Our Word Is Our Weapon
+Matriarch Monday+
Subcomandante Ramona
Twelve Women in the Twelfth Year. The Moment of War.
During the twelfth year of the Zapatistas, many kilometers and at a great distance from Beijing, twelve women meet March 8 with their faces erased...
by
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
I. Yesterday...
ALTHOUGH HER FACE is wreathed in black, still one can see a few strands of hair upon her forehead, and the eyes with the spark of one who searches. Before her she holds an M-I carbine in the "assault" position. She has a pistol strapped to her waist. Over the left side of the chest, that place where hopes and convictions reside, she carries the tank of infantry major of an insurgent army that has called itself, this cold dawn of January 1, 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
Under her command, a rebel column takes the former capital of the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, San Cristobal de Las Casas. The central square of San Cristobal is deserted. Only the indigenous men and women under her command are witnesses to the moment in which the major, a rebel indigenous Tzotzil woman, takes the national flag and gives it to the commanders of the rebellion, those called "The Indigenous Clandestine Revolutionary Committee." At 02:00 southeastern time, January 1 of 1994, over the radio, the major says, "We have recovered the flag. 10-23 over."
For the rest of the world, it is 01:00 hours of the New Year, but for her, those words mark a decade-long wait. In December 1984, not yet twenty years old, she arrives in the mountains of the Lacandon Jungle, carrying the marks of the whole history of indigenous humiliation on her body. In December 1984 this brown woman says, "Enough is enough!" so softly that only she hears herself. In January 1994 this woman and several thousand indigenous people do not just say, but yell, "Enough is enough!" so loudly that all the world hears them ...
Outside San Cristobal another column of indigenous rebels, who attack the city under the command of the only man with light skin and a large nose, has just taken the police headquarters. It frees from these clandestine jails the indigenous who were spending the New Year locked up, guilty of the most terrible crime in the Chiapanecan southeast: being poor.
The indigenous rebel Tzeltal—Capitán Insurgente Eugenio Asparuk—together with the enormous nose, is now overseeing the search and seizure of the headquarters. When the major's message arrives, Capitán Insurgente Pedro—an indigenous rebel Chol—has finished taking the Federal Highway Police Headquarters, and has secured the road that connects San Cristobal with Tuxtla Gutierrez. Capitán Insurgente Ubilio—also an indigenous rebel Tzeltal—has taken the entryways to the north of the city and with it the National Indigenous Institute, symbol of the government handouts to the indigenous people. Capitán Insurgente Guillermo—an indigenous rebel Chol—has seized the highest point of the city. From there he can observe a surprised silence peering out the windows of the houses and buildings. Insurgent and equally rebellious Capitáns Gilberto and Noe, indigenous Tzotzil and Tzeltal respectively, end their takeover of the State Judicial Police Headquarters and set it on fire before marching on to secure the other side of the city and the roads that lead to the barracks of the thirty-first Military Zone in Rancho Nuevo.
At 02:00 hours, southeastern time, January 1, 1994, five insurgent officials, indigenous rebel men, hear over the radio the voice of their commander, an indigenous rebel woman: "We have recovered the flag. 10-23 over." They repeat this to their troops, men and women, all indigenous and unconditionally rebellious, and translate the words: "We have begun ..."
At the Municipal Palace, the major secures the positions that will protect the men and women who now govern the city, a city now under the rule of indigenous rebels. An armed woman protects them.
Among the indigenous commanders there is a tiny woman, even tinier than those around her. Her face is wreathed in black; still, one can see a few strands of hair upon her forehead, and the gaze with the spark of one who searches. A twelve-gage sawed-off shotgun hangs from her back. Wearing the traditional dress of the women from San Andres, Ramona, together with hundreds of women, walks down from the mountains toward the city of San Cristobal on that last night of 1993. Together with Susana and other indigenous people, she is part of that indigenous war command which, in 1994, gives birth to the CCRI-CG, the Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee of the General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, the EZLN.
