San Cristobal de las Casas

San Cristobal de las Casas is a city of staggering beauty, anciently complex history and exploding political tension. Wandering her streets one will find all on the same block barefoot elderly Mayan women selling handcrafts, a Burger King, a makeshift bike-powered taco stand, a man selling lychees, a bakery and a bar called “Café Revolucion”. Buildings are painted brightly and illuminated by lights at night. The local fare is delicious and cheap.
I can see why so many “politically minded” foreigners flock here (myself included). This city is the cultural center of the state of Chiapas, where in 1994 the Zapatista National Liberation Army came down from the mountains and reclaimed land for thousands of indigenous peasants. The city is home to a fleet of NGOs who are working with the Zapatistas to ensure their longevity and continued liberation. The sense of change, of reclaiming dignity, of revolution, is enough to lift you off your feet and carry you away at times. Enough to make you never want to return to your life at the university or behind a desk at an NGO. Here things are happening… right now. Things that awaken in us all the affirmation of life and freedom and dignity and the rejection of all that limits and oppresses us.
The smell of hard-won liberation wafts through the air, so that one can’t help but want to be a part of it. It’s everywhere- Indigenous women’s collectives, radical info-shops and an independent cinema. Marcos T-shirts and EZLN commando boots. The tourist market is filled with beautiful handcrafts being sold by mostly indigenous women and men adorned in their traditional colorful dress.
But a small scratch under the surface reveals an entirely different world. The city is wrought with racism. Those who are sympathetic to the rebellion are equally matched in number by ultra conservative evangelicals sympathetic to the PRI, which also runs the local government. The tourist market is dominated by one specific indigenous community that has very close ties to the PRI, and those who have stalls there are the most wealthy even of that community. Most of the items for sale there are not handmade by the vendors but shipped from Guatemala where they were produced in factories. There is a reason why one will only find tourists and hustlers at Café Revolucion.
Revolution is seductive. We all feel the inherent idiocy and destructiveness of the current system for the few and against the many. We all know in our hearts that “to be” is much more than just “to have”. We all feel the alienation from our work, our neighbors, ourselves. We all feel that there must be something of value other than gaining for gaining’s sake.
But what is there to do?
I have come here, like hoards before me, to attempt to answer that very question. The answer is not at café Revolucion nor the infoshop selling Marcos shirts. It’s not even in books like “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” or Marx’s “Capital”. Perhaps I will find some clues at my next destination: The Zapatista Caracol at Oventik.