the next chapter, this vigilance is not new; it has been part of Marcos’ trajectory from the time of his entrance into the Mexican and global political scene.

Notes 1

Holloway (2002: 17). For example, Abimael Guzman from the Shining Path in Peru, Manual Marulanda from FARC in Colombia, Carlos Fonseca and Daniel Ortega from the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Mario Payeras from the EGP in Guatemala or Joaquin Villalobos from the FMLN in El Salvador. See Henck (2002: 12). 3 Note that the following authors call Marcos a leader: Cueli (1994: 30); Daniels (1994: 63); Hernández Campos (1994: 247); Gossen (1996b: 531); Castells (1997: 82); Ronfeldt and Martínez (1997: 374); Alschuler (1999: 137); Campa Mendoza (1999: 133); Gillis (1999: 119); Aguilar Rivera (2001: 14); Krauze (2001: 27); Gutmann (2002: 148); Henck (2002: 40); Klein (2002a: 3); Álvarez (2003: 80); Jörgensen (2004: 91). 4 Marcos in Blixen and Fazio (1995); Marcos in Monsivaís and Bellinghausen (2001). See also Marcos (1994b: 57); Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1994: 20); Marcos in Leñero (1994: 209); Marcos in Romero (1994: 27, 44). 5 Castells (1997: 79); Michel (2001: 22); Arquilla and Ronfeldt (2001: 177); Guillermoprieto quoted in Gonzalez (2002: 441); Henck (2002: 3); Rubin (2004: 115). 6 See Tello Díaz (1995: 204–205). See also Ronfeldt et al. (1998: 25); De la Grange and Rico in Campa Mendoza (1999: 141); Álvarez (2003: 80). 7 Vanden Berghe (2001: 164). 2

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8 Gutiérrez Chong (2003: 147–151). Note the use of the word ‘leader’ in the title of this article. 9 Monsiváis (2001: 12). 10 Levario Turcott (1999: 147,155). 11 Marcos quoted in Leñero (1994: 203). 12 Khasnabish (2004: 267). 13 Duràn de Huerta (2001: 223–224). 14 Marcos quoted in de la Grange (1998a: 361), my translation. See also Marcos in Scherer García (2001). 15 Marcos in Levario Turcott (1999: 151–152). 16 El País (Spain) February 27, 1994, quoted in Duhalde and Dratman’s Chiapas la Nueva Insurgencia: La Rebelión Zapatista y la Crisis del Estado Americano, (1994: 213–214), my translation. 17 Daniels (2001: 27). 18 See Montfort Guillén (1995: 125–126). Octavio Paz is a renowned Mexican intellectual, quite critical of the Zapatista Movement. See also Grenier (2001). 19 Pitarch (2004: 296–297). 20 This idea was articulated by Trejo Delarbre in an unpublished interview with Griffith University academic Dr Giorel Curran. The interview was conducted in Mexico City, July 2005. 21 Marcos quoted in Cristián Calónico’s Marcos: Historia y Palabra: Entrevista, (2001: 80), my translation. 22 See Castro quoted in Lockwood (1992: 306–307). See also Marcos (1995f). 23 Marcos in Benjamin (1995: 69). Somewhere else Marcos contradicts himself and states that his celebrity status does not benefit the movement, see Marcos in Leñero (1994: 202). 24 Marcos in Scherer Garcia (2001); Marcos in Vázquez Montalbán (1999: 150); Marcos in Avilés and Minà (1998: 154). 25 Marcos quoted in Brisac and Castillo (1995). 26 Marcos quoted in Calónico (2001: 12, 96–97), my translation. 27 Marcos quoted in Avilés and Minà (1998: 181–182), my translation. 28 Rich (1997: 76). See also Knudson (1998: 508). 29 Trejo Delarbre (1994b: 344), my translation. 30 Ross (1995: 298); Poniatowska (2002: 376). 31 Blanco (1994: 363–364). 32 Lázaro Hernández [1993] quoted in Legorreta Díaz (1998: 215), my translation. 33 Krauze (2002: 413). 34 Testimony quoted in Legorreta Díaz (1998: 216), my translation. 35 See Oppenheimer (1996a: 236–242) for the story. See also Tello Díaz (2000) for a good account of the internal politics that plagued the EZLN in the first few years. 36 Oppenheimer (1996a: 239). 37 Marcos in Avilés and Minà (1998: 181). 38 Testimony of an ex-insurgent [1993], quoted in Legorreta Díaz (1998: 225), my translation.

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39 Hernández Campos (1994: 246), my translation. For more critical comments on Marcos’ evangelical discursive style see Hernández Campos (1994: 249); Labastida (1994: 339); Krauze (2002: 33). 40 Marcos in Landau (1996a: 29); Marcos in Avilés and Minà (1998: 160). 41 See Knudson (1998: 513). See also Marcos in Duhalde and Dratman (1994: 224); Marcos in Márquez and Pombo (2001); Rich (1997: 82). 42 See Guillermoprieto (1995: 44) and De la Grange and Rico (1998b: 92). 43 See Chapter 2, note 126. 44 See Turrent (2001) and Jacobo Romero’s Marcos: Un Profesional de la Esperanza?, (1994: 93). See also Appendix A, Table A6b and Appendix B, Table B6. 45 See Kampwirth (1996: 263). 46 Quoted in Gutiérrez Chong (2003: 146), my translation and emphasis. The Mapuches (People of the Earth) are the largest Indigenous group in Chile, although they are also present in Argentina. They have been fighting for land, a halt to environmental damage and cultural self-determination since the Spanish conquest. 47 Huntington (2000: 73). 48 Oppenheimer (1996a: 69). 49 Oppenheimer (1996a: 70, 74); Ouweneel (2002: 3). 50 CCRI-CG [1994] quoted in Michel (2001: 23), my translation. See also Marcos, ‘Why Marcos is not at the Dialogue’, May 5, 1995d. 51 Gossen (1996b); Ouweneel (2002: 81–83). 52 Lindholm (1990: 168, 160–161). 53 Matteson Langdon and Baer (1992: 12). 54 Gossen (1996a: 117). 55 Ibid. 56 Le Bot (1997: 17). 57 Klein (2002b: 119, 122). 58 See Delarbre (1994b: 347). 59 See Perón (1971: 40, 177); Castro in Gonzalez (1974: 52); Castro in Walters (1977: 33); Castro in Lockwood (1992: 306–307). 60 Some authors do. See Romero (1994: 23); Carranza (1998: 24); Levario Turcott (1999: 166). 61 Castañeda quoted in Romero (1994: 93), my translation. 62 Trejo Delarbre (1994b: 370). 63 CCRI-CG (2002a: 218–219); CCRI-CG (2002b: 227). Some of Marcos’s utterances are definitely drawn from his earlier days as a traditional revolutionary. For instance, he states that the left is on the same side as the heart (in Calónico 2001: 80). Another quote from Marcos reinforces the point: “if you want to call it [the movement] Mexican socialism … that’s a good name for it” (quoted in Weinberg 2002: 129). Marcos’ renowned admiration for Che Guevara is also significant: “one way or another, all rebel movements in Latin America are the heirs to Che’s rebellion” (quoted in Weinberg 2002: 189). Pitarch (2004: 302–303), referring to a letter Marcos wrote to Adolfo Gilly in 1995, argues that Marcos has retained the Marxist ideas of materialism and universalism. 64 Marcos in Bellinghausen (2006c); Castellanos (2008: 36). 65 Berger (2001: 162–163).

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66 Marcos quoted in Le Bot (1997: 364), my translation. See also Marcos in Levario Turcott (1999: 155). 67 Marcos quoted in La Jornada, ‘El Poder Pudre la Sangre y Oscurece el Pensamiento: Marcos’, March 9, 2001a. 68 See Wagner and Moreira (2003: 202–203). See also Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1999b: 270). The concept of ‘no power without the powerless’ is elaborated in Robinson and Tormey (2005: 213). 69 See Wagner and Moreira (2003: 193). 70 Marcos in Wagner and Moreira (2003: 188). As Robinson and Tormey note (2005: 210), the idea of a ‘center of power’ is not questioned in institutional politics, it is taken for granted that such center should exist. 71 See Marcos in Avilés and Minà (1998: 158). 72 Marcos quoted in Ramirez Cuevas and Vera Herrera (2001b). 73 Baker (2003: 296). 74 Tormey (2006: 151–152) 75 Marcos quoted in Le Bot (1997: 306), my translation. 76 Marcos quoted in Avilés and Minà (1998: 176), my translation. 77 Marcos quoted in Vázquez Montalbán (2002: 476), my translation. 78 Bardacke quoted in Marcos (1995a: 261). 79 Wagner and Moreira (2003: 190). 80 Marcos quoted in Benjamin (1995: 61). 81 Marcos (2003b: 44). 82 Marcos quoted in Baker (2003: 298). See also Robinson and Tormey (2005: 212–215) and Tormey (2006). 83 Marcos quoted in Baker (2003: 295). 84 See Marcos “I Shit on all Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet.” Letter to ETA, January 27, 2003d and Marcos [1996] ‘Carta de Marcos al Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR)’ in Le Bot (1997: 371–376). See also Marcos (2003b: 45). This article reproduces excerpts from the letter to ETA. 85 Baker (2003: 304). 86 See Holloway (1998: 164). 87 Marcos quoted in Esteva and Prakash (1998: 39). 88 Marcos (2002a: 263). 89 Pitarch (2004: 304). See also Marcos (2002a: 265). 90 Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 266–267); Popke, ‘The Face of the Other: Zapatismo, Responsibility and the Ethics of Deconstruction’, (2004: 302). 91 Michel (2001: 48–51). 92 Arguably within Mexico the most dangerous association is to the caudillo tradition, as attested by the fact that most of the scholarship discussing this issue is composed of several Mexican scholars and observers. 93 Marcos in Calónico (2001: 100). 94 Marcos [1994] quoted in Aguilera et al. (1994: 300). 95 See Marcos (1998c) and Marcos in Womack (1999: 360–361). A similar principle is illustrated in ‘The Tale of the Lion and the Mirror’, (2001b: 392– 394). See also Marcos ‘The Impossible Geometry of Power in Mexico’, June 20, 2005d where Marcos launches an attack of the main political parties, the PRI, PRD and PAN. 96 Pearce (2004). 97 Pitarch (2004: 300).

