January: Oaxaca, the first stele (Despite the new old PRI, history resists in the face of death)
16/01/2003
- Opinión
Another Calendar: That of Resistance
Place: Mountains of the Mexican southeast. Date: January of 2003.
Hour: Dawn. Climate: Cold, rainy, tense. Altitude: Various meters
above sea level. Visibility: Without a flashlight you can't see a
bloody thing. In a hut, a shadow counters with the fragile light
from a candle, and, between the smoke from the tobacco and from the
campfire, a hand leafs through a calendar from 2003, which recently
arrived at the EZLN Headquarters
"Calendars," the hand says, and it adds: "But there are calendars and
calendars," and it puts two newspaper photographs on the table: in
one appears the fetus that will be Fox's grandchild. In the other,
some mothers are weeping for their dead children in Comitán, Chiapas.
The hand says: "Here, the calendar of a birth with the blessing of
Power. And here, another calendar of many deaths due to the
irresponsibility of Power." The hand continues to speak: "Calendars
of births and deaths, calendars of payments, calendars of national
celebrations, calendars of trips by officials, calendars of
government sessions. Now, in 2003, election calendar. As if there
were no other calendars. For example: the calendar of resistance.
Or perhaps that one is not spoken of because it demands a great deal
and does not look like much." The hand stops for a bit. The calendar
remains closed. It appears as if it has been made by zapatista
sympathizers. Each month, in addition to photographs on the subject,
there are fragments of the many messages from the EZLN during the
march for indigenous dignity, in February, March and April of the
year 2001. "That march," says the hand, which is now leafing through
a puff of smoke. "The most important thing was not what we said,"
and it sets the calendar aside. "The most important was what,
remaining silent, we saw. If those gentlemen and ladies who call
themselves thinkers had seen with our eyes what we saw, remaining
silent, perhaps they might have understood our later silence and our
current words. But no. They think they think. And they think that
we owe them something. But we owe them nothing. Those whom we do
owe, and owe much, are those silent ones whom we, silently, saw. Our
silence was for them. Our word is for them. Our gazes and our hands
are with them and for them." And, as if like that, the hand points to
a map of the Mexican Republic. The gaze follows the hand's path, and
the hand now rests on a word:
OAXACA.
And the first stele... January: Oaxaca, the first stele (Despite the
new old PRI, history resists in the face of death)
(Stelai: engraved stones, worked using the techniques of bas-relief,
which contain representations of individuals, dates, names,
events...and PROPHECIES) It is January, month which summons up past,
present and future. It is Oaxaca, land where yesterday and today
give rise to the future. Mexican indigenous survive on this soil:
Mixtecos, Popolocas, Chochos, Triquis, Amuzgos, Mazatecos,
Cuicatecos, Chinantecos, Zapotecos, Chatinos, Mixes, Chontales,
Huaves, Nahuas, Zoques, Ixcatecos and Tacuates, in addition to an
agricultural Mexican population which is ignored. In 1990, the INEGI
declared that there were more than 1.3 million indigenous over the
age of five in Oaxaca. However, if one utilizes broader criteria
than the INEGI's narrow ones, between 60 and 70 percent of the Oaxaca
population is indigenous. Out of a total of 570 municipalities, 418
are called "indigenous municipalities," which are governed by their
own rules of government, what some call "uses and customs." It is
January, and it is Oaxaca, and the sun advances above a hill which
has a truncated summit and which is combed with pre-Hispanic
buildings. Different times have given different names to this
mountain
And so it was named Hill of the Tiger, and they called it Hill of
Precious Stones, and it was spoken of as Hill of the Pure Bird.
