Tuesday 23 April 2013

“Here everyone is in charge”: Some Other Gazes, by Subcomandante Marcos


It’s a street, a milpa, a factory, a mine shaft, a forest, a school, a department store, an office, a plaza, a market, a city, a field, a country, a continent, a world.

The Ruler is seriously wounded, the machine broken, the beast exhausted, the savage locked up.

The changes in name and flags didn’t work at all, the beatings, the prisons, the cemeteries, the money flowing through corruption’s thousand arteries, the “reality shows,” the religious celebrations, the paid newspaper articles, the cybernetic exorcisms.

The Ruler calls for his last overseer. He murmurs something into his ear. The overseer goes out to confront the masses.
He says, asks, demands, requires:

“We want to speak with the man…”

Doubt crosses his face, the majority of those who are confronting him are women.

He corrects himself:

“We want to speak with the woman…”

He doubts himself again, there’s more than a few “others” who are confronting him.

He corrects himself again:

“We want to speak with whomever is in charge.”

From amongst the silence an elderly person and a child step forward, they stand in front of the overseer and, with an innocent and wise voice, they say:

“Here everyone is in charge.”

The overseer shudders, and the Ruler’s voice during his last scream shudders.

The gaze wakes up. “Weird dream,” is said. And, without the geography or the calendar mattering, life, struggle, resistance goes on.

S/he only remembers a few words from the odd dream:

“Here everyone is in charge.”


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