Transcription of the EZLN’s
Press Conference with the Free, Autonomous, Alternative Media, or whatever they
are called, on August 10th, 2014, in La Realidad Zapatista, Chiapas,
Mexico.
Part One: Words of SupGaleano
Good morning Gotham City… As
you finish taking your photos over on the stage, here we are going to begin the
press conference.
Take your seats please so that
we may now begin in a few minutes and you may go. Please make yourselves
comfortable, compañeros, compañeras. Seated.
Good morning Gotham City (that
is a greeting for a compañero who tweets like that).
That which you just saw a few
minutes ago, in military terms is called a diversion maneuver, in common terms
it is magic. And that which took a few minutes, another one was responsible for
doing it for 20 years for it to work like that.
We wanted to begin, taking
advantage of the fact that the free, autonomous, alternative media, or whatever
they are called, and compañeros of the national and international Sixth
Declaration are here, to give you thanks. And to give you thanks we are going
to tell you the story of a death.
This August 25th, 10
years will have passed since the death of Teniente Insurgente de Infantería
Eleazar. In 2004, but since 2003, he began with a disease of those that only
appear on Doctor House or things like
that, which is called Guillain-Barré, which consists of a gradual deterioration
of the whole life system until the person dies. It has no cure, it is necessary
to maintain the sick person with life-support, connected.
He began to get sick and they
took him to Tuxtla Guitérrez to a hospital. There they diagnosed him with that
and began to say that better for him to leave, that it was not serious;
although when they told me what disease it was I did know what it was a matter
of; since the doctors saw him as indigenous they knew that he was not going to
be able to pay for the treatment. In reality is a survival treatment, it has no
cure.
Let’s see if we can bring the
militants into the shade, if not they are going to get baked alive.
The patch is for you to think
that I have a glass eye, but no. Me and my damn bright ideas, now I have to
wear it.
Well, that sickness… in
Chiapas, I imagine that in the rest of the country, the position with the
patient is that the doctor calculates if it is that the person can pay for the
treatment or not. If they cannot pay, according to the doctor’s calculus, then the
doctor says that the person has nothing or they give them a few placebos for
them to think that they are going to heal and send the person home to die.
We said no. We began to spend the
war fund or resistance fund, until we could no longer sustain it. We then
turned to, I am talking about 2003 when a certain sector of the artistic
intelligentsia still cared about us, to ask them for support to continue
keeping this compañero alive. They laughed at us, that is the indigenous can
get sick with smallpox, measles, typhoid, with all those things, but not with a
disease that is so aristocratic, let’s say, because only happens to one in millions
of cases, like Guillain-Barré syndrome.
When we could no longer sustain
him we took Teniente Eleazar to Oventic and there with the apparatuses that we
could acquire we kept him alive, until on August 25th, 10 years ago,
he died.
Ten years later, with the
disgrace of the murder of compa Galeano, the school and clinic which were
autonomous, that is were of the Zapatistas from here in La Realidad, were
destroyed by the paramilitaries from the CIOAC-Histórica. And for the
reconstruction we did not go to ask for the support of those people, but rather
we went to the people from below, to our compañeros, compañeras, and
compañeroas of the national and international Sixth Declaration.
Compañero Subcomandante
Insurgente Moisés, present here, with Comandante Tacho, together with the
Zapatista authorities from La Realidad, made a calculus of the material,
together with the compañeros who know about construction, and calculated 209
thousand pesos and change. The calculus that we did is:
Well, as the crew is screwed,
there scraping what can maybe come to be half and the other half we can take
from the resistance fund or we’ll ask for support from the other Caracoles.
The story of what happened you
know because you are the protagonists. And by you I refer not only to those who
are here, but to those who through you found out what is happening here, that
is our compañeros, compañeras, and compañeroas
of the Sixth Declaration and the whole world. They exceeded fivefold, already
the last count quintupled that request for support.
We wanted to give you thanks
for that, because never before has the EZLN received so much support and that
support was superior to support from the haves. Because we know that the compañeros
of the Sixth Declaration did not give what was left over, but what they were
lacking. We were reading in the free media, in their twitters, and in their
facebooks, stories which fill us with pride.
We know that many battled even
to acquire the money to come here, they even scraped by each day to put
something in their mouths, or to change their—I was going to say underwear—
whatever they use, and however they make the effort to acquire this and give a
demonstration of what support among compañeros is and not the charity that
comes from above.
So the first thing that I want
you to tell the compañeros and compañeras from around the world, in their tongues,
languages, ways, times, and geographies, is thank you, truly. You have given a
beautiful lesson, not only to those people who there above give out charity, to
the governments who abandoned their obligations and in addition promote
destruction, but also have give a beautiful lesson, the most beautiful that we
have received in the past years since the Sixth Declaration came out, to us,
the Zapatistas.