Those present now call it Monte Albán. Monte Albán. At its feet
glitters the proud disorder of the city of Oaxaca, the capital of
this province which, like all of them in Mexico, only makes the news
when it experiences the passing of hurricanes, earthquakes and false
governors, or when oppressive poverty follows the path of armed
rebellion. As if history only counts when it narrates the defeats,
desperation and misery of those who are below, and it forgets the
fundamental: resistance. The sun continues its path. Also arriving
from the east, a macaw flies above the Tlacolula Valley, it circles
the Etla Valley, and, in the Zaachila Valley, after covering the four
compass points, it heads towards Monte Albán. It glides above the
complex of buildings, all of them oriented along a north-south axis.
All but one. Resembling an arrow, one building breaks the supposed
harmony, pointing its apex towards the southeast. Like an out of
place piece in the complicated jigsaw puzzle of Mesoamerican
archeology, this building might have marked an astronomical, visual
or even auditory point. But it also leads one to think of something
arrested, and not just in spatial terms, but also, and above all, in
temporal terms. It looks like a call to attention, an outburst of
the absurd in the midst of apparent order. How absurd is the image
of that macaw, and what is seen beneath his vigilant and protective
flight. In the southern platform of Monte Albán, in front of the
seventh stele, a history is recounted which comes from a cave which
is all caves... "Indigenous blood knows that the earth conceals the
fertile womb which produced all times, and indigenous Zapoteco wise
men recount that it was inside a hill where time and life began their
laborious path. Prior to that, that which cannot be touched with
thought, the Coqui Xee, slept in a cave. That was the grotto of time
without time, where there was no place for the beginning nor for the
end. The desire to move the world then entered the heart of the
Coqui Xee, and, given that the moon was concealed, he looked inside
himself and birthed Cosana and Xonaxi, which is how the ancient
Zapotecos call light and darkness. With one foot from each of them,
the world then took its first steps. He who had no beginning, the
one untouchable by reason, Coqui Xee, gave birth to himself as a new
moon, and thus began his long passage in the world of the night,
while by day he rested in the land of the Mixe, in Cempoaltépetl
Cosana, the gentleman of the night and of fire who gave birth to the
sun, made himself into a tortoise, in order to walk the earth, and
that was how he went about creating men, from the hand of Xonaxi, who
made himself a macaw in order to walk the skies, to look after the
men and women, and to see that they were created with care. Flying
the night, Xonaxi painted his path with light so that he would not
lose his way, and today his trail of fragmented light is called the
Milky Way
From the embrace of light and darkness, from sky and earth, came the
lightning bolt Cocijo, good father, maker of the good earth and guide
of those who work it and make it bear food. Giver of health, healer
of illness, gentleman of war and death, with the 13th Flower on his
flag, Cocijo split into four in order to be in the four points which
mark the world. In order to name death and pain, he inhabited the
north, dressed in black. He established himself in the east in amber
colored clothing in order to give name to happiness. In the west, he
put on a white cloak in order to mark destiny. And, in order to
speak war, he dressed in blue and walked the south. The lightning,
our father, married the woman of the huipil decorated with flowers
and serpents, she who was called Serpent Thirteen, Nohuichana. She,
our mother, giver of life in the womb of women, in the beds of rivers
and lakes, in the rain, she who goes hand in hand with men and woman
from birth to death, was and is good queen for those who gave, and
give, color to the color of this land. And those who know and are
silent recount that, every so often, the lightning and the rain
return, and with them love and life return, whenever the absurd poses
obstacles for any woman and man, perhaps only to heighten the sparkle
in their eyes. If it is true, as, in fact, it is, that life first
walked as liquid in the caves that abound in indigenous lands, that
the caves were and are the womb which the first gods gave to
themselves in order to birth themselves and to make themselves, and
that the grottoes are but the hollows left by the flowering of life
in the land, as cicatrices, then it is within the land where we can
read, in addition to the past, the paths which shall take us to
tomorrow. In this January, the creator couple, Cosana and Xonaxi,
embraced the womb of the earth, and they soothed it, in order to turn
it into fertile sown fields. Not only so that the rebel struggle
which is collective - because that is the only way it can be rebel -
might be renewed, but also so the dream might be born with the color
of those of us whom are the color of the earth. Silent history now
And what is silent is always greater than that which speaks.