Comandante Ramona's size and brilliance will surprise the international press when she appears in the Cathedral—where the first Dialogues for Peace are held—and pulls from her backpack the national flag, seized by the major on January. Ramona does not know it then, nor do we, that she carries an illness that takes huge bites of her body, eats away at her life and dims her voice and her gaze. Ramona and the major, the only women in the Zapatista delegation who show themselves to the world for the first time, declare, "For all intents and purposes, we were already dead. We meant absolutely nothing." With these words they can almost convey the humiliation and abandonment. The major translates to Ramona the questions of the reporters. Ramona nods and understands, as though the answers she is asked for had always been there, in her tiny figure that laughs at the Spanish language and at the ways of the city women. Ramona laughs when she does not know she is dying. And when she knows, she still laughs. Before she did not exist for anyone; now she exists, as a woman, as an indigenous woman, as a rebel woman. Now Ramona lives, a woman belonging to that race that must die in order to live ...
The major watches as the light takes possession the streets of San Cristobal. Her soldiers secure the defense of the old city of Jovel and the protection of the men and women who are now sleeping, indigenous and mestizos, all equally surprised. The major, this indigenous rebel woman, has taken their city. Hundreds of armed indigenous people surround the old city. An armed woman commands them ...
Minutes later the rebels will take the city of Las Margaritas; hours later the government forces that defend Ocosingo, Altamirano, and Chanal will surrender. Huixtan and Oxchuc are taken by a rebel column that heads toward the principal jail of San Cristobal. Now seven cities are in insurgent hands, following the seven words said by the major.
The war for the word has begun.
Elsewhere, other indigenous and rebellious women remake that piece of history that had been given them and that, until that January 1, had been carried in silence. They too have no name or face.
Irma. Capitán Insurgente Irma, a Chol woman, leads one of the guerrilla columns that takes the plaza at Ocosingo that January 1, 1994. From one of the edges of the central square, together with the soldiers under her command, she attacks the garrison inside the Municipal Palace until they surrender. Then Irma undoes her braid and her hair falls to her waist as though to say, "Here I am, free and new." Capitán Irma's hair shines, and continues to shine, even as the night falls over Ocosingo in rebel hands.
Laura. Capitán Insurgente Laura is a Tzotzil woman. Fierce in battle and fiercely committed to learning and teaching, Laura becomes the captain of a unit composed only of men, all novices. With the same patience as the mountain that has watched her grow, Laura teaches and gives orders, When the men under her command have doubts, she sets an example. No one carries as much or walks as far as she does. After the attack on Ocosingo, she orders the retreat of her unit. It is orderly and complete. This woman with light skin says little or nothing, but she carries in her hands a carbine that she has taken from a policeman, he who only saw someone to humiliate or tape as he gazed upon her, an indigenous woman. After surrendering, the policeman ran away in his shorts, the same one who until that day believed that women were only useful when pregnant or in the kitchen ...
Elisa. Capitán Insurgente Elisa still carries mortar fragments that are planted forever in her body as a war trophy. She takes command of her column when the rebel line is broken and a circle of fire fills the Ocosingo market with blood. Capitán Benito has been injured and has lost his eye. Before losing consciousness, he explains: "I've had it, Capitán Elisa is in command." Capitán Elisa is already wounded when she manages to take a handful of soldiers out of the market. When Capitán Elisa, indigenous Tzeltal, gives orders, it is a soft murmur ... but everyone obeys.
Silvia. Capitán Insurgente Silvia was trapped for ten days in the rathole that Ocosingo became after January 2. Dressed as a civilian, she scuttled along the streets of a city filled with federal soldiers, tanks, and cannons. Stopped at a military checkpoint, she is let through almost immediately. "It isn't possible that such a young and fragile woman could be a rebel," say the soldiers as they watch her pass. When she rejoins her unit in the mountains, the indigenous Chol rebel woman appears sad. Carefully, I ask her the reason why her laughter is dampened. "Over there in Ocosingo," she answers me, lowering her eyes, "I left my backpack, and with it all the music cassettes I had collected. Now we have nothing." Silence and her loss lie in her hands. I say nothing. I add my own regrets to hers, and I see that in war each loses what he or she most loves.
Maribel. Capitán Insurgente Maribel takes the radio station in Las Margaritas when her unit assaults the municipality on January 1, 1994. For nine years she has lived in the mountains so she could sit in front of that microphone and say, "We are the product of five hundred years of struggle; first we fought against slavery ..." The transmission fails due to technical difficulties. Maribel takes another position and covers the back of the unit that advances toward Comitan. Days later she will serve as guard for a prisoner of war, General Absalón Castellanos Domínguez. Maribel is Tzeltal and was not yet fifteen years old when she came to the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. "The toughest moment in those nine years was when I had to climb the first hill, called `the hill from hell.' After that, everything else was easy," said the insurgent official. When General Castellanos Domínguez is released, Capitán Maribel is the first rebel to have contact with the government. Extending his hand to her, Commissioner Manuel Camacho Solís asks her age. "Five hundred and two," replies Maribel, who is as old as the rebellion ...
