Abstract

!Zapatista! The Phoenix Rises

From its perennially censorious perspective, the television repeatedly displays without understanding the faces of the Zapatista rebels, hooded by ski masks or covered with quintessentially Mexican paliacates. Their weapons are indigenous, too. The images show an AK-47 here and there, an assault rifle stolen from the Mexican Army, but the majority are carrying shotguns and 22-caliber hunting rifles. In Mexico, history repeats itself. In the first confrontation, twenty-four policemen died. In the fight for control of the town halls, the insurgents clashed with the state police, known as judiciales, and with the municipal police forces. In post-1968 Mexico, the forces of the new left opted to work for social organization among the masses. Thousands of students were mobilized by the union movement, the struggle in the slums, the slow work of assistance to campesino insurgent movements.