Another Geography
The Tower of Babel,
Between Makeup and the Closet
by Subcomandante Marcos
1] The 21st Century
The new century seems determined to repeat and outdo the
vocation of its predecessor: political proposals based on
the exclusion of the Other. So what else is new? Just
like before, recourse is made to war, to lies, to
simulation, to death. Power repeats history, and tries to
convince us that this time, the map will be redrawn
correctly.
The project for the neoliberal world is nothing more than a
re-writing of the Tower of Babel. As the story is told in
Genesis, driven to reach the heights, men agreed on an
anti-comunal project: to build a tower so tall that it
would reach heaven. The god of the Christians punished
this arrogance of men with diversity. Speaking different
tongues, men could not continue the construction project,
and they dispersed.
Neoliberalism is trying to carry out the same construction
project, though not to reach an improbable heaven, but
rather to free itself from diversity, which it considers a
curse, and to assure that Power will forever be Power. The
yearning for eternity rises at the beginning of a history
written by those who are Power.
But the neoliberal Tower of Babel isn't under way just in
the sense of achieving the homogeneity needed for it's
construction. The equality that destroys heterogeneity is
equality based on a single model. "We will be equal to
this model," says the new religion of money. But humans do
not not even seem like themselves, much less seem like
others, but rather like an ideal imposed by he who
hegemonizes, he who rules, he who is above in this tower
that is the world of modernity. Below are all the
different ones. And the only equality that exists on the
lower floors is that of giving up pride in difference, and
opting for shame in that difference.
The new god of money repeats the earlier curse, but in
reverse: you shall be condemned for being different, for
being the Other. "They" shall star in the drama of Hell:
in jail, in the cemetery. Perform to the boom of
profit-taking by the giant transnational corporations, that
accompanies the proliferation of jails and graveyards.
In the new Tower of Babel the common task is obeisance to
he who rules. And he who rules does so only because he
makes up for his lack of reason with an excess of force.
The mandate is that all colors must use the same makeup,
and display the same dull color of money, or show our
colorfulness only in the darkness of shame. Makeup or the
closet.
It is the same for homosexuals, lesbians,
migrants, Muslims, indigenous people, people of "color,"
men, women, young people, the elderly, the "misfits", and
for all the names used to describe the Other in every part
of the world.
This is the project of globalization: turn the planet into
a new Tower of Babel. In every sense. Homogenous in it's
way of thinking, in it's culture, and in it's Boss.
Hegemonized by he who has no reason, but only force.
In the Tower of Babel of pre-history, unanimity was
possible because of the common word (the same language),
while in the neoliberal history consensus is achieved via
the arguments of force, threats, arbitrarities, and war.
Given that living in the world requires doing so in
contiguity with the different, the options we have are
either to dominate or to be dominated. For the former, the
space is already full, and membership is hereditary. On
the other hand, among the dominated there are always
vacancies, and the only requirement is to deny your
difference or hide it.
But there are the different who refuse to stop being
different. For those who live in the Tower, but not in the
penthouse, there are ways to deal with these "misfits:"
condemnation or indifference, cynicism or hypocrisy.
Recognizing difference is against the law in the neoliberal
tower. The only path permitted is that of the submission
of difference.
In the modern world the nation-state is a house of cards
confronted by the neoliberal wind. The local political
classes play at being sovereign in the decisions about the
shape and height of the construction, but economic power
long ago lost interest in this game, and lets local
politicians and their followers play around... with a toy
that doesn't belong to them. Finally, the construction of
interest is the new Tower of Babel, and as long as there is
no lack of raw materials for its construction (that is,
territories that have been wiped out and repopulated with
death), the foremen and commissars of national politics can
go on making a spectacle of themselves (by the way, the
most expensive and least useful spectacle in the entire
world).
In the new tower, the architecture is that of war on the
different. The blocks of stone are our bones and the
mortar is our blood. The great assassin hides behind the
great architect (if he does not call himself "God," it is
because he does not want to commit the sin of false
modesty).
In the biblical version, the Christian god punishes the
arrogance of men with diversity. In the modern history of
Power, God is no more than the public relations agent of
war (which can only be called modern because of the rate of
destruction and the number of people killed per minute).
2] The Geography of Words
If pre-history ended three years or twenty centuries ago it
doesn't much seem to matter. Up there, those who are Power
and Destiny dedicate themselves to convincing us that
history repeats itself, despite what calendars tell us.
