Them and Us Part VI: Gazes, Second Part: Gazing and Listening From/Towards Below by Subcomandante Marcos

Them and Us

VI.-The Gazes 2.

2.-Gaze and listen from/towards below.

Can we still choose towards where and from where to look?

Can we, for example, choose between looking at those who work at the supermarket chain store, ream out the workers for being complicit in the electoral fraud[1], and publicly ridicule the orange uniforms the employees are forced to wear, or look at the employee who, after cashing out…?

Election propaganda and grocery
gift cards.

/The cashier goes and takes off her orange apron, grumbling with anger over how they reamed her out for being complicit in the fraud that brought ignorance and frivolousness to Power.  She, a woman, young or mature or mother or single or divorced or widow or single mother or expecting or without children or whatever, who goes to work at 7 in the morning and leaves at 4 in the afternoon, of course, if there isn't overtime, and not counting the time between home and work and back again, and after giving school or work the "work-suitable-for-her-sex-that-can-be-completed-with-a-little-bit-of-flirtation," she read in one of the magazines that are next to the register one day when there weren't many customers.  To her, whom those are supposedly going to save, it's nothing more than a question of a vote and done, ta-da, happiness.  "Do you really think the owners wear an orange apron?" she irritatedly murmurs.  She fixes herself up a bit from the purposeful untidiness with which she goes to work so that the manager doesn't bother her.  She leaves.  Outside her partner is waiting.  They embrace, kiss, touch each other with their gazes, they walk.  They enter a cyber cafe or whatever you call it.  10 pesos per hour, 5 pesos for a half-hour.../

"Half hour," they say, mentally calculating the budget-time-from-the-metro-bus-walk.

"Spot me some money, Roco, don't be a jerk," he says.

"Ok, but come by on payday, because if not, the owner will be all over me and you'll be the one who will be spotting me money."

"Ok, but it'll be when you get a cell phone, dude, because I'm working at a car wash."

"Well, wash it, dude," says Roco.

The three of them laugh.

"7," says Roco.

"Ok, look for it," she says.

He goes to enter a number.

"No," she says, "look for when it all began."

They navigate.  They get to where there are just over 131.[2]  They play the video.

"They're bourgeois," he says.

"Settle down, revolutionary vanguard.  You've got something wrong with your head if you judge people by their appearances.  Just because I have light skin they call me güerita and bourgeois, and they don't see that I live paycheck-to-paycheck.  It's important to see each person's history and what they do, dummy," she says, smacking him upside the head.

They keep watching.

They watch, they shut up, they listen.

"So they told Peña Nieto all that to his face… they're brave, yes, it's obvious they've got balls," he says.

"Or ovaries, idiot," and another smack from her for him.

"Watch out, my queen, I'm going to accuse you of inter-familial violence."

"It would be gender violence, idiot," and another smack.

They finish watching the video.

Him: "So that's how things start, with a few people who aren't afraid."

Her: "Or they are afraid, but they get it under control."

"Half an hour!" Roco yells at them.

"Yes, let's watch it."

She goes smiling.

"And now what are you laughing about?"

"Nothing, I was remembering," she gets closer to him, "what you said about 'inter-familial.'  Do you mean that you want us to be a family?"

He doesn't miss a beat:

"That's right, my queen, later is late, we're already getting there, but without so many smacks, kisses instead, and more below and to the left."

"Hey, don't talk dirty to me, dude!" another smack.  "And enough of 'my queen,' aren't we against fucking monarchy?"

Him, before the strong smack: "Well, yes my… plebeian."

She laughs, him too.  After a couple of steps, she says:

"And do you think the Zapatistas will invite us?"

"Of course, Vins is my buddy and he said that he's tight with sockface because he let him win at Mortal Kombat, on the little machines, so all we have to do is say that we're friends with Vins and done," he argues enthusiastically.

"And do you think I'll be able to bring my mom?  She's already pretty old…"

"Of course, speaking of witches, if I'm lucky my future mother-in-law will get stuck in the mud," he ducks his head expecting a smack that doesn't come.

