When the Dead Silently Speak Out

(Rewind 1)

(A text which reflects on those who are absent and on biographies, narrates Durito’s first encounter with the Cat-Dog, and talks about other things that may or may not be relevant, as the impertinent postscript dictates).

November-December 2013

Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual,
we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water,
and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.
Me thinks my body is but the lees of my better being.
In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.
Herman Melville “Moby Dick.”

For a while now I have maintained that most biographies are merely a collection of documented, well-written (well, sometimes) lies. The typical biography is based on a pre-existing belief and the margin of tolerance for anything that strays from that conviction is very narrow, if not inexistent. The author, starting from that previously held belief, begins the search through the jigsaw puzzle of a life unfamiliar to him or her (which is why the bibliography interests them to begin with), and goes about collecting the false or ill-fitting pieces that allow him or her to document their own belief, not the life they are talking about.

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El día 24 de diciembre por fin salió libre Antonio Estrada Estrada, preso politico del Ejido de San Sebastián Bachajón, Adherente a la Sexta Declaración de la Selva Lacandona.

El 27 de diciembre se realizó una conferencia de prensa en el centro cultural El Paliacate, en San Cristóbal de Las casas, con la participación de autoridades del ejido de San Sebastián Bachajón, el abogado Ricardo Lagunes y el ex preso de conciencia Antonio Estrada Estrada, y la presencia de much@s de l@s que lucharon por su libertad.

Esa misma tarde se presentó también el documental “Tierra y resistencia. San Sebastián Bachajón” (ver abajo).

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Rewind 2:

On Death and Other Alibis.

December 2013.

“One knows one has died when
everything around them has
stopped dying.”
Elías Contreras.
Profession: EZLN Investigation Commission.
Civil Condition: Dead.
Age: 521 years old and counting.

It is before dawn, and, if they should ask me, which they haven’t, I would say that the problem with the dead is the living.

Because in their absence, you tend to get that absurd, meaningless, and outrageous argument: “I knew them/ saw them/ was told by them,” really just an alibi that hides the real statement “I am the administrator of that life because I administer its death.”

It’s something like having a “copyright” on death, thus converting it into merchandise that can be possessed, exchanged, circulated, and consumed. There are even historiographical books, biographies, museums, commemorations, theses, newspapers, magazines, and colloquia for this.

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Unitierra-CIDECI
Invitation to the book presentation:

Haciendo otros mundos
by Jerome Baschet

28 Nov 2013
17:00 hr

Camino viejo a San Juan Chamula s/n.
Colonia Nueva Maravilla
San Cristóbal de las Casas Chiapas

Here we explain the reasons behind this strange title and those that will follow, narrate the story of an exceptional encounter between a beetle and a perplexing being (that is, more perplexing than the beetle) and the reflections of no immediate relevance or importance which occurred therein; and finally, given a particular anniversary, the Sub tries to explain, unsuccessfully, how the Zapatistas see their own history.

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