Wanna know why this blog is called the communique? I think I’ve never talked about it, much like I don’t spend much time explaining the bicycle part. But I just noticed a news item that inspired me to mention this.
For me, the name Communique, though quite common for lots of messages prepared for a mass audience, actually came from the Zapatista movement. In the late nineties I was studying journalism and politics and soaking in the news as it came out of Chiapas Mexico about the hooded indigineous rebels who sought to lead a bottom-up revolution. Later, my favorite book about it was First World HAHAHA. Here I read about the group and its activities to empower women and the disenfranchised. I also read that they released “communiqués” and when it came time to name the blog, that word came to mind.
So after leaving the public eye in 2000, and retreating back to their chiapas territory, the Subcommandante is back! And he’s touring the country, speaking about the corruption and hypocracy of the right and left in Mexico. And as you might expect – I’m glad to hear it!