Posted by Free Media Actions on October 16, 1997 at 10:50:33:
Free Media March - Today at 4:30 - at the corner of 42nd and B'way - Oct 16,
1997
Subcommandante Marcos was invited to participate in the "Freeing
the Media" independent media teach-in taking place in New York City January
31 & February 1. Thanks to Cecilia Rodriguez and the NCDM,
Subcommandante
Marcos responded with a ten minute video message. The video was aired to the
public on Friday night, January 31 at the New York Society for Ethical
Culture after a panel discussion on independent media with Loretta Ross, Amy
Goodman, Jeff Cohen, Victor Navasky, Danny Schechter.
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, January 31 & February 1 1997
Subcommandante Marcos:
"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, or what if they 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.
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