LA JORNADA, JAN. 8, 1996
MARCOS ATTENDED PLENARY OF THE INDIGENOUS NATIONAL FORUM
WORDS OF SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS IN THE PLENARY OF THE INDIGENOUS NATIONAL FORUM
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, CHIAPAS, MEXICO
January 7, 1996
Indigenous Brothers and Sisters who participated in this Indigenous
National Forum:
Through my voice speaks the voice of the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation.
We want, first of all, to give thanks to the legislators of the
Commission for Condord and Peace (COCOPA) and the members of the National
Commission for Intermediation (CONAI), presided by Samuel Ruiz Garcia,
for the efforts they realized to make possible our presence in this
forum. We want to give public recognition for their work with the
supreme government to obtain the guarantees and facilities that made
possible our trip from the jungle to our being here with you.
Both the COCOPA and the CONAI demonstrated once again, only a few days
before this day that joins us here, their will and determination for a
just and dignified peace, and to make sure the road of dialogue continues to
be the only one to resolve the war initiated more than two years ago.
I want to thank also my companeros bosses, the comandantes of the
Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee-General Command of the
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (CCRI-CG del EZLN), for the
opprotunity they gave me to attend this improtant reunion. Their
indications and orientations have demonstrated for many years to have the
wisdom and the patience of our more ancient brothers.
But I want to especially thank all the indigenous brothers and sisters
who, from different parts of Mexico and the world, have sacrificed and
gone through suffering and losses to be present here to speak and listen
to the paths toward the place that the original inhabitants of thse lands
deserve. It is for us a great honor. The best reward to the blood of
our brothers fallen in combat and the suffering and scarcities of our
brothers and sisters in the indigenous Zapatista communities, is having
the opportunity to speak and listen to you and to us. Receive our
military salute and accept us as your youngest brothers and sisters, your
learners, your followers, your companeros.
In order to correspond with this joy, I ask that you allow me to tell you
a story that I heard 10 years ago by the mouth of one like you, a great
knower with dark skin and indigenous blood.
THE STORY OF THE RAINBOW
The evening was about to stop being so. There was a brilliant grey that
announces the dawn. The Old Antonio finished fixing two bags of
pergamino coffee and sat next to me. I waited for the encounter to help
me cross a population where there were no companeros. The crossing would
be by night. At daybreak, January emerged and 1986 dawned. Times to
still be hidden, to be occult from those we would become a part of
later. I looked toward the west and, ambushed behind the pipe's smoke, I
tried to dream of a different morning.
Old Antonio remained silent and barely made the necessary noise to make
one of those cigarettes that announces smoke an stories. But Old Antonio
did not speak. He stayed there looking toward where I was looking and
waited, patiently, until I spoke: "Until when will we be hiding from our
people?," I said while the last mouthful of smoke escaped through the
bowl of the pipe.
Old Antonio coughed and decided finally to light the cigarrette and the
word. Slowly, as one who heals hope, Old Antonio re-lighted the evening
with . . .
THE STORY OF THE 7 RAINBOWS
"In the very early beginning of the worlds, where later our greatest
grandfathers walked, the greatest gods, those who gave birth to the world,
the first, came down to speak to the men and the women of corn. It was
an evening as this one, of cold, blinking rain and sun. The first gods sat
to talk with the men and women of corn to agree on the path tobe walked
by the real men and women. Because these gods, who were the very first,
who gave birth to the world, were not bossy as the gods that came later.
they were not bossy the first gods, they sought the good agreement
between them and the men and women of corn. They sought to always arrive
at the good path together, with good accord and good word. So they were
in this evening, which was of the world the very first, speaking the
greatest gods with the men and women of corn - with their equals.
They agreed to seek the good agreements with other men and women, with
other languages and other thoughts. The men and women of corn had to
walk very far within their heart to seek the words that other men and
women, that other colors, that other hearts would understand.
So they came to agreement on the work for the men and women of corn to
make a good world. So they agreed that 7 were the very fist tasks, the
most important to make us new. And the fist 7 gods spoke, those who gave
birith to the world, saying that 7 were the tasks that should be
accomplished so that the world is made good and make us new. The greatest
gods, 7 they were becasue 7 were the winds or th skies that gave rood to
the world and as such the first gods said that these were the 7 skies;
the seventh wind of NOHOCHAACYUM, the great father Chaac. In the sixth
wind the CHAACOB or gods of rain. In the fight the KUILOB KAAXOB. In
the fourth wind the guardians of animals. In the third wind the bad
spirits. In the second, the gods of the wind. Inthe first, immediately
on top of the earth, the BALAMOB that care for the crosses of the pueblo
and the corn stalks. In the deepness was KISIN, the god of tremor and
fear, the devil.
