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Subcomandante Marcos Quotes

Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente is a Mexican insurgent and former military leader and spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in the ongoing Chiapas conflict. Widely known by his previous nom de guerre as Subcomandante Marcos, he has recently used several other pseudonyms; he referred to himself as Delegate Zero during the 2006 Mexican Presidential Campaign. In May 2014, he adopted the name of his dead comrade "Teacher Galeano", naming himself Subcomandante Galeano instead.

Born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Marcos earned a degree in sociology and a master's degree in philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico , and taught at the Autonomous Metropolitan University for several years during the early 1980s. During this time he became increasingly involved with a guerrilla group known as the National Liberation Forces , before leaving the university and moving to Chiapas in 1984.The Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional was founded in the Lacandon Jungle in 1983, initially functioning as a self-defense unit dedicated to protecting Chiapas' Mayan people from evictions and encroachment on their land. While not Mayan himself, Marcos emerged as the group's leader, and when the EZLN – often referred to as Zapatistas – began their rebellion on January 1, 1994, Marcos served as their spokesman.Known for his trademark ski mask and pipe, and for his charismatic personality, Marcos led the EZLN during the 1994 revolt and the subsequent peace negotiations, during a counter-offensive by the Mexican Army in 1995, and throughout the decades that followed. In 2001, he led a group of Zapatista leaders into Mexico City to meet with President Vicente Fox, attracting widespread public and media attention. In 2006, Marcos made another public tour of Mexico, which was known as The Other Campaign. In May 2014, Marcos stated that the persona of Subcomandante Marcos had been "a hologram" and no longer existed. Many media outlets interpreted the message as Marcos retiring as the Zapatistas' leader and spokesman.Marcos is also a prolific writer, and hundreds of essays and multiple books are attributed to him. Most of his writings focus on his anti-capitalist ideology and the advocacy for indigenous people's rights, but he has also written poetry and novels.



Wikipedia  

✵ 19. June 1957
Subcomandante Marcos photo
Subcomandante Marcos: 13   quotes 11   likes

Famous Subcomandante Marcos Quotes

“Love is like a teacup that every day falls to the ground and breaks to pieces. In the morning the pieces are gathered and with a little moisture and a little warmth, the pieces are glued together, and again there is a little teacup. He who is in love spends life fearing that the terrible day will come when the teacup is so broken that it can no longer mended.”

Subcomandante Marcos

"Speaking of Love, No Love, and Other Nuisances" (23 December 1995) in Our Word Is Our Weapon

“The world we want to transform has already been worked on by history and is largely hollow. We must nevertheless be inventive enough to change it and build a new world. Take care and do not forget ideas are also weapons.”

Subcomandante Marcos

Le Monde Diplomatique (August 2000) " Ideas Are Also Weapons http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Mexico/Ideas_weapons.html"

“Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying "Enough!" He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable — this is Marcos.”

Subcomandante Marcos

" The Majority Disguised as the Resented Minority http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/16118" (31 May 1994)

“In previous armies, soldiers used their time to clean their weapons and stock up on ammunition. Our weapons are words, and we may need our arsenal at any moment.”

Subcomandante Marcos

"The Movement of Movements" (2004) " The Hourglass of the Zapatistas http://books.google.com/books?id=gh052B6W1HYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=movement+of+movements&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sBSVT5CXC4OC8QSUzfSiBA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=In%20previous%20armies%2C%20soldiers%20used%20their%20time%20to%20clean%20their%20weapons%20and%20stock%20up%20on%20ammunition.%20Our%20weapons%20are%20words%2C%20and%20we%20may%20need%20our%20arsenal%20at%20any%20moment.&f=false"

“As to whether Marcos is gay: Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal,… a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Kurd in Turkey, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.”

Subcomandante Marcos

" The Majority Disguised as the Resented Minority http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/16118" (31 May 1994)

“We treat the children like children. It is the powerful with their war that treats them like they are adults. We talk to them. We teach them that the word, together with love and dignity, is what makes us human beings. We don't teach them how to fight. Well, yes, but only how to fight with their words. They learn. They know that the reason we are in all this is so that they won't have to do the same. And they talk and they also listen. Contrary to what you say, we teach the children that words don't kill but that yes it is possible to kill words and, along with them, the act of being human.”

Subcomandante Marcos

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

“Freedom is like the morning. There are those who wait for it asleep, and there are others that stay awake and walk through the night to reach it.”

Subcomandante Marcos

La libertad es como la mañana. Hay quienes esperan dormidos a que llegue, pero hay quienes desvelan y caminan la noche para alcanzarla.
La revuelta de la memoria (1999), p. 165, Centro de Información y Análisis de Chiapas. https://books.google.com/books?id=dVgWAAAAYAAJ&q=La+libertad+es+como+la+mañana.+Hay+quienes+esperan+dormidos+a+que+llegue,+pero+hay+quienes+desvelan+y+caminan+la+noche+para+alcanzarla.

“The prince has consequently issued orders: "Attack them! I shall supply the army and media. You come up with the ideas." So, right-wing intellectuals spend their time insulting their left-wing counterparts, and because of the Zapatista movement's international impact, they are now busy rewriting our story to suit the demands of the prince.”

Subcomandante Marcos

Le Monde Diplomatique (August 2000) " Ideas Are Also Weapons http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Mexico/Ideas_weapons.html"

Subcomandante Marcos Quotes about the world

“We teach them to speak and also to listen. Because when people only talk and don't listen, they end up thinking that what they say is the only thing that is worth anything. … Speaking and listening to words is how we know who we are, where we come from, and where our steps are going. Also it's how we know about others, their steps, and their world. Speaking and listening to words is like listening to life.”

Subcomandante Marcos

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

“We teach them that there are so many words like colors and that there are so many thoughts because within them is the world where words are born. That there are different thoughts and we should respect them. That there are those who pretend their way of thinking should be the only way and they persecute, jail, and kill (always hidden behind the reasons of the State, illegitimate laws, or "just causes") thoughts that are different then their own. And we teach them to speak the truth, that is to say, to speak with their hearts. Because the lie is another form of killing words.”

Subcomandante Marcos

"I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet" http://www.csuchico.edu/zapatist/HTML/Archive/Communiques/etaJAN.html January, 2003

“Antonio dreams of owning the land he works on, he dreams that his sweat is paid for with justice and truth, he dreams that there is a school to cure ignorance and medicine to scare away death, he dreams of having electricity in his home and that his table is full, he dreams that his country is free and that this is the result of its people governing themselves, and he dreams that he is at peace with himself and with the world. He dreams that he must fight to obtain this dream, he dreams that there must be death in order to gain life. Antonio dreams and then he awakens…. Now he knows what to do and he sees his wife crouching by the fire, hears his son crying. He looks at the sun rising in the East, and, smiling, grabs his machete. The wind picks up, he rises and walks to meet others. Something has told him that his dream is that of many and he goes to find them.”

Subcomandante Marcos

" Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/marcos_se_2_wind.html" (August 1992)

“The storm is here. From the clash of these two winds the storm will be born, its time has arrived. Now the wind from above rules, but the wind from below is coming…. The prophecy is here. When the storm calms, when rain and fire again leave the country in peace, the world will no longer be the world but something better.”

Subcomandante Marcos

" Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/marcos_se_2_wind.html" (August 1992)

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