We are woken gently at three in the morning and told that we need to leave. Guided by the light of the stars rather than the moon, we walk for half an hour before we reach a hut. We can just about make out the presence of three men inside, but it's almost as dark as the balaclavas that hide their faces. In the identikit released by the Mexican government, Marcos was described as a professor with a degree in philosophy who wrote a thesis on Althusser and did a masterâs at Paris-Sorbonne University. A voice initially speaking French breaks the silence: âWeâve got twenty minutes. I prefer to speak Spanish if thatâs OK. Iâm Subcomandante Marcos. I'd advise you not to record our conversation, because if the recording should be intercepted it would be a problem for everybody, especially for you. We may officially be in the middle of a ceasefire, but theyâre using every trick in the book to try and track me down. You can ask me anything you like.â
Why do you call yourself âSubcomandanteâ?
Everyone says: âMarcos is the bossâ, but thatâs not true. They're the real bosses, the Zapatista people; I just happen to have military command. They've appointed me spokesperson because I can speak Spanish. My comrades are communicating through me; Iâm just following orders.
Ten years off the grid is a long time. How do you pass the time up here in the mountains?
I read. I brought twelve books with me to the Jungle. One is Canto General by Pablo Neruda, another is Don Quixote .
What else?
Well, the days and years of our struggle go by. If you see the same poverty, the same injustice every single day... If you live here, your desire to fight and make a difference can only get stronger. Unless youâre a cynic or a bastard. And then there are the things that journalists donât usually ask me. Like, here in the Jungle, we sometimes have to eat rats and drink our comradesâ piss to ensure we don't die of thirst on a long journey...things like that.
What do you miss? What did you leave behind?
I miss sugar. And a dry pair of socks. Having wet feet day and night, in the freezing cold...I wouldn't wish that on anyone. As for sugar, it's just about the only thing the Jungle can't provide. We have to source it from miles away because we need it to keep our strength up. For those of us from the city, it can be torture. We keep saying: âDo you remember the ice creams from Coyoacán? And the tacos from Division del Norte ?â These are all just distant memories. Out here, if you catch a pheasant or some other animal, you have to wait three or four hours before it's ready to eat. And if the troops are so famished they eat it raw, itâs diarrhoea all round the next day. Life's different here; you see everything in a new light... Oh yes, you asked me what I left behind. A metro ticket, a mountain of books, a notebook filled with poems...and a few friends. Not many, just a few.
When will you unmask yourself?
I don't know. I believe that our balaclava is also a positive ideological symbol: this is our revolution...it's not about individuals, there's no leader. With these balaclavas, we're all Marcos.
The government would argue that youâre hiding your face because youâve got something to hide...
They don't get it. But itâs not even the government that is the real problem; it's more the reactionary forces in Chiapas, the local farmers and landowners with their private âwhite guardsâ. I don't think thereâs much difference between the racism of a white South African towards a black person and that of a Chiapaneco landowner towards a Mexican Indian. The life expectancy for Mexican Indians here is 50-60 for men and 45-50 for women.
What about children?
Infant mortality is through the roof. Let me tell you the story of Paticha. A while back, as we were moving from one part of the Jungle to another, we happened upon a small, very poor community where we were greeted by a Zapatista comrade who had a little girl aged about three or four. Her name was Patricia, but she pronounced it âPatichaâ. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and her answer was always the same: âa guerrillaâ. One night, we found her running a really high temperature â must have been at least forty â and we didn't have any antibiotics. We used some damp cloths to try and cool her down, but she was so hot they just kept drying out. She died in my arms. Patricia never had a birth certificate, and she didn't have a death certificate either. To Mexico, it was as if she never existed. Thatâs the reality facing Mexican Indians in Chiapas.
The Zapatista Movement may have plunged the entire Mexican political system into crisis, but you haven't won, have you?
Mexico needs democracy, but it also needs people who transcend party politics to protect it. If our struggle helps to achieve this goal, it won't have been in vain. But the Zapatista Army will never become a political party; it will just disappear. And when it does, it will be because Mexico has democracy.
And if that doesnât happen?
