We Cover Our Faces to be Seen
By Jayms Ramirez
After a few hours aboard a packed bus, the grilled chicken wafting through the air was a familiar smell on the narrow streets of San Cristobal de Las Casas; the quaint, colonial town in the southern most area of rural Mexico.
I have spent many a day here over the years in this indigenous cultural center, guiding and photographing and have always been gripped by its beautiful afternoon light. Light that has feathered the work laden, wrinkled faces of the Tzotzil Indian men and women, selling their wares near the town square.
I came here to shoot once again, but this trip was focused on a gathering in the small village of Oventik. The Zapatistas is a rebel group which takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, an Indian who began the first struggle for the Indians of Mexico one hundred years ago. Today’s symposium of sorts with over a thousand masked Zapatistas was to discuss new strategies for making their voice heard in a more effective way here in the high mountains, which have been home to the Zapatistas ever since the uprising over ten years ago.
The Zapatistas recently have formed a political party to spread their voice and struggle on an international level. Tactics have included seizing land from
Nationals and Foreigners alike to redistribute to the Indigenous population. Rights of women and children have been pressed and the Mexican Government has been pressured to provide better education and health care for the Indigenous of Chiapas. More guerilla fighting is not out of the question at this point, and those tough decisions were the foundation for this gathering here in the Chiapas Mountains.
In 1994, a group of masked rebels led by Sub-Comandante Marcos took over the town of San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. The storming of the town took place New Years’ Eve at midnight and 3 days of heavy fighting ensued between the rebels and the Mexican Army.
To this day, the Zapatistas have been headquartered in the thick forests of southern Chiapas having periodic skirmishes with the Army, who has built outposts on the perimeter villages that have become Zapatista strongholds on the edge of specially formed Army camps.
I caught an early bus from the old cathedral market out of San Cristobal and headed for the small indigenous village of Oventik. I watched the elderly bus driver negotiate the narrow, mountain roads on our way up to this gathering of local Indian tribes and Zapatista rebels to discuss this struggle for the rights of the poor and indigenous.
I had registered a month before and needed to pick up a press pass from the makeshift press pool office I saw as my bus pulled up into a thick crowd of people. I stepped off the bus staring into the masked faces of a hundred Zapatistas who were standing against a crude fence they has erected separating the pot-marked road from the trail small village, which was hidden safely below the tree line.
I was issued a laminated press pass and threw it around my neck as I walked through the rows of dark eyes, which seemed to be sizing up yet another foreigner. I saw makeshift camps around smoldering fires and thousands of masked Zapatistas meandering the landscape of children, grandmothers, press and of course, the wide-eyed travelers who had caught wind of this mountainous event.
This surreal scene was a strange mix of an outdoor concert coupled with as heavy political gathering where everyone was waiting to hear some news from Marcos, the mythical leader of this latest leg of a long battle. No one wanted to say too much or be photographed without his or her mask in fear the Mexican Army would take him or her into custody. Yet as much as their eyes held the glare of distrust, they also begged to be recognized, to be heard and to be counted.
This call for equality was not a new struggle, but an aged one that has continued into this 21st century because of the lack of reform in the Mexican Government. The state of Chiapas has the most natural resources and agricultural output, yet the people of this land are the largest impoverished group in all of Mexico.
I sipped tea around the campfires with groups of rebels and press, while listening to heated discussions over which issues should be prioritized. I heard
much passion and much fear from these masked people of the sun, who still carried the weight of making their children’s life better than theirs had been.
I walked away from those three days in the fog, shrouded mountains with more questions than answers. I asked myself if the unity was strong enough within the Zapatista inner circle? I wondered if the Mexican people would still sympathize with the plight of the indigenous in this 13th year after the uprising.
One thing I did know for sure, was that these farmers, Indians, and impoverished were ready to cover their faces once again in hopes of being seen.
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Jayms Ramirez is a photographer, TV host, travel guide and sustainability consultant based in San Francisco, CA. His website is http://www.jaymsramirez.com.
Photographs appear courtesy and copyright of the author.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Non-Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
