Hedges and the Zapatistas

[alanjjohnstone]

i thought this article was interesting . It describes something i have mentioned on other threads about personalities and the media.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_all_must_become_zapatistas_20140601

Subcomandante Marcos, announced that his rebel persona no longer exists. He had gone from being a “spokesman to a distraction,” he said last week. His persona, he said, fed an easy and cheap media narrative. It turned a social revolution into a cartoon for the mass media. It allowed the commercial press and the outside world to ignore traditional community leaders and indigenous commanders and wrap a movement around a fictitious personality. His persona, he said, trivialized a movement. And so this persona is no more.

“The entire system, but above all its media, plays the game of creating celebrities who it later destroys if they don’t yield to its designs,” Marcos declared.

 

On violence and non-violence:

 "rather than dedicating ourselves to training guerrillas, soldiers, and squadrons, we developed education and health promoters, who went about building the foundations of autonomy that today amaze the world.

Instead of constructing barracks, improving our weapons, and building walls and trenches, we built schools, hospitals and health centers; improving our living conditions.

 Maybe we were wrong in choosing to cultivate life instead of worshipping death.

But we made the choice without listening to those on the outside. Without listening to those who always demand and insist on a fight to the death, as long as others will be the ones to do the dying…

…We chose rebellion, that is to say, life."

 

Although not a socialist movement (perhaps socialistic, though) the Zapatistas have IMHO been sincere and in many situations genuinely innovative and inspiring. Within the context of their circumstances and conditions, they deserve our sympathy and solidarity…

 

 

 

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