Weâre surrounded from a military perspective. The truth is that the government won't want to back down because Chiapas, and the Lacandon Jungle in particular, literally sits on a sea of oil. And itâs that Chiapaneco oil that Mexico has given as a guarantee for the billions of dollars it has been lent by the United States. They canât let the Americans think they're not in control of the situation.
What about you and your comrades?
Us? Weâve got nothing to lose. Ours is a fight for survival and a worthy peace.
Ours is a just fight.
2
Peter Gabriel
The eternal showman
Peter Gabriel, the legendary founder and lead vocalist of Genesis, doesn't do many gigs, but when he does, he offers proof that his appetite for musical, cultural and technological experimentation truly knows no bounds.
I met him for an exclusive interview at Sonoria, a three-day festival in Milan dedicated entirely to rock music. During a two-hour performance of outstanding music, Gabriel sang, danced and leapt about the stage, captivating the audience with a show that, as always, was much more than just a rock concert.
At the end of the show, he invited me to join him in his limousine. As we were driven to the airport, he talked to me about himself, his future plans, his commitment to working with Amnesty International to fight racism and social injustice, his passion for multimedia technology and the inside story behind Secret World Live , the album he was about to launch worldwide.
Do you think the end of apartheid in South Africa was a victory for rock music?
It was a victory for the South African people, but I do believe rock music played its part.
In what way?
I think that musicians did a lot to make people in Europe and America more aware of the problem. Take Biko , for example. I wrote that song to try and get politicians from as many countries as possible to continue their sanctions against South Africa and keep up the pressure. It's about doing small things; they might not change the world, but they make a difference and it's something we can all get involved in. Fighting injustice isn't always about big demonstrations or grand gestures.
What do you mean?
Let me give you an example. There are a couple of elderly ladies in the Midwest of the United States who annoy the hell out of people who inflict torture in Latin America. They spend all their time firing off letters to prison directors, one after another. Because they're so well-informed, their letters are often published prominently in the American newspapers. And it often just so happens that the political prisoners they mention in their letters are suddenly released, as if by magic! Thatâs what I mean when I talk about how little things can make a difference. Basically, the music we make is the same as one of their letters.
Your commitment to fighting racism is closely linked to the work of your Real World label, isnât it, which promotes world music?
Absolutely. It's given me immense satisfaction to bring such diverse musicians together from places as far apart as China, Africa, Russia and Indonesia. We've produced artists such as the Guo Brothers from China and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from Pakistan. I've taken so much inspiration from their work, as well as from other artists on the Real World label. The rhythms, the harmonies, the voices... I had already begun to head in that direction as early as 1982, when I organised the first WOMAD [World of Music, Arts and Dance] festival. The audience were able to take part in the event, playing on stage alongside groups from Africa. It was such a meaningful, life-affirming experience that the festival has since been held in other parts of the world, including Japan, Spain, Israel and France.
Is that why some people call you the âfather of world musicâ?
Real World and world music are commercial labels above everything else; we publish music from artists the world over so that their music can be heard the world over, on radio stations and in record stores. But I want the artists who record an album on my label to become famous in their own right. No one says âis this reggae?â any more; they say âis this Bob Marley?â. In time, I hope that no one who hears a song by one of my artists asks âis this world music?â
You've recently shown a great interest in multimedia technologies, and your interactive CD âXplora1â has really got people talking. How does all this fit in with the activities of Real World?
There's so much you can do on that CD, like choose tracks by each individual artist just by clicking on the album cover. But I want to see so much more of this kind of thing; interactivity is a great way of introducing people to music. Essentially, what Real World is trying to do is blend traditional, analogue music, if you will, with the new digital possibilities that modern technology gives us.
Are you saying that rock music itself isn't enough any more? That it needs some kind of interaction with the listener? Do you want everyone to play a part in creating the final product?
