Making History: Subcomandante Marcos in the Mexican Chronicle

The January 1, 1994 Mayan uprising in Chiapas led by the Ejército Zapatista de Leberación Nacional (Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or EZLN) and the ten years of struggle that have ensued since then are a key chapter in the long, fraught history of the Mexican nation's relationship to its indigenous populations. The chronicles written by Mexican journalists since 1994 about the EZLN and its spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos are an important part of the interpretive record that writes and rewrites history as it unfolds. This essay looks at chronicles by Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Ponitowaska, Juan Villoro, and Alma Guillermoprieto, and asks how they inscribe the figure of Marcos into a broader cultural narrative in which the motifs of masks, theatricality, and spectacle are frequently employed in debates ove the "national character" and over the role of messianic leadership in Mexican Politics. I also show that the texts under study resonate with Octavio Paz's seminal essay The Labyrinth of Solitude and challenge its thesis in important ways.