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98 Marcos in La Jornada’s ‘El PRD nos Despreció y va a Pagar, Advierte Marcos’, August 7, 2005a; Marcos in La Jornada’s ‘Críticas de Marcos a López Obrador Dividen a Intelectuales de Izquierda’, August 9, 2005b. 99 See Marcos in Bellinghausen ‘Estúpido Culpar a EZLN por no Apoyar a López Obrador-Marcos’, La Jornada, July 7, 2006e. Note that if the elections are as fraudulent as it is claimed, then the argument that the fate of the PRD would have been different if the EZLN had supported them becomes quite weak. See Marcos in Bellinghausen ‘El Actual Fraude es Más Sofisticado que el Realizado en 1988: EZLN’, La Jornada, July 6, 2006d. See also Hernández Navarro ‘La Sombra del 88’, La Jornada, July 4, 2006b. For more on the Zapatista’s rejection of party politics see Hernández Castillo (2006: 122, 128). 100 See Evans (2008: 517–518). 101 See Marcos in Bellinghausen ‘La Rebeldía Sola no Alcanza Para Nada, hay que Organizarse, Insta Marcos’, La Jornada, February 12, 2006a. See also Marcos ‘The Extra Element: Organization: An Exclusive Interview with Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos’, May, 2006a. 102 See Le Bot (1997: 283) and Huntington (2000: 74). 103 Garcia Aguilar (2001: 55). 104 See Ouweneel (2002: 65). Note, however, Harvey’s point: the Maoists in Chiapas did not initiate but rather decided to reintroduce this practice of Indigenous democracy (in Barmeyer 2003: 127). 105 Huntington (2000: 74). 106 As Bowman states (2005: 42), they “symbolize the new movement for the new movement itself”. 107 See Marcos in Johnston (2000: 488–489). Marcos has recently reiterated the reasons behind the Zapatistas’ refusal to support any of the political parties. See Marcos in Bellinghausen ‘Los Partidos Políticos no Son Buenos; Solo Dividen’, La Jornada, April 18, 2006b. 108 For instance, the Atenco Rebellion in Mexico (2001) is modeled on the Zapatista Movement in a number of ways, symbolically and organizationally. With regard to the influence of the Zapatista Movement in Latin America see note 38, Chapter 4. See also John Foran’s The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalisation, 2003. 109 See CCRI-CG, ‘Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona’, January 30, 2005 and Sixth Commission/EZLN (2007a). See also Marcos and the Zapatistas’ The Other Campaign, 2006b; Marcos (2006c); Harvey (2005a); Mora (2007); Zugman (2008b). For an explanation of the Zapatista’s decision to exclude sectors loyal to the PRD see Hernández Castillo (2006: 122, 128). 110 See Marcos (2008). 111 Grupo Socialista Libertario, “The Sixth Declaration and the Other Campaign: A Program and Project for the Continuation of Capitalism”, August 2007.

6 Revolutionizing Charismatic Authority

Messianic, pragmatic, ‘clownish’, new romantic, Marcos is a figure who shines in the context of grey men. And who knows, at best he is made of the same fabric as those great leaders whose steps are ‘like thunder that make history resonate’ …. Without the mask, he would have to survive the great dangers that face figures of his type: fascination with power, vanity and success. —César Jacobo Romero, 1994

I have been arguing that to be vigilant of the pitfalls of personalism, the excesses of power and the effects of Western myth-making, Marcos has chosen an overall approach of ‘disengaged engagement’. This strategy relies on one main device among others: the ingenious creation of a masked alter-ego, best known as ‘Subcomandante Marcos’. The idea behind this construction is the detachment of the personal self from the public persona in order to assist civil society in the quest of finding its own political autonomy. Before making an assessment of how successful ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ has been in allowing Rafael Sebastián Guillén to neutralize his personal charisma and hence avoiding personalism, it is useful to consider other adopted strategies. The first point to note is the consistent and persistent confirmation of his position of submission to the Mayan collective leadership. Marcos has stated that the most important decisions are not taken under the direction of a single group with one homogenous clustering headed by a caudillo but by wide consultation, not just the CCRI-CG. He has repeatedly stressed that the leadership is collective and removable. 1 According to Michel, ‘Marcos’ was shaped by Old Antonio and it is due to the teachings of the Indigenous people and the mutual understanding he has with them that he is what he is today. Marcos himself states that “the strength of the EZLN and of Marcos resides in the Indigenous character of the movement and the way in which it is organized”.2 He seems to surrender authority to others willingly:

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I have the honor of having as my superiors the best men and women of the Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chol, Tojolabal, Mam and Zoque people. I have lived with them for more than ten years and I am proud to have served them with my arms and my soul …. They are my commanders and I will follow them down what routes they choose. They are the collective and democratic directorate of the EZLN and their acceptance of the dialogue is as true as their true heart of struggle and as true as their wariness at being deceived again.3

He offers several examples of the authority of the CCRI-CG in the matter of approval (or disapproval) of the final version of his communiqués. He also downplays the origins of the myth around his person, as an ‘accident’ that began on January 1, 1994.4 He has argued that his exclusive role was that of military commander and that he was not the spokesperson of the movement until later; indeed, plans were never made for him to become the spokesperson.5 The EZLN has also taken steps to clarify Marcos’ position, as this statement reveals: [Marcos] was born eleven years ago in the Lacandona Jungle and since then he has lived, eaten and slept by our side, the Indigenous peoples of Chiapas. Marcos, like all the members of the CCRI, knows nothing and is nothing. Marcos is only another representative, the same as the CCRI—of the Indigenous peoples and of the people of Chiapas.6

The second strategy Marcos employs to defuse the aura of personalism is to emphasize the temporary nature of his role and to discuss the ‘after Marcos’. He seems fond of discussing his mortality, often stating that he does not know what tomorrow will bring or if he even will wake up tomorrow.7 When Le Bot asks him who he would like to be when ‘Marcos’ is no longer, this is the reply he gets: Yes, I think that Marcos must die, I don’t know when, but he has to die, Marcos the personality. If he continues living, he must transform himself in something completely different and he must confront this personality and resolve it … I think that this process of [political] transformation will probably require the death of Marcos and others like him. In any case, I do not think that I will see the results. What worries me more is the actual trajectory, that Marcos serves the communities to provide the space that they are entitled to. I can’t see further than that, I do not imagine it. Everything tells me that the problem will not arise.8

The third strategy Marcos employs is to compare himself to Che Guevara, downsizing his own appeal by stating that Che’s image is so

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elevated that he cannot reach it; at the same time, he reassures the audience that it is not necessary to be ‘special’ to join the fight.9 The fourth strategy is his distinction between ‘social rebel’ and ‘revolutionary’. The idea is that a revolutionary is someone who knows the truth and who has the duty to promulgate it to the people by ‘seizing the moment’, then tends to convert himself or herself into a politician and transform the system from above, whereas the social rebel organizes the masses from below where he or she transforms, without posing themselves the question of seizure of power.10 Disregarding the ambiguities of this distinction, the implication is that he (Marcos) is a rebel and therefore will never rise or wish to rise above the people. The creation of the masked figure of ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ is undoubtedly the most powerful weapon in Marcos’ arsenal. Masks have long been part of Mexico’s political culture and history, powerful preHispanic symbols that were used in transformative ways. In ancient Mixteca times men put on masks and became beasts; they hid their faces in religious rituals.11 In post-colonial times the mask became part of mainstream popular culture, where masked heroes abound. Zorro, for instance, never took off his mask and, although not an authentic Mexican invention, he is endowed with romanticized Hispanic Mexicanness in popular culture as the social bandit, the noble robber, the restorer of order and justice. Today, the idea of the ‘hero in disguise’ is not only still a part of Mexico’s popular culture and very visible in festivals such as the Day of the Dead, but is also a powerful element of Mexican political culture.12 Political activist El Superbarrio Gómez is a masked wrestler who dispenses social justice in the streets of Mexico, a crusader who helps the poor, playing out a creative spectacle that frames collective grievances and elicits emotional responses. In writing about this popular hero in 2002, Cadena-Roa emphasizes the importance of dramatic performance and emotion in the context of contentious politics. He argues that such actors try to appeal not only to the audiences’ selfinterest or rationale, but also to their values and normative judgments by tapping into their emotions. Another masked hero is El Santo, a professional wrestler of the 1940s who dressed in a silver mask, cape and boots and became a comic book/film hero. It should be noted that while these characters make political statements, there is no grand political project behind their actions, which are purely localized and transient. In the context of the Zapatista Movement the mask has a variety of symbolic meanings and political implications. Some of the possible (but perhaps too obvious) reasons for the use of the mask are the cold and the

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effort to evade identification by the authorities. On a humorous note, when he was asked if he would ever take off his mask, Marcos once replied that if he did so his good looks would feed the personality cult. On a more serious note, the mask can be interpreted in terms of a number of metaphors. It might represent a masked society that does not know itself, hiding behind the ‘mask of modernity’, now invited to selfcontemplation by the covered faces of the Zapatistas.13 A communiqué released in January 20, 1994 entitled ‘Ski Masks and Other Masks’ elaborates this idea: On taking off its own mask Mexican civil society would come to see, with an even greater impact, that the image of itself that it had been sold is false and that the reality is much more terrible than it had imagined. One and another would show our faces but the great difference will be that ‘Sub-Marcos’ always knew what his real face was like and civil society will scarcely wake from the long and lazy dream that ‘modernity’ foisted on it at the cost of everything and everyone. The ‘Sub-Marcos’ is ready to take off his ski mask. But is Mexican civil society ready to take off its mask?14

The mask also equates with the translatability of Marcos’ figure, a translatability that, according to Bowman, is premised on “the universality of the production of positions of marginality … by structures of power structures that entail exploitation”.15 Alternatively, masks can be seen as a form of resistance that can appear suddenly and multiply, hence representing the Indigenous peoples’ rejection of historically imposed invisibility; as Jörgensen states, the mask allows the wearer to assume a “powerful and transformative identity”. The irony is, Marcos points out, that nobody was looking when those same faces were bare.16 Wagner and Moreira interpret ‘faceless-ness’ as the refusal to take part in the deception practiced by the Mexican government and as a refutation of the power dichotomy that enslaves the powerless in perennial struggle with the powerful.17 Similarly, Huntington argues that the mask is “the mirror that absorbs and hinders the projection of distorted images onto the Indigenous”.18 In other words, by creating uncertainty, the mask demystifies Western politically charged constructions of Indigenous peoples. An alternative interpretation is to consider it the metaphor of a window frame for two worlds to see each other. As Ponce de Leon notes, it is what enables Marcos to become a mediator between different worlds, by making him transparent and iconographic.19 The mask is also symbolic of transitional states: Ouweneel’s interesting work uses semiotics to interpret the meaning of the mask in the Zapatista Movement as not only

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a symbol of the struggle for dignity, but also of the end of chaos and the cycle of change in American Indian metaphysics.20 The most relevant interpretation of the mask for this book is as a “vaccine against caudillismo”.21 The anonymity it offers is there to ensure that the struggle remains collective and to prevent the emergence of individual identities and personality cults, the self-aggrandizement of specific leaders, their names or faces. Marcos states that: The hood is so there would be no superstar or such, you understand. Sometimes there is, well, those of us who are involved in this stand out a lot …. What’s happening here is the issue of anonymity, not because we fear for ourselves but rather so we don’t become corrupted. And so some wear ski masks.22

In an interview with Duràn de Huerta in 1994 he confirmed that the mask corresponds to their conception of what collective revolution should be, not individualistic or led by a caudillo, but with many Zapatista armies, many ‘Marcoses’ and many clandestine committees.23 In addition, the mask can be considered as a solution to the problem of succession (typically associated with charismatic authority) that potentially links the survival of the movement to that of one individual. Anonymity ensures the continuation of the message and the ideas, because theoretically it means that a leader or spokesperson, like anyone else, can easily be replaced: “so if they kill me, someone else can put on the mask and say they’re Marcos. This way there will always be a Marcos”.24 By extension we can safely interpret the mask in terms of an attempt to subdue excessive charismatic authority, there to nullify Rafael Sebastián Guillén and create another figure, a non-self separate from his personal self, a blank figure called ‘Subcomandante Marcos’, what Laclau and Žižek refer to as an ‘empty signifier’. One should note that Žižek expresses concern around the idea of a central master signifier even as an empty ‘container’ where the space is open for an irreducible plurality instead of a totalizing homogenizing force. The point Žižek is making is that in this instance this master signifier would function in the same way as it would in populist and fascist movements. In the case of a totalitarian single homogenizing force “the reference to a charismatic leader neutralizes the inconsistent multitude of ideological references”, but it can just as effectively neutralize the ensemble of oppositional forces.25 Clearly, it is not just the mask that is important but the whole creation of a public personage: the face-less ‘Subcomandante Marcos’,