Her, angry now:

"And what the hell are the Zapatistas going to give us if they're so far away?  Do you really think they're going to give me a raise, make people respect me, make it so fucking men don't look at my butt on the street, and that the fucking boss stops looking for excuses to touch me?  Are they going to give me money so I can make rent, so I can buy clothing for my daughter, my son?  Are they going to lower the price of sugar, beans, rice, oil?  Are they going to put food on my table?  Will they stand up to the cop that comes around everyday to bother and demand money from the people in the neighborhood who sell pirated discs saying that it's so they don't report them to Mr. or Mrs. Sony…?"

"It's not 'pirate,' it's 'alternative production,' my quee….my plebeian.  And don't get all huffy with me because we're in the same boat."

But she's already on a roll, so no one can stop her:

"And you, are they going to give you back your job at the plant, where you were qualified as a who-the-hell-knows-what?  Are they going to validate your classes, the training courses, and all that so that the asshole of a boss takes the company to I don't know where, and the union and the strike, everything that you did, to later end up washing cars?  Or like your brother, El Chompis, whose work they took away and they disappeared the company so that he can't defend himself and the government with its same old babble that it's to improve service and world class and blah blah blah and did they really lower the rates, no, they're more expensive, and the fucking lights go out all the time[3] and fucking Calderón goes to shamelessly teach classes to gringos[4], who are the masters of all this shit.  And my Dad, may he rest in peace, who went to work on the other side [of the US-Mexico border], not to do the tourist thing, but to make money, dough, moolah, to take care of us when we were younger and there crossing the line the migra came down on him as if he were a terrorist and not an honorable worker and they didn't even give us his body and that fucking Obama, it seems as though his heart is the color of the dollar."

"Damn, stop your car and pull over, my plebeian."

"It's just that every time I think about it I get mad, working so much so that in the end those above keep everything, the only thing that's left to privatize is laughter, although I doubt they'd privatize that, because there's not much, but tears, yes, there's an abundance of those and they get rich… richer.  And then you come along with your stuff about the Zapatistas here and Zapatistas there, and below and to the left and the eighth…"

"The Sixth, not the eighth," he interrupts.

"Whatever, those dudes are far away and they speak Spanish worse than you."

"Hey, hey, don't be mean."

She wipes away her tears and murmurs: "Fucking rain, it ruined my esteelauder, and I'd fixed myself up all nice for you."

"Boyeeeee, I like you even better with nothing on."

They laugh.

Her, very serious: "Ok now, let's see, tell me, are those Zapatistas going to save us?"

"No, my plebeian, they aren't going to save us.  That and other things we have to do for ourselves."

"Well then?"

"Ah, well, they're going to teach us."

"What are they going to teach us?"

"That we're not alone."

She remains silent for a moment.  Then:

"Nor alone[4], dummy,"another smack.

The collective van looks like it's going to explode with people.  We'll see if the next one has room.

It's cold, it's raining.  They embrace each other more, not so that they don't get wet, but rather so they get wet together.

Far away someone is waiting, there's always someone who is waiting.  And while he waits, with an old pencil case and an old and shabby notebook, he keeps track of the gazes from below that are seen in a window.

(To be continued...)

From any corner of any world.

SupMarcos.
Planet Earth.
January 2013.

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"The Nobodies," based on the text of the same name by Eduardo Galeano.  Played by La Gran Orquesta Republicana, a ska-fusion band, Mallorca, Spanish State.  Members: Javier Vegas, Nacho Vegas: sax.  Nestor Casas: trumpet.  Didac Buscató: trombone.  Juan Antonio Molina: electric guitar.  Xema Bestard: bass.  José Luis García: drums.



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Liliana Daunes narrates a very other story called "Always and Never Against Sometimes."  Greetings to the Chiapas Solidarity Network, which struggles and resists right here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Latin America, Planet Earth.



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"Minimum Wage," by Oscar Chávez and Los Morales.




Translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker.

