From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Subcomandante Marcos Libro
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 05:47:25 +0100



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2004 4:23 AM
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Subcomandante Marcos Libro


> Hmm, so Marcos is writing novels. What happened to the Zapatista 
> revolution? Or am I being a "liberal" for asking?
> 
> Doug

Dough, I never held any illusions about the neo-Zapatistas.
That is, I think it is (mostly) fine as far as it goes. But that
to become more than a limited force, it would have had to
link up with similar, if necessarily different movements within
the more traditional working class in other and more central
parts of Mexico, and at least certain parts of the U.S. Not,
that it is the fault of the Zapatistas that this mostly has
not happened; that is that these wished for movements have
not emerged, not at least to the point where it would be
possible to go further.

This said, I've always been sceptical towards the image of
the neo-Zapatistas in the North. Much of which I have found
quite illusionist.  But if I must chose, I still prefer that kind to
fabrication of illusions around old ghosts liked Chavez. If one
had left the latter out of the picture, and entered into a
sober and critical analysis of the possible potentials created
on the ground, it would be something quite different. One of
the problems involved here, I am quite convinced, is the strong
tendency to view things primarily in anti-U.S. perspective.
All rhetoric aside, Chavez will succeed in so far as
succeeds on capitalist terms. And there is almost certainly
a limit to how far neo-liberalism can go before causing
a economical crisis. Unlike some, I neither believe that capitalism
can run merely on moving fictious values around. That is a
bit too other-worldly for me. 

And with this also enters another perspective this just might
be seen from, that is as possible tendency towards a modernisation
of capitalist social relations in Latin-America. Lula could for
instance very well fit into such a picture. I am not at all
opposed to this, should it happen. I just think it has terrible
little to do with a social revolutionary perspective. Although it
just might make the potentials for the latter better ..  I'm
never opposed to progress.  And such a thing do in fact exist,
even if most of the times as a contradictory phenomenom.

As for the poetry of the Marcos, I have no particular opinion
of it. I've never sat down and read it, although I've seen
passages cited here and there.

Harald


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