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who allows Marcos to act as a mirror onto which ordinary Mexicans can see themselves and might therefore avoid placing another human being on a pedestal and investing him or her with responsibility for their destiny.26 Similarly, marginalized individuals from any civil society outside of Mexico might see themselves in this figure rather than seeing Marcos, and thereby should be able to (in theory) speak with their own voice rather than more or less passively allow the voices of an ‘authority’ to speak for them. As mentioned earlier, this is what I understand to be the essence of what the Zapatistas mean by dignity or autonomy: the opportunity for individuals to define themselves, rather than being defined by external agents. In a sense, Marcos is attempting to be the transformative mirror that reflects the need for each individual to find such a (personal) pathway. He does not offer a predefined morality or a set of rules, nor does he offer representation. Of course Marcos knows that a charismatic person is a powerful medium, with the ability to inspire others to seek or create (for themselves) ‘another tale’, or another reality, nevertheless he is conscious that he is always running the risk of becoming or of being perceived as the ultimate value. Žižek’s words brim over with warnings on the dangers of being a self-elected medium for the people: If the Zapatistas were to effectively take power, statements like “through me speaks the will of” would immediately acquire a much more ominous dimension …. Do we still remember how phrases like “I am nothing in myself, my entire strength is yours, I am just an expression of your will!” was the standard cliché of ‘totalitarian’ leaders …. The greater the potential of Marcos in opposition, as a critical voice of virtual protest, the greater would be the terror of Marcos as an actual leader.27

Jörgensen has remarked that since masks reveal the ambiguities of appearance they also disclose the limitations of Western notions of fixed identity and authenticity, so that in effect the idea of the mask as something transformative that allows fluid subjectivity counteracts the Western notion of the mask as deceptive in the (modernist) quest for stability, certainty and fixedness.28 I would argue that the masked figure not only reveals the limitations of those notions of fixed identity and authenticity, but also attempts to challenge (not necessarily successfully) Western notions of representation. Fixed identity, authenticity and representation are all categories that the Zapatistas wish to avoid because, as Tormey argues, they deny singularity or uniqueness, remaining passive constructions that ‘are’ imposed from outside rather than allowing the fluid active process of ‘becoming’ to run its course. 29

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Reflections on the Zapatista Movement generate serious doubt about the notion of representation. Marcos is not a representative in the Western sense of the word because, as Tormey states, Zapatismo is a political force that is concerned with the means by which people can be ‘present’ as opposed to being represented, whether it be by political parties, ideologies, or the other familiar devices and strategies that have prevented voices being heard.30

It is in this sense that the mask is a powerful transformative device, for it allows the possibility of the ‘leap of faith’ or the transition from a single revolutionary individual or an elite being in charge of sociopolitical transformation to the possibility that civil society will fulfill that role. The impersonality of the masked figure is, paradoxically, a way to ensure that individuals are personally involved in the political process, not as followers looking for answers or fans looking for a celebrity fix, but as protagonists. This is the sense in which Marcos means to be personal to his audience and to do this he has to ensure that Rafael Sebastián Guillén is not (personal). Has Marcos managed to distance himself sufficiently from Rafael Sebastián Guillén? Wearing a mask has certainly given him an aura of mystery. Monsivaís once wondered: “Marcos without the ski mask is not admissible, is not photographable, is not a living legend?”31 Interestingly enough, the reaction of the crowd at the CND in 1994 was to say ‘no’ when Marcos offered to remove the mask, something explained by Monsivaís in terms of the Mexican preference for dramatic reality and disguised heroes. As Gómez Peña has commented, this lack of defined identity has sparked curiosity and obsession in Mexican civil society, yet no one wishes to unmask him and dissipate the mystique.32 Unmasking might dissipate the mystique, but if Marcos were not charismatic to start with the mask could not have made him so; as somebody shrewdly observed: “it is not the mask that makes him enigmatic. It’s his personality”.33 Marcos himself has assessed the situation: I don’t think it worked. I think Marcos has become more individualized than he would have without a hood. I don’t mean by this that his characteristics make him unique. I just mean that the novelty is not that there is no leader, but rather that there is a faceless leader.34

It can be concluded that ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ is a device that has worked well, in the sense that it has captured global imagination and attention, but at the same time it has not quite functioned as the empty

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signifier that it was meant to be. We could say that it has not succeeded in depersonalizing Rafael Sebastián Guillén’s charisma, it has merely it changed its form. One consolation is that in neither guise is he the typical Latin American caudillo or an absolute, undisputed leader. As we have seen, he has avoided being considered part of the left vanguard by refusing to join the official political system and by declining to provide definite answers, although one could argue that this has exacted a relatively high political price. Marcos has built sufficient moral and political credibility to convince some of the hard-core cynics (at least some of the time!) that his rhetoric is not just empty words hiding a devious agenda and that he can distinguish between being a messiah and being a democrat. As Jörgensen notes, there is an interesting contrast between Monsivaís’ comments on Marcos in 1994—when the former was in doubt as to whether Marcos could distinguish between messianism and democracy—and his assessment of Marcos in 2001. In this last instance he (Monsivaís) was convinced of Marcos’ genuine commitment to democratic processes and to the avoidance of self-glorification. Unfortunately by 2002 it seems that once again Marcos disappointed Monsivaís and many others. In this occasion our Subcomandante, who had been out of the limelight for several months, decided to criticize (some would say insult) Judge Baltazar Garzón in relation to the Spanish Basque Party, calling him a ‘grotesque clown’ amongst other things. The date of the missive, October 12, is meant to acknowledge Indigenous suffering as that was the day in 1942 when Columbus reached the Americas. The letter received a negative reaction from several intellectuals, from the victims of ETA terrorism and, unsurprisingly, from Judge Garzón himself who wrote a scathing reply, while Monsivaís briskly commented, “I for one do not associate the Indigenous rebellion in Chiapas with indefensible causes that use the language of intolerance, cheap jokes, and radical self-importance.” Furthermore, according to Castellanos, Marcos also put his longstanding rapport with La Jornada on the line.35 To return to the above question of whether Marcos managed to distance himself sufficiently from Rafael Sebastián Guillén, the problem is that while he might be distant enough from his creator, he has become a public personality himself. Having acquired a personalized identity of its own, he has become that political icon that people admire and wish to follow, rather than a mirror that reflects their (the people’s) own reality. Therefore the cult of personality has intensified rather than subsided. It is clear that while Marcos is no caudillo he has not quite succeeded in ‘taming’ charismatic authority, in any case not completely or absolutely.

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But is charismatic authority really an evil force to be subdued and conquered, or tamed like a wild animal? Perhaps we ought to remind ourselves that charismatic authority is an extremely important phenomenon in politics, for after all there is nothing more intriguing than the transformative (albeit limited) role of human agency in the unfolding of history. The 2008 election of Barack Obama to the American presidency is, unmistakably, a loud reminder that charismatic individuals make history and they are extraordinary. They can generate intellectual discourses and processes that shape collective consciousness and public perception of politics in a myriad of different contexts. Most important of all, they offer hope to the people. Part of the argument of this book has been the acknowledgment of the importance of this form personal authority, balanced by the recognition that there are costs attached to these benefits. The political path delineated by Subcomandante Marcos illustrates very clearly the tension between the personalistic and the transformative dimensions of charismatic authority. Marcos is aware of the political effectiveness of charismatic authority as a useful weapon to achieve a number of political objectives, yet he is both conscious and wary of the personalistic element. Personalism is seen as dangerous by Marcos not only as a limiting factor in the process of political transformation, but also in terms of its corruptive effect on the political values upheld by the Zapatista Movement, particularly those of egalitarianism and selfdetermination. Marcos’ efforts to deal with his personal authority provide an extremely clear testimony of the precarious dynamics that characterize the exercise of charismatic authority. This predicament can be expressed in terms of the extent to which authoritarianism and personalism affect or limit the possibility of the practice (rather than the theory) of any long-term politically innovative, transformative or truly revolutionary agenda. In order to gain a deeper understanding of Marcos’ quandary, it has been important to identify the conditions in Latin American politics that have provided fertile ground to manifestations of charismatic authority. It has been found that personalism in one guise or another has been part of a well-entrenched tradition in Latin American political culture, whilst its political systems generally feature weak institutions and networks of patronage controlled by a combination of state co-optation and repression. In this political climate, authoritarianism in its many forms is pervasive because it is often regarded as a political solution in times of crisis and as a way to re-establish order. Furthermore, it can (and often does) coexist with a number of democratic practices. As a response, the political ideas of the Zapatista Movement are explicitly critical of

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hierarchical structures and power as a relation of domination between people, even in the case of the traditional left or democracy. Zapatismo challenges the normative versions of these systems, but does not offer an ultimate solution, inviting civil society to formulate its own. The message is transmitted through Marcos’ skilful prose, yet he denies being the leader of the movement and insists that his role is limited and temporary, and subject to the wishes of the communities that inform the decisions of the CCRI-CG. There has been a great deal of cynicism with regard to the political effectiveness of a leader-less and solution-less movement, many observers judging the Zapatista Movement to be political ‘pie in the sky’. Left-wing movements nowadays have adopted a much more pragmatic approach to politics, perhaps sacrificing the more idealistic version of the bigger picture in order to survive in the political system. But even much more diluted versions of the old militant left-wing found in various models of social democracy have not been faring too well in substantive terms. For many complex reasons the left, no matter how tempered, has disappointed and failed to accumulated political capital or credibility. I would even say that what we are seeing right now is the start of a swing back to more conservative parties in countries like the UK and New Zealand. Still, to the moderate left any gain is better than not being in the game at all, and they do not see unstructured activity as politically effective. But from where Marcos stands, this kind of compromise is selfdefeating: nothing really changes in terms of power relations if one person or one party merely replaces another on the same basis. Of course, it is necessary to be cautious about Marcos’ claims that deny the necessity or even the desirability of institutional political power. The question that arises is the following: if Marcos’ relative success proves the effectiveness of charismatic authority, does his relative political failure show that the trap is avoidable only at the cost of political success? The answer to this question depends, of course, on how one defines political success. As mentioned in the previous chapter, if we define ‘political success’ in terms of election results and survival in the political system, then the answer is yes. But since Zapatista politics define ‘success’ in terms of quality of the political process rather than outcome, charismatic authority remains just as much an obstacle as a facilitator of political change. There has also been a great deal of cynicism about Marcos’ role in the movement. Admittedly, his political strategies have been ambiguous in the past. This ambiguity has partly been fuelled by the attention he has received from the media and the worlds of academia and political

