Interviews From The Short Century. Marco Lupis

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СКАЧАТЬ memories. Out here, if you catch a pheasant or some other animal, you have to wait three or four hours before it's ready to eat. And if the troops are so famished they eat it raw, it’s diarrhoea all round the next day. Life's different here; you see everything in a new light... Oh yes, you asked me what I left behind. A metro ticket, a mountain of books, a notebook filled with poems...and a few friends. Not many, just a few.

      

      

       When will you unmask yourself?

       I don't know. I believe that our balaclava is also a positive ideological symbol: this is our revolution...it's not about individuals, there's no leader. With these balaclavas, we're all Marcos.

      

      

       The government would argue that you’re hiding your face because you’ve got something to hide...

       They don't get it. But it’s not even the government that is the real problem; it's more the reactionary forces in Chiapas, the local farmers and landowners with their private “white guards”. I don't think there’s much difference between the racism of a white South African towards a black person and that of a Chiapaneco landowner towards a Mexican Indian. The life expectancy for Mexican Indians here is 50-60 for men and 45-50 for women.

      

      

       What about children?

       Infant mortality is through the roof. Let me tell you the story of Paticha. A while back, as we were moving from one part of the Jungle to another, we happened upon a small, very poor community where we were greeted by a Zapatista comrade who had a little girl aged about three or four. Her name was Patricia, but she pronounced it “Paticha”. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and her answer was always the same: “a guerrilla”. One night, we found her running a really high temperature – must have been at least forty – and we didn't have any antibiotics. We used some damp cloths to try and cool her down, but she was so hot they just kept drying out. She died in my arms. Patricia never had a birth certificate, and she didn't have a death certificate either. To Mexico, it was as if she never existed. That’s the reality facing Mexican Indians in Chiapas.

      

      

       The Zapatista Movement may have plunged the entire Mexican political system into crisis, but you haven't won, have you?

       Mexico needs democracy, but it also needs people who transcend party politics to protect it. If our struggle helps to achieve this goal, it won't have been in vain. But the Zapatista Army will never become a political party; it will just disappear. And when it does, it will be because Mexico has democracy.

      

      

       And if that doesn’t happen?

       We’re surrounded from a military perspective. The truth is that the government won't want to back down because Chiapas, and the Lacandon Jungle in particular, literally sits on a sea of oil. And it’s that Chiapaneco oil that Mexico has given as a guarantee for the billions of dollars it has been lent by the United States. They can’t let the Americans think they're not in control of the situation.

      

      

       What about you and your comrades?

       Us? We’ve got nothing to lose. Ours is a fight for survival and a worthy peace.

       Ours is a just fight.

      

      

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      Peter Gabriel

      

      

       The eternal showman

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

       Peter Gabriel, the legendary founder and lead vocalist of Genesis, doesn't do many gigs, but when he does, he offers proof that his appetite for musical, cultural and technological experimentation truly knows no bounds.

       I met him for an exclusive interview at Sonoria, a three-day festival in Milan dedicated entirely to rock music. During a two-hour performance of outstanding music, Gabriel sang, danced and leapt about the stage, captivating the audience with a show that, as always, was much more than just a rock concert.

       At the end of the show, he invited me to join him in his limousine. As we were driven to the airport, he talked to me about himself, his future plans, his commitment to working with Amnesty International to fight racism and social injustice, his passion for multimedia technology and the inside story behind Secret World Live , the album he was about to launch worldwide.

      

      

       Do you think the end of apartheid in South Africa was a victory for rock music?

       It was a victory for the South African people, but I do believe rock music played its part.

      

      

       In what way?

       I think that musicians did a lot to make people in Europe and America more aware of the problem. Take Biko , for example. I wrote that song to try and get politicians from as many countries as possible to continue their sanctions against South Africa and keep up the pressure. It's about doing small things; they might not change the world, but they make a difference and it's something we can all get involved in. Fighting injustice isn't always about big demonstrations or grand gestures.

      

      

       What do you mean?

       Let me give you an example. There are a couple of elderly ladies in the Midwest of the United States who annoy the hell out of people СКАЧАТЬ