The meaning of this press
conference was to fulfill a must. Originally this press conference was going to
be in Oventic, when the exchange with the Indian peoples was going to be, and
then it was going to be when compañero Galeano’s funeral, the homage that is.
And it was principally the last words or the goodbye of Subcomandante Marcos
and the first words of the Subcomandante Insurgente, now Galeano, then he was
going to be called something else.
And it is important that I tell
you, what was going to be, or rather how it had been thought, to propose to you
another possible reading of what the homage for Galeano was and this transit
between death and life which was the disappearance of the late Subcomandante
Insurgente Marcos, whose nose the devil is wrenching, that yes, a handsome man,
whatever it may be for each one. That was sarcasm, I don’t know if… I still can
distinguish those things.
Look, compañeros, to understand
what happened in the pre-dawn hours of May 25th it is necessary to
understand what had happened before, what was going to be. I had read and heard
interpretations more or less correct, the majority of them completely preposterous,
as for example, that everything was a trick to elude family pension or
paternity.
But the majority left out
everything that had happened for example, it was circulated that the Zapatistas
said that the paid media did not exist, that now they were the enemy, that it
was an action against the paid media, etc. But if they have a little bit of
memory, in the original invitation, the event was open for all, when it was in
Oventic. It means that also the paid media was going to enter.
What was going to happen then
is that Marcos was going to die and was going to say goodbye to the paid media,
to explain how we saw them then, to give them thanks and going to turn to and
introduce himself to the free, alternative, autonomous media, or whatever they
are called. I mean with this that a possible reading, maybe it is not the most
correct, the thing in the pre-dawn hours of May 25th, 2014 means
that the EZLN is changing interlocutors, and that is why I tell you the story
of the late Teniente Insurgente de Infantería Eleazar, war veteran, who fought
in 1994.
Yes, we the Zapatistas not only
have not said that the paid media does not exist, since someone out there said
that stupidity, what is happening is something else with the paid media, which
has nothing to do with us and has to do with this advance of capitalism at the
global level.
The paid media has presented
something which is marvelous within capitalism, because it is one of the few
times where we see that capitalism turns non-production into a commodity.
Supposedly the work of the media is to produce information, circulate it in a
way that it is consumed for its distinct publics or receivers, and capitalism
has achieved the media charging for not producing, that is to say, for not
informing.
What has happened in the past
years is that with the advance of the mass media not in private possession,
that is which is in dispute or quarrel, or which are like a battleground such
as the internet, the traditional press has gone along losing power, power of dissemination
and of course, communication ability.
I have here some information
and I am going to cite the author because he asks that each time his information
is used that he be cited, which is Francisco Vidal Bonifaz, he does an analysis
of the printing of the principal newspapers in Mexico (note: probably the
speaker is referring to the book “Los Dueños del Cuarto Poder,” editorial
planeta, where the author, Francisco Vidal Bonifaz does an exhaustive analysis
of the press in Mexico. In that book and in the blog “La Rueda de La Fortuna—ruedadelafortuna.wordpress.com—,
that information can be found, as well as the printing of each publication, the
economic and educational status of its readers, etc. The book and the blog are recommendable
for anyone who wants to know more with regard to the Mexican press in-depth.
Note courtesy of “The Third Compas”). The principal newspapers in Mexico, in
this sort of inverse provincialism which the chilangos have, they consider
national newspapers those which are produced in Mexico City, even if the
printing of those which there are in the states is greater.
In 1994 more than one million
copies were printed, sometimes in a more then figurative sense, among the
principal newspapers. In 2007 the production had fallen to 800 thousand, the
number of readers also has diminished scandalously. In one way or another
investigative journalism and analytical journalism, which is the terrain which
would have allowed the paid media to compete with the instantaneous information
which is possible via internet, was abandoned and left aside.
The paid media—in reality is
not an insult, it is a reality, it is a media which lives off payment, no?
Someone says, “now, it’s that paid media sounds very strong, very bad, better
to use commercial media.” Commercial media sounds worse than paid media.
The newspapers do not live off
circulation, that is off the sales of their material, they live off advertizing.
So to sell advertizing they need to demonstrate who they are directed at and
who their readers are to the one who is going to buy advertizing. For example,
if it says, “this is the information up to 2008 because later all the
newspapers closed-off information on themselves,” El Universal and Reforma came
to 70% of all the advertizing which is paid in Mexico City, the rest, 30% was
fought for among the remaining newspapers.
So each newspaper has a
profile, let’s say, of their reader, a class to which it is directed, their
education level, all that, and it is what is presented to the one who buys the
advertizing. That is to say, if I am El Despertador Mexicano and my principal
consumer is indigenous people then I sell an advertizing space to Speedy
Huarache for him to sell huaraches, or pozol, or whatever it may be.