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activism, both at the national and even more so at international level. The other source of this ambiguity is that Marcos himself seems to have approached immediate ‘practical’ political problems (such as the survival of the movement) if not in a personalistic manner, at least in a pragmatic way that has made full use of his own personal appeal and his personal skills. Yet all along he has remained uncomfortable about the precariousness of his position. He has also been painfully conscious of the contradiction between the explicit egalitarianism and antiauthoritarianism of his message and the potential for his role to become a full-blown exercise in personalism in more ways than one: as a global cult figure, as a post-modern caudillo and as an authoritarian vanguard leader. His dilemma has been about how to limit the use of his charismatic appeal to spark a process of socio-political transformation whilst at the same time distancing himself from his political persona. He has addressed this dilemma with an overall strategy of ‘disengaged engagement’ that has included a steadfast refusal to join the formal political system and strong emphasis on the limitations of his role to that of a transient political catalyst. Part of his strategy has been to present Subcomandante Marcos rather than being Rafael Sebastián Guillén. We have noted that the depersonalization of Subcomandante Marcos has not been successful. Indeed, as Klein suggests, the ultimate paradox is that Marcos is so personal that he undercuts and subverts his anonymity continuously.36 Ironically, there is a level at which Subcomandante Marcos needs to be personal to his audiences in order to ‘set them free’. My view is that many observers of the Zapatista Movement have, in a simplistic fashion, tended to interpret the movement as fundamentally collective rather than elite-based or individualistic. This interpretation is correct, to a degree, in the organizational or structural sense. However, this is not the whole story. It is far too facile to see the Zapatistas and all they stand for as a movement that embraces the collective and rejects individualism outright. If individualism is rejected, the logical problem arises of whether moral autonomy—the essential prerequisite of a healthy civil society—can begin anywhere else but at the individual level and, indeed, whether the dominance of the collective—that threatens to became as tyrannical as the famous majority—would make the whole moral autonomy exercise self-defeating. This is not to say that the unrestrained brand of Western individualism is either desirable or inevitable, quite the contrary, but the point is that individual consciousness is the starting point that eventually leads to social consciousness and conscience.

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Zapatista politics call for self-determination and self-definition at the level of the individual; these steps are essential for the latter to be able to contribute to the community in a consistent and confident manner. It is in this sense that Marcos’ message is meant to be personal, but the ‘personal’ is not about Rafael Sebastián Guillén or the ‘empty’ figure of Subcomandante Marcos, it is about the process through which marginalized and excluded people take authorship of their own stories. This is why, strictly speaking, Marcos can never be a representative figure, unlike traditional charismatic leaders who are personalistic in the sense that the political movements they lead are not only largely shaped by their personalities, but in time become essentially for their personalities, which they often claim embody the general or popular will. The idea that one individual, no matter how gifted, can represent or embody the wishes of a whole society is problematic, because amongst other things it assumes that the general will—if there is such a thing— can be reduced to a fixed given formula. Indeed, it can never make sense that any truly transformative social process can be anything but merely inspired and initiated by one (admittedly extraordinary) individual. At the theoretical level, this book concludes that there are inherent and inevitable limits to charismatic authority as a politically transformative weapon, and that if the leader’s political agenda claims to be egalitarian or progressive, then this type of authority can over time not only limit, but also seriously compromise the credibility of the movement or party. To overcome these limits it is suggested that charismatic authority should be transient and never prolonged. Given the importance of political change to human societies, more qualitative and quantitative research on various aspects of charismatic authority and on its relationship to processes of socio-political change at the macro level would be useful. Variables such as political preconditions, institutions and social responses to this sort of leadership could be analyzed in a comprehensive fashion. More comparative studies would also be useful in order to discover the extent of the impact of the cultural context on the frequency of charismatic authority, on the forms that it might take and on the socio-political outcomes. At the practical level, it has been argued that Marcos’ case is a particularly good illustration of the inherent tensions between the personalistic and the transformative dimensions of charismatic authority, hence of its limitations and of its potentially corruptive tendencies. Marcos’ predicament also illustrates, in a broader sense, the complexities that arise from the dynamics between political systems, civil societies and the role of human agency. He has endeavored to confine his role (and, by implication, his authority) to one of catalyst

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and of inspirational force to encourage ordinary citizens to become truly revolutionary or transformative in their political thinking. The question is not so much whether he has been successful in awakening civil society but how successful he has been in resisting the allures of personalism. I suspect that as far as civil society is concerned, the answer is negative, but for this outcome Marcos cannot be held responsible. We can come to some conclusions about the matter of personalism. On one hand, even as a distant spectator, it is virtually impossible to remove or ignore the element of personalism in Marcos’ politics, although much of the scholarship does its best to do so. His personal appeal is blatantly problematic, or at least discordant with ideas or discourses that attempt to move beyond the emotive impact of personalities and concentrate instead on the socio-political cause at hand. In a nutshell, charismatic authority inevitably endorses elements of domination, power, representation and indoctrination that are antithetical to the message of the Zapatista Movement—or, indeed, to any truly progressive and egalitarian politics. It should be noted that these elements are not neutralized in democratic regimes; rather, they manifest themselves in a more subtle fashion. The other side of the story is that Marcos’ actions continue to indicate consistent commitment to the avoidance of personalism. He still abstains from joining the official political system, and there have been relatively few reports that suggest caudillo-style or self-glorifying behavior. His actions still betray an extreme degree of selfconsciousness with regard to the issue of the ‘personal’, suggesting that it will always be something for him to watch. This is demonstrated by his careful (but not entirely successful as we saw in the previous chapter) monitoring of how his public persona is being perceived in the Otra Campaña political tour. His new pseudonym, Delegado Zero, is obviously yet another warning for us not to focus on his person but on the message, hence confirming my argument. Very cleverly, he once more tricks us into paying attention whilst simultaneously setting boundaries to his cult figure status and to the authority that goes hand in hand with it. His consistent efforts not to fall in the trap of messianic or charismatic allure do not go unnoticed, but the mere fact that he has to continuously take measures such as changing his pseudonym indicates that the problem is an ongoing one and that it will not go away. Ultimately, his attempt to separate the transformative (and creative) from the personalistic (and authoritarian) could be construed as an attempt to ‘democratize charismatic authority’ or to divest this type of authority of its authoritarian leader-centered personalism. It seems to me

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that Marcos is revolutionizing charismatic authority at its very core, by attempting to make it accessible to the people, as Paul the apostle had previously envisioned in his idea of the extension of the gift (charisma as a transformative spirit) to his congregation. In any case, this endeavor remains an ambitious fantasy, partly because civil society outside of Chiapas, unlike the bay horse in Marcos’ tale, seems hesitant to run away from the tale—or what is familiar and therefore comfortable. He is only partially successful in his quest to break the traditional cycle of charismatic authority in Latin American politics and avoid personalism in all its guises. But this is still a remarkable feat, particularly in view of the political and intellectual baggage he has been carrying. Marcos knows that the political consequences of personal power are something that he needs to watch continuously and, in the end, ironically, he is also unable to completely leave the tale. Rather, he will continue to tread a fine line between personalism and the effort to ‘democratize’ his own charismatic authority.

Notes 1 Marcos (1994b: 58); Marcos in Aguilera et al. (1994: 292–294); Marcos in Russell (1995: 43). 2 Michel (2001: 22). See also Marcos quoted in Avilés and Minà (1998: 154). 3 Marcos (1994b: 57). 4 See Marcos in Ramirez Cuevas and Vera Herrera (2001a) regarding the origins of the myth. About the issue of communiqués see Marcos in Obregón (1997: 193–194). Also, in his interview with Le Bot Marcos tells of occasions when the Committee has not liked one of his communiqués (1997: 353-354). 5 Marcos in Le Bot (1997: 156). 6 Mayor Ana María [1994] quoted in Levario Turcott (1999: 147), my translation. 7 Marcos in Romero (1994: 57); Marcos in Brisac and Castillo (1995). 8 Marcos quoted in Le Bot (1997: 366-368), my translation. 9 Marcos in Avilés and Minà (1998: 163-164). 10 Marcos in Scherer (2001). 11 See Duhalde and Dratman (1994: 230-235) for interesting interpretations of the mask in Mexican culture and in the Zapatista Movement. 12 See Lie (2001) and Jörgensen (2004: 92). 13 Marcos in Benjamin (1995: 70); Marcos (1998c). 14 Marcos (1994b: 58-59). 15 Bowman (2005: 42). 16 Jörgensen (2004: 98); Marcos in Montalbán (1999: 144). 17 Wagner and Moreira (2003: 196). 18 Huntington (2000: 77). 19 Ponce de Leon in Klein (2002b: 116).

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20 See Ouweneel (2002: 7). On the mask being a symbol of transitional states Napier (quoted in Jörgensen 2004: 88) writes “Masks …. testify to an awareness of the ambiguities of appearance and to a tendency toward paradox characteristic of transitional states”. 21 Marcos ‘Here we are the Forever Dead…’, (1995a: 57). 22 Marcos quoted in Olguín (2002: 145), emphasis mine. 23 Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1994: 16). 24 Marcos quoted in Benjamin (1995: 70). See also Marcos in Duràn de Huerta (1994: 18) and Marcos in Molina (2000: 207). 25 Žižek (2004: 311). 26 See Romero in Campa Mendoza (1999: 134). 27 Žižek (2004: 309), emphasis mine. 28 Jörgensen (2004: 89, 99). 29 Tormey (2006: 146). 30 Tormey (2006: 151). 31 Monsivaís quoted in De la Colina (2002: 365). 32 De la Grange and Rico (1998a: 351); Jörgensen (2004: 92) ; Gómez Peña (1995: 92, 94). 33 Unnamed person quoted in de la Grange and Rico (1998a: 363). 34 Marcos quoted in Brisac and Castillo (1995). 35 See Jörgensen (2004: 102–103) and Castellanos (2008: 35). The letter from Marcos can be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/zaps01112003.html (accessed February 2, 2010). 36 Klein (2002: 117).

Appendix A Responses of Mexican Civil Society to the Zapatista Movement

Acknowledgments I would like to warmly thank Reforma and Alduncin and Associates Surveys for their kindness in giving me these surveys at no charge.

Notes on Appendix A In contrast to Table A1, a national poll conducted by Matte in July 26–29, 1994 showed that political issues rated low on the scale of society’s concerns, ‘lack of democracy’ only scoring 3.4 percent compared to unemployment’s 21.8 percent; the Zapatista Rebellion did not even make the top 10 when Mexicans were asked what were the most important problems they faced. The survey was quoted in Oppenheimer (1996a: 152– 154). Surveys about the effects of the Zapatista March in 2001 have been conducted in greater quantity and detail than for any other Zapatista event. Figures show an increase in support for the movement between January 1998 and January 2001 (Table A4) and a steady increase of interest in this political event between January and March 2001 (Tables A5 and A6a), despite the level of concern decreasing over time (Table A7). When asked ‘Should Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN come to Mexico City?’ there was a remarkable shift in support from 5.5 in January 2001 to 47.5 in February (Table A5). Overall, it seems that civil society in Mexico supported an unarmed Zapatista March (Table A8) and that the 2001 March was successful in its aim of informing and gathering support from Mexican civil society (Table A9). This is despite the fact that 43 percent of respondents believed that President Fox was more disposed toward a dialogue to resolve the crisis in Chiapas than Marcos and that 51 percent of respondents did not think that the Zapatistas or Marcos should become a formal political force (Table A6b).

