Subcommander Marcos

Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, better known by his nom de guerre Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, and since May 25, 2014 Subcomandante Galeano or Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano (Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, June 19, 1957), is the main ideologue, spokesman, military commander and one of the leaders of the Mexican indigenous armed group Zapatista Army of National Liberation. The armed group made its public appearance on January 1, 1994, by launching a military offensive that attempted to take seven municipal seats in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, demanding "democracy, freedom, land, peace, and justice » for indigenous communities.

Subcomandante Marcos is distinguished by his literary and intellectual skills and his handling of the mass media. Since January 1994, thanks to his communiqués, initially published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and later on the EZLN blog, his image (his face always covered by a ski mask) has traveled the world as symbol of resistance.^{[citation needed]}

About his name, which is not an acronym as some have suggested, Marcos himself says:

Mark is the name of a fellow who died, and we always took the names of those who died, in this idea that one does not die, but is still in the struggle.

Subcomandante Marcos

Biography

On February 9, 1995, the Mexican government declared that it knew the identity of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, whom it identified as Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente (Tampico, June 19, 1957), a former student of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and professor at the Xochimilco Unit of the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) of Mexico City. Rafael Guillén is the brother of Mercedes Guillén Vicente, who remains an active member of the PRI and has held prominent positions of responsibility in the state of Tamaulipas.

Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente is the son of Alfonso Guillén (originally from Xicoténcatl) and María del Socorro Vicente González (from Tampico), and is the fourth of eight children. Between 1963 and 1969, he studied at the Félix de Jesús Rougier College, directed by the Eucharistic Missionaries of the Holy Trinity. Between 1970 and 1976, he studied with the Jesuits at the Tampico Cultural Institute. After leaving his hometown, he went to live in Mexico City to study at the UNAM Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. He graduated in philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), with thesis work Philosophy and education: discursive practices and ideological practices: subject and historical change in official textbooks for primary education in Mexico . He later began working as a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. During a brief stay he lived in Spain, specifically in Barcelona, where he worked in the El Corte Inglés department store.

In March 1992, he gave a lecture on the Free Trade Agreement to the Association of Sales and Marketing Executives. He then affirmed that it was still possible for the country to express itself "with a thunderous cry demanding justice" and that hopefully Mexicans could get up one morning "without the need for a mask to live and love." Like many people of his generation, Marcos was affected by the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968 and joined a Maoist organization, later joining Zapatismo. ^{[citation needed ]}

However, the encounter with the indigenous movements of Chiapas transformed his ideology and brought him closer to more communitarian revolutionary visions. Other ideas that he has exposed in his speeches and actions are more related to the Marxist ideals of the Italian Antonio Gramsci, very popular in Mexico when he was studying at the university. ^{[citation needed ]}

On Sunday, May 25, 2014, at the press conference held in homage to José Luis Solís Sánchez, "Galeano", a Zapatista murdered on May 2 of that same year in the community of La Realidad by a group of paramilitaries from the Historical Independent Central of Agricultural Workers and Peasants (CIOAC-H), Subcomandante Marcos announced the disappearance of the character. He argued his withdrawal as the end of one stage and the beginning of a new one within the Zapatista struggle: ^{[citation needed ]}

Signer at the entrance to the area of influence of the EZLN

...that there was already a generation that could look at us, that could listen to us and speak to us without expecting guidance or leadership, nor pretending to submit or follow up.

Subcomandante Marcos has always denied being Rafael Guillén; His family says that he has always ignored his whereabouts and they will never say if Marcos and Rafael are the same person. In the letter published on May 25, 2014, he mentions that the person behind the character was a teacher who appears in photos at his parents' wake. In the Great March to Mexico City in 2001, Marcos visited the UAM and the UNAM, during his speech he made it clear that he had been there before.^{[citation needed]}

Ideology

From the beginning of the uprising, he clarified to the press that the EZLN is not Marxist, and in interviews he has declared that he is more influenced by the Mexican intellectual Carlos Monsiváis than by Karl Marx. His vision is anti-capitalist, but he refuses to propose or seek a global solution to all the problems facing the dispossessed sectors, and tries instead to unite all the struggles that are already taking place without trying to impose a particular vision or methodology.. In addition to Emiliano Zapata, he has also expressed admiration for the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. ^{[citation needed ]}

According to his own accounts (confirmed by government versions), Marcos arrived in Chiapas with some other comrades after having been a member of the National Liberation Forces for several years. He arrived promoting Maoist theory, but the encounter with the indigenous movements of Chiapas transformed his thinking, and he placed the indigenous communities at the center of his praxis and discourse. His result was closer to the theories of structuralist Marxism than to his original intentions, although even from his undergraduate thesis he showed theoretical influences from Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, among others. Other ideas that he has expounded in his speeches and actions are more related to the themes and concerns of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, popular in Mexico when he was studying at the university.^{[citation needed ]}

His elliptical, ironic and romantic style can be a way of distancing himself from the painful circumstances he reports and protests. But be that as it may, his voluminous writings serve a purpose, as described in the book Our Weapon Is Our Word, where many of his writings, articles, poems, speeches, and epistles were compiled.^{[citation required]}

In December 2004, he announced the publication of the book Inconvenient Deaths, written together with crime novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II and published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada; It consisted of twelve installments where a scrutiny of the national political life is made. The book was initially going to be written with Manuel Vázquez Montalbán but, after his death in 2003, this was no longer possible. It was published in Spain by Destino publishing house in April 2005.^{[citation required]}