Silence..." Above, a storm greets the macaw's determined flight with
lightning..
Below, Monte Albán remains, with its arrow building breaking the
monotony of the entire ceremonial complex, warning that there are
pieces missing, preventing us from understanding what we are seeing.
As if to remind us that what is missing is greater and more marvelous
than what we are seeing. Because when we see what we are now seeing,
vainglorious Monte Albán, we futilely seek continuity. In reality,
we are only seeing a photograph, one instant, an image of a clock
which stopped running on a particular date. But it is a
discontinuous clock. Only for the powerful is history an upward
line, where their today is always the pinnacle. For those below,
history is a question which can only be answered by looking backwards
and forwards, thus creating new questions. And so we must question
what is in front of us. Ask, for example, who is absent but yet
nonetheless made possible the presence of images of gods, caciques
and priests. Ask who is silent when these ruins speak. There are
not a few stelai in Monte Albán. They mark calendars which are not
yet understood
But let us not forget that they present the calendars of those who
held power in those times, and those calendars did not envisage the
date in which the rebellion from below would bring down that world.
Like an earthquake, the discontent of that time shook the entire
social structure, and, while leaving the buildings standing, it did
away with a world which was removed from everyone's reality. Since
ancient times, the governing elites have been fashioning calendars
according to the political world, which is nothing but the world
which excludes the majority. And the disparity between those
calendars and those of lives below, is what provokes the earthquakes
in which our history abounds. For every stele which the power
sculpts in its palaces, another stele rises from below
And, if those stelai are not visible, it is because they are not made
of stone, but of flesh, blood and bone, and, being the color of the
earth, they are still part of the cavern in which the future is
ripening. Those buildings which, like plumes, crown the Hill of the
Tiger, do not belong to those who raised and maintained them with
their effort and wisdom
"Monumental architecture, in instances such as Monte Albán and other
sites of Mesoamerican cultural interest, was a response to the need
for a space dedicated to ceremonies, which corresponded to the
organizational demands of a priestly social class with a much higher
status than that of the average agricultural population. And so the
buildings of Monte Albán, from their first period, were used for
reinforcing the political system based in religious worship and for
maintaining the ruling class in power. The populace in the villages
and towns were charged with supplying all the consumer goods for that
class, as well as with providing labor for constructing the buildings
and for their continuous maintenance. Another obligation was that of
providing all the supplies necessary for carrying out the ceremonies
and the indispensable human material for those ceremonies." (Robles
García, Nelly. Monte Albán. Codees Editores). It was the powerful
who enjoyed the work of those of below, the work which raised these
buildings, these buildings which are less surprising than the
arrogance which destroyed them. Because Monte Albán, as often
happens in those spaces where power resides, collapsed from rebellion
from below, which was, in turn, provoked by the indifference of those
who governed
The Spanish conquistadors' two-fold lesson of Monte Albán (the
advanced development of a culture and the neglect caused by
government arrogance) passed unnoticed. For the Spanish crown of the
16th century, as for the neoliberalism of the beginning of the 21st
century, the only culture is the one which they dominate. Then the
indigenous lands were nothing but an abundant source of labor for the
Spanish powers, as they are now for savage capitalism. Under the
Spanish power, condemned to barbaric forced labor in the mines,
almost 90% of the indigenous population of Oaxaca disappeared. But
their suffering continued underground, and rebellion was forged in
the grottoes, rebellion which today nourishes the color of the earth.
And what was good for the Indian peoples of Oaxaca was also good for
the rest of the indigenous of Mexico: their cultural wealth was, and
is, discounted (sometimes through direct destruction, other times
through ignorance, yet others through racism, and always through
condemnation of the different) by those who are power and dominion.