185

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Appendix Table A1 Polls and Surveys in the Literature, Mexico, 1994 Source (1) Reforma Poll, December 8–9

Results 59% of the population in Mexico City has a good opinion of the Zapatistas 78% thought their demands justified

(2) Market Opinion Research International Survey, Jan 7–Feb 18

In this time frame, support for the Chiapas Rebellion rose from 61% to 75% in Mexico D.F.

(3) Este País National Poll, February

61% of Mexicans were found to be sympathetic to the Movement and 38% blamed the government for the uprising

Sources: (1) Castells (1997: 79); (2) D. C. Scott quoted in Knudson (1998: 511); (3) Bruhn (1999: 48).

Appendix A

187

Appendix Table A2 Reforma Survey, Mexico D.F., January 1994, Public Opinion on the Events in Chiapas, in Percentages Do you think that this conflict alters the social harmony of the rest of the country? Yes

53

No

44

Do not know

3

Do you support or not the decisions of the National Army? Yes

42

No

45

Doubtful

9

Do not know 4 What do you think is the main motive that the guerrilla uprising occurred in Chiapas? Social problems

62

Political problems

15

Foreign influence

13

Disagreements with the government 10 Which action do you think the government has to take to resolve the problem? Dialogue no weapons/no soldiers

42

Elevate the standard of life of the Indigenous people Suppress the insurgents with violence

24

Change their attitude

8

26

Source: Reforma, January 7, 1994. Mexico D.F., 400 respondents.

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Appendix Table A3 Reforma Survey, Mexico, June 1994, Public Opinion on the Events in Chiapas What opinion do you have of the EZLN? Good 59 Bad

25

Ordinary

12

Do not know

4

Do you think that the armed conflict in the region will resume? Yes

72

No

21

I do not know

7

Do you know that the EZLN has refused to sign the peace agreement in Chiapas? Yes

76

No

24

Source: Reforma, June 19, 1994. Mexico D.F. and Monterrey, 408 respondents.

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Appendix Table A4 Alduncin Opinion Poll on the Conflict in Chiapas, Mexico, January 1998 and January 2001, in Percentages Do you believe that the EZLN is an authentic Indigenous movement? January 1998 January 2001 Authentic

18.8

42.1

Manipulated

81.2

57.9

Do you believe that the EZLN is a just movement? Just

January 1998

January 2001

42.8

60.8

Unjust 57.2 39.2 Do you believe that the movement has benefited or damaged the Indigenous of this region? January 1998 January 2001 Benefited

16.0

42.4

Damaged

84.0

57.6

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14– 20, 1998 and January 16–18, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The 1998 survey is based on 632 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (33.5 percent), the State of Mexico (23 percent) and Chiapas (43.5 percent). The 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (50.1 percent), and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent).

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Appendix Table A5 The Zapatista March, Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January 2001–February 2001, in Percentages Will you participate in the manifestations to receive Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN when they come to the D.F.? January 2001 February 2001 Average Average Yes 17.0 27.3 No 83.0 72.7 Should Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN come to Mexico City? Yes 5.5 47.5 No 94.5 52.5 Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, February 23–27, 2001 and January 16–18, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The February survey is based on 500 interviews in person in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and in the State of Mexico (52.6 percent). The January survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent), and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent).

Appendix A

191

Appendix Table A6a The Zapatista March, Reforma Survey, Mexico, January 2001–March 2001, in Percentages Are you interested that Subcomandante Marcos and other members of the EZLN are going to be travelling to Mexico City at the start of March? January February March Yes 68 76 93 No 30 23 7 Do not know 2 1 Are you interested in following the events of Subcomandante Marcos’s trip to Mexico City? January February March A lot 41 39 69 Some 30 29 Little 16 18 29 Not at all 11 12 Do not know 2 2 2 Do you agree or disagree with Subcomandante Marcos’s trip to Mexico City? January February Agree 68 66 Disagree 21 24 Neither/Do not know 11 10 Source: Unpublished documents from Reforma, January 13, 2001, 850 respondents; February 17, 2001, 847 respondents; and March 3–4, 2001, 849 respondents, all national telephone surveys.

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table A6b The Zapatista March, Reforma Survey, Mexico, January 2001–March 2001, in Percentages Who do you think is most disposed to a dialogue to resolve the conflict in Chiapas? February Vicente Fox 43 Subcomandante Marcos 5 Both 47 Neither 4 Do not know 1 Once the peace agreement is signed in Chiapas, do you agree or disagree that the Zapatistas and ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ should become a formal political force? February Agree 39 Disagree 51 Neither 4 Do not know 6 Source: Unpublished documents from Reforma, January 13, 2001, national telephone survey of 850 respondents; February 7, 2001, national telephone survey of 847 respondents; and March 3–4, 2001, national survey of 849 respondents.

Appendix A

193

Appendix Table A7 Alduncin Opinion Poll on Chiapas, Mexico, February 2001, in Percentages (averages) How much does the conflict in Chiapas and the EZLN worry you?

A lot Some Little Not at all

1998 49.9 31.0 13.0 6.1

January 2001 14.6 39.1 36.6 9.7

February 2001 14.3 42.3 30.7 12.7

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14–18, 1998; January 16–18, 200;1 and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The January 14–18, 1998 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50 percent) and in the State of Mexico (50 percent). The January 16–18, 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent). The February 23–27, 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and in the State of Mexico (52.6 percent).

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table A8 The Question of Arms—Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January 2001, in Percentages Should Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN come to Mexico City armed? Average Men Women Yes 5.5 6 5 No 94.5 94 95 Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 16–18, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent).

Appendix A

195

Appendix Table A9 Reforma Survey—The Zapatista March, Mexico, Late March 2001, in Percentages Do you believe that the Zapatista movement has helped or hindered the Indigenous cause in Mexico? Helped 45 Hindered 34 No opinion 21 In general, do you agree or disagree with the Indigenous cause in Chiapas? Agree 70 Disagree 30 In general, do you agree or disagree with the Zapatista Movement? Agree 51 Disagree 41 No opinion 8 Source: Unpublished document from Reforma, March 28, 2001, national telephone survey of 540 respondents.

Appendix B Mexican Civil Society and Subcomandante Marcos

Notes on Appendix B Regarding the issue of public opinion on Subcomandante Marcos, in February 1994 a poll found that 70 percent of citizens in Mexico City recognized him as the head of the Zapatista Movement, whilst a year earlier the mayor of the city only elicited 45 percent recognition (Scott [1994] quoted in Knudson 1998: 511). Data from surveys conducted from 1995 to 1998 show a reasonably good response to Marcos (Tables B1, B2 and B3), although an opinion poll conducted in 1998 reveals that Subcomandante Marcos’s ‘personalism’ was rated uncomfortably high as one of the reasons attributed by the public for the prolonged and tortuous peace negotiations process (Table B2). Moreover, another poll rating the performance of various individuals and institutions in the conflict ranks President Zedillo higher than Subcomandante Marcos in July 1988 (Table B3). The surveys in Tables B4a and B4b may seem contradictory at first sight, but overall they indicate Marcos’ rise in popularity from 1998 to 2001, possibly due to the March for Indigenous Dignity. Alduncin and Associates have organized that data in categories of gender, age, education and income. From this information (Table B5a-B5d), we can conclude that Marcos’ popularity with women increased by February 2001 and that he is most popular with young people (18–24) and people in their 40s. The tables based on education and income levels are particularly interesting. They show a shift in support from uneducated to educated audiences in a matter of a month, from January to February 2001. The last category, based on income groups, shows a shift in support from the lower classes in January 2001 to the uppermiddle classes in February.

197

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Surveys conducted after March 2001 point to a high level of public awareness of the event and also indicate that the Mexican people believed that President Fox was more willing to negotiate than Subcomandante Marcos (Table B6). Another survey, taken in late March 2001, reveals that President Fox is more popular than Marcos and so is Comandante Esther, although more than half of the same respondents did not agree that Subcomandante Marcos should not have spoken at the Congress (Table B7). The December 2001 survey indicates that Fox is still much more popular than Subcomandante Marcos (Table B8).

Appendix B

199

Appendix Table B1 ‘The Locals of Mexico City are Sceptical’, Reforma, Public Opinion on the Unmasking of Marcos, Mexico D.F., February 1995, in Percentages (1) Do you believe that the portrait presented by the PGR is that of ‘Subcomandante Marcos’? Yes, I believe it 43* No, I do not 50* I do not know 5* (2) In your opinion, Rafael Sebastián Guillén, or Subcomandante Marcos is a leader or a delinquent? Leader 59* Delinquent 22* I do not know 6* Other 7* Both 7* (3) Since the discovery of Subcomandante Marcos’s identity has your opinion improved or worsened? Improved 36 Worsened 33 The same 24 Do not know 7 Source: (1) and (2) Reforma, February 12, 1995, 400 respondents, Mexico D.F. and (3) unpublished document Reforma, February 16–17, 1995, 400 respondents, Mexico D.F. Note: *Rounded figures.

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table B2 Alduncin Opinion Poll on the Obstacles to the Negotiations, Mexico, July 1998, in Average Index D. F.

Mexic o

Chia pas

Failure of peace process

74

76

71

Non-fulfillment of the Accords

73

70

61

Demands of EZLN

66

70

64

Marcos’s personalism

63

68

66

Double language of the Zapatistas

62

69

66

Double language of the government

71

74

68

Failure of credibility of the government

80

75

72

Prolonged silence of the EZLN

70

67

71

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, July 22–24, 1998. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. Survey is based on 434 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (27 percent), the State of Mexico (23.7 percent) and Chiapas (49.3 percent). Note: bold is for emphasis.

Appendix B

201

Appendix Table B3 Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, July 1998, in Average Index How would you rate the performance of each in the conflict in Chiapas? January 1998

July 1998

Media

55.0

61

Zedillo

38.4

56

Mexican army

44.2

54

Federal government

34.6

50

EZLN

48.4

49

Peace commissions

44.3

49

NGOs

47.8

49

Subcomandante Marcos

44.3

47

Bishop Ruiz

40.0

46

PRI

30.5

41

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14–20, 1998 and July 22–24, 1998. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The January 1998 survey is based on 632 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (33.5%), the State of Mexico (23%) and Chiapas (43.5%) and the July 1998 survey is based on 434 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (27 percent), the State of Mexico (23.7 percent) and Chiapas (49.3 percent). Note: Indices: very good = 100, good = 75, regular = 50, poor = 25 and very poor = 0. Bold is for emphasis.

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table B4a Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January 1998–February 2001, in Average Index How much do you sympathize with or admire Subcomandante Marcos?

A lot

Some

Little

Not at all

Index

January 1998

January 2001

February 2001

7.1

4.4

5.5

18.3

29.1

32.1

20.1

30.7

38.9

54.5

35.8

23.5

26

34

40

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14–20, 1998; January 16–18, 2001; and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The 1998 survey is based on 632 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (33.5 percent), in the State of Mexico (23 percent) and Chiapas (43.5 percent). The January 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent) and the February 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and in the State of Mexico (52.6%). Note: Indices: very good = 100, good = 75, regular = 50, poor = 25 and very poor = 0.

Appendix B

203

Appendix Table B4b Public Opinion on Subcomandante Marcos, Reforma Survey, Mexico, January 1998–March 2001, in Percentages What is your opinion of Subcomandante Marcos? Negative

Positive

January 1998

27

34

December 2000

30

21

January 2001

32

27

February 2001

34

25

March 2001

45

23

Source: Reforma, January 24–26, 1998, national survey, 1167 respondents; unpublished document from Reforma, March 3–4, 2001 national survey, 849 respondents (these results include 2000, December and 2001, January to March). Note: Only affirmative and negative answers were included in this survey.

