“Why do they fear us? Why so much hate for so few and so small a group? Because we have defied them, and the worst part about defiance is that it establishes a precedent.” (p. 90)

Marcos, the non-indigenous and very poetically inclined “big nosed” man, writes of the Indigenous struggle in South eastern Mexico, in the Chiapas state. Immediately, he weaves together the fangs which have drained, and continue to drain, the blood of Indigenous ways of life, culture, and sovereignty over their land for the past 500 years. The most recent culprit whose demonic horns pierces the Chiapas is that of American imperialism, bringing with it it’s demonic plights: neoliberalism and neocolonialism. In his written pieces, he speaks of his brethren, the Zapatistas, and of his group, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, and their efforts, of his country, and of its multiple levels for which Mexico castes its population in, but also, he speaks towards us … sending out messages to the american people, to the people of Mexico, to the solidarity groups around the world who are familiar with their struggle. As follows the quote opening my post, here is another speaking to that which must follow for liberation after setting precedent; “[w]e are a mirror, we are here in order to see each other and to show each other, so you may look upon us, so may look at yourself, so that the other looks in our looking. We are here and we are a mirror.” (p. 158). Marcos afterwards writes that Mexico and the Zapatista struggle was not meant to take the forefront of a global movement, however, they do not hinder away from this bestowed responsibility. Underdevelopment of lands and peoples since the onset of colonialism is a story that has been told for centuries across the globe. As of late, neoliberalism snacks on the impurest parts of the human soul, but congratulates those impure parts as necessities for evermore wealth, growth, and individualism. Corruption, social and physical distance, and growing insecurity from propagandizing fear fuelled media desensitizes our minds to the point where we can no longer see ourselves in this propagated mirror the Indigenous of the Chiapas are bringing closer towards our faces. He brings up the rising unemployment rate in Canada and the US, the social safety nets being pulled out from under us by Power itself. The plight of neoliberalism, the plight of Power, the plight of greed, have the option, and the fangs, to drain all of our veins, that is what we must see in the mirror; transnational solidarity. This is what Marcos has realized and decided to embody, understanding his nose and colour did not change what he saw when he came to South eastern Mexico and was confronted with Chiapas reflection.