Marcos, Subcomandante (1957?–)

Subcomandante Marcos, allegedly born in 1957, is one of the key leaders of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, EZLN), the indigenous guerrilla movement from the state of Chiapas, Mexico. He calls himself Subcomandante (Sub-Commander) because he is under the orders of the indigenous collective leadership of the EZLN, which is accountable to Zapatista communities. Since the first days of January 1994, when he spoke to the media to explain the uprising, Marcos has become an icon of the anti-globalization movement, comparable to what Che Guevara represented for earlier generations of activists. In Mexico he is probably one of the most respected political figures among popular classes, youth, and left-wing activists, who by the hundreds of thousands greeted him during the march of the EZLN from Chiapas to Mexico City in February 2001.

With his nonindigenous background and his knowledge of indigenous culture, Marcos has contributed to bridging the indigenous struggle with other struggles against neoliberalism in Mexico and the rest of the world. Marcos has mentioned that his contact with indigenous communities changed his views on radical social change. Indigenous communities made him reject the idea of a vanguard of trained militants leading the revolution or the idea that society can be transformed by taking over the state. Marcos has instead promoted the idea that long-term radical social change will only come from below, through the organization of civil society into self-governed political entities, where power is exercised by the grass roots.

Besides his Zapatista ideas, Marcos's main weapons have been his image and his writings. Certain elements [Page 900]of his image, such as the military uniform, the two belts of bullets across his chest, evoke previous Latin American revolutionary leaders. Other elements, such as the pasamontañas (ski-mask) that hides his civilian identity, clearly break with them. Subcomandante Marcos's writings have probably been his most effective weapon. Through communiqués—published by La Jornada, a national newspaper, and translated and distributed through a network of Zapatista supporters across cyberspace—Subcomandante Marcos responds to the government, analyzes the national and international situation, calls to action, and invites activists to national or international “encounters” in Chiapas.

Marcos's literary style also differentiates him from earlier generations of revolutionary leaders. In contrast to the solemn tone of the latter, Marcos's communiqués are often poetic and scattered with satire, quotes from literary classics, and references to popular sayings. To narrate the way his own political ideology was transformed by his contact with indigenous people, he inserts within his writings discussions with a fictitious character called “el Viejo Antonio.” To express the apparently excessive optimism of the Zapatista struggle, he dialogues with “Don Durito de la Lacandona,” another fictional character who takes the form of a beetle reminiscent of Don Quixote. At the beginning of the millennium, when revolutionary utopias seem to be in crisis, Subcomandante Marcos, by bridging the present with the past, indigenous cultures with Western cultures, has filled an important gap and inspired a new generation of activists to rethink radical social change in forms that can tackle all forms of oppression and discrimination.

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