Not always. For example, I tend to listen to music in my car and I don't want to need a screen or a computer to do that. But when Iâm interested in an artist or I want to know more about them, where they come from, what they think, who they really are, thatâs when multimedia technology can offer me some relevant visual material. Basically, in the future I would like to see all CDs offering this dual functionality: you can either simply listen to them, or you can âexploreâ them. With Xplora1 , we wanted to create a little world in which people could move around, make choices and interact with the environment and the music. There's loads of things you can do on the CD. Like take a virtual tour of the Real World recording studios, get access to events like the Grammys or the WOMAD festival, listen to live tracks, learn about my career from the early days with Genesis until the present day, and even remix my songs to your heartâs content!
And also have a virtual rummage in your wardrobe, right?
Absolutely ( laughs ). You can have a rummage in Peter Gabriel's wardrobe!
All this seems light years away from your experience in Genesis. What has stayed the same since those days? Have you never wanted, for example, to do another rock opera like âThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadwayâ? Have you moved on from all that?
Good question. I think Iâm still interested in some of those ideas, but in a different way. In one way, the things I was trying to do during my final years with Genesis were linked to the idea of being multimedia. Itâs just that back then, sound perception was restricted by the technology of the time. Now, I want to go a lot further down that road.
Going back to your political and humanitarian activities, now that apartheid is over, what are your other causes célèbres? What global injustices are you looking to rail against?
There are loads. But right now, I think the most important thing is to help people get their voices heard. Everyone should be able to appear on TV or have access to means of communication such as fax machines or computers. Basically, I think we have a chance today to use network communication technology to better defend peopleâs human rights.
That's very interesting. Can you give a concrete example?
I want to set small, tangible goals. Like making sure a particular village has phone lines, twenty or thirty PCs, that kind of thing. You can set that kind of equipment up almost anywhere in the world - India, China, up a mountain, wherever... Within three or five years, the people living in these places could learn how to create, manage and process information. With just a little bit of hard work, we could transform the economies of many countries from being based on farming to being based on information. That would be a huge step.
So, what next for Peter Gabriel?
A holiday ( laughs ). Weâve been on tour for months. Weâve had the odd break, but I think I need to get away. On tour, there's always time pressure and the stress of travelling...and I don't get time to play any sport. I mean, I love to play tennis. As far as work is concerned, Iâm thinking about doing something similar to the interactive CD. I've just finished my new album, Secret World Live , which was recorded over the course of this long tour. Itâs an overview of my career to date, kind of like an anthology. The only track that hasnât been on one of my previous studio albums is Across The River . Basically, the album is also a way for me to thank all those people who have performed with me on this back-breaking tour. There's the usual suspects like Tony Levin and David Rhodes, but also Billy Cobham and Paula Cole, who accompanied me in Milan, Billy on the drums and Paula on vocals.
Do you have a dream?
I do. I wish there was already a United States of Europe.
Why?
Because it has become clear that small countries can no longer be important to the global economy. We need an organisation that protects their cultural identity and represents them on the world stage and the financial markets. In order to survive, and in particular to compete with places that can offer cheap manual labour, these countries need solid economic representation and a proper commercial union. We also need to stop dividing the world into two groups: the traditional Anglo-Saxon elite and poor countries that are there purely to be exploited. We should be celebrating the differences between people in each individual country, not trying to make everybody the same.
3
Claudia Schiffer
The fairest of them all
She was the most beautiful and highly paid woman on earth, and probably also the most censored. âIâm the only model who's never been photographed toplessâ, she used to boast. Even her multi-million-dollar contract with Revlon forbade her from posing nude.
But everything changed when two Spanish photographers from the Korpa Agency lifted the veil, allowing the whole world to admire the legendary Claudia Schiffer's perfect breasts. The international press had a field day; only German weekly Bunte spared her blushes on the cover, and even they plastered the topless photos on a multi-page spread inside the magazine. Claudia protested furiously and announced she would be suing and seeking astronomical damages.
I had a couple of contacts in the fashion industry, so I decided to strike while the iron was hot and try to arrange an interview with her for the Italian weekly Panorama . It was certainly no cakewalk, but after dozens of phone calls and protracted negotiations with her obstructive agent, my persistence was rewarded in August 1993, when I was invited to interview Claudia on a family holiday in the Balearics.