If, upon seeing the remains of the so-called pre-Hispanic cultures,
the average spectator marvels and imagines their splendor, he would
marvel even more upon seeing the cold cruelty and savage stupidity of
those who have destroyed it (and contempt and commercialization are
also a form of destruction) and ignored it. And so it is quite wrong
to blame the Spanish race, or any other, for the long pain of the
Indian peoples of Mexico. It was, and is, the powerful who,
regardless of the race to which they belong, reaffirm their dominion
with the destruction of the identity of those under their control.
Following Mexico's liberation from Spanish dominion, the owners of
money and their politicians have carried forward the destruction of
indigenous culture with a brutality equal or greater to that of the
Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Recently, intelligent
voices have been raised, warning that the Salinas reform of Article
27 of the Constitution (which allows the sale of ejidal land to
individuals) will have serious impact on the archeological monument
zones. One of these zones is Monte Albán, where it so happens that
part of its original land will now be in the hands of private
business (El Universal, 2/28/2002). Or at least that is what the
neoliberal governments are attempting. But there are resistances.
The residents of the municipalities of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, Santa
Cruz Xoxocotlán and Santa María Atzompa have organized in order to
prevent that privatization of history. Gathering together
ejiditarios, comuneros, small owners and residents, the Zapatista
Front Against Privatization and Neoliberal Seizure's names bears
witness to its avocation and its work. Since the middle of 2001,
these Oaxacans have been denouncing what was to come: the
privatization of Monte Albán. That it was not interest in preserving
that archeological zone which was behind the government programs, but
rather selling them in order to build hotels, convention centers and
commercial premises. One year later, in 2002, Governor Murat took a
step towards realizing Salinas de Gortari's dream: the Monte Albán
XXI project, privatizing ejidal lands in the areas surrounding the
archeological complex and repressing those who were opposed to this
commercialization of history. The resistance, however, was
maintained, even though it was banished from the media. "We are the
true defenders of the archeological zone of Monte Albán, because it
is our home, and also the home of all Mexicans. But, in this
continuous struggle to try to care for it and protect it, we are
resisting culturally, and we are confronting those who are trying to
destroy it, restricting the use and enjoyment of our lands for the
benefit of large investors," these rebel indigenous said, and
committed themselves. The old new PRI, with José Murat, Diódoro
Carrasco and Heladio Ramírez fighting over the plunder, is following
the route which was marked out by their last great leader: Carlos
Salinas de Gortari. That is why they are resorting to their most
well tried argument: repression. Nonetheless, and in spite of the
repression, some of the strongest examples of anti-neoliberal
resistance are in Oaxaca, and all of them are being carried out not
only in spite of the political parties, but also against them. Last
December, a group of young persons cane together around culture.
They were attacked by the Juchitán police, and their members are
still being persecuted by the "democratic" municipal government. In
the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca, the Ricardo Flores Magón Popular
Indigenous Council has taken heavy hits for refusing to surrender or
to join Murat's, Diódoro's (the one who, when he was Secretary of
Government in Zedillo's government, "orchestrated" the PRI defeat in
the 2000 lections) or Heladio's factions. In the Southern Sierra
(but not only there), the Zapatista Magonista Alliance, the Coalition
of Organizations of the State of Oaxaca, the Defense Committee for
the Rights of the People, the Coalition of Independent Organizations
of Cuenca, the Broad Front of Popular Struggle, the Civil Front of
Teojomulco, the Sole Front of Indigenous Defense, the Indian
Organizations for Human Rights of Oaxaca, the Union of Poor
Campesinos and the Revolutionary Youth of Mexico, have all joined
together in the Oaxaca Popular Magonista Anti-Neoliberal Coordinating
Group, and they are building one of the most interesting processes of
resistance. And not only those. The Oaxaca resistance abounds in
wisdom, decisiveness and names: Services of the Mixe People, Union of
Organizations of the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca, Union of Indigenous
Communities of the Isthmus Region, the State Coordinating Group of
Coffee Producers of Oaxaca and the Unified Movement of the Trique
Struggle, to mention just a few of the many that exist on Oaxaca
soil. And resistance not infrequently takes on the name of the
municipalities which raise them. Thus appear: Quetzaltepec-Mixe, San
Pedro Yosotatu, Union Hidalgo, Yalalag, and others which people the
Oaxaca geography with rebellion. You would be hard pressed to find
any members of these organizations, or of these municipalities,
running for office. Their avocation is not Power, but service. That
was mandated by the ancient ones who raised the grandeur of Monte
Albán and whose rebellion toppled those who governed with arrogance.