The annihilation of the different is always the latest
fashion. And although there there is nothing different in
essence between the catapults of imperial Rome and the
"smart bombs" of Bush, today technological advance is like
the chaplain of the occupation army (painting in beautiful
terms what nevertheless is a crime committed from a
distance) and the theatrical scenery (bombing on TV becomes
a show of "fascinating" pyrotechnics - says CNN).
Without caring whether anyone realizes it or not, Power
constructs and imposes a new geography of words. The names
are the same, but what is named has changed.
So, error is political doctrine, and truth is heresy. The
different is now the contrary, the Other is the enemy.
Democracy is unanimity in obedience. Freedom is just the
freedom to choose the way by which we hide our difference.
Peace is passive submission. And war is now a pedagogical
method of teaching geography.
Where reasons are lacking, they polish their dogmas. Dogma
first supports the cause, later disfigures it and turns it
into destiny. In the telescope of Power, the horizon is
always the same, immutable and eternal. The lens of power
is a mirror. The different will always be unexpected, and
the unexpected will always oppose fear. And fear will
always me made strong in dogma in order to crush the
unexpected. In the telescope of Power, the world is flat,
unwashed and dirty.
If a statesman cannot be remembered for his humanitarian
works, then he will be remembered for his criminal works.
And thus the history of Power is repeated: the "great men"
of yesteryear are today revealed for all their rancor and
vile deeds. Those upon whom "shines the light of God"
today, will also be seen thus tomorrow.
The words change, as do the images. Before, in the
geography of statues, dogma was set in stone to honor its
fanatics. Today it is on the covers of magazines and
newspaper, and on TV and radio news, where Dogma preserves
its memory of itself in periodical rooms, where it will
serve as alibi for those who continue to carry out
fundamentalist nightmares.
In the modern theory of the State, human beings are born
different. Their incorporation into society consists of a
process of education that would be the envy of the most
cruel reformatory. The power of the entire state apparatus
is brought to bear in "equalizing" this human being, or
better yet, on homogenizing this person under an hegemony:
that of he who rules. The degree of social success,
therefore, is measured by how close to, or how far from, we
fall from a single model. Homogeneity is not that we all
must be equal, but rather that we all try to be equal to
this model. And that model is that which is constructed by
he who is Power. Hegemony is not just that one rules us,
but also that we exert ourselves to obey him.
That is where homogeneity lies; we don't all have the same
wealth (without even mentioning that some have it at the
expense of many others) or the same opportunities, but yes
we all do have the same desire and the same willingness to
obey him (which is another way of saying "serve him").
If we take the family as a metaphor for society, and say
that we need some rules for living together, we "forget"
that the problem is precisely the current set of rules.
Thus words change their geography, they don't say what they
mean, but rather what they - those who are Power - want
them to say.
At some point in modern history legality supplies
legitimacy, and when legality is violated by those who are
above, we are told that it is the laws that need to
changed. When it is violated by those who are below, we are
told that the laws must be enforced... and those who do not
obey them, punished.
3] The Geography of Power
In the the geography of power one isn't born in one part of
the world, but rather is born with, or without, the ability
to dominate any part of the planet. If before, the better
argument was the one based on race, now, it is the one
based on geography. Those who inhabit the North do not do
so in the geographic North, but rather in the social North,
that is to say, they are above. Those who live in the
South, are below. Geography has been simplified: there is
just one above and one below. The place that is above is
narrow and has room for only a few. The one that is below
is so big that it can cover any part of the planet and has
room for all of humanity.
In the modern Tower of Babel a society calls itself
superior if it can conquer others, not if it has more
scientific, cultural, or artistic advances, or better
living standards, or if its people get along together
better.
In the modern period, Power carries out multiple wars of
conquest. And I do not refer to "multiple" in the sense of
"many," but in the sense of "in many places and in many
forms." Thus world wars today are more global than ever.
Yet the victor continues to be but one, and the defeated
are many and in many places.
With the argument of bombs, space is allocated. Those who
bomb are in the North, in the "above" of the tower; those
at the receiving end are below, in the South.
But it is not the bombs that modify geography. The bombs
change the allocation of geography, its domination. In
this space delimited by points and lines, today one
dominates, tomorrow another will dominate. That is what is
called "geopolitics." In reality, geographical maps don't
show natural resources, people, cultures, or histories, but
rather who owns them.