Translator's Notes:

1. Enrique Peña Nieto allegedly bought votes with grocery store gift cards with the full knowledge of the supermarket chain in question. 
2. Refers to the #YoSoy132 movement against Enrique Peña Nieto, sparked when 131 university students organized a protest against his visit to their campus. 
3. Refers to former President Felipe Calderón busting the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME).
4. Calderón teaches at Harvard now.
5. Many Spanish speakers have noted the sexism they argue is inherent in the need to feminize and masculinize nouns and adjectives.  The Zapatistas in particular look for ways to use more inclusive language, and this exchanges makes reference to that.  When the boyfriend says that the Zapatistas will teach us "That we're not alone" he says "Que no estamos solos," using the masculine form of alone (solos), which, according to the rules is what one does in mixed company.  So his girlfriend responds, "Ni solas," saying that women are also not alone.

Them and Us Part VI: The Gazes by Subcomandante Marcos

Them and Us

VI.- The Gazes

1.- Gaze to impose or gaze to listen.

For once I will be able to say

Without anyone saying otherwise

That it is not the same to desire

As it is to covet something

Just as they're not the same words

Said to listen

And said to be obeyed

Nor is it the same to speak to me

To tell me something

As it is to speak to me so that I shut up.

Tomás Segovia.

"Fourth Search" in "Searches and Other Poems" from the publishing house that has the good sense to call itself "No Name."

Thank you and hugs to María Luisa Capella, to Inés and Francisco

(thank goodness for the dignified blood that beats through their hearts)

for the books and the lyrics guide.

To gaze is a form of asking, we say, we the Zapatistas.

Or of searching…

When one gazes at the calendar and at the geography, even though they might be far away from each other, one asks, one interrogates.

And it is in the act of gazing where the other appears.  And it is in the gaze where that other exists, where its profile as strange, as outsider, as enigma, as victim, as judge and executioner, as enemy….or as friend is drawn.

It is in the gaze where fear nests, but also where respect can be born.

If we don't learn to gaze at another's gaze, what is the point of our gaze, our questions?

Who are you?

    What is your history?
       
            Where do you hurt?

                What are your hopes?

But it doesn't just matter what or who is gazed upon.  Also, and above all, it matters from where one is gazing from.

And to choose where to gaze at is also to choose from where.

Or is it the same to gaze from above at the pain of those who lost those whom they love and need, due to absurd, inexplicable, definitive death, as it is to gaze at it from below?

When someone from above gazes upon those below and asks himself, "How many are there?", in reality he's asking, "How much are they worth?"

If if they aren't worth anything, what does it matter how many there are?  To get that untimely number out of the way there are the corporate media outlets, the militaries, the police, the judges, the prisons, the cemeteries. 

And for our gaze, the answers are never simple.

To gaze upon ourselves gazing at that which we gaze at, we give ourselves an identity that has to do with pains and struggles, with our calendars and our geography.

Our strength, if we do have some, is in this recognition: we are who we are, and there are others who are who they are, and there is other for those of us who don't have a word to name it and, nonetheless, is who he is.  When we say "we" we are not absorbing, and in that way subordinating, identities, but rather highlighting  the bridges that exist between the different pains and distinct rebelliousnesses.  We are the same because we are different.

In the Sixth, the Zapatistas reiterate our rejection of any attempt at hegemony, that is, all vanguardism, be it that we're out in front or that they line us up, as they have throughout these centuries, in the rearguard.  

If with the Sixth we seek out people like us in their pains and struggles, without the calendars and geographies that distance us mattering, it is because we know well that the Ruler[1] isn't beaten with just a thought, just one strength, just one directive (no matter how revolutionary, principled, radical, ingenious, numerous, powerful, etc. that directive might be).

It is the lesson of our dead that diversity and difference are not weaknesses for below, but rather strength to give birth, on the ashes of the old, to the new world we want, that we need, that we deserve.

We know well that that world isn't just imagined by us.  But in our dream, that world isn't one, but rather many, different, diverse.  And its richness lies in its diversity.

The repeated attempts to impose unanimity are responsible for the machine going crazy and getting closer, every minute, to the final minute of civilization as we know it up to now.

In the current phase of neoliberal globalization, homogeneity is just mediocrity imposed like a universal uniform.  And if anything sets it apart from Hitler's craziness, it isn't its goal, but rather in the modernity of the manners in which it is achieved.

-*-

And yes, it's not just us that seeks the how, when, where, what.