Nothing more than all the print
newspapers, including those which call themselves left-wing, present in their
analysis the profile of their reader, all, absolutely all, have between 60 and
70% of their readers in the classes with high purchasing power. The only ones
that recognize that their readers are of low purchasing-power are Esto,
Ovaciones, and La Prensa. All the remaining newspapers are directed to the
upper class, let’s say, or those from above.
It is evident that the class
with the greatest purchasing power can access information in a more
instantaneous manner. Why wait to see what is going to happen, what is
happening elsewhere in the world, for the newspaper to come out, if in that
instant I can know what is happening in Gaza, for example? Why am I going to
wait for the newscast or to read it if I can see it right there?
There is no terrain for
competition because the super-speed in these means of communication makes the
exclusives or the scoops on a news-item go up in smoke in the face of
competition of this velocity. So all those media groups, including the
progressive ones, are fighting for the rating, that is, for that upper-middle
and upper class public, there is another class which is extremely rich, which
is above everything, I believe that they are the ones who produce information.
The paid media only has two
options to survive, because they are paid. Or they contract their survival with
those who still can pay, that is the political class, which does their
commercials or their propaganda but in another sense, even if you see the rates
which each newspaper puts for a full-page spread, half page, three quarters,
even the unit as they call it, which is the smallest one, there is a special
rate for non-commercial publications, which are the government ones, and
another rate for miscellaneous items, which are for example interviews, which
no one understands what they are doing in a newspaper because no one is interested
in what such people are going to say, it’s that they pay. The highest rates are
the non-commercial, that is those which the government pays, and the miscellaneous
items, the paid insertions disguised as information.
The other option that they had
was to develop investigative and analytical journalism which the internet did
not offer. It did not offer it until spaces appeared like what we today refer
to as free, autonomous, alternative media (etcetera I am now going to say,
because that’s killing me). What could indeed have been done is that, from what
is happening from the information that flows hastily, an analysis could have
been done, a dissection, what there is behind could have been settled and
investigated, for example, of the Israeli government’s policies in Gaza or of
Manuel Velasco’s politics in Chiapas, or like so anywhere.
No one with a minimum standard
is informed about what is happening through the newspapers. You are a bad
example because you are not upper-middle nor upper class, well, if you were you
would not be here. That is the common-folk say, “no, well I want to find out
what is happening in Chiapas, I am going to read the profound
investigative-journalistic analysis of Elio Enriquez.” No one does it.
No one says, what is happening
in Gaza? I am going to read Laura Bozza for her to tell me how she is
explaining it.” No, that terrain has been completely abandoned, in exchange it
is through blog pages where this terrain is being covered.
This languid disappearance or
retreat of the paid media is not the responsibility of the EZLN, of course nor
is it the responsibility of the late SupMarcos. It is the responsibility of the
development of capitalism and this difficulty to adapt. The paid media are
going to have to evolve and turn into entertainment media, that is to say, if I
cannot inform you at least enjoy yourself with me. If analytical and
investigative journalism does not influence elsewhere, which any reporter who
is honest, in a paid media, can tell you, “no, well it’s that they will not
publish that for me;” and the newspaper makes more from not publishing that
type of article than for publishing them.
This is what I told you that
non-production becomes a commodity, in this case silence. If a moderately
decent journalist and one with a minimal standard of ethics does an
investigation about the involvement of the state governments of Salazar
Mendiguichía, Juan Sabines Guerrero, and Manuel Velasco with the
CIOAC-Histórica, it would come out that there is a great deal of money moving
there, including that which Ms. Robles from the national campaign against
hunger gives out.
But it sells better to not
publish that article than to publish it, because who is going to read it, are
the enemies of those patriotic heroes going to read it? In exchange shutting-up
and better to talk about how good the capital Tuxtla Guitérrez has become with
the urbanistic works that Toledo, who is the municipal president, is doing, and
Manuel Velazco, that does sell even if it is pure lies. We check the twitters
of the journalists, they are paid journalists, well they work in paid media,
but who are informing about this, about the image of war that the capital of
Chiapas presents due to these completely outdated and absurd works that they
are doing.
But for example, people come who
are from Veracruz, I think that those people would say, “good, well it’s that
we in order to know what is happening in Veracruz we read the Heraldo de
Xalapa—if it’s that it exists.” You are going to say, “Hey, quit fucking around
Sub, why are you here if they have no relation.”
So the problem that all of us
in the world, if not even information, the analysis, nor investigation are
there already in the media, if it’s that they once were, then where are we
going to find them. There is an empty space then in the mediatic space which is
in dispute.
What was also intended to be
indicated in that goodbye is that in the media which had so much taken pride in
themselves for creating characters, they took pride, for example, in having
created Marcos, although since then they have strived to create characters and
not only do they not manage to construct an international character, much less
national, even if they are paid, like with López Obrador.
