388 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
governments as immoral and dishonorable for their failure to address indigenous
rights—inflamed Spanish and Mexican public opinion, and even led a Mexican con-
gressional representative to challenge Marcos to a duel to the death for having in-
sulted the honor of Mexico.
Neither the debate nor the duel ever happened, but the controversy cost EZLN
a good deal of credibility. Indeed, the Zapatista Movement is widely ridiculed in
Spain today as the mad voice of a frustrated post–Cold War Marxist. Subcomandante
Marcos, the critics say, is attempting to indulge his political fantasies as a “ventrilo-
quist,” ostensibly speaking for indigenous communities, but actually grandstanding
for himself. Others, such as José Saramago, Nobel Laureate of Portugal, have digni-
fied Marcos with political and literary accolades, believing that he and his cause em-
brace the biggest issue of the new millennium: the recognition of the political rights
and cultural autonomy of minority populations. (See Saramago’s Foreword to Mar-
cos’s Our Word is Our Weapon,2001). Such is the diversity of opinion regarding EZLN
and the Zapatista Movement.
We hope that this background information and the following chronology will
allow students to form their own opinions. In considering the Zapatista historical
narrative, readers are urged to take note of the social, political, religious, and cal-
endrical symbolism of events with an eye to understanding the underlying “cultural
logic” (for the meaning of these terms, see Box 8.5).
The script for specific events of the early days of the Zapatista rebellion followed
a syncretically adapted version of ancient Mesoamerican time (see Box 10.1). The Za-
patista critique of the state followed a preordained script. In precise accordance with
the Gregorian and the ecclesiastical calendar of 1994 (augmented by the inaugural
date of NAFTA on January 1 of that year), the Zapatistas mounted their carniva-
lesque mockery of the Mexican state, its cities, its leaders, and its institutions.
The pattern of calendrically scripted moves guided by the solar and Carnival cy-
cles continued in subsequent developments, both positive (renewal) and negative
(death). On the positive side, the comprehensive peace accord of mid-February 1996
between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government occurred immediately before
Carnival. The New York Timesannouncement on February 15, 1996, that the accord
had been signed appeared on the Thursday preceding the ritual enactment of the
four days of Carnival for that year (Saturday 17 February–Tuesday 20 February).
On the negative side, the Indian adversaries of the Zapatistas, in league with the
Mexican government, mounted the infamous massacre of Acteal on December 23,- In this notorious incident, forty-three alleged Zapatista supporters (almost all
of them women and children) in a Tzotzil hamlet of Chenalhó were murdered by pro-
government Tzotzil Mayan enemies of the Zapatistas. This massacre coincided, we
think not coincidentally, with the winter solstice. In other words, death and renewal—
quintessential agrarian forces that center on the winter solstice and the early spring
ecclesiastical cycle—informed ancient Mayan thought just as they appear to guide
contemporary Mayan action in history in modern Chiapas. This coincidence is why
we believe that Carnival, with its humor and mockery of the normative order, func-
tions in both Zapatista and progovernment communities as much more than a se-
quence of curious ritual events. Carnival is a kind of script for action in history. We