Mark in his own words

Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, Asian in Europe, Chicano in San Ysidro, anarchist in Spain, Palestinian in Israel, the man who faced a column of tanks, in Tiananmen, indigenous in the streets of San Cristobal, chavo band in Neza, roquero in CU, Jewish in Nazi Germany, ombudsman in the Headquarters, feminist in the political parties, communist in the post-guerra

Subcomandante Marcos

Writings

A selection of Marcos' writings (in Spanish and translated into other languages)

Philosophical and political

From 1992 to 2006, he wrote more than 200 essays and stories, and published 21 books in a total of at least 33 editions, all of which amply documented his philosophical and political perspectives. The essays and stories are recycled in the books. He tends to prefer indirect expressions; his writings are often fables. Some, however, are very attached to everyday life and are direct. In a January 2003 letter to ETA, which ends with the sentence: "I shit on the revolutionary vanguards of the entire planet", Marcos has said:

We teach them [to the children] that there are as many words as colors, and that there are so many thoughts because of itself the world is for words to be born in it. That there are different thoughts and that we must respect them... And we teach them to speak with the truth, that is, with the heart.

Subcomandante Marcos

Fiction

One of her books, The Story of Colors, is a story for children that, based on a Mayan creation myth, teaches about tolerance and respect for biodiversity.^{[citation required]}

With Paco Ignacio Taibo II, he wrote Inconvenient Dead, a four-handed novel, published in installments in 2005, initially in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. It addresses the differences between the city (Mexico City) and the countryside.^{[citation required]}

Recent Years

The Other Campaign (2006)

Main article: The Other Campaign

Marcos en La Otra Campaña (febrero 2006, Oaxaca)

On January 1, 2006, Marcos, now Delegate Zero, began a tour in all 32 Mexican states to promote The Other Campaign. In it, he seeks to listen to the Mexican people, to those who are organized and to those who are not, "to all those who from below and to the left seek to change the current state of society", always governed by certain principles, such as: anti-capitalism, horizontality, equity and several more that the movement itself will define in its path.

The nature of this initiative implies distance from the three most important political parties in Mexico and their candidates for the presidency, and made it clear that the project of building a new country does not involve supporting this or that candidate, but for their own fight.

The electoral process has already begun and someone will come to tell them that if they support it they will solve everything. We come to them to say that we will not solve absolutely anything or come to them to bring solutions, but problems, and the invitation to join with the companions who are standing up in other parts of the country to build the new Mexico.

About the political class, It has been mentioned that the PAN "is today led by the far-right organization El Yunque, it is the nostalgia for the burning of the ballots for the 1988 election and the co-government with the PRI", of the PRI "the creator of the party system of State, that of the imposition of neoliberal policies that have destroyed the foundations of Mexico", by Roberto Madrazo, whom he describes as a "shameful and criminal thief", of the PRD "the party of tactical errors", by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "the image of Carlos Salinas de Gortari built by AMLO is, in reality, a mirror". About President Vicente Fox Quesada, who has "delivered to the businessmen all the money he raised to help [for the victims of Hurricane Stan], while the humble people are still waiting."

The most anticipated visit, without a doubt, was the one he made to Tampico where he began his speech saying

Good evening, Tampico, capital of the world and sky branch. We want to ask you a moment when you open your hearts and ears to hear the word we bring.

Subcomandante Marcos

Atenco riots (2006)

On May 3, 2006, the Texcoco municipal police tried to expel flower vendors from the Belisario Domínguez market. Inhabitants of San Salvador Atenco supported the Texcoco protest. A day of violence began that ended with a multitude of deaths. Among them identified (Javier Cortés Santiago and Alexis Benhumea), rapes of women, hundreds of detainees and several disappeared. As a result of these events, the EZLN, via Delegate Zero, declared a red alert and indefinitely suspended the tour of The Other Campaign, demanding the unconditional and immediate release of all the prisoners.

Subcomandante Galeano (2014)

On Monday, May 26, 2014 at 02:00 a.m. m., Marcos appeared in front of some of the media, in the La Realidad community, in Chiapas. There he would announce the end of the character "Subcomandante Marcos" to make way for "Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano", in homage to the Zapatista named Galeano, assassinated a short time before.

Later, the same communiqué would be published on the “Enlace Zapatista” website. Through the statement entitled "Between light and shadow", Marcos explains the decision. Among other things, he says: "We think it is necessary for one of us to die for Galeano to live." Marcos' first public appearance as Subcomandante Galeano was on August 10, 2014, in a statement on paid media. In addition to the ski mask, he wore an eyepatch.

Interviews with Subcomandante Marcos

• With La Jornada (1994)
• In Desinformemonos.org (1994)
• With Ricardo Rocha (1994)
• With Radio UNAM (1994)
• With Santo Biasatti (1995)
• With Juan Gelman (1996)
• With Jorge Ramos (1996)
• With Nettie Wild (1996)
• With Kerry Appel (1997)
• With Marta Duran de Huerta (1999)
• With The Associated Press (1999)
• With the BBC (2001)
• With Carlos Monsivais and Hermann Bellinghausen (2001)
• Con Julio Scherer (2001)
• With the Ponchito (2001)
• With Carlos Loret in Primero Noticias (2006)
• In El Loco De La Colina (2006)
• With Stina Dabrowski (ca 2000)
• See also: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/category/interviews/