April 19
Foreword by José Saramago
Edited by Juana Ponce de León
Afterword by Ana Carrigan
In this landmark book, Seven Stories Press presents a powerful collection of literary, philosophical, and political writings of the masked Zapatista spokesperson, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Introduced by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, and illustrated with beautiful black and white photographs, Our Word Is Our Weapon crystallizes "the passion of a rebel, the poetry of a movement, and the literary genius of indigenous Mexico."
Marcos first captured world attention on January 1, 1994, when he and an indigenous guerrilla group calling themselves Zapatistas revolted against the Mexican government and seized key towns in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas. In the six years that passed since their uprising, Marcos altered the course of Mexican politics and emerged an international symbol of grassroots movement-building, rebellion, and democracy. The prolific stream of poetic political writings, tales, and traditional myths which Marcos penned from 1994 to 2000 fill more than four volumes. Our Word Is Our Weapon presents the best of these writings, many of which have never been published before in English.
Throughout this remarkable book we hear the uncompromising voice of indigenous communities living in resistance, expressing through manifestos and myths the universal human urge for dignity, democracy, and liberation. It is the voice of a people refusing to be forgotten the voice of Mexico in transition, the voice of a people struggling for democracy by using their word as their only weapon.
Collected in
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Below, you will find an excerpt from Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings by Zapatista insurgent, spokesperson, and revolutionary figure Subcomandante Marcos. Published as an open letter to commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 1995, it is an ode to anti-colonial resistance and an invitation for continued collective action against imperial power.
Five hundred and three years ago today, October 12, the word and the silence of Power begin to die. Five hundred and three years ago today, October 12, our word and our silence began to resist, to fight, to live.
The Word and the Silence
October 12, 1995
To the people of Mexico
To the peoples and governments of the world
Brothers and sisters:
Today we are remembering our eldest elders, those who initiated the long struggle of resistance against the arrogance of Power and the violence of money. They, our ancestors, taught us that a people with pride are a people who do not surrender, who resist, who have dignity. They taught us to be proud of the color of our skin, of our language, of our culture. More than 500 years of exploitation and persecution have not been able to exterminate us. We have resisted since that time because history has been made with our blood. …
What matters is our eldest elders who received the word and the silence as a gift in order to know themselves and to touch the heart of the other. Speaking and listening is how true men and women learn to walk. It is the word that gives form to that walk that goes on inside us. It is the word that is the bridge to cross to the other side. Silence is what Power offers our pain in order to make us small. When we are silenced, we remain very much alone. Speaking, we heal the pain. Speaking, we accompany one another. Power uses the word to impose his empire of silence. We use the word to renew ourselves. Power uses silence to hide his crimes. We use silence to listen to one another, to touch one another, to know one another.
This is the weapon, brothers and sisters. We say, the word remains. We speak the word. We shout the word. We raise the word and with it break the silence of our people. We kill the silence by living the word. Let us leave Power alone in what the lie speaks and hushes. Let us join together in the word and the silence which liberate.
Five hundred and three years ago today, October 12, the word and the silence of Power begin to die.
Five hundred and three years ago today, October 12, our word and our silence began to resist, to fight, to live.
Today, 503 years later, we are still here. There are more of us and we are better. We are of many colors, and many are the languages that speak our word.
Today there is no shame in our heart because of the color of our skin or our speech.
Today we say we are indigenous, and we say it like giants.
—Subcomandante Marcos
Subcomandante Marcos is a co-founder and former military leader of the Zapatistas, an indigenous insurgency movement based in Chiapas, Mexico. He first joined the indigenous guerrilla group that would become the Zapatistas in the early 1980s. Marcos is the author of numerous books, including a collection of his early Zapatista writings, Our Word is Our Weapon; a children's book, Story of the Colors, which won a Firecracker Alternative Book Award; and The Uncomfortable Dead, a fiction collaboration with Paco Ignacio Taibo II. In May 2014, he adopted the name Subcomandante Insurgente Galeano, and in October 2023, he took the name Captain Insurgente Marcos. He continues to write from somewhere in the Zapatista mountains and jungles of Chiapas.