Isidora. Capitán Insurgente Isidora, on that first day of January, a buck private, goes into Ocosingo. After spending hours rescuing her unit made up entirely of men, forty of whom were wounded, she leaves Ocosingo in flames, mortar fragments in her arms and legs. When Isidora arrives at the nursing unit and hands over the wounded, she asks for a bit of water and gets up again. "Where are you going?" they ask her as they try to treat the bleeding wounds that paint her face and redden her uniform. "To get the others," answers Isidora as she reloads her gun. They try to stop her and cannot. Buck Private Isidora says she must return to Ocosingo to rescue their compañeros from the dirge of mortars and grenades. They have to take her prisoner to stop her. "The only good thing about this punishment is that, at least, I can't be demoted," says Isidora, and she waits in a room that to her appears to be a jail. Months later, given a star and a promotion to infantry official, Isidora, Tzeltal and Zapatista, looks first at the star and then at her commander and asks, "Why?" As though she were being scolded, she does not wait for an answer ...
Amalia. First lieutenant in the hospital unit. Amalia has the quickest laughter in the Mexican Southeast. When she finds Capitán Benito unconscious, lying in a pool of blood, she drags him to safety. She carries him on her back and takes him past the circle of death that surrounds the market. When someone mentions surrender, Amalia, honoring the Chol blood that runs through her veins, gets angry and begins to argue. Notwithstanding the ruthless explosions and the flying bullets, everyone listens. No one surrenders.
Elena. Lieutenant in the hospital unit. When Lieutenant Elena joined the Zapatistas, she was illiterate. There she learned to read, to write, and to administer medicine. Dealing with diarrhea and giving vaccines, she goes on to care for the wounded in a small hospital, which is also a home, a warehouse, and a pharmacy. With difficulty, she extracts from the Zapatistas' bodies mortar fragments. "Some I can take out, some I can't," says Elenita, an insurgent Chol, as though she were speaking of memories and not of pieces of lead.
In San Cristobal, that morning of January 1, 1994, she communicates with the great white nose: "Someone just came here asking questions, but I don't understand the language, I think it's English. I don't know if he's a photographer, but he has a camera."
"I'll be there soon," answers the nose as he rearranges the ski mask. Putting the weapons that have been taken from the police station into a vehicle, he travels to the center of the city. They take the weapons out and distribute them among the indigenous who are guarding the Municipal Palace. The foreigner is a tourist who asks if he may leave the city. "No," answers the ski mask with the oversize nose. "It's better that you return to your hotel. We don't know what will happen." The tourist leaves after asking permission to film with his video camera. Meanwhile the morning advances, and with the curious arrive the journalists and questions. The nose responds and explains to the locals, tourists, and journalists. The major is behind him. The ski mask talks and makes jokes. A woman who is armed watches his back.
A journalist, from behind a television camera, asks, "And who are you?"
"Who am I?" repeats the ski mask hesitantly, fighting off sleep after a long night.
"Yes," insists the journalist. "Are you `Commander Tiger' or `Commander Lion'?"
"No," responds the ski mask, rubbing his eyes, which are now filled with boredom.
"So, what's your name?" asks the journalist as he thrusts his camera and microphone forward. The big-nosed ski mask answers, "Marcos. Subcomandante Marcos."
Overhead, Pilatus planes begin to circle.
From that moment on, the impeccable military action of the taking of San Cristobal is blurred, and with it the fact that it was a woman—a rebel indigenous woman—who commanded the entire operation is erased. The participation of other rebel women in the actions of January 1, and during the ten-year-long road since the birth of the Zapatistas, become secondary. The faces covered with ski masks become even more anonymous when the lights focus on Marcos. The major says nothing, and she continues to watch the back of that enormous nose, which now has a name for the test of the world. No one asks her name.
