Marcos does Mexico… pornographers unite!

I don’t particularly trust Marcos (Rafael Guillén, I mean. I always thought the “man of mystery” thing was a bit of dramatic overkill). Jo Tuckman of the Guardian (UK) seems to be charmed... at least by the news that “There’s no politics in [the book he’s now working on]. Just sex. Pure pornography.”

Sure. Ok. I admit that the theatrical and playful aspects of the Zapatista propaganda machine has its uses, but it’s the Mexican right that’s benefitted from the Zapatista movement. It was their abstention campaign that cost Lopez Obradór a margin of victory too large to steal in the last presidential campaign, and their political activity has strengthened only PAN.

Tuckman thinks Marcos is an odd sort of “Marxist-Leninist”. But didn’t Lenin say that things had to go to hell to set the stage for a revolution?

The former orthodox Marxist-Leninist turned anti-globalisation guru, who is not himself indigenous, predicts that the subconscious power of the year 2010 – the 200th anniversary of the war of independence and the 100th of Mexico’s revolution – will ignite a fuse laid by American efforts to secure the bilateral border, leaving millions unable to escape to jobs in the north. “Mexico will turn into a pressure cooker,” he says. “And, believe me, it will explode.”

Marcos says that Mexico’s politicians, the media, and even earnest leftwing academics are oblivious to the radicalisation he sees bubbling just under the surface.

I don’t think people are oblivious to it. Yes, there is a huge demand for social and political change (see Oaxaca… see gay marriage in Coahuala… see abortion rights in the Federal District) . True, the political class hasn’t dealt effectively with globalization and its discontents, but Marcos does not have the support he thinks. The Zapatistas, for the most part are communities happy to be left alone. They couldn’t sustain a long-term revolt if they wanted to. I might object on progressive grounds to the San Andreas Accords (which gives COMMUNITIES rights that negate individual rights), but if they’re left alone, they’re happy.

Within Mexico, Marcos and the Zapatistas get a respectable hearing, and some sympathy (and practical support), but the unrest that’s been claimed by Marcos has been minor things like the Flower riot in Texcoco. Emiliano Zapata, as valuable as he was to the 1910-20 Revolution, never cared much about anything but local issues. Eventually, his concerns were included in the new state, but to claim the Zapatistas WERE the revolution is nonsense.

It seems to me that Marcosistas (as opposed to the real Zapatistas, who are, like the original Zapata, just fighting for their own lands and traditional – i.e. reactionary – way of life) either romanticize Revolution, or are foreigners, who look foreward to Mexican unrest to provide them with an object lesson for their own pet theories – or entertainment. Much the same as American conservatives and the “war on drugs/terror” they expect the Mexicans to do the fighting and dying for their political theories.

Speaking of the “War on Drugs”: An article on Felipe Calderón’s “anti-drug war” in Blogotitlan questions whether or not the “war” isn’t being waged to excuse anti-consititutional behavior, and even to justify a suspension of consitutional rights. Sort of like we use the “War on Terror”. If, as the author suggests, Calderón’s intention is to stifle dissent, then you really could see urban unrest. And that’s more likely to spark the 2010 Revolution than any porn novel by the masked marvel.

Jesus, and Uncle Joe, both say to give to the Mex Files…