You all, for example, are not Them.  Well, even though you[2] don't appear to have any problem allying themselves with Them to… deceive them and bring them down from the inside?  To be like Them but not so Them?  To lower the machine's speed, to file down the beast's fangs, to humanize the savage?

Yes, we know.  There's a mountain of arguments to support that.  You could even come up with some examples. 

But…

You tell us that we're equals, that we're in the same situation, that it is the same struggle, the same enemy… Hmm…. no, you don't say "enemy," you say "adversary."  Sure, that also depends on the context.

You tell us that we must all unite because there is no other path: either elections or weapons.  And you, who in that false argument justify your project of invalidating all of that which does not subject itself to the reiterated spectacle of the politics from above, you give us an ultimatum: die or give up.  And you even offer us the alibi, because, you argue, since it's about taking Power, there's only two paths.

Ah!  And we're so disobedient: we didn't die, nor did we give up.  And, as was demonstrated the day the world ended[3]: neither electoral politics nor armed struggle.

And if it's not about taking Power?  Better yet, and if the Power no longer resides in that Nation-State, that Zombie State populated by a parasite political class that pillages the nations' remains?

And if the voters that you obsess over so much (that's why you're captivated by the multitudes) don't do anything but vote for someone who others already elected, as time after time They demonstrate while they have fun with every new trick they play?

Yes, of course, you hide behind your prejudices: those who don't vote?  "It's due to apathy, disinterest, lack of education, they play into the hands of the right"… your ally in so many geographies, in not just a few calendars.  They vote but not for you?  "It's because they're rightwing, ignorant, sellouts, traitors, dying of hunger, they're zombies!"

Note from Marquitos Spoil: Yes, we sympathize with the zombies.  Not just because we look like them (we don't even need makeup and we'd still kick butt in the casting of "The Walking Dead").  Also and above all because we think, like George A. Romero, that in a zombie apocalypse, the craziest brutality would be the work of the surviving civilization, not of the walking dead.  And if some vestige of humanity were to remain, it would shine in those who are already the pariahs, the living dead for whom the apocalypse begins at birth and never ends.  Just as is happening right now in any corner of any of the worlds that exist.  And there is no movie, nor television series that tells its story.

Your gaze is marked by disdain when you look at something (even if it's at the mirror) and of breaths of envy when you look above.

You can't even imagine someone who would be interested in gazing at that "above" for no other reason than to see how to get it off of him.

-*-

Gaze.  Towards where and from where.  There is that which separates us.

You think that you are the only ones, we know that we're one more.

You look above, we look below.

You look at how you can make yourselves useful, we look how to make ourselves useful.

You look at how to lead, we look at how to accompany.

You look at how much is won, we look at how much is lost.

You look at what it is, we look at what it can be.

You look at numbers, we look at people.

You calculate statistics, we calculate histories.

You talk, we listen.

You look at how you look, we look at the gaze.

You look at us and you ream us out for where we were when your calendar was marked with your "historical" urgencies.  We look at you and we don't ask where you have been during these past 500 years of history.

You look at how to take advantage of the current situation, we look at how to create it.

You worry about broken windows, we worry about the rage that broke them.

You look at the many, we look at the few.

You look at insurmountable walls, we look at cracks.

You look at possibilities, we look at that which is impossible only until the eve.

You look for mirrors, we look for crystals.

You and we are not the same.

-*-

You look at the calendar of above and you use it to condition the spring of the mobilizations, the masses, the party, the multitude's rebelliousness, the streets bursting with songs and colors, chants, challenges, those who are already many more than just one hundred and thirty-something[4], the full plazas, the ballot boxes anxious to be filled with votes, and you run quickly because clearly-they-lack-revolutionary-party-leadership-a-politics-of-ample-and-flexible-alliances-because-electoral-politics-is-their-natural-destiny-but-they're-very-young-they're-bourgeois-petitbugies-kids- / -later-lumpen-hoodrats-crew-prole-number-of-potential-voters-potentials-ignorant-novice-ingenious-naive-clumsy-stubborn, above all, stubborn.  And you see in each massive act the culmination of the times.  And afterwards, when there's no longer crowds anxious for a leader, nor ballot boxes, nor parties, you decide that it's over, no more, to see if there will be another occasion, that we have to wait six years[5], six centuries, that we have to look the other way, but always at the calendar of above: the registration, the alliances, the positions.