It cannot be. Right now the characters
have arisen, they have affected or moved information at the national level somewhat,
they do not originate from the media, rather they exist in spite of it. I do
not know if I am going to pronounce it right, Julian Assange, who with the
revelation of all the documents demonstrated to the media at the global level
that they were not informing on what was happening and who became a model.
Although he is part of a collective the media works around him. There is even a
movie about him as a character, although we all know that it is a collective.
Ms. Chelsea Manning, who did an
operation to be now Chelsea Manning, and Snowden, all of them, what they have
done is reveal what is hidden and what should have been the work of the media, the
act of revealing it. But what really has disrupted the world of information are
collectives where the individual is completely diluted, like Anonymous, which right now it is said,
“it’s that nothing is known any longer about Anonymous, they no longer show themselves.” Which is absurd because
if they are anonymous why are we going to ask them to show themselves.
In sum, what we have seen is
that the anonymity of the collective is what is going on to supplement and to
put in crisis this media urge of those from above to find individualities and
personalities.
We think that it has a great
deal to do with the formation of the media. If in the paid media it is a
structure which would make any army jealous with regard to its verticality,
authoritarianism, and arbitrariness, with what is a collective media, that is an
alternative, free, autonomous, etc., is another way of working and another way
of doing.
Let’s say that in the paid
media it matters more who made the information. If you review the news that
there was in the paid media at the 20-year anniversary of the uprising, in
January of this year, the majority of the news-stories are about what the
journalists did 20 years ago, not about what happened: “I interviewed Marcos,”
“I did such interview,” I was the first who entered,” “I wrote the first book.”
What a shame that in 20 years they have not done anything else to remember.
But that is the criteria which
has weight. The exclusive. You do not know what matters so much for a
journalist and what he or she comes to do, what they do, to achieve an
exclusive. The fact of being able to have the exclusive of the last interview
with Marcos or the first with Galeano matters, has worth, even if it is not
published, because as I explained to you, silencing is a commodity and can be
sold.
In contrast I want to think
that in the collectives which you and others who could not come form a part of,
the way of working makes information matter more than who produces it. True,
there are some who still have to learn writing composition, but the great
majority rival in ingenuity, in analysis, in profundity, and in investigation
of what is occurring.
What we see is, in this
shitshow which the capitalist world is, where we acquire information. If we go
to the internet and we googleamos, as
it is said now, Gaza, well we can find that the Palestinians are a bunch of
murderers who are burning themselves just to morally destroy the Israeli army,
or vice versa. You can find whatever. Where are you going to find the
information on what really is happening? The ideal thing is for the Palestinians
to tell us what is happening, not through others.
In this case, for example, we
say, would it not be better to know what the Zapatistas are saying? Than for
someone to tell us what he thinks they should have said, it is not even what
they think we said, it is what we should have said. Like those who say that in
the text of the light and the shade, Marcos says that he is not longer going to
write, thus Galeano is not going to be able to write, although they did not
note that when everyone said goodbye, the cat-dog stays. There are many things
that can be seen there but it does not matter right now.
What we want to indicate is
that, the best information is that which comes from the actor not from the one
who is covering the news. Those who can do that are the free, autonomous, and
alternative media. What I am telling you, compañeros and compañeras and compañeroas, is a tendency, it is not
something which is going to happen right now. That is, don’t be like peacocks,
saying “now we are for real and the world depends on us.”
It is a tendency that we see
with this curse that we have of seeing things before they happen. We see that
the paid media is in frank decadence, not due to their fault, it has to do with
having embraced a political class which also goes in decadence to survive and
that is understood.
We do not criticize someone
working in the media and living off that. We do think that dignity and decency
have a limit and that there are limits which have already been passed, but that
is something of each one, we are not going to judge them. What we see is that
the problem in the paid media is survival, so their survival goes somewhere
where they are not following and they are following more the immediate.
In the long term the paid
media, as something which you buy and consume, is going to disappear. For what
do you buy the newspaper if you can consult it in the internet? But in addition
you are not going to search for information there, you are not going to find
the analysis of what is happening.
So we say, if you want to know
what is happening in Michoacán, the ideal thing would be for those from
Michoacán to tell us what is happening. We think that if the people from other
parts of the world or of the country want to know what is happening with the
Zapatistas there is at the least one space where they can find out.
I mean with this that we do not
want activists for that, activists for Zapatista communication, for that there
is the damn idea of the third media. We want listens, in other words the people
who want to find out, to find out about something truthful, or about a profound
analysis or about a real investigation, taking into account how important a
news-item or piece of information is, and not who produces it.
