For our honeymoon me and the wife visited the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. They are the heartbeat of Mexico, rich in natural resources, culture and diverse landscapes. However, ironically or obviously they are home to the poorest people of Mexico. Looking out of the moving bus you can’t help but feel like you are in another country, such is the contrast with the spralling Mexico City or the deserts surrounding the central states. I recalled, when looking into the dense Lacandon Jungle while the bus driver stopped for a piss, my previous visit to this region.
We had stopped on the side of the road, for some reason i cant recall why, and as i looked into the wall of trees before me a man appeared, for a brief second. It gave me such a fright. The man was clearly a native of the jungle, there are many indigenous peoples living within (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol..) and was equally surprised to see me, i guess. He looked like Ian Brown in a wig, monkey-like, with no emotion or expression on his face. We held contact for a few seconds and the history of this man flashed before my minds-eye… small huts, hunting, Conquistadores, wooden tools… before the bus moved off and i had visions of him returning to his tribe to tell the story of the magical moving box with strange looking tribe members aboard.
The region is also home to the EZLN, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. They declared (predominantly non violent) war on the state and since the mid-eighties they have fought to protect what is theirs from the clutches of the corporate and military forces. The name is a direct reference to Emiliano Zapata, the revoltionary icon of the Mexican Independence.
What they have achieved in this area is the creation of independant autonomous zones, free from the influence of the local and national government in an attempt to protect and support the poorer people of the region. “For everyone, everything, for us, nothing.”
We had planned a visit to one of their zones, to try to understand their cause and to see how they go about their lives. Unfortunately i became sick the night before and we had to cancel the meeting. To make up for this we contributed to the cause by buying some “official” merchandise. How ironic!
These kind of people hold a great interest for many people, me included, Gandhi, Che, Bolivar, they stood up to what was wrong, to try and change for the benefit of all. I have often wondered why i am attracted to them, is it something lacking in me that i see so strongly in those or could be that we “lie” down to easy and accept that we have no influence or control over what is? Maybe it is because i have clean running water, street lights and a supermarket full of exotic fruits? Who knows?
What i do know is that i will continue to enjoy the comforts of this society whilst contributing little or nothing in the way of benfiting others.
comment from p.wilson
alrite dude, heard about this group myself whilst i was in mexico. one afternoon in salyulita i managed to get away from the bar for an hour and was walking about town and on one street this old chap had a blanket set out over the pavement and was selling handmade jewelery off it. i stopped to take a look and he started giving me the hard sell, alas it was in spanish, and then just as i was about to inform him that he needs to learn english in order to deal with the tourists and increase turnover, a helpful waiter stepped outside of the restaurant we were in front of. the waiter stared to translate for me and the dude, obviously aware that his ability to speak the language of the tourists increased his tips and in effect quality of life. so the story went, for the white tourist you understand, that the jewelry which consisted of basic rings, earings, and neckalces made from string, cheap metal, some sort of plastic like material, and were a kaleidoscope of colours, were made by the zapatista people and the funds raised went towards there cause. i got a bit of a story about them, their background and, their aims and beliefs etc etc. the guy told me how the basically live along a principal of ‘the land is for the people that work it’ and jotted this down for me. he then went on to tell me how they’re fucked over by the goverment and big business. its a shame, and good luck to them. i did my ‘bit’ for the cause and purchased a necklace for jackie (i’d been looking for something really cheap).
its a similar sceanrio the world over really, and reminds me of a day-trip i took in kenya out of nairobi and into the countryside. we were driving to some waterfalls, me, jackie, and her friend with her boyfriend dennis a local guy from a city close by called thika. anyhow as we are driving dennis is doing some commentary and telling us about things, you know local interest shit that you do when your traveling, wind the window down have a look but don’t get out the vehicle (well there were black people around after all). anyway we came up to a spot on the road and we were cruising alongside a huge pineapple plantation, so we got out to have a look and i was gonna cross the gorge in between the road and the juicy pineapples to relieve the nearest plant of a couple of pieces. with a look of horror on his face dennis strongly urged me not to enter the plantation as i could be shot. the land was owned by mr delmonte who had armed guards patrolling to keep out the pesky locals who wanted to take the valuable pineapples which were worth 1.99 each in england. i’m not quite sure of the worth of the pineapples to the people living in tin shelters in the field on the other side of the road who lived on a diet of rice and goats milk but i can almost certainly say that they couldn’t afford the 1.99 asking price on a daily basis.
thats just another of the many hundreds of thousands of examples happening in the world we inhabit. big goverments/business, the two are one and the same in my eyes, go round the world taking what they want from where they want. they’re like a group of kids let loose in the sweet shop, bickering and quarelling over who gets the best spoils, the biggest lollipop or the longest twizler or whatever. its particularly prevalent in africa in my opinion, oil from nigeria, gold and diamonds from mozambique, and magnesium from west africa. that continent has the greatest wealth of untapped natural resources on the planet yet the people are the poorest in the world and live in the under the worst conditions in the most rudimentary of health, whilst the west goes over there and takes exactly what it pleases whilst greasing the palms of corrupt puppet goverments put in place by western governments themselves to give them some cover (as if they needed it?). first it was the europeans later joined by america and russia and now its china leading the way. i’ve been reading and learning quite a bit about africa since my trip to kenya and its disturbing and horrific what has been happening on that continent since the first europeans landed nearly 600 years ago on a continent that had nearly 10,000 diffferent states (as we know them), a vast variety of cultures people and traditions to where we are now, 54 easily manageable states unidentifiable to the outsider who just knows the place as africa and the people as african, easy to label and even easier to control. but the again, we let get involved with the rest of the world and host the football world cup this year, that must make us even now eh?