Conversations with Durito: Stories of the Zapatistas and Neoliberalism Subcomandante Marcos Edited and introduced by Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective Autonomedia This collection is anti-copyright 2005. Texts may be freely used for noncommercial purposes; the publisher, however, would like to be informed at: Autonomedia P. O. Box 568 Williamsburgh Station Brooklyn, NY 11211-0568 http://www.autonomedia.org email: [email protected] ISBN 1-57027-118-6 Book design & typesetting: Kernow Craig Thanks to Erika Biddle, Lea Johnson, Carla Verea Hernandez, Ben Meyers Printed in Canada All rights to illustrations in this collection reserved by the respective artists: Beatriz Aurora: Love and the Calendar (p. 215); Alonso Alvarez de Araya, Off the Record: La Realidad (p. 276); Erica Chappuis: The Cave of Desire (p. 57), The Story of Dreams (p. 147), The Story of the Bay Horse (p. 152), The Seashell and the Two People (p. 226), Forever Never (p. 233), Hour of the Little Ones part 1 (p. 236), Hour of the Little Ones part II (p. 249), Hour of the Little Ones part III (p. 255), Hour of the Little Ones part IV (p. 258); John Dolley: Story of Durito and Neoliberalism (p. 41), Durito II (p. 44), Durito Names Marcos Squire (p. 64), Durito III (p.71), On Bullfighting (p. 81), Durito V (p. 95), Durito's Return (p. 99), Durito VI (p. 104), Story of the Little Mouse (p. 117), Of Trees, Transgressors (p. 120), Story of the Hot Foot (p. 138), Durito to Conquer Europe (p. 160), Durito IX (p. 176), Magical Chocolate Bunnies (p. 220), The Other Player (p. 288), Little Dented Car (p. 294), Hand that Dreams (p. 298), Apples (p. 314); Anita Pantin: Lady Civil Society (p. 164), On Liberty (p. 184); Leah Robinson: On Love (p. 144); Subcomandante Marcos: Durito On Cartoonists (p. 171); Durito Productions: Durito, Chibo (p. 111); La Jornada: Durito IV (p. 87), Hour of the Little Ones Part X (p. 261), Air and Night (p. 266); Unknown artists who posted their work to the Internet: Durito Comment on Hunger (p. 186), Durito.com (p. 286), Seven Voices (p. 196). Preface Since 1994 when they emerged as a political force in Chiapas, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or EZLN, has repeatedly addressed grassroots movements in Mexico and around the world about new forms of political action. Under an indigenous leadership, the Zapatista military commander and spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos has issued hundreds of communiqués that form a broad political discourse illuminated with poetry,humor, and storytelling. Through the forty-four stories collected here, in which the beetle and quixotic knight-errant Don Durito de la Lacandona befriends and advises Subcomandante Marcos, we learn about the shifting political terrain on which the Zapatistas struggle and about their history as an organization and movement. The political analysis and strategy embodied in the Durito stories and in the communiqués in which they appear has engaged not only Zapatista supporters, but also the broader international movement against neoliberalism and capitalist globalization. The idea for this book grew out of an earlier project that originated in Chiapas during the First Continental Encounter Against Neoliberalism and For Humanity in April 1996. Prompted by international solidarity discussions, that project assembled thirteen Durito stories in a chapbook quickly produced for circulation to those interested in learning more about the Zapatista rebellion. In 1998, as the number of Durito stories continued to grow, the Acción Zapatista Editorial Collective began work on this collection. Regrettably, the original intent to publish a bilingual volume was thwarted by the large and growing number of stories and the need to disseminate them as soon as possible. This compilation ends in 2002, but the Durito stories continue to appear regularly in the magazine Rebeldía. While most other Durito collections have excerpted these stories from the communiqués in which they originally appeared, Conversations With Durito pres- ents each one within the original Zapatista communiqué, presenting them not simply as stories, but as documents of particular moments in the Zapatista strug- gle. To further this understanding, we have supplemented the communiqués with a historical overview, brief introductions to each story, integrated footnotes and bibliographic resources. Where necessary, the footnotes include comments on translation, but primarily add critical political, historical, and cultural information. i Translation & Editing Notes The stories of Durito are some of the most literary and complex EZLN com- muniqués. Their narratives combine political critique, satire, historical debate, lit- erary seduction,and poetry,and regularly change register from elevated theoretical language to popular Mexican word play or albures, indigenous and foreign lan- guages, archaic and peninsular Spanish, and Caló (a hybrid language spoken along the U.S.