Aural delectations, as it were.

Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN ************************************ Translated by irlandesa, based on transcription of recording Fragment of Radio Insurgente Presentation August 9, 2003. This is Radio Insurgente, broadcasting from the mountains of the Mexican southeast. Welcome to this first intergalactic broadcast of Radio Insurgente. Radio Insurgente, the voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, broadcasting at 5.8 megahertz on band 49, short-wave, and, when we’re interfered with by the supreme government, then we circulate on pirate CDs. We would like to send a greeting to our various Radio Insurgente affiliates, the voice of those without voice, in Los Altos of Chiapas, in the Border Selva and in the Tseltal Selva. Greetings also to the insurgent troops, who are remaining on alert in our positions in the mountains, and also to all the support bases of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. This is Radio Insurgente. At this time, we are sending special greetings to the civil societies who are currently in El Caracol of Oventik, participating in the fiesta for the death of the Aguascalientes and the birth of the Caracoles and the Good Government Juntas. We are also sending greetings to the brothers and sisters of the Zapatista Front of National Liberation, to the Red Zapatista in Movement for National Liberation. And greetings to Germany, especially to the regulars at the Diater Zeler Bar, or whatever it’s called, which is in Göttingen, or whatever it’s called. Greetings also to Free Speech Radio News, Big Noise and Autonomous Media Projects. Welcome to Radio Insurgente, the voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. As everyone knows, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation is made up of an undetermined number of transgressors of the law, who do nothing except devote themselves to creating problems for the supreme and the respectable. Their activities have not failed to earn them enemies of all kinds, and, in order to demonstrate that the zapatones have globalized enmity, they have managed to achieve what no other organization has been able to do: to have nothing less than an enemy in every corner of the planet. Well, that’s just arrogance, because the North American government has nothing less than a ton of enemies in every part of the world. And now, as an exclusive for those few slippery ones who are tuning us in, we have an exclusive report: our efficient and professional team of reporters…well, of women reporters, because females here are, like in everything, in the majority (and so it goes). Well, I was telling you that our team of reporters has done a patient and dedicated job, and they have discovered something about the zapatudos. It so happens that what the zapatistas really want is to make a new world, a world where many worlds fit. And not just that, we have also discovered that, in that subversive task, they have accomplices throughout the planet earth, and, it is rumored, but we haven’t confirmed it, in other galaxies as well. And the zapatistas say that there should be a better world somewhere. “There should be a better world somewhere”…hmmm…ahh…that sentence sounds familiar to me as well. And so I set about looking in all the books and manuals I could, and no, it wasn’t Karl, or Groucho Marx who said that. Lenin didn’t say it, nor the Sub, nor Che Guevara, nor Emiliano Zapata. Of course I didn’t get discouraged, and I was willing to do everything to unmask the masked ones, so I continued investigating and I found, yes, that B.B. King said that subversive sentence and made it into the blues. And so here is, exclusively for Radio Insurgente, the king, B.B. King and this cut which is impudently called “There must be a better world somewhere.” Here, at Radio Insurgente, history, tired of walking, repeats itself. If work allowed monkeys to be transformed into men, war is making possible the transformation of men into monkeys. And, of course, the first ones to protest have been the monkeys and the little monkeys, or the cartoons. And the cartoons are protesting because the political class’ image is far surpassing them in humor. And so the comic strips are declining in the face of unfair competition from the national and international politics pages. A general overview will suffice. There it says that Señor Bush doesn’t know how to spell anything other than bombs, and the North American press goes to great pains to put into intelligible words what looks like nothing but grunts. Over there is Señor Berlusconi, who has lost all sense of time and space, and who can’t tell the difference between governing and making a television program. (…) And just a little bit over there a ways, Señor Garzón - certainly exhausted from his intense work in shutting down newspapers, persecuting the Basque language, interrogating tortured persons, having photo ops with relatives of people killed in attacks, and campaigning for the Nobel peace prize - decides to take a vacation. And of course, in order to continue in the same environment, he decides that his vacation should be in Chiapas, a place which has, of late, been abounding and rebounding with illegals and media, Judge Garzon’s two great passions. Over there, Señor Blair, once again confronting existential doubts, but no, one would be mistaken if one assumed that he was wondering what to say in order to justify the scandal about the false reports on the Iraqi threat. No, Señor Blair is in doubt, because he doesn’t know which suit to put on. Close by, over there, Aznar and the little king are meeting, because their intelligence services in Mexico - the Mexican government, that is - have informed them that the zapatones have not given up on the idea of invading the European Union, disembarking, of course, on Iberian lands. And, given that it is common knowledge that I don’t give a bloody damn about monarchies, I took the newspaper clipping into the latrine in order to reflect on the political class, sitting in the same position as Rodin’s The Thinker. When I came back, in the brand new EZLN general command headquarters, I read a letter which read, verbatim, “I can’t stop thinking about you.” I got excited, lowered my lashes according to glance number seven from the “seductive glances” catalogue, volume one, and I sighed. But not for very long, because I realized almost immediately that the letter was directed to Brad Pitt, who, incidentally, is going to be invited to our program. I then filed my seductive gaze number seven away in the “useless gestures” file and, knowing that I was going to be severely criticized for this program, turned to Cuco Sánchez and this cut which could easily be the zapatistas’ other hymn. It’s called, what’s it called: “no soy monedita de oro.” Let’s continue, then, with the special intergalactic program of Radio Insurgente. Intergalactic program means that we broadcast with such little power that we couldn’t even get it up with electronic Viagra, and we can only be heard with intergalactic technology. Even so, we have our methods for preventing the supreme government from detecting us and from interfering with the signal of Radio Insurgente’s slippery dial. For example, every so often we put on the song that’s going to be played next, so that the enemy will think he’s listening to another station, to wit, 69 point G. And so, with Joaquin Sabina, this production of the “dimelo en la calle” album, the cut called “69 G Spot,” and, along with it, we send greetings to Panchito Varona, who will certainly not be listening to us, but, whatever… You are listening to Radio Insurgente, the voice of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which is not broadcasting on 69 G Spot, but we would love to be. Yes, we would love to…it so happens that they say “Yes” to you, but then they don’t tell you when. With the Vargas mariachi, “el son de la Negra.”