For the powerful, all of humanity is but a child who can be
docile or rebellious. Bombs are used to remind the infant
humanity that it is convenient to be the former, and
inconvenient to be the latter.
Today civilians in Iraq, men, children, women and the
elderly, suddenly have something in common with a
prosperous American businessman. He builds cruise
missiles, they receive them. The armies of the United
States and Great Britain are just the friendly postmen who
join two points so far apart geographically. Thus we
should should thank people like Bush, Blair and Aznar that
they have been gracious enough to be born in our epoch.
Without people like these, modern geography would be
unthinkable.
But this is not a war against Iraq, or not just against
Iraq. It is against every attempt, present or future, to
disobey. It is a war against rebelliousness, that is,
against humanity. It is a world war in its effects, and
above all, in the NO that it provokes.
4] The Destiny of Polyphemus
The war of the tragicomic Bush-Blair-Aznar troupe and its
stagehands in the "western democracies" has already
suffered its first failure. It tried to convince us that
Iraq is in the Middle East, and yet it is not. As any
respectable geography text will tell you, Iraq is in
Europe, in the American Union, in Oceania, in Latin
America, in the mountains of the Mexican southeast, and in
this global "No" and this rebelliousness that paints a new
map where shame and dignity are flag and home.
The mobilizations in the entire planet prove, among other
things, that this is a war against all humanity.
If anyone has understood correctly that Iraq is in every
part of the planet, it is young people. While others look
at a map and console themselves by counting the thousands
of kilometers that separate them from Baghdad, young people
have understood that these bombs (those made of explosives
and those made of disinformation) are not just to destroy
Iraqi territory, but rather the right to be different.
When a teenager writes "NO" in a jail, in a graffiti, in a
notebook, in a voice, it is not just to say "no to the war
in Iraq," but also "No to the new Tower of Babel," "No to
homogeneity," and "No to hegemony." Because rebellious
young people use "No" as a brush, and with that brush in
their hands and in their eyes, they divine and paint
another geography.
Like Polyphemus, the cyclops of Greek literature, Power
makes hate for the different into his only eye. In truth
he is very powerful and seems invincible. But, just like
Polyphemus, a ghost named "Nobody" throws himself at the
challenge.
When the powerful one refers to the Others with disdain, he
calls them "nobody." But "nobody" is the majority on this
planet. If money wants to reconstruct the world like a
tower to satisfy its arrogance, that "nobody" who makes the
wheels of history turn also wants another world, but a
round one, one that includes all our differences with
dignity, that is, with respect. Humanity does not aspire
to heaven but to earth.
Thus it is that "noboby" starts scraping away the mortar of
the new Tower of Babel.
Because the earth is round so that it can turn.
In the world that is waiting to be made, unlike this one
and the earlier ones, whose manufacture are attributed to
various gods, when someone asks "who made this world?," the
answer will be: "nobody."
And to divine this world and begin to construct it, it is
necessary to see far into the geography of time. He who is
above is shortsighted, and makes the mistake of confusing a
telescope with a mirror. He who is below, "nobody,"
doesn't even stand on tiptoes to see what comes next.
The telescope of the rebel doesn't even work to see a few
steps ahead. It is really a kaleidoscope where shapes and
colors - accomplices of the light - are not the tools of
the prophet, but rather an intuition: the world, history,
and life will all take on shapes and forms that are as yet
unknown, but which we desire. With his kaleidoscope the
rebel sees farther than the powerful with his digital
telescope: he sees tomorrow.
The rebels walk along the night of history, yes, but it is
to reach tomorrow. The shadows do not inhibit us from
creating something now, and in the here of its geography.
Rebels do not try to amend the map or rewrite history to
change the words and the allocation of geography, they
simply seek a new map where there is room for all words.
A map where the differences among all the ways to say
"life" lie not just in the mouths of those who speak them,
but in the totality of all who pronounce them.
Because music is not made up of a single note, but of many,
and dance is not just the repetition of a single step until
exhaustion.
Thus Peace will be nothing more than an open concert of
words and many glances in another geography.
From the Iraq of the mountains of the Mexican southeast,
while watching the sky darken from the warplanes and
military helicopters of Operation Sentinel, [* see note]
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– Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, Mexico, March 2003
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* Translator's note:
More than 18,000 Mexican soldiers,
police, immigration officers and other government officials
are working with the U.S. government to bolster security
along the southern border under an effort called "Operation
Sentinel". Counterinsurgency in the Chiapas region is a key
goal of this operation.
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