We see that in the long term
the free, autonomous, alternative media, is going to fill or can fill—we do not
know if they are going to do it—, can fill that empty space which is being
produced now in the exchange of information at the global level. Internet does
not feel it even though you may believe it, on the internet you can find
whatever you want, if you are in favor of something you find arguments in
favor, if you are against something right there you find the arguments against.
It is necessary then for that
information to have a space where it is accommodated, for it to be legible. And
that is, we say that broadly and in a tendency, it is the one that the
alternative, autonomous, free media, or whatever they are called, are going to
cover.
And that is what we wanted to
say when it was going to be in Oventic, that you do not have a damn idea of the
work that is coming down on you. That it is not that we’ll keep you busy that
come now to La Realidad, go now to this place, and there the third media goes,
or the fifth, how it’s going to work you, the fifth no, I thought, but it is a
grunt, so better we put third media (note: it is evident that the speaker is
affected by being one- eyed, because in reality he should have said “the third
compas” and not “the third media,” and we already sent him an energetic protest
for him to publish it in the same space and the same importance as his blunder.
Note courtesy of “The Third Compas”).
No, what is coming for you is
the hope of many people. We do not hope for you, we trust you, not just those
who are here but what you are, the tendency that you can cover that space.
The problem that we see is the
one of payment now yes. The autonomous, free, media, all that, are sustained… the
majority of the times it’s that those who go into it contribute but you have
other work, so the autonomous, free, alternative media, is like the third media
(note: blunder and protest reiterated. Sincerely “The Third Compas”), that is
each one who can functions because it is necessary to go to work, it is
necessary to dig one’s heels in to be able to get the payment. Or you last
while the cash lasts, then when the cash runs out well the media group
disappears. And it is possible for it to last, I hope it doesn’t happen like
this, when the calendar imposes its logic on the members, that is to say, when you
grow and mature, as they say there above, and stop with the craziness and
rebellions.
We think then that you have
that problem and you have to resolve it in some way, I do not know how. I see
that in some pages things now appear like advice for losing weight, how to not
age, smoothing for the skin, I don’t know what they call it, lifting, that
which is put, things like that and esotericism and shit. Yes, well the one who
sees that alternative media does not pay attention to those things and some
payment enters. Some do that, but even for them to give you that you have to
demonstrate that someone goes to your page, someone other than you.
We joked many years ago with
those who were in charge of the page before all this, who said, “no, it’s that
such communiqué has so many page visits.” I tell them, “lies, we are the ones
who are going click, click, click, click, click, but no.”
I don’t know, the same thing
that brought you to work in collective, aside from the fact that some well do
urban crafts or I don’t know what you call it, that you produce and all that,
maybe right in the collective you can find the way for that media group to not
fall, for it to be kept-up and for it to grow. You have no other way,
compañeros, I’m sorry to give you that information, but you grow or you are
going to disappear. Even those who sporadically get information, you’re left
with only that because also among yourselves that development begins to exist.
I hope that disparity of development is due to the profundity of analysis, to
the investigative ability, and whatever it may be, and not because some
resolved the payment and others didn’t.
See it there then, because
there are many people who are expecting more from you than what you imagine.
So only to clarify the summary.
The paid media exist, they are real, they have their importance, this importance
is diminishing tendentialy and what the EZLN has done is radically change its
media politics. We do not want to talk with those from above, Subcomandante
Moisés soon is going to explain that more in the question and answer session,
which consists of the Zapatista media in which we ask the questions and you
give the answers, not vice versa.
So what the EZLN has done is to
say: we no longer care about those who had to be directed through Durito, Viejo
Antonio, the paid press that is, but now we are interested in the people who
understand the very fact of a cat-dog; that recognition of difference and the
recognizing that there are things which we do not understand and not because we
do not understand them are we going to judge or condemn—like a cat-dog which
exists, you are not going to believe me but it exists, it is real.
What interests us is talking
with you and listening to you, and with that I mean the people who through you
listen to us and who through you speak with us. If we wish to know what is
happening in such place, we look first in the free alternative media, well the
information is little, but even so with it being little, it is much better than
any paid media, which in addition it is necessary to sign-up with a credit card
so you can read the Laura Bozzos that there are in each place.
What happened then which
altered this goodbye plan? That is to tell the paid media, “thank you for
what…,” although the majority of them were involuntary accomplices and in spite
of them, of what was, what you saw earlier, a diversion maneuver or an act of
magic, and warn you well now that the curse does fall upon you.
The majority of you are young.
We think that rebellion has nothing to do with the calendar, it should not have
to do with the calendar, because we see people who now are of age, they do not
have judgment well because… (inaudible), but they continue being rebellious.
And we have the hope that you shall continue, even if it is not you well, maybe
some will divide up the work, “well you go get the money and we’ll go do this,
we’ll take turns or something like that,” but, do not leave that work, it truly
is important.
