Background
As a young man, Subcommander Marcos was politically radicalized by the Tlatelolco massacre (2 October 1968) of students and civilians by the Mexican federal government; consequently, he became a militant in the Maoist National Liberation Forces. In 1983, he went to the mountains of Chiapas to convince the poor, indigenous Maya population to organize and launch a proletarian revolution against the Mexican bourgeoisie and the federal government. After hearing his proposition, the Chiapanecs "just stared at him", and replied that they were not urban workers, that, from their perspective, the land was not property, but the heart of the communities. In the documentary A Place Called Chiapas (1998), about his early days there, Subcommander Marcos said:
| “ | Imagine a person who comes from an urban culture. One of the world’s biggest cities, with a university education, accustomed to city life. It’s like landing on another planet. The language, the surroundings are new. You’re seen as an alien from outer space. Everything tells you: “Leave. This is a mistake. You don’t belong in this place”; and it’s said in a foreign tongue. But they let you know, the people, the way they act; the weather, the way it rains; the sunshine; the earth, the way it turns to mud; the diseases; the insects; homesickness. You’re being told. “You don’t belong here”. If that’s not a nightmare, what is? | ” |
Marcos left Mexico in the mid 1980s to Nicaragua to serve with the Sandinistas under the nom de guerre El Mejicano, and after leaving Nicaragua in the late 1980s to return to Mexico, helped form the EZLN with support from the Sandinistas and the Salvadoran leftist guerrilla group FMLN
Marcos learned the culture of the Maya civilization. After the intramural politics of the FLN, the outlook of the indigenous peasants of Chiapas, and the failure of the initial Chiapas uprising, he modified the social revolution to the actual social, political, and economic conditions of Chiapas and the people; the adaptation parallels the approach proposed by Antonio Gramsci, whose political theories are popular among Mexican intellectuals. A Place Called Chiapas presents some of the powerful political rhetoric of the Zapatistas. Subcommander Marcos addressed the camera only with his eyes and his tobacco pipe, and said, "It is our day, the day of the dead", whereby he revealed that the Zapatistas believe that he is a dead man, as are the other Zapatistas.
Read more about this topic: Subcomandante Marcos
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