-Mexico border). They are a formidable challenge to translate. Compiling and editing the stories into a cohesive collection also posed the challenge of crafting linguistic, stylistic, and narrative consistency. Most of the communiqués were originally disseminated through the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and then over the Internet. Most had previously been translated by vari- ous persons, usually in a matter of hours or days. Given the complexity of the task, our editing process consisted of two stages. Each member of the collective took responsibility for the initial edits of a story: either reviewing and revising an existing translation or creating a new one, and then adding preliminary foot- notes. This stage was followed by subsequent collective edits that incorporated discussion of footnotes, additional research, and a line-by-line translation review. We hope that our liberties with translation have made the text more fluid for the English reader while remaining true to the meaning of the original docu- ments. On the one hand, we sought to avoid interpreting the text for the reader any more than is implicit in any translation. On the other, we sought to capture the literary resonance and multi-narrative that takes place across the commu- niqués. In attempting to make them as accessible and rewarding in English as they are in the original Spanish, we have sometimes rendered the Spanish into idiomatic phrases common to English speakers. At times we chose to retain the use of some Spanish terms. In this, we were guided by three principles: 1) the terms had specific cultural and historical signif- icance that was fairly widely known, e.g., cacique; 2) there was no direct equiva- lent in English, e.g., pozole; and 3) there were poetic, metaphorical or thematic elements that would be lost in translation. A notable example of the latter is the use of vale and salud at the end of each communiqué in that these terms have a number of possible translations and interpretations. Because their function as closings was clear, but the play and emphasis impossible to determine, we chose to leave both untranslated. ii Gendered terms were also a subject of discussion, for example, the customary use of the male plural to signify both men and women. Letters are sometimes addressed to “hermanos” and at other times to “hermanos y hermanas.” Our choice was to simply translate both as “brothers and sisters.” When confronted with text quoted by Subcomandante Marcos from other writers, we tried to locate existing standardized translations of the text and pro- vide a citation for further investigation. However, there were some quotations for which we chose to provide our own translation, and others that we chose to leave in the language in which they appeared in the original. iii Preface to the Turkish edition A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the four years since November 2002 when the last conversation published in this book occurred: when Durito explained the relationship between apples and the Zapatistas. Among the Zapatistas, the reorganization and consolidation of their new social and political fabric has made it possible to give their insurrection new forms. Within Mexico and the world, the continuing and deepening breakdown of the political classes and dominant institutions has created unprecedented dangers and opportunities for the Zapatista struggles. On January 1, 2004 the Zapatistas used the celebration of their 10th/20th anniversary -10th of their uprising, 20th of their invention- to redefine themselves. “Twenty years have thus elapsed,” said Comandante Abraham. “But we are just beginning.” A new stage in that beginning was described in a report the Zapatistas presented six months later in August, 2004. They detailed to the world the nature and operations of their newly created Juntas de Buen Gobierno (JBG)1 – regional governments to coordinate activities among Zapatista autonomous municipalities. The character of these governments confirmed their usual style: they say what they do, and they do what they say. The report also revealed the impressive progress they have achieved in the tasks they set for themselves and the no less impressive obstacles they continue to face. “The indigenous villages,” observed the JBG of the Chiapas Highlands, “should organize themselves and govern themselves, according to their own ways of thinking and understanding, according to their interests, taking into account their cultures and traditions.” (La Jornada, 10-08-04). Zapatismo, the Zapatistas say, demands that communities make their decisions despite the refusal of the dominant regime to sanction their actions with new laws recognizing Indigenous autonomy. “Ours is neither a liberated territory nor a utopian commune. Neither is it the experimental laboratory of an absurdity or a paradise for an orphaned left. It’s a rebellious territory in resistance.” (La Jornada, 2-10-04). During the summer and fall of 2005, the Zapatistas initiated a new effort to bring about discussions all over Mexico about how to create a new truly democratic politics that could eventually replace the false democracy of the formal electoral system managed by professional politicians.