And we, always with a crooked gaze, we surmount the calendar, we look for the winter, we swim upriver, we pass through the stream, we arrive at the spring.  There we see who begins, those who are few, the lessors.  We don't speak to them, we don't greet them, we don't tell them what to do, we don't tell them what not to do.  Instead, we listen to them, we look at them with respect, with admiration.  And maybe they never notice that small red flower, which looks just like a star, so small that it is barely a pebble, that our hand leaves below, close to their left foot.  Not because that's how we want to tell them that the flower-rock was ours, the Zapatistas'. Not so that they take that pebble and they throw it at something, at someone, although there isn't a lack of willingness or reasons why.  Rather, maybe because it is our way of telling them, them and all of our compas in the Sixth, that the homes and the worlds begin to be built with small pebbles and later they grow and almost nobody remembers those little pieces of rock that start out so small, so nothing, so useless, so alone, and along comes a Zapatista, and she looks at the pebble and she greets it and she sits down beside it and they don't speak, because little rocks, like Zapatistas, don't speak… until they do speak, and then it becomes a matter of if they shut up.  And no, they never shut up, what happens is that sometimes there's not anyone to listen to them.  Or maybe because we looked beyond the calendar and we knew, before, that this night would come.  Or maybe because that's what we told them, even though they don't know it, but we know it, hat they're not alone.  Because its with the few that things get started and restarted.

-*-

You didn't see us before… and you still don't look at us.

And, above all, you didn't see us watching you.

You didn't see us watching you in your arrogance, stupidly destroying the bridges, digging up the roads, allying yourselves with our persecutors, disdaining us.  Convincing yourselves that that which does not exist in the media simply does not exist.

You didn't see us watching you say and say to yourselves that you were standing on solid ground, that what is possible is solid terrain, that you cut the moorings of that absurd boat of absurdities and impossibilities, and that it was those crazies (us) who stayed adrift, isolated, alone, without a destination, paying with our existence the being principled.

You could see the resurgence as part of your victories, and now you ruminate it as one of your losses.

Go, continue on your path.

Don't listen to us, don't look at us.

Because with the Sixth and with the Zapatistas it is not possible to look nor listen with impunity.

And that is our virtue or our curse, depending on where you're looking towards and, above all, from where the gaze is extended.

(to be continued…)

From any corner of any world.

SupMarcos.

Planet Earth.

February 2013.

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Reoffenders.  Sevilla rock group, Spanish State.  Manuel J. Pizarro Fernández: Drums.  Fernando Madina Pepper: Bass and vocals.  Juan M. Rodríguez Barea: Guitar and vocals.  Finito de Badajoz "Candy": Guitar and vocals.  Carlos Domíngez Reinhardt: Sound tech.  Rock version of "I call you freedom" in a video dedicated to the heroic struggle of the Mapuche People.



_____________________________

Eduardo Galeano narrates a story from Old Antonio: "The History of the Gazes."



______________________________

Joan Manuel Serrat singing "The South Also Exists" by Mario Benedetti, in concert in Argentina, Latin America.  When he stops singing, Serrat goes behind the curtains and brings Mario Benedetti, so beloved to us, out to the stage (minute 3:01 onward).




Translation from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker.


Translator's Notes:

1. In previous parts of "Them and Us," the Ruler referred to the United States government.
2. In the original Spanish it isn't clear if this is supposed to be translated as plural "you" or "they," which in this case is written the same in Spanish.
3. Refers to December 21, 2012, when the Zapatistas staged their silent march on five cities in Chiapas.
4. Refers to the #YoSoy132 movement against Enrique Peña Nieto, sparked when 131 university students organized a protest against his visit to their campus.  Following the protest, the media asked, "Who will be number 132?", leading to the "I Am 132" movement.
5. Mexico's elected term.

Them and Us, Part 1: The (Lack of) Reason from Above by Subcomandante Marcos

THEM AND US

I.- The (lack of) reason from above.

January 2013

Those from above say:

"We're the ones who make the rules.  We're more powerful, although there are fewer of us.  We don't care what you say-hear-think-do, as long as you are mute, deaf, immobile.