At dawn on January 2, 1994, that same woman directs the retreat from San Cristobal and the return to the mountains. Fifty days later, she comes back to San Cristobal as part of the escort that safeguards the delegates of the CCRI-CG of the Zapatista National Liberation Army to the Dialogues for Peace at the Cathedral. Some women journalists interview her and ask her name. "Ana Maria, Mayor Insurgente Ana María," she answers with her dark gaze. She leaves the cathedral and disappears for the rest of the year, 1994. Like her other compañeras, she must wait, she must be silent ...
In December 1994, ten years after becoming a soldier, Ana María receives the order to prepare to break out of the military blockade established by government forces around the Lacandon jungle. At dawn on December 19, the Zapatistas take positions in thirty-eight municipalities. Ana María leads the action in the municipalities of the Altos of Chiapas. Twelve women officers are with her: Monica, Isabela, Yuri, Patricia, Juana, Ofelia, Celina, María, Gabriela, Alicia, Zenaida, and María Luisa. Ana María herself takes the municipality of Bochil.
After the Zapatista deployment, the high command of the federal army surrounds their ruptured blockade with silence, and, represented by the mass media, declares it is pure propaganda on the part of the EZLN. The federales' pride is deeply wounded: the Zapatistas have broken the blockade and, adding insult to injury, various municipalities have been taken by a unit headed by a woman. Much money is spent to keep this unacceptable event from the people. Due to the involuntary actions of her armed compañeros, and the deliberate actions of the government, Ana María and the Zapatista women at her side are ignored and kept invisible.
II. Today ...
I HAVE ALMOST finished writing this when someone arrives ...
Doña Juanita. After Old Don Antonio dies, Doña Juanita allows her life to slow down to the gentle pace she uses when preparing coffee. Physically strong, Doña Juanita has announced she will die. "Don't be silly, grandmother," I say, refusing to meet her eyes. "Look, you," she answers. "If we must die in order to live, nothing will keep me from dying, much less a young brat like yourself," says and scolds Doña Juanita, Old Don Antonio's woman, a rebel woman all her life, and apparently, a rebel even in response to her death.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the blockade, she appears.
She. Has no military rank, no uniform, no weapon. Only she knows she is a Zapatista. Much like the Zapatistas, she has no face or name. She struggles for democracy, liberty, and justice, just like the Zapatistas. She is part of what the EZLN calls "civil society"—a people without a political party, who do not belong to "political society," made up of leaders of political parties. Rather, she is a part of that amorphous yet solid part of society that says, day after day, "Enough is enough!"
At first she is surprised at her own words. But over time, through the strength of repeating them, and above all living them, she stops being afraid of these words, stops being afraid of herself. She is now a Zapatista; she has joined her destiny with the new delirium of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, which so terrorizes political parties and Power's intellectuals. She has already fought against everyone—against her husband, her lover, her boyfriend, her children, her friend, her brother, her father, her grandfather. "You are insane," they say. She leaves a great deal behind. What she renounces, if one is talking about size, is much greater than what the empty-handed rebels leave behind. Her everything, her world, demands she forget "those crazy Zapatistas," while conformity calls her to sit down in the comfortable indifference that lives and worries only about itself. She leaves everything behind. She says nothing. Early one dawn she sharpens the tender point of hope and begins to emulate many times in one day, at least 364 times a year, the January 1 of her sister Zapatistas.
She smiles. Once she merely admired the Zapatistas, but no longer. Her admiration ended the moment she understood that they are a mirror of her rebellion, of her hope.
She discovers that she is born on January 1, 1994. From then on she feels that her life—and what was always said to be a dream and a utopia—might actually be a truth.
In silence and without pay, side by side with other men and women, she begins to knit that complex dream that some call hope: "Everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves."
She meets March 8 with her face erased, and her name hidden. With her come thousands of women. More and more arrive. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of women who remember all over the world that there is much to be done and remember that there is still much to fight for. It appears that dignity is contagious, and it is the women who are more likely to become infected with this uncomfortable ill ...
This March 8 is a good time to remember and to give their rightful place to the insurgent Zapatistas, to the women who are armed and unarmed.
To remember the rebels and those uncomfortable Mexican women now bent over knitting that history which, without them, is nothing more than a badly made fable.
III. Tomorrow ...
IF THERE IS to be one, it will be made with the women, and above all, by them ...
-From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
SUBCOMANDANTE INSURGENTE MARCOS