Pingüino Chronicles Part 3, Translation and Pics

Pingüino En Ingles!!



Today's Slogan:

Pingüino Ayer, Pingüino Hoy, Pingüino Siempre!!!!

My favorite revolutionaries thoughts, and my favorite revolutionary bird's stories are available in English to my delight. A blogger known as Irlandesa does an excellent job translating what seems to be most -if not all- of Marcos' writings as they appear on the FZLN site. Speaking of which, yesterdays post contains an intriguing reflection on the Subcommanders alleged weight gain:

"P.S PRETENDING TO JUSTIFY THAT "FEW KILOGRAMS MORE" We are seeing the pictures and reading, and I say 'Its just that in pictures and videos, one appears fatter than one is. The insurgent Erika looks at me and with that zapatista irony, tells me . 'Oí Sup, and they didn't even see you before the Red Alert' Didn't I tell you? Todays youngsters don't respect us.....us.....us....young 'mature' folks"

And, courtesy of Jeb Blog, an edited version of these last couple of communiques with all the Penguin material. I have taken the liberty of reprinting his edited version, including the bit I had translated earlier:


More Penguin Pictures!!

Marcos: A Penguin in the Selva Lacandona, Part 1
Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN
********************************
Translated by irlandesa

A Penguin in the Selva Lacandona I/II

(The zapatista is just a little house, perhaps the smallest, on a street called “Mexico,” in a barrio called “Latin America,” in a city called the “World.”)

You’re not going to believe me, but there’s a penguin in the Ezeta Headquarters. You’ll say “Hey, Sup, what’s up? You already blew the fuses with the Red Alert,” but it’s true. In fact, while I’m writing this to you, he (the penguin) is right here next to me, eating the same hard, stale bread (it has so much mold that it’s just one degree away from being penicillin), which, along with coffee, were my rations for today. Yes, a penguin. But I’ll tell you more about this later, because first we must talk a bit about the Sixth Declaration.
(To be continued…)

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

Mexico, July of 2005.

He sets the hook, here is the second part:

Marcos: Part 2 of A Penguin in the Selva Lacandona
Originally published in Spanish by the EZLN
*********************************
Translated by irlandesa

A Penguin in the Selva Lacandona II/II

Alright, a promise is a promise. At the beginning of this document I told you I was going to tell you about the penguin that’s here, in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast, so here goes.

It took place in one of the insurgent barracks, a little more than a month ago, just before the Red Alert. I was on my way, heading towards the position that was to be the headquarters of the Comandancia General of the EZLN. I had to pick the insurgentes and insurgentas up there, the ones who were going to make up my unit during the Red Alert. The commander of the barracks, a Lieutenant Colonel Insurgente, was finishing up the dismantling of the camp and was making arrangements for moving the impedimenta. In order to lighten the burden of the support bases who were providing supplies for the insurgent troops, the soldiers in this unit had developed a few subsistence measures of their own: a vegetable garden and a farm. They decided they would take as many of the vegetables as they could, and the rest would be left to the hand of god. As for the chickens, hens and roosters, the alternative was to eat them or leave them. “Better we eat them than the federales,” the men and women (most of them young people under the age of 20) who were maintaining that position decided, not without reason. One by one, the animals ended up in the pot and, from there to the soldiers’ soup dishes. There weren’t very many animals either, so in a few days the poultry population had been reduced to two or three specimens.

When only one remained, on the precise day of departure, what happened happened…

The last chicken began walking upright, perhaps trying to be mistaken for one of us and to pass unnoticed with that posture. I don’t know much about zoology, but it does not appear that the anatomical makeup of chickens is made for walking upright, so, with the swaying produced by the effort of keeping itself upright, the chicken was teetering back and forth, without being able to come up with a precise course. It was then that someone said “it looks like a penguin.” The incident provoked laughter which resulted in sympathy. The chicken did, it’s true, look like a penguin, it was only missing the white bib. The fact is that the jokes ended up preventing the “penguin” from meeting the same fate as its compañeros from the farm.

The hour of departure arrived, and, while checking to be sure nothing was left, they realized that the “penguin” was still there, swaying from one side to another, but not returning to its natural position. “Let’s take it,” I said, and everyone looked at me to see if I were joking or serious. It was the insurgenta Toñita who offered to take it. It began raining, and she put it in her lap, under the heavy plastic cape which Toñita wore to protect her weapon and her rucksack from the water. We began the march in the rain.

The penguin arrived at the EZLN Headquarters and quickly adapted to the routines of the insurgent Red Alert. It often joined (never losing the posture of a penguin) the insurgents and insurgentas at cell time, the hour of political study. The theme during those days was the 13 zapatista demands, and the compañeros summed it up under the title “Why We Are Struggling.” Well, you’re not going to believe me, but when I went to the cell meeting, under the pretext of looking for hot coffee, I saw that it was the penguin who was paying the most attention. And, also, from time to time, it would peck at someone who was sleeping in the middle of the political talk, as if chiding him to pay attention.

There are no other animals in the barracks…I mean except for the snakes, the “chibo” tarantulas, two field rats, the crickets, ants, an indeterminate (but very large) number of mosquitoes and a cojolito who came to sing, probably because it felt called by the music – cumbias, rancheras, corridos, songs of love, of spite – which emanated from the small radio which is used to hear the morning news by Pascal Beltrán on Antena Radio and then “Plaza Pública” by Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa on Radio UNAM.

Well, I told you there weren’t any other animals, so it would seem normal that “penguin” would think that we were its kind and tend to behave as if it were one more of us. We hadn’t realized how far it had gone until one afternoon when it refused to eat in the corner it had been assigned, and it went over to the wooden table. Penguin made a racket, more chicken-like than penguin-like, until we understood that it wanted to eat with us. You should understand that Penguin’s new identity prevented the former chicken from flying the minimum necessary for getting up on the bench, and so it was insurgenta Erika who lifted it up and let it eat from her plate.

The insurgent captain in charge had told me that the chicken, I mean penguin, did not like to be alone at night, perhaps because it feared that the possums might confuse it with a chicken, and it protested until someone took it to their tarp. It wasn’t very long before Erika and Toñita made it a white bib out of fabric (they wanted to paint it [Penguin]with lime or house paint, but I managed to dissuade them…I think), so that there would be no doubt that it was a penguin, and no one would confuse it with a chicken.

You may be thinking that I am, or we are, delirious, but what I’m telling you is true. Meanwhile, Penguin has become part of the Comandancia General of the Ezeta, and perhaps those of you who come to the preparatory meetings for the “Other Campaign” might see it with your own eyes. It could also be expected that Penguin might be the mascot for the EZLN football team when it faces, soon, the Milan Internazionale. Someone might then perhaps take a picture for a souvenir. Perhaps, after a while and looking at the image, a girl or a boy might ask: “Mama, and who are those next to the Penguin?” (sigh)

Do you know what? It occurs to me now that we are like Penguin, trying very hard to be erect and to make ourselves a place in Mexico, in Latin America, in the World. Just as the trip we are about to take is not in our anatomy, we shall certainly go about swaying, unsteady and stupidly, provoking laughter and jokes. Although perhaps, also like Penguin, we might provoke some sympathy, and someone might, generously, protect us and help us, walking with us, to do what every man, woman or penguin should do, that is, to always try to be better in the only way possible, by struggling.

Vale. Salud and an embrace from Penguin (?)

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
Mexico, July of 2005