What happened? Because if you
take into account this original plan where all the paid media was going to
enter, it was kept still two weeks before that it was said no, they are not
going to enter Galeano’s homage.
What happened was a death. On
this matter I only read, I’m not saying he does not exist, an article by John
Gibler, who it turns out is out there. He told of saying to someone what
Galeano’s homage had been and that person with which he spoke told him, “but
all that just for one death?,” and he tried to say well it’s that a death, he
explained to them well the best he could. And we want to tell that person how
important a death is for us.
If we let one death happen we
let two happen, if we let two happen they will be ten, then one-hundred, then
one-thousand, then tens of thousands like in the war against the supposed
drug-trafficking that Calderón did, one death was allowed to happen and later
tens of thousands were allowed to happen. With us no. We are going to die of
natural deaths or of just deaths. We say that it is struggling, but we are not
going to allow anyone, none of our compañeros and compañeras and compañeroas to
be murdered with impunity, we are not going to allow it. And we are going to
move all forces even if it is only one, or the most ignored, or the most
scorned, or the most unknown.
And the anger that we had with
Galeano, is that compañero Galeano was the one who was in charge of receiving
those from the paid press, he carried their backpacks, he took them on their
horses to where they did their interviews or made their reports, he received
them in his house and he fed them. For those who ignored and discounted his
death, and raised-up the paramilitaries as if they were heroes, victims of an
arbitrariness, well, when they arrived they did not even bother to ask what his
name was and for 20 years he was responsible for receiving them, with one of
them he even cross-bet on soccer when it was the World Cup.
We expected a reaction from
someone with whom you have a relationship like that, but they did not even know
who he was. They came to interview Marcos, they came to see Marcos, they saw
that the horse, that the gun, that if what he read, although the late Marcos
did know what books he had read. They saw all those things and it did not
matter who it was that was receiving them.
Maybe you understand that they
do not care because he was an indigenous person, that in addition he did not
even have a face, but that he fed them, carried their things, helped them on
the horse, accompanied them, told them where to step, what it was necessary to
look out for, all that. We understand that they do not care but we do care,
Galeano and each and every one of the Zapatistas. We did all this crap and we
will continue doing all that crap each time, because we are not going to allow
one death, not one is going to appear which remains unpunished.
And that’s why we changed
everything, and in the anger that we had it was that Subcomandante Moisés, why
is the one who commands now in that, said that no one from the press will
enter, and no one from the paid press entered although originally all were
going to enter.
There in that room was
compañero Galeano’s body. There is a video with the body, they are surrounded
and the compañeros are reproaching those from CIOAC for the death of Galeano.
They did not touch them compañeros, I, it is supposed that I am a controlled
being and all that, at the least would given them a push. Nothing, they are
yelling at them but they do not touch them. In any other place right there they
would have lynched them because they were co-responsible for that death and the
body was there.
There we arrive. We were in
Oventic preparing, I was rehearsing with a wheelchair, here that day I entered
on horseback, there I was going to enter in a wheelchair to fuel this idea that
I was very sick, very screwed-up, then later at the end I was going to stand up
because my knees hurt from practicing.
When we knew we came here and
we saw, and look what did not come out in the press nor is going to come out,
the one from there, leaving here, the one from there, the one from there, the
one from there, the one from there, they are the ones who were involved in the
problem and they came here to the door of the Caracol to mock the compañeros
who were closed up here so they would not be attacked, just how you are, they
were.
And they mocked how he danced,
they said of the deceased, with the bludgeons that they were giving him, they
mocked how they shot him, how they macheted him, all those things that we have
edited in the investigation because they are pains which are ours.
Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés has finished the investigation, it is not going
to be made public to avoid revenge. It is going to be turned-in to Frayba with
names and everything, we now know who it was.
We were in that situation,
compas, and we could not respond to you not even in the least because it was a dry
prairie, with a little bit, a spark, everything ignited, and it would have been
a bloodbath here. We endured and endured but we did not release that anger. We
still do not release it.
So the response, John Gibler,
is, for the Zapatistas an unjust death is too much and that is why we are
willing to do anything.
This handling of the media
imposes in inhuman, absurd logic, out of place throughout the world. Look, for
example the boys and girls in Palestine have demonstrated a great patience for
dying, because one dies and they pay no attention, and the bodies go piling up
until first the great media turns to see, and they continue dying for the image
to go out. And they continue dying for the image to be seen and well they have
to die in an outrageous, infuriating way, for the people from above to begin to
say, “hey, no, what are we doing here,” that is to do something.
Each time it surprises us
Zapatistas more what little of human there is in the humanity of above. Why is
so much blood necessary for them to say something. And then it turns out that
they qualify their position: “Yes, kill them but don’t show it because it
exposes us.”
