“Marcos and el Viejo Antonio” by Beatriz Aurora
Told by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, The Other Campaign in Jaltipan, Veracruz, January 28, 2006
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I wanted to finish by telling you a story that Old Antonio told me; I quote it from memory and without the rest and slow analysis that writing it gives, and it happened … on a January, a cold January morning, ten years before the Zapatista capture of San Cristóbal and twelve years, oh, excuse me, twenty-two years before I arrived here in front of you today.
There I was, well, I was listening to music on a portable tape recorder, and at some point, I don’t know when, I realized that Old Antonio was behind me. And without further ado, I lowered the volume a little because I knew he was going to speak. I lit a corn husk cigarette, doblador is what we call the dried corn husk we use to smoke, because there was no paper available to smoke in the jungle. He took some of the tobacco that I smoke, and made his own cigarette, lit it and began to talk about this story about good and bad dreams.
He said that in the world there were bad people, very bad people, who were so bad that their wickedness came out and began to walk like a ghost. That when good people had a bad dream, a nightmare, they were not dreaming their own dream, they were dreaming someone else’s dream. And in that sense, he said, there is no reason to be afraid of nightmares because what we must understand is that it is not our own dream. And, precisely, the world in which we were lived at that point was a nightmare, where we as Indigenous peoples, we were not looked at, nor considered, much less heard. Because the place in which we lived, nothing arrived, no roads, no communication, no radio, no television, no nothing. There someone could be born, grow old, die and nobody was going to keep account, or even know what their name was.
Well, he said, those bad dreams, or those nightmares that we are having, are alien, they are from someone else who let his dream escape and we, because we are asleep, without realizing it, we take it and put it into our dreams.
He also said that there were good dreams. Some were so good that we didn’t remember them until the moment we started making them real. And he said, for example, that there were times when we dreamed of freedom, and that at the time we dreamed of freedom, we dreamed of the other, and we spoke about them and there was no fear in our word, nor was there fear in our listening. In our dream we could be next to the one who was different without any problem, and we could know that each and every one could be who they are, without confrontation, without a clash, without anyone commanding or obeying. Old Antonio said that this dream is called freedom, that sometimes we realize that we had it before and sometimes we did not. That we will only remember it again when we conquer it in the struggle.
And he also said that there are other dreams, like the dream of justice. One could dream of justice: that the world was even, that it was flat, that there was light on the table and that the spoken word was nurtured. That people laughed and sang and danced because the world was full and there was no up, and there was no down. And that this dream was often forgotten by the people as the humble and simple people that we are, and that we were not going to remember it again until we saw it come true.
Old Antonio also said that there are times when we dream that we are better; better human beings, better men or better women, to each according to their will, and that in that dream one felt that it was not perfect, but that it was better than the previous minute, than the day before, than the previous year. One felt that they were more complete because there was more social connection and our comprehension of one another was great, because the communication and bond to one another was good, because one knew that one was not alone and that there was another who fought for him, in the same place, in that territory that was still being forged in the dream, but existed, anyway, outside of the dream. And old Antonio said that in that dream where we are better, the color and music was so vibrant that sometimes music was made. He said that the dream in which we are better, when it escaped from our heads, from our sleep, and passed into the wakefulness when we were awake, was a music. And before leaving, he said to me “the dream of being better is, in many cases, like the music you are listening to”. And with that, he left.
For those of you who understand what I am saying, and are thinking about it, you know, that what I was hearing at that moment was a Son Jarocho.
Son and huapango were the two leaves of the window through which I first looked at what music growing up and learned what music was, then a door opened: rock!
Good evening comrades, and thank you.
Translated by Tomás A. Madrigal, July 12, 2023.
Káráni: Escribir o Volar 