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From Che to Marcos the Changing Grassroots Left in Latin America

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From Che to Marcos the Changing Grassroots Left in Latin America From Che to Marcos The Changing Grassroots Left in Latin America The guerrilla is the combat vanguard of the people . armed and willing to carry out a series of warlike actions for the one possible strategic end—the seizure of power. Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare (1961) Questions and more questions fill up our nights . “Were these words the best ones to say what we wanted to say?” “Were they the right words at this time?” “Were they understandable?” Subcomandante Marcos, Shadows of Tender Fury (1994) Jeffrey W. Rubin self very quickly into a nonviolent opposition engaged in national and international debate and negotiation. He is a postmodern spokes- person—joking, sly, literary, passionate, erotic, he Guevara spoke of small, dedi- philosophical; speaking out, like Che, against cated bands that would seize power exploitation and marginalization, and naming through guerrilla action, as did Fi- unfettered free trade and, implicitly, capital- Cdel Castro. The location of power was in the ism as the enemy. capitalist economy and the state, which served But Marcos and the Zapatistas speak also the wealthy few, and these two needed to be for a new kind of democracy, a democracy that overthrown by the working class. One of takes procedure and voting seriously, which Guevara’s contributions was to put the peas- Che’s focos and Castro’s Communist Party did antry into this equation, as well as to claim that not. Che and Castro emphasized the impor- guerrilla focos, or centers, rather than organized tance of a vanguard’s leading the pueblo to revo- workers, could begin the struggle. The goals lution, and then leading in the construction of were to set up a new, collectivized, a new society. Given this scenario, democracy noncapitalist economy, to establish universal didn’t matter, and political control and repres- education and health care, and to create a “new sion were permissible and necessary. man” in a new society. The model was Cuba, In contrast, in a language new for the radi- where the U.S-supported dictator was over- cal left in Latin America, Marcos has defended thrown, a new form of political authority es- a policy of alliances within a complex civil so- tablished, and living conditions greatly im- ciety, no longer broken down into Che’s bour- proved. geois and working classes. Marcos also speaks Che is a revolutionary icon to this day. about and with Indians—a category of people When the Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora re- that barely existed, politically, for revolution- ports that a mayor in the state of Rio Grande aries of Che’s era. Correspondingly, Marcos do Sul is a leader in the Movement of Land- calls for a dual Indian-Mexican nation, based less Rural Workers (MST), the mayor is shown on concepts of citizenship and culture, with in his office with a photo of Che on the wall. no revolution of the old sort, led by an armed Rural women in Rio Grande do Sul claim Che vanguard, in sight. Citizenship and culture, like as well, evoking his vision of “new men and democracy, need to be thought about and de- women” at their 2001 state assembly. veloped, and, Marcos argues, in this process Subcomandante Marcos is the masked, the left needs to engage with the reality of dif- non-Indian leader of the Zapatistas, a Mayan ference—in class and worldview and also in guerrilla army of sorts, one that converted it- race and gender. Today in Brazil, it is the ico- DISSENT / Summer 2002 ■ 39 CHE TO MARCOS nography of Chiapas and Marcos that appears more recent decades of democratization. in the contemporary artwork of the Mercosul I will then compare the visions and strate- Biennial in Porto Alegre and in discussions at gies of the sixties and the nineties, asking what the World Social Forum (an alternative to the has been gained and what lost. Is the language World Economic Forum) in the same Brazil- of democracy, culture, and civil society a step ian city. (Che, however, dominated the T-shirt forward, or was the dream of organizing the market at the Social Forum.) masses to overthrow the state and capitalism Although separated by three decades, Che a better bet? Has Marcos trivialized revolution and Marcos faced similar societies, character- with his mask and his pipe, his humor and flir- ized by vast inequality and deprivation: hun- tations, his clever references to Radio Shack ger, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, and under- and the stars of Mexican telenovelas? Have the employment. Latin American countries are Zapatistas, along with many activist groups among the most unequal in the world, and they elsewhere in Latin America, erred dramatically have remained so through the processes of in- in thinking that through alliance with