Robert Fisk, who writes in the
Independent, from Great Britain, said in another way what we are saying: it’s
that the great media groups are in crisis because the people who read
them—which is the upper class, with high purchasing power and well-informed,
they say—are outraged that why is the media treating them like idiots trying to
present the massacre that there is in Gaza as if it were a confrontation or as
if it were Hamas’s fault. People feel insulted that is, they are not stupid
because they have money, some are, but they do have intelligence and they feel
insulted, and he recognized it in article, he said, “it’s that we are in
crisis, people no longer believe us, they don’t take us seriously, but in
addition they complain to us about it.” In other places that has been happening
for years, like here in Mexico.
This well is happening in
Palestine, about which nobody speaks, about that mortal patience of Palestinian
childhood, and we say that it is the responsibility of the Israeli government.
We always differentiate governments from peoples, we know that it is the natural
tendency, although on another occasion we have said that the problem is not
Zionism or Anti-Semitism, in any case the great heads continue saying
stupidities in that style.
We cannot say that because the
government of Israel is murderous, the people of Israel is murderous, because
then they are going to say that the Mexican people are stupid because the
Mexican government is stupid, and we, at least, are not stupid. There are in
Israel noble, conscious, honest people, we do not know many, they do not need
to be left-wing, because the condemnation of what is happening in Palestine
does not have to do with political position, it is a question of human decency,
no one can see that massacre and say that nothing is happening or that it is
someone else’s fault.
What I am explaining to you
about the crisis of the paid media and the emergency of the free, alternative,
or autonomous media, is a tendency in which in the long path of the free or
autonomous media things are going to happen to you, I did not want to tell you,
but it is necessary to tell you.
There are people who are going
to burn out say the compas, which is when someone gives up, when they leave
their work, the struggle, they say the person burnt out, it’s that they left
the struggle.
People to whom the paid media
is going to say, come over here—to eat some shit, said an associate director of
a newspaper, but they are going to pay you to eat shit—be it because they write
well, because they have good analysis, or because they frame the photo well, the
video, or whatever it may be.
And some are going to go, others
who are going to betray you, are going to say, “no, fuck no, that text is not
true, he made it up,” or whatever. And others who are going to give up. Giving
up is a phrase that the compas understand well, which means that you are on a
path and you say, “ah no, always no, this way no, better I’ll take another path.”
Almost always in this case it has to do not with leaving a job, since sometimes
someone has to work to survive, but with leaving a position with respect to
what is the handling of information, in this case of the free, autonomous, or
alternative media.
The problems that you are going
to have are money ones, that is you have to survive. Survival. That is your
problem, not only as media but also as human beings who have to eat still, no?
Although some are now overcoming it but…
What we want is for you also to
know, and through you other free media groups, is that we do recognize that
effort and sacrifice. We know that it’s a bitch to come here for someone who
has money, for someone who does not have money it is something heroic. We
recognize you, know you, know it, and salute you. Have it for certain well that
if someone is going to take into account what you are doing, it is us.
Where are we going to find the
information? In the paid media? No. In the social networks? No. In the unstable
and choppy sea of the internet? No, I tell you, you can find anything.
So there is an empty space
regarding where the information is. The means that you use now is also your
limit, it gets to more people but also is the limit because the people who do
not have medium-speed internet, I challenge you to download now one of your
pages, I like that there is another war, another uprising, and we even win the
war and the page has not finished loading. There should be a lighter version or
something like that, the Smartphone version or whatever. But the greater part
of your interlocutors, or of those who should be your interlocutors do not have
it, but this can change.
We say that in these times the
principal means of communication is the listen, that is why we refer to you as the
“listens.” There are people, I told Moi, who have the need to speak, they do
not care if anyone is listening, they have to talk and talk about whatever. But
there are people who are concerned about being heard, and to be heard they are
wagering for that message or that word to reach further.
The concern of the compañeros,
compañeras, of the CNI who came, is that they brought the task of being heard.
In contrast to the other campaign. And I remember those multiple nightmares,
the collective couch of, “thrash yourself, we’re leaving,” which was The Other Campaign,
where each one said what came to mind, it did not matter if they were listening
or not, if they were understanding or not, the idea was to get out now as it is
said, their desire. In addition it was free, imagine what that costs you in the
psychoanalyst or psychiatrist or however it is said now.
So just to tell you that the
means is also the limit and it is necessary to search. The direct source
appears now as the principal, and we say: the native peoples are the
specialists in listening. In reality I am warning you what comes with the
global festival of rebellion and resistance, that is like an urge for it not to
be the cutout of the Other Campaign’s meetings, the preparations and all that,
because those compañeros and compañeras from the native peoples are specialists
in the art of the listen, in communication for excellence.