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table B5a Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January 1998–February 2001, by Gender, in Percentages How much do you sympathize with or admire Subcomandante Marcos? January 1998 A lot Some Little Not at all Index

January 2001

February 2001

Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

8.3 6.2 19.6 17.5 19.6 21 52.5

4 5 30 27 30 32 35

4 7 35 29 36 42 25

Women

55.3

36

22

Men Women

27.9 24.9

34 33

39 40

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14–20,1998; January 16–18, 2001; and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The 1998 survey is based on 632 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (33.5 percent), in the State of Mexico (23 percent) and Chiapas (43.5 percent). The January 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent) and the February 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and in the State of Mexico (52.6 percent).

Appendix Table B5b Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January 2001 and February 2001, by Age, in Percentages

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 14–20, 1998; January 16–18, 2001; and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The 1998 survey is based on 632 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (33.5 percent), in the State of Mexico (23 percent) and Chiapas (43.5 percent). The January 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and in the State of Mexico (49.9 percent) and the February 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person and by telephone in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and in the State of Mexico (52.6%).

Appendix Table B5c Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January and February 2001, by Education, in Percentages

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 16–18, 2001 and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The January 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and State of Mexico (49.9 percent) and the February 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and the State of Mexico (52.6 percent)

Appendix B

207

Appendix Table B5d Alduncin Opinion Poll, Mexico, January and February 2001, by Income, in Percentages How much do you sympathise with or admire Subcomandante Marcos?

A lot

Some

Little

Not at all

Index

January 2001 February 2001 January 2001 February 2001 January 2001 February 2001 January 2001 February 2001 January 2001 February 2001

Lower Y

LowerMiddle Y

Middle Y

MiddleUpper Y

High Y

9

3

5

0

0

2

4

12

0

12

21

30

34

33

35

31

33

32

30

28

20

35

28

42

35

27

41

43

39

44

50

33

33

25

30

40

21

12

30

16

30

35

37

36

35

32

40

48

33

45

Source: Alduncin and Associates Surveys, January 16–18, 2001, and February 23–27, 2001. This is part of the project ‘The Universal’. The January 2001 survey is based on 503 interviews in person in the D.F. (50.1 percent) and State of Mexico (49.9 percent) and the February 2001 survey is based on 500 interviews in person in the D.F. (47.4 percent) and the State of Mexico (52.6 percent).

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Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table B6 ‘After the March’, Reforma Survey, Mexico D.F., Mid-March 2001, in Percentages Do you agree or disagree that ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ should stay in Mexico City until Congress approves the Law on Indigenous Rights? Agree 52 Disagree 38 Neither 6 Do not know 4 How willing is ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ to negotiate with Fox’s government? A lot 33 Some 23 Little 19 Not at all 20 Do not know 5 How willing is Fox to negotiate with the EZLN? A lot 44 Some 31 Little 14 Not at all 8 Do not know 3 Do you agree with ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ meeting with Fox? Agree 86 Disagree 11 Do not know 3 Do you agree with ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ meeting with Cocopa? Agree 76 Disagree 16 Do not know 8 Do you agree with ‘Subcomandante Marcos’ talking in Congress? Agree 68 Disagree 27 Do not know 5 Source: Reforma, March 11, 2001. Telephone survey, Mexico D.F., 420 respondents.

Appendix B

209

Appendix Table B7 ‘After the March’, Reforma Survey, Mexico, Late March 2001, in Percentages Do you agree or disagree with the fact that it was the Comandantes of the EZLN and not Subcomandante Marcos who spoke in Congress? Agree 28 Disagree 53 No opinion 24 What is your opinion of: Positive Negative None Subcomandante Marcos 38 20 42 Comandante Esther 41 14 45 Comandante Tacho 28 16 56 Vincente Fox 70 7 23 The EZLN 49 17 34 Source: Unpublished document from Reforma, March 28, 2001. National telephone survey, Mexico D.F., 540 respondents.

210

Political Leadership in Zapatista Mexico

Appendix Table B8 ‘On Popularity’, Reforma Survey, Mexico, December 2001, in Percentages Who do you consider the best male political figure of the year? Vicente Fox 50 Andrés Manuel López 15 Subcomandante Marcos 10 Diego Fernández de Cevallos 7 Jorge G. Castañeda 1 None 2 Do not know 5 And who was the worst politician of the year? Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas 21 Vicente Fox 17 Subcomandante Marcos 12 Diego Fernández de Cevallos 7 Jorge G. Castañeda 3 Andrés Manuel López Obrador 1 All 1 I don’t know 12 Source: Unpublished document, Reforma, December 18–19, 2001. Annual telephone survey, Mexico D.F., 411 respondents.

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Index Burbach, Roger, 106 bureaucracy, 9, 12, 13, 24, 118 bureaucratic authoritarianism, 41

Aguascalientes, 82, 83 Aguilar Rivera, José Antonio, 115 Alduncin opinion polls, 97, 185, 189–90, 193–4, 197, 200–2, 204–7 Alfino, Mark, 114 Althusser, Louis, 78, 113, 129 ANCIEZ, 57, 59 anti-authoritarianism, 4, 5, 29, 128, 137, 179 Appleton, Josie, 115 Arendt, Hannah, 16 Argentina, 11, 25, 41, 44, 45, 46, 95, 162 Aristotle, 14 Arquilla, John, 93, 140 authoritarianism, 43, 47, 48, 120, 146, 147, 148, 150, 154, 157, 162, 177 authority, 2, 4, 9, 12, 18–23, 141, 143, 169, 170; see also charismatic authority autonomy, 40, 45, 59, 82, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 129, 146, 169, 174, 179; see also self-determination

Cadena-Roa, Jorge, 171 Caracoles, 82, 112 Cárdenas, Cuauhtémoc, 51 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 28, 46, 48 Carlyle, Thomas, 14, 42 Carranza, Venustiano, 157 Carrera, José Rafael, 45 Casaldáliga, Bishop Pedro, 152 Castañeda, Jorge, 112, 153, 161 Castellanos, Laura, 176 Castells, Manuel, 92, 140 Castro, Fidel, 14, 16, 62, 86, 88, 89, 95, 96, 118 and charismatic authority, 6–7, 11, 26, 144, 153 Cattlemen Association, 80 caudillismo, 7, 42–4, 127, 147 and charisma, 43 conditions for, 149 and the mask, 173 caudillo, 2, 3, 29, 57, 95, 114, 137, 139, 142, 159, 169, 173, 176, 179, 181 in history, 27–8, 42–5, 48, 49 Marcos in that role, 146–53 CCRI-CG, 64, 79, 85, 151, 169, 170, 178 CCRIs, 64 celebrity, 3, 7, 24, 44, 88, 89, 137, 144, 163, 175 charisma, 8–28, 139, 176 and caudillismo, 43–4 and celebrity, 7, 24, 88–9, 137–8, 144, 163 and charismatic authority, 20–4 as a form of authority, 7–14 as a gift of grace, 12–3 and post-colonialism, 18 in Pauline theology, 11–2, 26–7 sociological concept of, 8

Baker, Gideon, 108 Batalla, Guillermo Bonfil, 91 Batista, Fulgencio, 44, 88 Bellinghausen, Hermann, 89 Belzu, Manuel Isidoro, 45 Benavidez, Gloria, 61 Benetton, 89 Benjamin, Medea, 63 Berger, Mark, 154 Berger, John, 96 Blanco, José, 115, 147 Bolívar, Simón, 99 Bolivia, 40, 44, 45 Bourdieu, Pierre, 13 Bourne, Richard, 42 Bowman, Paul, 172 Brazil, 46

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charismatic authority, 4–5, 6, 8–28, and character traits, 13–4 and charisma, 20–4 conditions for, 22–3 effectiveness of, 5, 24, 99–100, 178 legitimacy of, 12, 14, 17, 18, 45, 82, 84, 99, 115, 117, 139 limits to, 5, 24, 25, 180 and the mask, 175 morality and, 5, 10, 12, 15, 21, 25, 28, 77, 97, 99, 139, 141, 143 personalistic dimension of, 5, 20– 1, 24–7, 29, 30, 47, 177, 180, 181 and power, 7, 9 problem of, 5, 21, 24–7, 177, 180 psychological interpretation of, 15–7 resonance of, 94–100 situational interpretation of, 17–8 and socio-political change, 82, 180 and succession, 11 symbolic-mythological approach to, 19–20 transformative potential of, 5, 8, 20, 24–7, 177, 180, 181 charismatic leaders, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 21, 23, 26, 28, 39, 94, 95, 144, 151, 153, 180 ability to form public rapport, 22, 25 circumstances of their births, 16 emergence in times of crisis, 17–8, 25 followers of, 94–100 impact of, 143 legitimacy of, 83–4 motivations and behavior of, 15–6 use of cultural and historical paradigms, 19 use of symbolism, 99 traits, 13–4 vision and values, 22 charismatic leadership in Latin America, 39–48 Chasteen, John Charles, 40, 43, 45 Chávez, Hugo, 99, 118

Chiapas, 1, 28, 39–66 CCRIs, 64 charismatic authority in, 80–8 colonization of uncultivated land, 62–3 corruption, 55 geography of, 51–2 Guatemalan refugees in, 55, 59 Indigenous Congress, 58 Lacandona Jungle, 39, 51, 55, 61–6 Las Cañadas, 51, 62 legitimacy, 80–8 liberation theology, 55, 57–8 Maoist organizations, 61 Maya peoples of, 3, 29, 51, 54, 80 networks in, 92 Montes Azules Reserve, 55 natural resources, 51 paramilitary groups, 53, 82 political culture of, 57 poverty, 51, 53, 55, 60, 62 Chiapas Rebellion, 1, 39, 51–66, 89 economic preconditions for, 51–5 political preconditions for, 55–61 Chile, 41 CIEPAC, 91 CIOAC, 57 citizenship, 57, 59, 83, 107, 110 civil liberties, 56 civil society, 107–9 autonomy of, 114, 146 global, 88, 127 Mayan, 95 Mexican, 2, 97, 109, 142, 172, 175 and self-determination, 27 CNC, 48, 59 CND, 86, 87, 97–8, 109, 150, 155, 175 CNOP, 48 CNPI, 59 co-optation, 40, 177 Marcos and, 65, 77 in Mexico, 28, 39, 49, 53, 56, 60, 82, 160 COCOPA, 831 collective action, 160 Collier, George A., 85 Colombia, 60