"We can impose halfway intelligent people in the government (although they're already getting to be difficult to find within the political class), but we chose one who can't even pretend to know what he's talking about.[1]

"Why? Because we can.

"We could use the police and military apparatus to persecute and jail real criminals, but those criminals are a vital part of us.  Instead, we choose to persecute you, beat you, detain you, torture you, jail you, kill you.

"Why?  Because we can.

"Guilty or innocent?  Who cares if you are one or the other?  Justice is just another whore in our little black book, and believe us, it's not the most expensive one.

"And even if you follow the rules that we impose to the letter, even if you don't do anything, even though you might be innocent, we will squash you.

"And if you insist on asking why we do it, we'll respond: because we can.

"That is having Power. A lot is said about money, riches, and those things.  But believe us when we say that what excites us is that feeling of being able to make decisions about anyone's life, liberty, and assets.  No, power is not money, it's what you can have with it.  Power is not just exercising it with impunity, it is also and above all, to do it irrationally.  Because having Power is to do and undo without having any other reason than the possession of Power.

"And it doesn't matter who stands out in front, hiding us.  Right and left are only references so that the chauffeur can park the car.  The machinery runs itself.  We don't even have to order them to punish the insolence of defying us.  Large, medium, and small governments all over the political spectrum, as well as intellectuals, artists, journalists, politicians, and religious leaders fight over the privilege to please us.

"So fuck you, screw you, rot in hell, die, get discouraged, give up.

"To the rest of the world you don't exist, you are no one.

"Yes, we've sowed hate, cynicism, rancor, desperation, theoretical and practical don't-give-a-fuck, conformity with the 'lesser evil,' fear turned into resignation.

"And, nonetheless, we fear that which has transformed itself into organized rebellious rage, without a price tag.  

"Because we control, manage, ration, and feed the chaos that we impose.  Our 'law enforcement' forces impose our chaos.

"But the chaos[2] that comes from below…

"Ah, that… we don't even understand what they say, who they are, how much they cost.

"And they're so rude that they don't beg, await, request, plead--instead, they exercise their freedom.  Have you ever seen such obscenity!

"That is the real danger.  People who look on the other side, who leave the mold, or break it, or ignore it.

"You know what's really worked for us? That myth about unity at all cost.  To only understand oneself with a boss, leader, ruler, or whatever they call themselves.  Controlling, managing, containing, buying one is much easier than many.  Yes, and cheaper.  That and individual rebelliousness.  It's so wonderfully useless.

"Rather, what's really dangerous in a true chaos is when every one becomes a collective, group, crew, raza, organization, and they learn to say 'no' and 'yes,' and they reach agreements amongst themselves.  Because the 'no' is directed towards those of us who give the orders.  And the 'yes,'… geez… that really is a disaster.  Imagine if everyone built their own destinies, and they decided who to be and what to do.  It would be like pointing out that we're expendable, excessive, that we get in the way, that we're not necessary, that we should be in jail, that we should disappear.

Art: Banksy

"Yes, a nightmare.  Yes, of course, for us.  Can you imagine how bad that world would be?  Full of indians, blacks, browns, yellows, reds, dreadlocks, tattoos, piercings, studs, punks, goths, cholos, skaters, that 'A' flag without a nation to buy it, youth, women, whores, children, the elderly, zoot suiters, drivers, peasants, workers, tacky people, proles, poor people, anonymous people… others.  Without a privileged space for us, the 'beautiful people'[3]… or, so you understand us, the 'good people'… because we can tell by the way you talk that you didn't study at Harvard.

"Yes, that day would be night for us… Yes, everything would be ruined.  What would we do?

"Hmm… we hadn't thought about that.  We think, we plan, and we execute what to do so that it doesn't happen, but… no, that hadn't occurred to us.

"Well, in any case, well….hmm… I don't know… perhaps we would look for who to blame, and then, well, we'd look for, I don't know, a Plan B.  Of course by then it would be useless.  I think that then we would remember what that damn red Jew said…no, not Marx… Einstein, Albert Einstein.  I think it was him who said: 'Theory is when you know everything and nothing works.  Practice is when everything works and no one knows why.  In this case we have combined theory and practice: nothing works… and no one knows why.'