- The first gods also said that there wre 7 colors and 7 the number they
counted. And the story of the colors, I have already told you the other
day and the one of the 7 tasks I will tell you later if there is time and
a way for you to listen and a way for I to tell you - hurried Old Antonio
while the last brightness of his cigarette extinguished.
Then comes the silence in which Old Antonio re-forges smoke and dreams.
A small lightning in the match of his hand and the smoke continues:
"So the men and women of corn agreed in fulfilling the 7 tasks so that
the world was made good. And they looked to where the sun and the moon
take turns to sleep and asked the first gods how much they should walk
inorder to fulfill the 7 tasks that serve to make a new world. So the
first gods said that 7 times 7 they will walk the 7 because that is how
the number came out which reminds us that not everything comes in pairs
and that there is alsway room for another. So the men and women of corn
said good and returned their sight to the mountain that served as a small
box keeping the breasts of mother earth in turns, one by day the other by
night. And in seeing this, the men and women of corn asked themselves
how would they know how many times is 7 times 7 walking the number 7; and
the first gods said that they did not know either becasue they were the
first gods, but they did not know everything and they also had to study a
lot; and that is why they would not leave but remained with the men and
womenof corn to learn together the new. So they made a reunion among the
first gods and the men and women of corn and they thought together so
that together they could find the good path that would make the world new.
And so there they were, that is thinking themselves, that is knowing
themselves, that is speaking themselves, that is learning themselves,
that is being when the rain hung right in themiddle of the afternoon
without falling or getting up, just being there; and the men and women of
corn remained there seeing and also the first gods; and just there a
bridge of light and clouds began to paint itself and from the mountain
came the bridge and to the valley went the bridge and then clearly it
could be seen that the bridge of colors, clouds and light did not go
anywhere nor did it come from anywhere but was just there, on top of the
rain and the world. And the bridge of light, colors and clouds had 7
colors like stripes. And the first gods and the men and women of corn
saw again and again they was the bridge that did not come nor go
anywhere, it was just there and then they understood that the bridge of
colors, clouds and light does not come nor go but serves tocome and go;
and so they became happy al lwho were thinking themselves and learning
themselves and they knew tha that was the good - to be a bridge so tha
the good worlds come and go, the new ones that we make for ourselves.
And quickly the musicians brought out their insturments and quickly the
first gods and the real men and women of corn pulled out their feet and
they began to dance because the had been thinking themselves and knowing
themselves and speaking themselves and learning themselves. And now that
they finished dancing themselves, they met again and found that 7 times 7
meant that 7 rainbows of 7 colors had to be make walking so that the 7
main tasks could be fulfilled. And so it was known also that at the end
of the 7 there were 7 more because the bridges of clouds, colors and
light do not come nor go, they have no begining and no finaly, they do
not start nor end, but continue to cross from one side to the other. And
that is the agreement arrived at by the first gods and men and women of
corn, the real ones, they spend their lives making bridges, and bridges
are also made in death. Bridges always of colors of clouds and of light,
bridges always to go from one place to the other, to carry out the tasks
that give birth to the new world, that makes us good 7 times 7, walking
the 7, the men and women of corn, the real ones. Making bridges they
live, making themselves bridges they die. . .
"The Old Antonio becomes quiet. I stare at him and am about to ask him
what does that have to do with my question about how long will we be
hiding, when a light renews his look and smiling he signals the mountain
to me, to the west. I turn around and see a rainbow that does not come
nor go, that is just there, bridging worlds, bridging dreams . . .
Today, in the seventh day for the year's awakening, up to 6 rainbows
appeared inthe path. Contradicting the anguish in the chest and the dry
asfixia of keeping awake the night before, a bridge, a curve of light, of
clouds and of colors, 6 time reminded of Old Antonio and his story of 7
rainbows. I passed the path waiting the appearance of the seventh and
the cold brought other memories of a dawn tow years ago when with bombs
and soldiers the dark skinned Enough is Enough! dawned the world. Two
years ago, in these same lands, indigneous dignity awoke and awoke us.
The pain was not little nor small was the death. But that is another
story and I only wanted to tell you that just here was the seventh
rainbow, in this reunion or forum in which we are thinking ourselves,
speaking ourselves, learning ourselves, knowing ourselves. And I want to
tell you that this, your and ours, is the seventh rainbow, the seventh
rainbow that we have to make ourselves to give birth ourselves to new
worlds. So we need only 7 times 7 to walk the 7, to say and tell
ourselves that we have finished the 7 tasks that give birth to the good
world, to the one that makes us new.
Thank you brothers and sister. Welcome the rainbow, welcome the bridge,
welcome the step that takes and brings, welcome always the word that
walks, yours, ours, that of everyone that is us.
> From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, on the seventh day of January of 1996
(translated by Adriana Manjarrez, National Center for Democracy,
Liberty and Justice)