But if the neoliberals of the PRI or the PAN or the PRD manage to get
away with it, we will be facing the possibility that the history of
Mexico will be turned into one more business listed on the Stock
Exchange: History of Mexico Company SA of CV. What other value, in
addition to being a tourist site, can capital place on pre-Hispanic
archeology? When the front men for big money (Diego Fernández de
Cevallos and his patiños Manuel Bartlett and Jesús Ortega, of the
PAN, PRI and PRD respectively) scuppered the constitutional
recognition of indigenous rights and culture in the Mexican Congress,
they were not only aping the encomenderos of the colonial period,
they were also, and above all, stating that the history of Mexico was
one more commodity in the international market. If the manner in
which they did it resembled a vaudeville act, it is because
politicians can never resist the temptation to do the ridiculous.
But the powerful do not only purchase history in order to possess it,
but also in order to prevent its being read as it should be, that is,
looking ahead. The history of above continues saying "were" to those
who still are. It does so because up there the only thing that
matters is the exchange of those who are in power. And so time ends
for the powerful only when another power replaces it. Below,
however, time continues to flow. By responding to the unknown
posited by the historic past, those below decipher crooked lines, ups
and downs, valleys, hills and hollows. That is how they know that
history is nothing more than a jigsaw puzzle which excludes them as
primary actor, reserving for them only the role of victim. The piece
which is missing in national history is the one which completes the
false image of the uniqueness of possible worlds, the current one,
but rather the one which includes everyone in its true reach: the
constant struggle between those who are attempting the end of times,
and those who know that the last word will be built through
resistance, sometimes in silence, far from the media and the centers
of Power. Only in that way is it possible to understand that the
current world is neither the best nor the only one possible, nor that
other worlds are not merely possible, but, above all, that those new
worlds are better and are necessary. As long as that does not
happen, history will remain nothing but an anarchic collection of
dates, places and different colored vanities. The grandeur of Monte
Albán will not be completed with the discovery of more temples, tombs
and treasures, nor even through the exact reconstruction of its
undeniable splendor. Monte Albán will be complete - and along with
that, it will be part of the real history of our country - when it is
understood that the ones who made it possible, who raised and
maintained it, and whose rebellion undermined the arrogance that
inhabited it, are still living and struggling, not so that Monte
Albán and its power will be renewed and history will make an
impossible backward turn, but for the recognition of the fact that
the world will not be complete unless it includes everyone in the
future. The indigenous movement in which zapatismo is inscribed is
not trying to return to the past, nor to maintain the unfair pyramid
of society, just changing the skin color of the one who mandates and
rules from above. The struggle of the Indian peoples of Mexico is
not pointing backwards. In a linear world, where above is considered
eternal and below inevitable, the Indian peoples of Mexico are
breaking with that line and pointing towards something which is yet
to be deciphered, but which is already new and better. Whoever comes
from below and from so far away in time, has, most certainly, burdens
and problems. But these were imposed on him by those who made wealth
their gods and alibis. And, in addition, those who come from such a
long way can see a great distance, and there is another world in that
distant point which their heart divines, a new world, a better one, a
necessary one, one where all worlds fit... If, in their long and
stupid march, the neoliberals say "there is no culture other than
ours," below, with the underground Mexico which resists and
struggles, the Indian peoples of Oaxaca are warning: "There are other
grottoes like ours."
From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos * Translated by irlandesa
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos * Translated by irlandesa
https://www.alainet.org/fr/node/107034
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