Fire and the Word

By Gloria Muñoz Ramírez

In 1983, a small group of Mexicans traveled to the Lacandón jungle in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, with the dream of organizing a national revolution. For the next ten years they lived with the indigenous Mayan communities there, listening, learning and blending with them. This was the beginning of the Zapatista movement, which made its dramatic public debut on January 1, 1994, when thousands of armed indigenous people occupied seven Chiapas towns and declared war on the Mexican government. Their demands—not just for the oppressed and poverty-stricken indigenous communities, but for all Mexicans—were clear