Subcomandante Marcos is a Mexican insurgent, the former military leader and spokesman for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in the ongoing Chiapas conflict, and an anti-capitalist and anti-neoliberal globalization icon. Widely known by his initial nom de guerre Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos he has subsequently employed several other pseudonyms and since 2014 has gone by the name Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano. Marcos is also a prolific writer, and his considerable literary talents have been widely acknowledged by prominent writers and intellectuals, with hundreds of communiques and several books being attributed to him. Most of his writings are anti-capitalist while
… Read more advocating for indigenous people's rights
The Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; often simply called the Zapatistas) was the local, Chiapas wing of FLN, founded in the Lacandon Jungle in 1983, initially functioning as a self-defense unit dedicated to protecting Chiapas's Mayan people from evictions and encroachment on their land. Known for his trademark ski mask and pipe and for his charismatic personality, Marcos coordinated the EZLN's 1994 uprising, headed up the subsequent peace negotiations, and has played a prominent role throughout the Zapatistas' struggle in the following decades. After the ceasefire, the Zapatistas transitioned from revolutionary guerrillas to an armed social movement, with Marcos's role transitioning from military strategist to public spokesperson.
The term "Zapatistas" broadly refers to the group of people participating in the anti-globalization struggle for democracy and land reform in Chiapas, Mexico, organized around the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Front). With the goal of disrupting the state and creating a space for the "democratization of democracy," the EZLN guerrilla forces, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, incited a rebellion in Chiapas in January 1994. Though the signing of NAFTA is generally agreed to be the most direct catalyst for the rebellion, additional significant factors include a combination of ecological crisis, lack of available productive land, the drying up of nonagricultural sources of income,
… Read more the political and religious reorganization of indigenous communities since the 1960s, and the re-articulation of ethnic identities with emancipatory political discourses.
The EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) is a libertarian socialist political and militant group that controls a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. In recent years, the EZLN has focused on a strategy of civil resistance. The Zapatistas' main body is made up of mostly indigenous people. Subcomandante Marcos was the most prominent and frequently identified member of the EZLN leadership. The EZLN takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, the agrarian revolutionary and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and sees itself as his ideological heir. Nearly all EZLN villages contain murals with images of Zapata and Subcomandante Marcos.
While EZLN ideology is similar to libertarian socialism, the Zapatistas have rejected and defied political classification. The EZLN aligns itself with the wider alter-globalization, anti-neoliberal social movement, seeking indigenous control over local resources, especially land. Since their 1994 uprising was countered by the Mexican Armed Forces, the EZLN has abstained from military offensives and adopted a new strategy that attempts to garner Mexican and international support.
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.