some- dustrialization and urbanization that character- thing called civil society, or through changes ized much of the twentieth century. In the face in something called culture, a system of power of turbulent political conflicts over inclusion can be transformed? and equality, both Che and Marcos operated with the broad notion that to be on the left The Mexico City Student Movement means to oppose economic inequality and pov- Like its counterparts elsewhere, the student erty and to reject political rule at the service movement in Mexico City created new forms of business or political elites. of activism that shaped the lives of a genera- However, although both Che and Marcos tion and have influenced society to the present offer visions of exploitation and transformation, day. The movement began in city high schools the futures they describe, and the means of around issues of police intervention. It spread getting there, differ markedly. How can we to high schools and universities across the na- think about the path from Che to Marcos, from tion, as a campaign against the violence of the the 1960s to the 1990s, from clandestine guer- police forces known as granaderos, the laws rilla focos to the Zapatistas’ National Demo- supporting this violence, the taking of politi- cratic Convention—where, in front of the cal prisoners, and the structure of political au- Mexican flag, they literally handed over the thority generally. struggle from the foco to the representatives Nineteen-sixty-eight in Mexico City was a of civil society? And how should we evaluate time of expansiveness and the breaking down the results of this transformation in leftist ide- of barriers—a time for forging alliances among ology and strategy? students, workers, and the marginal urban poor and challenging the political regime. Later on s someone who has lived in and writ- came the questioning of middle-class conven- ten about Mexico (and, more recently, tions, of the official history, and of the estab- A Brazil), I believe that the place to start lished artistic and literary culture. It was a time thinking about the 1960s and all that came af- of great hope, seemingly on the verge of trans- ter is Mexico City in 1968, on the eve of the formation. Students were out in the streets, in Olympic Games. I will begin there, at a quint- the plazas, on the buses, forming brigades, “go- essential 1968 moment of euphoria and possi- ing to the people.” There were movement com- bility, and then look at what followed. I will mittees at each school and heady experiences trace the Mexican path from Che to Marcos of argument, exploration, and democratic prac- and then recast my story in a broader Latin tice. There was no central leader. Families were American framework—looking at the radical drawn in, whole apartment buildings and mobilizations of the 1960s, the establishment neighborhoods. A revolution was happening— of military dictatorships, and the forms of left- not Che’s revolution—but a revolution from ist organizing that emerged under the dictator- within the system, nonviolent, driven by eu- ships and developed and changed during the phoria, conviction, and the excitement of ex- 40 ■ DISSENT / Summer 2002 CHE TO MARCOS perimentation on the ground. in the United States at the same time. The The ferment in Mexico City culminated in U.S. movement represented a militant narrow- a massacre—one of the defining moments of ing and sharpening of identity; it gained po- political repression in twentieth-century Latin litical strength by rejecting a mainstream America—at a demonstration in the Plaza of American identity and claiming a Mexican the Three Cultures at Tlatelolco. The plaza is core, sometimes labeled Aztlán. The Mexican closed off on three sides by buildings. The army onda chicana, in contrast, rejected conventional closed off the fourth side and came in shoot- Mexican nationalism—the Mexican core—to ing, on the ground and with helicopters, kill- develop a Mexican rock and roll in English, ing at least three hundred people and arrest- with the innovators often being from the north ing more than a thousand. Families had to of Mexico who brought musical and cultural search the streets, hospitals, and prisons to find influences from across the border. their children. The onda Chicana culminated in a massive The massacre at Tlatelolco had an enor- rock festival—the Mexican Woodstock—in mous impact; it was the moment that revealed Avándaro. Again, this collective action, “cul- the regime for what it was, a government shoot- tural,” not “political,” brought a repressive re- ing at its own people. This sort of state vio- sponse: the Mexican government confiscated lence was particularly significant in Mexico, the film of the festival, literally erasing it from which had experienced a revolution in the history; banned rock concerts; and prohibited 1910s and dramatic progressive reforms in the radio stations from playing rock music.
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