Index 263

Colosio, Luis Donaldo, 50 CONAI, 81 consciousness, revolutionary, 157 Consultas, 87, 112 corporatism, 28, 46–7, 48 corruption, 55, 56, 117, 146 crowds, 15–6, 97, 98 Cuban Revolution, 6–7, 60, 86, 118, 157 Cueli, José, 2 Cuevillas, Fernando N. A., 43 cult figures, 6, 29, 137–9, 144–5, 179, 181; see also celebrity cultural pluralism, 93, 110–1 Daniel, Subcomandante, 78, 148 Daniels, Anthony, 142 De Angelis, Massimo, 108 de Bonafini, Hebe, 95 de Jesús Calderón, Felipe, 51 De la Colina, Jose, 88 De la Grange, Bertrand, 97, 111, 140 De la Torre, Carlos, 122 de las Casas, Father Bartolomé, 58 de Mazariegos, Diego, 59 de Rosas, Juan Manuel, 44, 45, Delegado Zero, 163, 181 democracy, 21, 56, 57, 58, 81, 83, 85, 105, 106, 109–10, 121, 126, 148, 156, 176, 178 Mayan, 162 participatory, 29, 110 and populism, 47 representative, 109, 112, 116, 143 dependency theory, 47 Derrida, Jacques, 159 descamisados, 25, 117 Díaz, Porfirio, 28, 44, 49 dignity, 7, 93, 98, 114, 122, 123, 125, 150, 159, 173, 174 Dominican Republic, 44 Duràn de Huerta, Martha, 141, 173 Durito, 113, 123, 126, 127, 128 Duvalier, François, 44 economic project of populism, 46–7 Ecuador, 117, 162 egalitarianism, 27, 177, 179 EGP, 60

Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah, 10, 22 El Salvador, 60 El Santo, 2, 171 FEP, 49 Elías Calles, Plutarco, 49 Encounters for Humanity, 87 Enriquillo, 2 Erikson, Erik H., 15 Esteva, Gustavo, 93 Esther, Comandante, 198, 209 Estrada Cabrera, Manuel, 44 ETA, 158, 176 ethics: see morality Executive Committee of the Mapuches, 150 EZLN, 4, 39, 57–8 black and red colors, 86 and the CCRI-CG, 64, 79 and CCRIs, 64 and the Church, 65 and the CND, 109 composition of, 63, 64 decision to go to war, 79, 150 formation of, 57, 60–1 influence of, 80, 115 internal rivalry, 64–5 and Subcomandante Marcos, 140, 148, 169 mass base, 62 and Mayan culture, 161 media strategy, 89–90 moral authority, 143 National Democratic Convention, 109, 155 origin of, 60 and SLOP, 65 structure of authority in, 64 support for, 95–6 Falco, Raphael, 26–7 FEP, 49 Fernández, Silvia, 78 First Intercontinental Meeting, 128, 155 FLN, 58, 59, 61–2, 65, 78, 86, 99, 140 power struggle in, 148 FMLN, 60

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followers, 9, 10–4, 16, 22, 23, 26–7, 45–6, 94–5, 96, 98, 120, 144, 151, 175 Foweraker, Joe, 50 Fowler, Will, 44 Fox Quesada, Vicente, 51, 185, 192, 198, 208, 209, 210 FPDT, 162 French Revolution, 19 Freud, Sigmund, 15–6 Friedland, William H., 17 Friedrich, Carl J., 13 Fromm, Erich, 16 FSLN, 59, 78 Fuentes, Carlos, 80–1, 96, 109 Fujimori, Alberto, 47 Fukuyama, Francis, 121 Fuller, Graham E., 93 Fuller, Melissa, 93 FZLN, 109

Harvey, Neil, 57 Héau-Lambert, Catherine, 83 Henck, Nicholas, 140 Herlinghaus, Hermann, 118 Hernández Martínez, Laura, 119 Hidalgo, Father Miguel, 84 hierarchy, 4, 92, 151, 161 in the EZLN, 63–4, 161–2 Marcos and, 114, 124, 128, 157, 177–8 Higgins, Nicholas P., 98, 120 Hinojosa, Óscar, 89 Hobbes, Thomas, 26, 127 Holloway, John, 138 human rights, 40, 41, 56, 57, 58, 61, 65, 90, 96, 111, 128 Hunt, Lynn 19 Huntington, Patricia, 110, 150, 162, 172 Hutt, Curtis, 13

Gall, Olivia, 55, 87 Gandhi, Indira, 11 Gandhi, Mahatma, 15, 16 García de León, 2 García Márquez, Gabriel, 99 Garzón, Judge Baltazar, 176 Germani, Gino, 142 Gilmore, Robert L., 42–3 Giménez, Gilberto, 119–20 globalization, 93, 110, 119 anti-globalization, 2, 92, 93, 112, 163 Gómez, El Superbarrio, 2, 171 Gómez Peña, Guillermo, 175 Gossen, Gary H., 83, 106, 152 Gramsci, Antonio, 107 greed, 3, 56, 65, 113, 123, 126, 127 Grupo Torreon, 57 Guatemala, 44, 45, 55, 59, 60 Guevara, Che, 2, 60, 63, 86, 89, 144, 154, 163, 170–1 Guillén, Rafael Sebastián, 3, 79, 121, 169, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180 Guillermoprieto, Alma 63, 81, 89, 140 Gundle, Stephen, 20 Gutiérrez Chong, Natividad, 140, 141

Ibarra, Velasco, 117 identity politics, 110, 111 ideology, 18, 22, 42, 46, 50, 53, 58, 86, 114, 129, 138–9 Marcos and, 78, 113 IMF, 54, 92 Indigenous identities, 110 individualism, 110, 113, 115, 127, 128, 129, 158, 179 methodological, 13 charismatic, 11 INMECAFÉ, 54 Inter-Ethnic Cultural Encounter, 59 Intercontinental Indigenous Encounter, 84, 87 International Coffee Agreement, 54 international solidarity networks, 88, 91–3, 99

Haiti, 44

Kampwirth, Karen, 63

Johnston, Josée, 109 Jörgensen, Beth E., 172, 174, 176 Jung, Courtney, 110 Juntas de Buen Gobierno, 82 justice, 2, 4, 5, 6, 83, 85, 87, 91, 106, 107, 116, 117, 126, 156, 171 and injustice, 6, 29, 58, 78, 106, 110, 115

Index 265

Kane, John, 17–8, 21 Klein, Naomi, 92, 152, 179 Kline, Harvey F., 40 Knight, Alan, 46 Knudson, Jerry W., 149 Krauze, Enrique, 84 La Neta, 92 La Unión del Pueblo, 58 Labastida, Jaime, 115 Lacandona Jungle First Declaration of, 7, 65, 84, 107, 109, 154 Second Declaration of, 108, 110, 128–9, 154 Sixth Declaration of, 162 Laclau, Ernesto, 30, 46, 128, 173 Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, 120 Landau, Saul, 58 Las Avejas (The Bees), 82 Latin America authoritarianism in, 41, 47–48 caudillismo, 42–6 civil wars, 43, 49 clientelism, 28, 40, 45 co-optation, 40 constitutions, 41 democracy in, 47 guerrilla heroes, 2 hacienda system, 43 independence movements, 40, 42 leadership in, 41–8 military coups, 39 paternalism, 41 patronage, 40, 44, 45 political system of, 39–48, 177 politics and leadership in, 39–48 populism, 46–8 repression, 40 Roman Catholic Church, 40, 44 ruling classes, 40 state formation in, 40 Le Bon, Gustave, 15 Le Bot, Yvon, 83, 86, 96, 110, 112, 152, 170 leadership, 14, 16, 18, 22–3, 27, 28, 29, 39, 41, 56, 57, 61, 65, 92, 147, 160, 180 caudillos, of, 42–5

EZLN, 85, 87, 140, 155 Marcos, 140, 152–3 Mayan, 112, 141, 169 populist, 46–8; see also charismatic leadership Legorreta Díaz, Maria del Carmen, 147 Lenkersdorf, Carlos, 127 Leónidas Trujillo, Rafael, 44 Levario Turcott, Marco, 90, 115, 141 liberation theology, 19, 55, 57–8, 60, 61, 106, 148 Libertarian Socialist Group, 162 liberty, 57, 116, 119 Lindholm, Charles, 151 Línea Proletaria, 58, 61 Loewenstein, Karl, 20 López de Santa Anna, Antonio, 28, 44 López Obrador, Andrés Manuel, 160, 210 Lynch, John, 44–5 M-19, 60 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 14–5, 23, 26 machismo, 44 Maddens, Bart, 116, 124 Magón, Ricardo Flores, 107, 114 Maoism, 106, 160 March for Indigenous Dignity, 98, 185, 190, 191, 192, 195, 197 Marcos, Subcomandante, 1–7, 78–9, 149 acceptance of by CCRI-CG, 151 anti-authoritarianism, 4–6, 29, 128, 137 anti-ideological slant, 128 anti-personalism, 169–70, 181 anti-vanguard approach, 114, 158 appeal to human dignity, 123, 125 authoritarianism, 147–50 and the caudillo tradition, 146–53 charismatic authority, 98–99 and civil society, 94–100, 197– 210 communiqués, 82, 90, 113, 121 concept of ‘mandar obedeciendo’, 155

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conception of human nature, 126–7 correspondence, 96 credibility, 176 critiques of, 90–1, 112, 140–1, 146–8, 162–3 and the cult of celebrity, 139–46 cult status of, 29, 88–94, 139–46 decision to go to war, 65, 79, 150 Delegado Zero, 163, 181 ‘disappearance’, 79 discourse of, 113–29, disengaged engagement, 7, 169, 179 education, 78 effect on the Mexican people, 97– 8 ethical-moral agenda, 148 and the EZLN, 61–2, 79, 140, 148 family background, 149 historical continuity and legitimacy, 84 humanitarianism, 95 and ideology, 113–4 influence of, 150 interactions with intellectuals, 96 interviews, 88, 89–90, 144–45 literary skills, 105, 114, 140 making and marketing of the making of the myth, 88–94 manifestos, 113, 121 Marcosmania, 88–94 masked alter-ego, 30, 169, 171–5 and the Maya peoples of Chiapas, 3, 150–1 and the media, 88–94, 141 and media strategy, 90 as a mirror, 87, 120, 121, 125, 143, 144, 146, 174, 176 myth-making, 91 political discourse, 113–29 political goals, 2, 77, 95, 99, 153 popularity, 97, 100–1 post-modernity, 114 role in the Zapatista Movement, 2, 5, 77, 111, 138, 149, 178–9 self-deprecation, 122 shamanic power, 151–2

as spokesperson, 1, 2, 3, 80, 94, 128, 140, 149, 152, 170, 173 storytelling, 120, 126 and the traditional left, 6, 7, 85, 114, 115, 138, 154, 159–61, 178 and the traditional revolutionary vanguard model, 153–63 ‘unmasking’ of, 81, 175 and values of modernity, 113, 115, 127, 128, 129, 179 visual symbolism, 85–86 writings, 3, 113–129 Mayan-inspired tales, 105, 113, 115, 121–9 poetic imagery and fantasy, 113, 114, 125, 128, 129 political essays, 113 post-modern language, 114, 119, 120–1, 123 satirical vignettes and dialogues, 113 symbolism (discursive), 125 use of analogies, 119–20, 125–6 Maria, Major Ana, 128 Marx, Karl, 63 Marxism, 3, 4, 6, 30, 58, 61, 106, 113, 138, 142, 154, 161 Mascaras Rojas (Red Masks), 82 masks, 171–4 masses, 9, 15–6, 25, 41, 50, 94, 98, 116, 142, 147, 156–7, 171 Maya peoples of Chiapas, 3, 29, 51, 54, 59, 63, 65, 80, 82, 97, 98, 99, 141 collective leadership, 127, 169 cosmology, 152 languages, 128 mythology, 85, 124, 151–2 political and cultural practices, 161–2 storytelling tradition, 120 symbolism, 82–3, 87 media, 1, 2, 3, 6, 20, 24, 29, 65, 77, 80, 88–94, 122, 141, 142, 178 Mexican Insurgent Army, 59 Mexican Liberal Party, 107 Mexican Revolution, 28, 48, 49, 53, 56, 83, 86, 89, 123, 124, 157

