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Subject: Subcom. Marcos Address to Freeing the Media
From: Michael Eisenmenger <eisenmen@rci.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 19:50:20 +0000

* * * * *

Statement of Subcomandante Marcos to the Freeing the Media Teach-In
organized by the Learning Alliance, Paper Tiger TV, and FAIR in
cooperation with the Media & Democracy Congress, Jan.31/Feb.1 1997,NYC.
web site at: http://artcon.rutgers.edu/papertiger/freemedia.html


We're in the mountains of Southeast Mexico in the Lacandon
Jungle of Chiapas and we want to use this medium with the help
of the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, to send a
greeting to the Free the Media Conference that is taking place in
New York, where there are brothers and sisters of independent
communication media from the US and Canada.

At the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against
Neoliberalism we said: A global decomposition is taking place,
we call it the Fourth World War-- neoliberalism: the global
economic process to eliminate that multitude of people who are
not useful to the powerful-- the groups called "minorities" in the
mathematics of power, but who happen to be the majority
population in the world. We find ourselves in a world system of
globalization willing to sacrifice millions of human beings.

The giant communication media: the great monsters of the
television industry, the communication satellites, magazines, and
newspapers seem determined to present a virtual world, created
in the image of what the globalization process requires.

In this sense, the world of contemporary news is a world that
exists for the VIP's-- the very important people. Their everyday
lives are what is important: if they get married, if they divorce, if
they eat, what clothes they wear and what clothes they take off--
these major movie stars and big politicians. But common people
only appear for a moment-- when they kill someone, or when
they die. For the communication giants and the neoliberal
powers, the others, the excluded, only exist when they are dead,
or when they are in jail or court. This can't go on. Sooner or
later this virtual world clashes with the real world. And that is
actually happening: this clash produces results of rebellion and
war throughout the entire world, or what is left of the world to
even have war.

We have a choice: we can have a cynical attitude in the face of
the media, to say that nothing can be done about the dollar power
that creates itself in images, words, digital communication, and
computer systems that invades not just with an invasion of
power, but with a way of seeing that world, of how they think
the world should look. We could say, well, "that's the way it is"
and do nothing. Or we can simply assume incredulity: we can
say that any communication by the media monopolies is a total
lie. We can ignore it and go about our lives.

But there is a third option that is neither conformity, nor
skepticism, nor distrust: that is to construct a different way-- to
show the world what is really happening-- to have a critical
world view and to become interested in the truth of what
happens to the people who inhabit every corner of this world.

The work of independent media is to tell the history of social
struggle in the world, and here in North America-- the US,
Canada and Mexico, independent media has, on occasion, been
able to open spaces even within the mass media monopolies: to
force them to acknowledge news of other social movements.

The problem is not only to know what is occurring in the world,
but to understand it and to derive lessons from it-- just as if we
were studying history-- a history not of the past, but a history of
what is happening at any given moment in whatever part of the
world. This is the way to learn who we are, what it is we want,
who we can be and what we can do or not do.

By not having to answer to the monster media monopolies, the
independent media has a life work, a political project and
purpose: to let the truth be known. This is more and more
important in the globalization process. This truth becomes a knot
of resistance against the lie. It is our only possibility to save the
truth, to maintain it, and distribute it, little by little, just as the
books were saved in Fahrenheit 451--in which a group of people
dedicated themselves to memorize books, to save them from
being destroyed, so that the ideas would not be lost.

This same way, independent media tries to save history: the
present history-- saving it and trying to share it, so it will not
disappear, moreover to distribute it to other places, so that this
history is not limited to one country, to one region, to one city or
social group. It is necessary not only for independent voices to
exchange information and to broaden the channels, but to resist
the spreading lies of the monopolies. The truth that we build in
our groups, our cities, our regions, our countries, will reach full
potential if we join with other truths and realize that what is
occurring in other parts of the world also is part of human history.

In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of
independent media, a network of information. We mean a
network to resist the power of the lie that sells us this war that
we call the Fourth World War. We need this network not only as
a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a
project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to
critical and truthful information.

We greet all of you, recognizing the work you have done so that
the struggle of indigenous people is known, and that other
struggles are known, so that the great events of this world are
seen in a critical form. We hope your meeting is a success and
that it results in concrete plans for this network, these
exchanges, this mutual support that should exist between cultural
workers and independent media makers. We hope that one day
we can personally attend your meeting, or perhaps that one day
you can have your conference in our territory, so we can listen to
your words and you can hear ours in person. For now, well, we
take advantage of the help of the National Commission for
Democracy in Mexico (NCDMUSA) to use this video to send a
greeting. This section in English: I don't know if my English is
OK but good luck and so long. Cut.

- Forwarded by Paper Tiger TV