Masks Of Rebellion - Mexican revolutionary movement considered

Current Events, Oct 26, 2001

* Get Talking

Ask students: Look at the cover of the special report. Why do they think the man is wearing a woolen ski mask? Does the image he portrays make them think he is a good man or a bad man? Why? Why might someone wear a mask to disguise his face? Point out that the face on the cover is that of a Mexican revolutionary, and ask the students why might someone want to start a revolution in Mexico.

* Background

* The land now occupied by Mexico is, of course, the land occupied by a number of classic Indian high civilizations including the Olmecs, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. The Olmecs, who flourished between 1200 B.C. and 100 B.C., were the first to develop a calendar and a number system.

* Between A.D. 250 and 900, the Mayan Indians built huge pyramids and temples of limestone in what are now southern Mexico and northern Central America. They recorded important dates on carved blocks of stone and wrote in a picture writing that has yet to be completely understood.

* During the 900s, the Toltec Indians established an empire in what is now central Mexico, spreading their influence south into the Yucatan peninsula.

* In the early 1400s, the Aztec built the last and the greatest Indian empire in what is now Mexico. The Aztecs were skilled in medicine and composed music. They had great riches of gold, silver, and precious stones. Tenochtitlan, founded during the mid 1300s, was the Aztec capital. In 1519, when the Spaniards arrived, it had an estimated population of 100,000--more than any city in Spain.

* In May 1521, the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes led an army that destroyed Tenochtitlan and left thousands of Aztecs dead. Mexico became a Spanish colony and many thousands of Spanish settlers came to take the land that had once belonged to the Indians. Since that time, say Indian activists in Mexico, Indians have been treated as second-class citizens in their own land.

* Doing More

Have students research the Mexican revolution of 1910 and write a brief report that outlines the major events of the revolution, the major figures including Zapata and Villa, and the revolution's outcome. What was the role of the United States in the 1910 revolution? How has Mexico's history been shaped by its powerful neighbor to the north?

* Link It

Some of the links below directly link to Web sites of the Zapatistas which, of course, strongly present their point of view without allowing any criticism:

* Links to profiles of Subcommander Marcos:

http://www.who2.com/subcommandermar cos.html

http://www.ezlnaldf.org/index.php

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaign s/mexico/news/nyt031201.html

http://www.uwec.edu/Acadernic/Curric/ greidebe/Indigenous/Meso-America/bradfome/ subcommander_marcos.htm

* The Zapatistas Today:

http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/zaps.html

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ begindx.html

* Emiliano Zapata:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history /ezapata1.html

http://www.expage.com/page/reese68

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/ zapata.html

Mexico's Indians Fight to Reverse 500 Years of Poverty and Prejudice

IF YOU WERE TO SPROUT WINGS and fly straight across the U.S. southern border to Mexico and then fly south through the country, the last place you would come to before reaching Guatemala would be the state of Chiapas (chee-AH-pas).

Chiapas is not only Mexico's southern-most state; it is also its poorest. It is a land of tropical heat, thick jungles, and ancient memories. The people of its countryside, mainly descendants of the Maya Indians, in many ways live much as they did more than 500 years ago, when Aztec emperors in what is now Mexico City worshipped in golden temples. Most people in rural Chiapas do not have running water, electricity, or even paved roads. They live off the land, growing corn, beans, squash, and other vegetables and fruits, as their ancestors did before them.

Marcos Speaks

The people of Chiapas are not used to being noticed in the capital, Mexico City, or in much of the rest of the country. Yet on March 11, a delegation of rebel leaders from Chiapas arrived in the capital and dominated Mexico's media as nothing had done in many years.

On that day, in the center of Mexico City, a fierce morning sun shone down on the Zocalo (SOH-cah-loh), the world's second biggest public square after Red Square in Moscow. Despite its huge size, the Zocalo was packed with an estimated 100,000 people. They had come to see and hear, not a rock concert or a great religious leader, but a group of mainly poor Indians from Chiapas wearing black woolen ski masks, who less than a year earlier had been public enemies hunted by government troops. The Indians called themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army after their hero, Emiliano Zapata (see "The Man Who Stood Up,"). They proclaimed themselves the champions of Mexico's 10 million indigenous (original) peoples. And they had come to Mexico City to press for equal rights for Mexico's Indian people.

Few Mexicans will argue that Mexico's indigenous population has not suffered greatly since the Spanish soldier Hernando Cortes conquered the Aztec empire in 1521. The indigenous peoples lead the nation in poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and poor health. And most live in southern Mexico in Chiapas and neighboring states.