Let the one who is being the
actor, or suffering, or exercising an action, tell you how they see it, that
does not impede there being an analysis. It is what you tell me but I see such
thing. It is the work then of the informer.
And we see too in this handling
of the of the media, beginning from the disgrace of Galeano’s death, which also
in the media there is that difference between charity and support. In the paid
media if they give you attention it is something that you must be thankful for,
and it is something that they do not forgive the Zapatistas for, “that still we
give you a hand,” they would say, “and you bite the hand that feeds you.” We do
not want to get indigestion, we spit on the hand, because also the attention of
the media is for them charity.
In contrast, for the free,
alternative, autonomous media, etc., it is not charity. It is a duty that they
are fulfilling, which they do in spite of all the difficulties that they have,
and it is what we call “a compa media.” I already know that Tacho made them into
bits, that is why we are taking out the idea of the third compas, then (note:
now the speaker did say it correctly. Sincerely “The Third Compas”).
But that is the difference
between a paid media group and a compa media group. It is not that one has money,
or charges, or not. The difference is in that for some we are a commodity, be
it that they talk about us or that they do not talk; and for others we are a
space of struggle like the one that they have and as there are thousands in all
corners of the world.
In yesterday’s event which was
open to the press, only three journalists came, four, one was one of the three
viscounts who slandered Galeano’s death, that one did not enter. The other
three: there was one from Proceso, one who does work in press on the southern
border, and another who works with Aristegui. As of now only the one from Proceso
has been published, but no other media group came, I don’t know if it’s
something like Paquita la del barrio, out of spite, whatever it may be then.
Or how many deaths, because it
was not an act of the EZLN, it was of the CNI, or how many deaths does the CNI
have to have for them to turn to see it. “Many,” the media will say, for it to
be made into a commodity, and then to see if we sell mentioning you or sell not
mentioning you.
The difference for us is that
the support that is given to the compañero does not put conditions because they
know that in reality they are part of the same struggle.
So what we see in this chaotic
panorama which I present to you, is that with the super speed and the cramming,
mottling of information that there is, it is paradoxical that the best level or
the supreme level is sharing, this direct level.
The compas have discovered
something that you have discovered in your work, that it is the power of the listen.
If it is not possible for everyone to be listening to this then someone is
needed to take that word and throw it back we say, that is with the peoples,
which is what the listens do. And in one or another way it is what you do.
But as this is the (according
to us, you already know, we do not know anything about the media), supreme
level now is sharing and this those who handle it is to those who must be
listened to. I like that the native peoples are badasses with that, with
patience, all that, but Subcomandante Moisés soon is going to tell you more
about that.
That is what I wanted to tell
you. Compañeros and compañeras, there are not going to be questions because I
like that in 20 years they have already asked me everything that they had to
ask me, and I think that I have received a certificate of impunity to not
answer anything, but we owe this to you.
Still we were going to do it in
that pre-dawn morning but since now they have me as a third media (note: mmh…
the speaker does not learn. The third compas!) and was checking that they were
pirating everything, we said no, better for them to go on because what the paid
media is doing is not just, because in addition it was, it was not a theft, it
was a spiteful plunder. That is, I am going to take and I am not going to say
who it was from because who cares about that damn tweet or that damn page that
no one looks at.
Which was the complaint, as
they tell us, that the great media groups did who came to San Cristóbal: “that
Marcos is crazy, how does he choose people who do not even have ten visits on
their page—so click it more (inaudible), get it at least to one hundred—and not
us who have millions of readers.”
So we owe this to you,
compañeros, there it is. Galeano is not going to remain silent, sometimes Tacho
is going to talk, sometimes Moisés, sometimes Galeano, sometimes whoever, the
cat-dog, whoever. The important thing here is that the interlocutor changed,
one. Two, the important thing is the tendency that we see in your appearance as
free, autonomous, alternative media, etc.
The fact that we have created
the third media (note” Arghhhh! T-h-e T-h-i-r-d C-o-m-p-a-s!) for you not to
have to put up with the hell that coming all the way here is, to be sending you
material. It is not only that we recognize and value your work, above all we
recognize and value the sacrifice and the hell that you go through to turn to
look over here.
That is why, thank you, you in
particular and in general all the compañeros of the Sixth Declaration.
That is all Gotham City (note:
the speaker tried to imitate the voice of the supervillain Mr. Bane, but it did
not work)
End of SupGaleano’s
intervention.
(Transcription of the original
audio the responsibility of “The Third Compas.” That yes, under oath and somewhat
pissed off by the blunders, but heck, that’s what the work is, what is
suffered)
Copyleft: “the third compas”
August 12th, 2014. The reproduction is permitted without resorting
to autoeroticism, underground circulation, and consumption in a “get stuck there’s
mud” way
Translated from Spanish by Henry Gales.
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