A Tear in the Fabric of the Present

Written almost two years before the Zapatista uprising of i January 1994 by Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, the words above speak of a new world, a world ushered in by a storm born of a clash between two winds, the wind from above and the wind from below. What kind of world did the combatants and support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional, EZLN) hope to see brought into being? If as Mikhail Bakhtin states, "Every word is directed toward an answer and cannot escape the profound influence of the answering word that it anticipates,"2 then what answer did the cry of "iYa basta!" "Enough!" which issued from the mouths of the masked guerrillas of the EZLN in the early hours of 1 January 1994, anticipate? What was the nature of the reply that the insurgents and civilian bases of the EZLN hoped to hear? The Zapatistas first public word, the Zapatista declaration of war, was addressed to the Mexican people in the form of "The First Declaration from