"No, you're right, we wouldn't even be able to smile.  A sense of humor has always been an non-expropriable patrimony.  Isn't that a shame?

"Yes, without a doubt, these are times of crisis.

"Hey, aren't you going to take pictures?  I mean, so we can fix our hair and put on something a little more presentable.  Nah, we already tried that in 'Hola'[4]… oh, but what are we saying, it's obvious that you haven't gotten past [the comic book] 'El Libro Vaquero.'

"Oh, we can't wait to tell our friends that someone so… so… so… other came to interview us.  They're going to love it.  And, well, it's going to make us seem so cosmopolitan…

"No, of course we're not afraid of you.  Regarding that prophecy… bah, it's superstition… so… so… native… yes, so Region 4 [5]… hahahaha…what a good joke, let's write that down for when we see the kids…

"What?… It isn't a prophecy?…

"Oh, it's a promise…"

(…) (the tee-tu-ta-ta-tatatata sound, from the smartphone)

"Hello, police? Yes, I'd like to report that someone came to see us.  Yes, we think he was a journalist or something.  He looked so… so… so other, yes.  No, no, he didn't do anything to us.  No, he didn't take anything.  It's just that, as we were leaving to go to the club to see our friends, and we see that someone has painted something on the entrance to the garden.  No, the guards didn't see who it was.  Of course not!  Ghosts don't exist.  Well, it's painted with a lot of colors… No, we didn't see any paint cans nearby… Well, as we were saying, it is painted with a lot of colors, so colorful, very tacky, very other, not anything like the galleries where… what?  No, we don't want you to send a squad car.  Yes, we know.  But we're calling to see if you can investigate what the painting means.  We don't know if it's a code, or one of those strange tongues that the proles speak.  Yes, it's just one word, but we don't know why it makes us shudder.  It says:

"MARICHIWEU!'"[6]

(to be continued…)

From any corner of any world.

SupMarcos
Planet Earth
January 2013

___________________

Listen to and watch the videos that accompany this text:

a.- Pacheco



"Pachuco," by La Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del 5to Patio.  Video is from the perspective of "from below," that is, in the middle of the mosh pit.  The moral of the story: don't record while you're on the trampoline.  And what the heck, Maldita?  Don't be so idem and get it together.  Or what, you're just going to leave the raza to the mercy of the Justin Beibers of the world?  Fine, greetings from Solin, because you guys really did understand that the communities are pure Kalimán.[7]

_____________________

b.-"More for your money."



"More for your money."  Written and directed by Yordi Capó.  Guadalajara, Mexico, August 2003.

_______________________

c.- "Of rats and cats."



Cartoons based on the words of Thomas C. Douglas (1904-1986).



Translator's notes:

1. Referring to President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is turning out to be at least as inarticulate and factually challenged as George W. Bush.
2. Marcos wrote "chaos" with the letter "k" in Spanish: "kaos."  Like anglophone anarcho-punks and other rebellious youth, Mexico's young rebels often replace the "c"s in certain works with "k"s in the written language.
3. "The beautiful people" is written in English in the original.  Bourgeois Mexicans like to sprinkle English words and phrases into their vocabulary.
4. Hola! is a Mexican magazine for women.  It featured exclusive photos and interviews regarding current president Enrique Peña Nieto's fairytale wedding to soap opera star Angelica Rivera.
5. Region 4 is the DVD region code for Mexico, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and much of Oceania.  Mexico also uses Region 1, the region code for the US and Canada.
6. A Mapuche phrase that means "we will win one hundred times over."
7. "Pachuco" means "zoot suiter" in Mexico.  Marcos uses a lot of Mexico City slang here and is making reference to another Maldita Vecindad song called "Solín," which is about a poor man who reads about Mexican comic book hero Kalimán and decides to change his name and make a living as a carnival psychic.  Maldita Vecindad is a classic Mexican ska/punk band that has supported many Left causes since the band's inception in the 1980s.  The band is still popular and active, but they haven't put out an album in years--much to Marcos' chagrin, apparently.

Translation from the original Spanish: Kristin Brickier