Interviewers: Nothing has arrived. A number of very biased press sources have tried to equate the EZLN with the Shining Path [Communist Party of Peru - Shining Path - translators]. Making a simply objective analysis you can see that both groups are very different. For example, while the Shining Path has committed innumerable executions, you [the EZLN] tried a criminal like Absalom [former governer of Chiapas taken prisoner by the Zapatistas during the January fighting - translators] and you put him to work in the corn fields and in the end you freed him. We would like it if you could expound on this because there are Maoists who say that you part of the international Maoist revolution, that there is a link between the Shining Path and the Zapatista Army, etc., etc.
Marcos: No, there is no link. Look, if the Mexicans couldn't accept that an armed revolution was possible in Mexico, definitely foreigners couldn't accept the possibility. Come on, everyone saw or still sees Mexico as the rearguard for political solidarity work. Now I'm remembering something; let's see if this relates to the question - it will make the tape recorder jump. We just received a feminist magazine that says that we are sexists because we chose war and war is sexist, armies are in and of themselves sexist, so therefore the EZLN is sexist. Therefore, what the EZLN needs is to be feminist. The article was brilliant - it moved me to tears. I don't remember what it was called - it was written by pure feminists. The article goes beyond anything I've seen.
Interviewers: La Fem? [Mexican feminist magazine - translators]
Marcos: No.
Interviewers: Is it national?
Marcos: No, it appeared to be. . .
Interviewers: Well, on that note, I'm going skip around in the order of the questions.
Marcos: No, it's that the article says. . .the foreward says, Only for Zapatista women. And I disobeyed and read it, but I will pass it along to the companneras.
Interviewers: Well, one of the things that we are most concerned about - specifically the companeras - are the gender politics within the EZLN. You facilitated our being able to interview a number of compan~eras and we have seen - to the point that you have allowed us to see [laughs] - that there exists an equality. This can be seen clearly. The women say it themselves: My partner, - or in the case of those who are married - My husband washes his things, does his work, does his part. And when you ask her if she has children, she says, Yes, I already have mine, my M-16. Things like this show that yes, there is an equality that exists, at least in practice. The single compan~eras that we've interviewed also tell us they do the same work as the men, that they aren't limited to working as nurses or in the kitchen as a result of being women. We would like you to tell us, as spokesperson of the EZLN: What are the politics of the EZLN towards gender issues?
Marcos: Look, there are many problems. I am speaking of the companeras. . . above all in the civilian population, the civilians have continued practicing many ancestral customs that don't belong in even a pre-revolutionary situation. For example, many still believe that the man should choose the woman that he wants to marry, but that the woman should have no choice in the matter. The difference, including the physical difference, between the civilian women and the combatant women is very clear. At the age when many of the combatant women have, as you say, an M-16, many civilian women already have four or five children, are beaten by their husbands; they don't know how to read or write, they have no opportunity to develop themselves as people. What the compan~eras say is that they cannot have their equality decreed from above, they have to achieve it through struggle. They say, You can like it or not, but now we are going to change these things. By force. That's why in our list of demands to the government, it doesn't mention anything about gender. The companeras say, We aren't going to ask the government to give us freedom, nor are we going to ask you male fools. We are going to ensure our freedom, our respect and our dignity as women and as human beings. I'm speaking of the companeras. . . They also criticize us, the men, for our sexist or authoritarian attitudes. For example, in relationships between combatants, many things have changed, things that haven't changed in the civilian population. For example, in the civilian population, when a woman marries, she is no longer allowed to dance. She is married, and dances are places where single people meet and decide to get married. If she is married, then she doesn't dance because now she is somebody's property. Amongst the civilians it is still this way. Amongst the combatants, no, the combatants dance whether they are married or single, and it is very common that the woman chooses her dancing partner. They dance just to dance, to have fun, without any other motive such as to sleep with someone or have a relationship.
The politics of gender in the EZLN, among the regular forces. . . There isn't a politic of gender, there are only combatants. There are women soldiers and there are men soldiers, but in the end they are soldiers. In order to rise to a command position, in order to rise in rank or to carry out actions and missions, we take into account the soldier's apptitudes; it doesn't matter whether they are male or female. Many times, in our daily life as combatants, in couple relationships, sexist attitudes are reproduced and because of this our laws tend to favor the woman. It is very common for couples to fight physically when they fight. Let's say that the difference between the women combatants and civilian women is that the women combatants hit back [laughter].
Interviewers: They defend themselves.
Marcos: Yes, it's common that it's the man who comes to us complaining that his partner hit him. We have to be very cautious in this respect because both are armed, if it occurs to one of them to shoot the other. . . A blow is much different than a gunshot. For us - for me it's very clear, and I believe that it's clear to many companeras as well - that equality isn't something that's conceded. You can't say, I as a man am going to give you your freedom and now we are going to be equal. That's not true, of course. In the same way, the government can't concede us our rights as indigenous peoples, we have to fight for them. The women are also fighting for them, many times in very radical ways. I believe that they've achieved many things inside the combat forces and inside the civilian population. For example, men who had never received orders from a women, who couldn't stand it when women would give them orders in the mountains. . . When they saw them fighting, they saw that the compan~eras knew how to fight. They look on them with respect now because they realized that the women knew how to fight and they didn't. They saw them facing death and they stopped being women. They stopped being women in the classic sense of the term, weak and unable to. . .
Interviewers: Women in the pejorative sense.
Marcos: It could be also that you see a women and you think that she's only there to sleep with. But when it changes to, She's going to give me orders and I have to obey her, or I'm going to give her orders and she is going to obey me, in that moment you stop being a female combatant or a male combatant and you become a soldier, equals. I'm not saying that the women stop being women and become men, but that both women and men stop being what they are and become combatants. Since we are soldiers all the time - we aren't able to take vacations - it is very difficult to tell when one is acting in the role of combatant and when one is off-duty. I believe that this has brought more benefits to the compan~eras than to the sexists, to us men, in the sense that this equality in combat, in work is transmitted to other aspects of life. Interviewers: Do you accept the analysis that we live in a patriarchal society, that men have controlled society for centuries and that this is also part of the system that feeds Capital, that feeds the bourgeoisie?
Marcos: Definitely!
Interviewers: We must rise above this and the sexist attitudes that we hold.
Marcos: Definitely! There are companeros who are very revolutionary politically, but who are real assholes in relationships, in marriages, in relationships between men and women. But, I believe that changes in this aren't going to be our concession - I'm speaking as a man. The women are going to change things whether we like it or not, despite our close-mindedness. It is the same thing as we are doing with respect to the government. The government doesn't like the fact that the indigenous peoples have risen up, but we did it. The sexists don't like the fact that the women are doing what they are doing, but they are going to do it and that's that. They have fought in combat, they even won. Some of them led sucessful missions, they won, they defeated men. They commanded entire units of men. The EZLN is composed of about two-thirds men and one-third women. It is very common to have military units where the only woman is the commander; the entire unit, all of her subordinates are men. This caused many problems before January first.
Interviewers: And these problems were eliminated?
Marcos: They finally saw that yes, that what was important wasn't that they were women but that they had learned during their years in the mountains to lead the same as any man.
Interviewers: We have seen this. We have met many women captains during our stay here in the liberated territories. We have met many female captains and this demonstrates the truth of what you are saying. . .