There is a particular urgency, a particular painful, heart-wrenching yearning for CHANGE/CAMBIO in Chiapas.
There is no place in the Americas that has been so fucked-over by colonialism and then capitalism and then capitalism on steroids. It is no accident that what could be a world uprising, began here - just as it was no accident that Yashewah ben Yosef began his uprising when he did - became the ultimate revolutionary/heretic that he is.
Whenever I arrive at a new city I search for a good fellafel café. On the second day here in San Cristobal I found it nearly across the street from my posada. It is a community center for Israelis and wandering Jews.
While reminiscing about Jerusalem it struck me. There are uncanny, quantum, synchronistic, parallels between the old city of Jerusalem and the old city of San Christobal de las Casas - both now and 2,000 years ago.
Its something about the light on the buildings´, the churches´ old stones, the way the light penetrates the sky, mixes with the thinning tropical air. And there is the tens of thousands of Mexican soldiers armed with the biggest, bad-est, guns that the U.S.A. can make and provide. This gives an ambiance that must be similar to Roman-occupied Judea 2,000 years ago.
From the moment I arrived there were the rumors. Marcos with an army of 5,000/10,000/20,000 Zapatista soldiers was coming. And he/they were really pissed-off.
Some tourists left. But most stayed in excited expectation.
There are even more Mexican Army than there was in 1997, and there were a lot in ´97. It is a very nervous military presence. It became even more nervous as the new year approached.
When the Zapatista Army broke out of the Lacondon Jungle on December 31, 1993 and occupied San Christobal on January 1, 1994 it took the army, the government totally by surprise. Military careers were ruined. It wasn´t going to happen again.
On the night of Thursday, December 30 the Mexican Army began patrolling the streets and the periphery of the old city. The high state of preparedness continued all of Saturday. But by midnight and the beginning of the new year the soldiers relaxed, shared in the celebration. By Sunday morning the Mexican Army disappeared from the streets.
A deal had been made.
People began gathering at the central plaza by early afternoon. The central plaza was decorated with sickles and hammers, banners with business-as-usual Marxist-Leninist slogans. Behind the speakers podium was a mural with Zapata in the center and a skeleton manifesting capitalistic death-in-life.
On the north side of the plaza were images that sent chills up the spines of Sebastian, a new friend from Slovakia and me. Along with the images of Carlos Marx, Frederico Engels, and Vladimar Lenin was that of Jose Stalin. The high priests of the murderous creed that fortunately failed.
That which is happening in Chiapas is a new thing under the sun. It is new wine. It comes from this intense, heart-wrenching, yearning for change - not only of the political, social, economic circumstances of the indigenous campesinos of chiapas - but of the fundamental circumstances of the human condition - the human reality. It is what was happening 2,000 years ago in Roman-occupied Judea.
But there is a force in the Zapatista Movement that is trying to put new wine in an old bottle.
An image that was missing in the plaza was Che´s. His image is about a new bottle for a new wine. It´s true that in life he was steeped in the old bottle of Marxist-Leninism. But in death he merged with the ultimate revolutionary/heretic Yashewah ben Yosef.
Yashewah will always be betrayed, be hidden-in-plain-sight by organized Christianity. Che will always be betrayed, hidden-in-plain sight by organized Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism. But they will always blow up the old bottles. They will always be new wine.
Everybody I in any way knew, made the acquaintance of in San Christobal came to the plaza - then left the plaza when news of delays in the proceedings came - then came back to the plaza. And then around 8:30 p.m. on the primero of Enero, as a Zapatista Musician played on his guitar a song entitled ´Commandante Che Guevarra´, there were shouts of the rough Mexican equivalent of Hoseanna.
It was Marcos and his army of thousands of unarmed, masked men, women, children, old people.
Even masked Marcos is a gently, soft-spoken, avuncular, professorial man. He was proceeded on the speaker´s podium by members of the Commandancia - the 12-person committee that commands the Zapatista Army. Marcos is a sub-commandante. He is honestly humble in his public appearances with the commandantes.
Some of his words, like the words of the commandants are steeped in the old bottle of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism. But many of Marco´s words, as are many of the words of the commandantes, are new wine - not Marxist-Leninist business-as-usual.
They spoke of ´La Otra Compana´ - The Other Country.
The Other Country is the country of not-business-as-usual. There is none of the business-as-usual of social, political, economic oppression. The Other Country has no poverty. Change has come to the Other Country. The master of the business-as-usual world has been overthrown. There has been a fundamental change of the human condition - of the human reality - in the Other Country. There is what Yashewah ben Yosef calls ´The Kingdom of Heaven¨ in the Other Country.