>Zapatista Army of National Liberation, October 23, 1996
>TO: International and National Civil society
>FROM: Sup Marcos
>
>THE SEA SHELL OF THE END AND THE BEGINNING
>(Neoliberalism and Architecture or The ethics of the Search versus the
>Ethics of Destruction)
>In the Lacandon jungle, in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas, there is
>a deserted village surrounded by well-armed military posts. The name of this
>abandoned village was Guadalupe Tepeyac. Its inhabitants, indigenous
>Tojolabales, were expelled by the Mexican government's army in February of
>1995, as the federal troops attempted to assassinate the leadership of the
>Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
>
>But it isn't the painful exile of these indigenous people who pay for their
>rebellion by living in the mountains, that I want to talk to you about. I
>want to talk to you about an architectural masterpiece which was born, on
>the skirts of the then-living Guadalupe Tepeyac, in July and August of 1994.
>Illiterate for the most party, or with a third grade education among the
>most "educated" of them, the Tojolabal architects raised in 28 days, a
>masterpiece capable of holding 10,000 members of what the Zapatistas called
>"The National Democratic Convention". In honor of Mexican history, the
>Zapatistas called the meeting place AGUASCALIENTES. The giant meeting place
>would hold 10,000 seated participants, a stage which would hold 100, a
>library, a computer room, kitchens, hostels, parking lots. It included as
>well, they say "a staging area for assaults".
>
>Anyway, all this is now anecdotal and you can see it through other means
>(books, reports, photos, videos and movies from that time). Now what matters
>is a detail which went unseen by most of those who were present at the
>AGUASCALIENTES of Guadalupe Tepeyac that 1994 (AGUASCALIENTES was destroyed
>in February of 1995). The detail I refer to was so large, that it was hard
>to see at first glance. This writing is about that gigantic and unseen detail.
>
>It seems that the auditorium and the stage were in the middle of a giant sea
>shell going and coming, without end or beginning. Don't get frustrated, let
>me explain. The indigenous Zapatistas had raised a more or less conventional
>auditorium; the kind of construction which appeared to be the keel of a
>boat, a flat part in front, with chairs, and a gallery with wooden benches
>(using the side of a knoll). Anyway, nothing extraordinary. If anything was
>interesting it was the benches mounted on split wood and tied with vines.
>There was no metal in that gallery.
>
>When they began to construct the hostels, the library and other facilities,
>the indigenous tojolobales of the Zapatista rebellion, now spontaneous
>architects, sprinkled the facilities in what appeared to be great disorder,
>anyway, so thought the Sup, who limited himself to sprinkling the immediate
>surroundings of the gigantic auditorium.  It wasn't until, while counting
>the housing capacity of each building, that the Sup noticed that one of the
>houses was "crooked", it had an inexplicable break in one of its
>extremities. The Sup didn't pay much attention. Until the Tojolabal
>Comandante Tacho asked him:
>--What do you think of the sea shell?
>
>--What sea shell? - the Sup answered, following the Zapatista tradition of
>answers which are questions, the eternal game of the question to the mirror.
>
>--The one that surrounds the auditorium--answered Comandante Tacho in a
>voice which said "the day has light".  The Sup only looked at Tacho and
>Tacho understood that the Sup did not understand what he did, so he took him
>to the crooked house and pointed out how the roof made a capricious break.
>
>--That's where the shell curves--he told him.
>
>The Sup then put on a "So?" face (similar to the one you have now), so
>Comandante Tacho hurried to make a drawing in the mud with a stick. Tacho's
>drawing gave the location of all the buildings and yes, thanks to the break
>in that crooked house, the totality looked like a sea shell. The Sup agreed
>in silence after looking at the drawing. Then Comandante Tacho went to see
>about the tarp to cover the auditorium in case it rained.
>
>The Sup was left standing there, in front of the crooked house, thinking
>that the crooked house was not really "crooked". It was only the curve which
>the sea shell needed in order to be complete. He was thinking on that when a
>journalist approached him and asked, looking for an answer with deep
>political meaning, what Aguascalientes meant to the Zapatistas.
>
>--A sea shell--was the laconic answer of the Sup.
>
>--A sea shell?--he asked wondering if he'd understood the question.
>
>--Yes--he told him. And the Sup pointed out the curve of the house as he was
>leaving.
>
>Yes, I agree with you. The sea shell of AGUASCALIENTES could only be seen
>from a certain height. What's more, only from a certain altitude.
>
>You have to fly high to discover the Zapatista sea shell which sketches
>itself on these poor rebel lands. In one of its extremities there was a
>library and in another the old "safe house".  The history of that "safe
>house" is similiar to the story of the EZLN in the Mayan indigenous
>communities. That little house was built far from anyone, so no one would
>see those first clandestine tojolabales who joined the EZLN. There they held
>meetings, they studied, and they gathered the tortillas and the beans they
>would send to the mountains where the insurgents were.
>
>So there you have the Mayan sea shell. A spiral with no beginning or end.
>Where does sea shell begin and end? In its most inner part or in its outer
>part? Does a sea shell go in or out?
>
>The sea shell of the Mayan rebel leaders began and ended in the "safe
>house", but it also began and ended in the library.  The place of the
>encounter, of the dialogue, of the transition, of the search, that is what
>the Aguascalientes sea shell is.
>
>>From what "architectural" tradition did the indigenous Zapatistas borrow? I
>don't know, but surely that sea shell, that spiral, invites entry as well as
>exit, and really, I would not dare to say what part ends or begins a sea shell.
>
>Months later, in October of 1994 a small group from civil society arrived at
>Aguascalientes to complete the installation of lighting in the library. They
>left after a few days of work.  That morning, especially cold and foggy, the
>moon was a promise upon which to rest the cheek and desire, and a cello bled
>a few notes at midnight and in the mist. It was like a movie. The Sup
>watched from a corner, protected by the shadows and the skimask. A movie.
>The beginning or the end of a movie? After that group left, no one else
>returned to Aguascalientes until the party at year's end. Then they
>disappeared again. On February 10th of 1995, troops moved in by air and took
>Guadalupe Tepeyac.  The first thing they did when they entered
>AGUASCALIENTES was to destroy the library and the safe house, the beginning
>and end of the sea shell. Then they destroyed the rest.
>
>For some strange reason, the breaking point of the crooked house remained
>standing for several months afterward. It is said that it fell in December
>of 1995, when other AGUASCALIENTES were born in the mountains of the Mexican
>southeast.
>
>All the past shows that the ethics of Power is the same as that of
>destruction, and the ethics of the sea shell is the same as the search. And
>that is very important for architecture and understanding neoliberalism. No?
>
>Here Durito's thesis ends, which, as you can tell, is only for specialists...
>
>So what is all this about beetles, sea shells and rouge moons? Well, the
>truth is that ten years ago on a morning in October, Old Man Antonio
>explained that a sea shell served to see inside and for jumping up, but I'll
>tell you about that later. Now I share Durito's thesis because he's very
>exacting and says that "humanity should benefit from my great wisdom".
>
>Yes, you're right. I also think that, for a beetle, he's very pedantic, but
>he argues that errant knights are not pedantic, only knowledgeable about
>their own strength and great talent, especially when it comes to beating up
>scoundrels and picking on rogues.
>
>And so madam, I say goodbye. I hope you don't forget that we're still here.
>Hope you don't forget often, anyway.
>
>Vale. Health to you and the pending question is: If one is inside the sea
>shell, towards what direction should one walk? Towards the inside or outside?
>>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast,
>Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
>Mexico, October 1996

>Translated by: Cecilia Rodriguez, National Center for Democracy, Liberty and
>Justice