A ghost is haunting Mexico: the ghost of the EZLN

By Boris Leonardo Caro, La Zezta
– http://lazezta.blogspot.com/2006/02...

A number of Mexican news agencies have reported the statements of Luis H. Álvarez, the Mexican government’s peace commissioner in Chiapas, regarding the supposed inexistence of the EZLN as a group. Below, an article from La Jornada newspaper:

The EZLN no longer exists as a group, Luis H. Alvarez affirms
The peace commissioner for Chiapas, Luis H. Alvarez, asserted that the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) no longer exists as a group, and said that Subcomandante Marcos is seeking, with the “The Other Campaign,” to breathe new life into a group that had its time and its place.” After meeting privately with Ana Teresa Aranda, secretary of social development, he left it to the media and others who have nothing to do with his work to evaluate whether or not the EZLN is finished. He mentioned that he had met with his colleague to express to her the petitions of residents of the Chiapas highlands related to obtaining support for their housing construction needs, and dismissed the idea that resources are lacking for meeting that demand.

To judge by the opinion of Luis H. Álvarez, the EZLN’s Other Campaign is a desperate and personal attempt by Subcomandante Marcos, disguised as Delegate Zero, to resuscitate an anachronistic, if not dead, movement. Marcos, following this line of thought, would be a Don Quijote on the other side of madness, unarmed and without any windmills, completely alone in the middle of a country that looks on him with little more than indifference. In short: a ghost.
Although it seems incredible, Mr. Alvarez has asserted it: the EZLN is a ghost...that is terrifying the traditional Mexican political class.
No doubt, the most careful readers of the Sixth Declaration of Lacandona have been Mexico’s political elites. They have understood that the message goes directly against their hegemony, against the ideological domination they have wielded over Mexican society.
To date, their strategy has been quite passive: lukewarm recognition and expressions of approval for the start of The Other Campaign; some scattered statements regarding the virtual insignificance of the Zapatistas’ latest effort. Both reactions do little to hide a growing concern over what is happening along the path of the EZLN caravan.
The disquiet is growing as the elections draw near. Beyond the specific weight that the impact of The Other Campaign could have on the outcome of the July elections, the EZLN is questioning the very pillars of Mexico’s political system. Above, in the electoral festivities, the aspiring residents of Los Pinos have begun to feel a quaking beneath their feet, in the foundations of the “house.”
The Sixth Declaration’s proposal is essentially anti-hegemonic. We will point out just some of the points that hold up this affirmation:
- subversion of the traditional rituals of the old political parties: “We are going to listen and to speak directly, without intermediaries or mediation, with the simple, humble people of the Mexican nation,” affirms the last Zapatista proclamation. This is the inversion of the usual conditions under which contact is made between the political class and society. The EZLN’s way is based on “listening;” rather, of being situated on a plane of total equality with its interlocutors. Press reports regarding Other Campaign events confirm this method that is so different, and so true, of holding dialogue.
Building “FROM BELOW AND FOR BELOW,” the Sixth declares, meaning on the basis of complete horizontalness. Not the politicians haranguing, alone and only from the platform, potential voters in order to convince them of the qualities of their future government; rather, everyone on the same level, all with the same right to speak, freely. No promises aimed at a some future that history has shown, especially in Mexico’s case, to be a forgetful, treacherous one; rather, a convergence of ideas to build from within the present.

- a questioning of representative democracy: the EZLN has criticized what could described as party-based opportunism; that is, parties approach the electorate only during election time. Thus, the exercise of the Mexican citizenry’s political rights would be effective only during election time. Meanwhile, the running of the country remains in the hands of a caste of officials whose connection to voters is sporadic and marginal.
The Other proposes a different relationship: “another way of doing politics, one that once again has a spirit of serving others, without material interests, with sacrifice, with dedication, with honesty, that keeps its word, with its only pay being the satisfaction of duty being done.” In addition to a revolutionary ethic, this is a shot fired at the party system, in which voters are fought over with knives, as though they were part of a slaughtered animal.
- taking on capitalism, with a particular emphasis on its current neoliberal mask: declaring oneself anti-capitalist is the same as putting oneself on the blacklist of the circles of economic power (and their political ramifications) that rule the planet. It is the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandona’s most frontal, clear and all-embracing proposal. To be anti-capitalist means to take the side of the immense mass of exploited people that unhappily inhabit the world; the side of those “enjoy” the qualities of the system, happy prisoners of consumerism and alienation, always on the verge of being vomited by those who are now seducing; on the side of the absolutely excluded, those who only have their lives to lose, and everything to gain.

With these as its components, The Other constitutes a threat to the tranquility of Mexico’s political class, inside and outside of Los Pinos. A ghost that is haunting the land of Juárez, Villa and Zapata, terrifying all of those who would like to keep living off deceit, on the backs of the Mexican people.