Index 267

Mexican Student Movement, 55–6, 60, 161–2 Mexican Workers’ Confederation, 48 Mexico, authoritarian corporatism, 28, 48 centralization of power and authority, 48 Chiapas, 1, 30, 51–66 civil society, 55, 142 co-optation, 49, 53, 56, 60, 65, 77 constitution, 48, 54, 109 Constitutional Convention, 83 corporatism, 48 corruption, 55, 56 ejido-based land reform, 53, 54 hacienda system, 49 human rights, 56 Independence Movement, 84 industrialization, 50 integration into the global economy, 53–4 intellectual situation, 142 ‘interrupted revolution’, 49 masks in the culture of, 171 and the NAFTA Agreement, 54 patronage, 48, 55, 60, 66 peasant organizations, 56–7, 60 political activism in, 56 political system of, 48–51, 164 poverty, 43, 47, 51, 53, 55, 60, 62 and PRI, 48–9, 50, 53, 54, 55 responses to Subcomandante Marcos, 197–210 responses to the Zapatista Movement, 185–95 Roman Catholic Church, 58 rule of law, 50 structural adjustment, 54 urbanization, 50 wealth discrepancies in, 54–5 Michel, Guillermo, 140, 169 Monsivaís, Carlos, 96, 116, 141, 175, 176 Montfort Guillén, Francisco, 96 moral capital, 5, 17–8, 21, 25, 99 morality, 10, 15, 94, 158–9, 174 Moreira, Alejandro, 155, 172 Morelos, José María, 84 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 2, 95 multiculturalism, 93, 112

myth, 19, 145, 152, 161, 163, 169, 170 NAFTA Agreement, 54, 80 Nash, June, 125 nation-states, 18, 105, 112 National Indigenous Congress, 58 National Revolutionary Civic Association, 59 National Strike Council, 56 nationalism, 18, 43, 46, 112, 116, 121, 123, 125 nationhood, 86, 111 Navarro Hernández, Luis 55, 80 NGOs, 91, 92, 93 Nicaragua, 40, 44, 60, 78 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 10 non-determination, 139, 154, 156–8 Noriega, Manuel Antonio, 44 Norton, Anne, 19 Nugent, Daniel, 92 Obama, Barack, 7, 118, 177 OCEZ, 57 Old Antonio, 85, 123–4, 127, 159, 160, 169 Olguín, Ben V., 114, 123 OPDDIC, 82 Oppenheimer, Andres, 78, 150 Other Campaign (Otra Campaña), 3, 98, 109, 154, 161, 162, 163, 181 Ouweneel, Arij, 55, 85, 151, 161, 172 Páez, José Antonio, 44 Paine, Tom, 114 PAN, 50, 51, 160, 161 Panama, 44 Pancho Villa, Francisco, 49, 84, 86, 123 Pansters, Wil, 49 –50 Paraguay, 44 Parkin, Frank, 14 Paul, Saint, 11–2, 26–7, 30, 182 psychology, 14–6 Paz, Octavio, 96, 115, 142 Paz y Justicia, 82 PCM, 57 PDPR, 158 Pendle, George, 43 Pérez Gay, Rafael, 115

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Perón, Evita, 16, 25 Perón, Juan, 25, 45, 46, 89, 95, 117–8 Peronist Movement, 94, 117 personalism, 26, 28, 29, 30, 40, 47, 48, 146, 162, 163, 169, 170, 179, 181, 182 and charismatic authority, 24, 25, 137–8, 153–4 in Latin America, 41–2, 159 Marcos and, 4–5, 177 Peru, 44, 59 Petrich, Blanche, 89 Pinochet, Augusto, 24, 42 Pitarch, Pedro, 63, 111, 159, 160 Plan de Ayala, 57, 124 Plato, 14 PNR, 48 Política Popular, 58, 61 political agency, 13, 110 political culture, 19, 22, 27, 28, 29, 39, 48, 57, 107, 120, 138, 146, 149, 155, 159, 161, 171, 177 political discourse, 50, 107, 120 didactic, 116 Manichean language in, 117–8 Marcos, of, 4, 60, 113, 115, 119–20, 154 polemic, 116 populist, 94, 99, 116 political processes, 6, 7 political space, 4, 28, 29, 78, 83, 108, 112 Ponce de Leon, 172 Poniatowska, Elena, 95, 96, 147 Popke, Jeffrey E., 159 popularity, 24, 25, 97, 143; see also celebrity, cult figures populism, 42, 45–8, 118, 121–123 economic project of, 46–7 populist leaders, 29, 46–8, 70, 116–8 power, 21, 126, 155–6, 157, 158 of caudillos, 45 and charismatic authority, 7, 9–10 and individual public figures, 143 Marcos and, 4, 146, 155–6, 169, 178 in Latin America, 40–1 personal, 6, 9, 25, 30, 42, 48, 182 shamanic, 151–2 and the Zapatistas, 137

PRD, 51, 160, 161 PRI, 48–50, 53, 54, 55, 62, 82, 107 clientelism, 50 co-optation, 49 corruption, 55 factions in, 50 PRM, 48 PRONASOL, 47, 50 propaganda, 20, 63 psychoanalysis, 15–7 Rajchenberg, Enrique S., 83 Ramona, Comandante, 142, 162 rationalism, 9, 10, 24, 43, 155 rationalization, 9, 10 Ratnam, K. J., 20 Reforma newspaper surveys, 97, 186–8, 191–2, 195, 199, 203, 208–10 Rein, Raanan, 46 religion,8, 9, 19, 24, 58, 115, 146; see also liberation theology representation, 6, 19, 23, 30, 95, 97, 107, 108, 114, 115, 128, 154, 157, 174–5, 181 revolution, 6, 10, collective, 173 influence of the traditional left, 154 relation between the revolutionaries and the people, 156 Revolution before the revolution, 108 Rico, Maite, 90, 91, 97, 111, 140 Rieff, Philip, 13 Riesebrodt, Martin, 8, 12 Romero Jacobo, César, 2–3, 169 Ronfeldt, David F., 93, 140 Ross, John, 88, 147 Rubin, Jeffrey W., 140 Rufino Echenique, José, 44 Ruiz García, Bishop Samuel, 58 Ruíz Massieu, José Francisco, 50 Sabsay, Fernando L., 45 Saldaña-Portillo, Maria Josefina, 110 Salinas, Carlos, 47, 50, 54, 55, 80, 107, 122

Index 269

San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture, 81 San Cristóbal, Diocese of, 57, 91, 148 San Salvador Atenco, 60 Santa Cruz, Andrés, 44 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 44 Sartre, Jean Paul, 96 Scherer García, Julio, 144–5 self-determination, 112, 180 September League, 59 shamanism, 8, 23, 151–2 Shils, Edward, 18 Shining Path Movement, 59 Sigal, Silvia, 116 SLOP, 58, 65, 148 Smith, David Norman, 12 Sohm, Rudolph, 12–3 Solano López, Francisco, 44 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 44 Spanish Basque Party, 176 Stavans, Hans, 2 Stephen, Lynn, 85 Stone, Oliver, 96 succession, 11, 173 Tamarin, David, 117 Tello Díaz, Carlos, 140 Third Encuentro of the Zapatistas People with the People of the World, 87 Torfing, Jacob, 129 Tormey, Simon, 174–5 Trejo, Guillermo, 60 Trejo Delarbre, Raul, 89, 147, 153 Turrent, Isabel, 150 UNAM, 3, 55, 78 Unión del Pueblo, 58, 61 UU, 57 Vanden Berghe, Kristine, 116, 124, 140 vanguard politics, 6, 30, 61, 63, 108, 114, 119, 138, 139, 153–63, 176 Vargas, Getúlio, 46 Vásquez Montalbán, Manuel, 96 Venezuela, 44, 157 Verón, Eliseo, 116 Vincente Gómez, Juan, 44

Wagner, Valerie, 155, 172 Weber, Max, 6, 7–14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 43, 139 and charismatic authority, 8–14 interdependence between the individual and the group, 11, 26 political agency, 13 political typology, 8–13 Weinberg, Bill, 112 Wiarda, Howard J., 40 Willner, Ann Ruth, 18 Willner, Dorothy, 18 World Bank, 54 WTO, 92 Yañez, César, 61 Yañez, Gérman, 61, 65 Yrigoyen, Hipólito, 117 Zapata, Emiliano, 28, 49, 56, 63, 84–5, 86, 87, 124, 148 Fusion with Votán, 85 Zapatista Army, 4, 61–3, 144 Zapatista Ley Agraria, 57 Zapatista Movement, appeal to Mexican revolutionary history, 83–6 armed revolutionary struggle, 108–9 audiences of, 94–100 autonomous communities, 82 autonomy, 107 and civil society, 107–9 and class struggle, 86, 106, 111 credibility, 77, 80, 97, 100 critiques of, 112, 162 and decentralization, 107, 154 and democracy, 109–10 effectiveness of, 112, 161, 178 emergence of, 28, 51–66 and Emiliano Zapata, 84–5 Encounters for Humanity, 87 formation of, 51–66 and globalization, 92–3 humanism, 112 and identity, 110–12, 129, 174–5 inclusiveness, 112 Indigenous character of, 106, 169 influence of, 112

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Intercontinental Indigenous Encounter, 84, 87 internationalism, 93 leadership of, 140 legitimacy of, 80–8 levels of operation, 107 moral dimension of, 125 and media, 88–94 and non-definition, 156, 160 political goals, 100, 105–112, 129 political ideas of, 29, 160, 178 political impact of, 81 as post-modern, 106 principle of ‘preguntando caminamos’, 126, 158 relations with the government, 81–2 responses of Mexican civil society to, 185–95

role of Marcos, 2, 5, 77, 99, 111, 138, 149, 178–9 and the role of the state, 108–9 romanticism about, 143 socio-political cause, 138 structure of authority in, 64 support for, 60–1, 81, 95–99 theatrical staging of events, 87–8 Third Encuentro of the Zapatistas People with the People of the World, 87 as a ‘third wave’ of revolutions, 106 use of symbolism, 85–8 Zapatista National Consultation, 83 Zedillo, Ernesto, 81, 150 Žižek, Slavoj, 173, 174 Zorro, 96, 171

About the Book

Can charismatic authority be used to further progressive politics without simultaneously doing damage? Is it possible for a movement with a charismatic leader to achieve an egalitarian society? Tracing the history of Mexico's Zapatista movement and the emergence of its controversial masked spokesman, Subcommandante Marcos, Daniela di Piramo investigates the implications of these questions. Di Piramo's important distinction between charisma as an individual attribute and charismatic authority as a form of political power is reflected throughout her study. Following Marcos's public trajectory, she focuses not only on how the leader has used his personal appeal to draw international attention to the Zapatista's plight, but also on how the constant spotlight on him has sometimes eclipsed the larger political agenda. Her work is both a significant biography and a penetrating exploration of the nature of charismatic political leadership in Latin America. Daniela di Piramo is lecturer of politics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

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