Carlos Montemayor: The Zapatista March/La Jornada Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: NUEVO AMANECER PRESS" Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:40:36 +0000 [The following article appeared in La Jornada on September 12th. In this piece Carlos Montemayor writes about the Zapatista march to Mexico City and its place within the context of the historical relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples Mexico. The author argues that the time has come for the people of Mexico and the government to embrace contemporary Native peoples as well as their realities, victories, needs and problems. Montemayor writes that the Zapatista march has again highlighted the urgent need for profound change in Mexico's policies and practice towards the Indigenous peoples of Mexico.] Carlos Montemayor The Zapatista March Mexico suffers from a type of schizophrenia: on the one hand it applauds the historic Indian and glorifies prehistoric cultural patrimony, on the other hand it marginalizes, disrespects, despises the real Indian of flesh and blood. This schizophrenic division leads us to celebrate the indigenous culture of the past, to rescue, safeguard , and/or study it in order to feel closer to them. But no Mexican feels a part of the contemporary Indian. Instead we despise, forget, minimize, destroy the present indigenous culture. Because we believe that Indian is synonymous with backwardness, racial and cultural discrimination, it is the weapon we wield against contemporary indigenous reality. The applause and respect is for the pre-hispanic Indian world. We want the Indian of the past to be like we believe it was. But we demand the Indian of today to change. We think he needs to stop being Indian, stop being what that is. Even though we the non-Indians, are not obligated to change and we do not propose that we change. The march of the 1,111 Zapatistas illustrates this official national schizophrenia. The Zapatistas have not disappeared, they have not given up their weapons, they have not stopped resisting, nor demanding their agrarian, political and cultural reform. And even in spite of this, we believe the march is a symbol of their change, not a demand for our change. They have not disappeared, and the political and social circumstances which gave rise to the EZLN insurgency have become worse. But the Mexican government and a great part of the country continue to believe that this conflict will be resolved not by a change of attitude of the federal government but from a change of the EZLN itself, by a change in the Zapatistas, the Indigenous peoples. Let us not be mistaken, the change needs to be ours. If the FZLN consolidates itself as a new road of political action, weapons will begin to become useless not because the Zapatistas would have ceased to exist and fight, but because the country has changed. To believe that the arrival of the Zapatistas means a turn towards peace only because the Zapatistas are willing to change is an error, it is political and national shortsightedness. Peace will be closer when we change ourselves, when our Constitution is reformed, when our discriminatory and racist perspective is destroyed. The Zapatista march proposes these changes, as long as the final result be that as indigenous communities they become citizens with complete rights in the entire nation. It is inexplicable that the Secretary of the Interior states before the Congress that the indigenous communities need to submit themselves to a constitutional order that does not recognize the political and cultural rights of the indigenous people. That is precisely the demand of the Zapatista struggle. It is unjustifiable that the Secretary of the Interior state before the New Legislature, that to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples would lead to the violation of the principle that all citizens are equal before the law, when the Mexican government and the Senate have already accepted, since 1990, and before the International Labor Organization of the United Nations, that the principle of equality before the law is not operable in the everyday reality of tribal and indigenous peoples. Mexico can not be subscribing to international agreements, such as Convention 169, of the ILO, to later turn its back on it. The Mexican government can not be signing peace Accords in San Andres to later turn its back on them. It is time the government act like an adult and learn to respect the commitments it makes. With its reluctance recognizing the San Andres Accords it is also not fulfilling Convention 169 of the ILO. The contents of this document have manifested themselves in the San Andres Accords and whose principles have been picked up in the project of constitutional reform proposal by the COCOPA. It is time that the education of Mexicans with regards to the Indian change. It is time for the government to change. The Zapatistas come to Mexico because they await a change. Because they demand it. Their march is not an end to a conflict. It is the continuation of the struggle. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-09.16.97-01:38:07-7255