Professionals of Hope: The Selected Writings of Subcomandante Marcos

Professionals of Hope: The Selected Writings of Subcomandante Marcos is an anthology by the prolific and brilliant former spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, who opposed the Mexican government’s bloody attacks on indigenous people by staging an uprising in the name of “democracy, justice, and liberty” for all. And by “all,” Marcos really means everyone, including identities that resist ready-made categories. These poetic letters, speeches, and folktales seek to counter oppression by challenging governments that plunder their own people, and declare the basic desire to bestow dignity upon the indigenous people of Chiapas through grass-roots revolution. By no means exhaustive, this book is meant to introduce readers to a sliver of Marcos’s output and provide context for a struggle that still exists in Mexico, and whose existence is mirrored wherever tyranny flourishes.

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the subway at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.

Marcos is all the exploited, marginalized, oppressed minorities resisting and saying 'Enough.' He is every minority who is now beginning to speak, and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable -- this is Marcos.”